1. Collaboration – ODI’s experience with SharePoint Peter Gee, Head of IT and Facilities Where IT's @! April 2011

2. SharePoint Collaboration using Microsoft SharePoint promises shared information heaven, but what's the reality? SharePoint has been a remarkably successful product for Microsoft, with huge take-up worldwide. All organisations in our sector can benefit from more effective collaboration, and SharePoint offers this at a fraction of the cost of specialist document management and collaboration solutions. SharePoint has almost become an IT revivalist movement with its own evangelists 2

3. “SharePoint is a platform that can make a real difference in organisations. The various capabilities, when implemented correctly, fundamentally change the way people work. This itself raises a number of challenges, but over and above that, it’s the ability to make a tangible difference in the lives of the employees, the real end-users, that fuels my passion for SharePoint” Francois Pienaar

4. ODI and SharePoint Quite a challenge then. ODI has been working with SharePoint now for five years We have achieved a great deal with it, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing and sadly it is not universally popular! But first, some background about ODI 4

5. ODI is an independent think tank on humanitarian and international development celebrating its 50th anniversary It is a charity, but not a membership organisation Has expanded to current staff of 150, plus research associates, contractors, consultants and interns. Apart from a Programme Partnership Agreement with DFID, the majority of funding is project-related, from a range of institutional funders.

6. ODI’s IT experience ODI began to computerise in the mid 1980s A far-sighted librarian predicted that eventually we would have one computer per desk (at the time we had 2 or 3 users sharing) By the 1990s we had achieved that target But perhaps partly because IT growth was incremental, there were few fundamental changes to working practices – the PC replaced the typewriter. In 1996 PCs first networked – new possibilities for collaboration with email for everyone and ODI’s first intranet 6

7. The costs of lack of system integration By 2003, after around 15 years of computerisation, and seven years since ODI’s computers were first networked, our information systems were failing to foster collaboration. Information was saved in often confusingly named files, buried in deep folder structures. Searching for relevant documents require an insight into the mind of the author or editor! This lack of co-ordination and system integration was resulting in major inefficiencies. 7

8. ODI moves into knowledge management ODI’s response was to explore ‘knowledge management’ KM project with two staff supported by the government funded KTP scheme. Resulted in a plan for a new intranet linked to a revamped website, for which we tendered in 2004. SharePoint figured in a couple of proposals to replace our old high maintenance intranet. The one we selected first of all combined SharePoint with MS CMS Server – there was some doubt about whether SP could produce pretty enough pages! 8

9. Adopting SharePoint • Eventually we decided to ditch MS CMS Server because SharePoint offered most of what we needed and the implementation of CMS would have been very clunky • But by this time the requirements had changed and we delayed implementation for almost another year until 2006. Plans reworked with considerable input from Christian Aid’s experience. • Change in philosophy and approach from gradual and partial to a total SharePoint solution with phased implementation 9

10. Beginning with SharePoint ODInet: Top level portal– using SP Portal 2003 –with staff list; ‘ins and outs’; how tos, support – HR, finance, communications; search feature for ODInet, archived files and website. WSS sites for research groups, their subteams and their projects: summary financial information, lists, calendars and document libraries – with al their content External access through https SSL encrypted access to the whole system. Multiple web applications with one content database, but by this time the practical experience of other earlier SP adopters suggested that this might be unwise – so we adopted a belt and braces approach with separate sites and URLs for each group. 10

11. Portal level pages will replace the old intranet as the place to find key (up to date) information form across the organisation, including the latest news, policies, procedures, and events. Team (WSS) Sites will provide effective document management and collaboration functionality at the project, programme and group level way beyond what is possible with shared drives. 11 From the introduction to our 2006 user’s manual: Welcome to ODINet…… ODINet is the first step in a radical new approach to organising and sharing information and knowledge around ODI. ODINet will replace the flat page html intranet and the messy shared drives with a customised version of SharePoint: an application that has become the fastest growing information management technology for UK-based organisations.

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15. Migration and training Comprehensive migration programme, group by group, over 9 months. Network file shares split Older content archived on read-only indexed share Recent content sorted by project for upload. Meta-tagging 50,000 documents not practicable so folders copied across in bulk in explorer view, after cleaning and tidying, and deduplication 15

17. Development 2007-2010 Initial consolidation Colligo offline solution Extensive planning for upgrade to WSS3/MOSS2007 Trials and tribulations with the technology of the upgrade – tested in a virtual environment Successful switch to 2007 version in summer 2008. Summer 2010 – restructuring to reflect organisational change from group to programme 17

20. Outlook vs SharePoint • Users like Outlook and their email •moving them away from collaboration by email attachment has been a major challenge •email links rather than attachments can be a problem for offline users Colligo works up to a point Outlook document library integration helps but only really works in one direction in SP2007. 20

22. SharePoint is much more than an IT solution – but you do need to get the IT right.

23. Key lessons With SharePoint or any collaboration tool it is crucial to have a plan about what you want to achieve; don’t just drift in. But beware of pre-packaged plans ‘imposed’ upon you –this was a problem with our first ventures into SharePoint. Unashamedly, ODI introduced SharePoint as part of a campaign to change attitudes and styles of working, to ‘nudge’ people in a collaborative direction. But change management for academics and think tank researchers is a bit like herding cats… 23

24. SharePoint’s challenges open-source advocates don’t like it it is too clunky – parts of it seemed unfinished; difficult to code a glorified file management system not supportive of web 2.0 / social networking. takes too long to set up - difficult to back up and restore very difficult to move document libraries sometimes generates odd error messages 24

25. SharePoint’s benefits It’s Microsoft – it integrates very well with MS Office With MS’s charity pricing SP is very affordable for the not for profit sector. Almost any organization can get into SharePoint. There is a huge support community – off and online; SharePoint User network, the DIG SharePoint group amongst development NGOs. Many Microsoft business partners deploying SP solutions – developers like ICS. Vendors offering customised web parts eg Bamboo and Kwizcom 25

26. Can a top-down solution work? We had support from senior management and champions at various levels, but this wasn’t enough to win over many of our colleagues. Not all our staff understood what SharePoint was about and some who did would not buy into it. Perhaps some insights from social networking can help us…. But it is taken for granted.. Key lessons 26

28. we’re looking forward to:

29. Much easier page editing