Office PreSales

Positioning Microsoft Office SharePoint - Part 2

Hi all and sorry for the delay in response, the following is the remaining part

Understand the current collaboration environment:

Most of the situations I have encountered during a technically sitting are as follows, the client consider / has the following tools as collaboration tools.

• 1. Mailing System (exchange, lotus etc..)
• 2. Mailing client system (outlook, lotus client...)
• 3. Document management system (file shares, DFS...)
• 4. Document collaboration (working with documents, sharing, versioning ...)
• 5. Custom developed workflow (lotus notes based, .net developed, k2net, skelta...)
• 6. Business process & forms (Vacation request, resource booking, travel desk, conf room booking...)
• 7. Discussion boards
• 8. Exchange public folders & Instant messaging

So, understand in what ways the above said tools affect the user group and how influential are these tools for the decision to be in favor of MOSS. Most of the times it is the IT team who has to get satisfied with the proposed product in our example it is the MOSS. The IT team itself will bring up certain key selling points which are their pain points, try to address them first. (mostly their administrative effort and maintenance). Keep in mind Technical team always push you to do a POC, DEMO. Keep in mind to keep the existing scenario in mind and deliver the demo to your customer.

Position the Product to the Business Decision Makers:

The toughest and the easiest part of the presales cycle is the meeting with the decision makers, I have seen instance where business decision maker ask the following questions and it is not limited to the following

• 1. What is the cost factor
• 2. What is the after sales terms & conditions
• 3. When is the new upgrade or release is going to happen
• 4. You release software every now and then why should I upgrade
• 5. What will it give to my organization
• 6. Can we not accomplish this with what we have
• 7. Will it give me a report what is happening in the organization at a point of time
• 8. Will my upper management will be able to easily realize what is happening in the organization using this product
• 9. Is it stable

The answer for the entire question can be answered if you have the understanding on the following

• 1. The budget allocation
• 2. What is their pain point
• 3. Their buying & updating trend
• 4. What is the business decision makers goal
• 5. Show cases studies in his vertical, if the case study is from his competitor it is very strong
• 6. Demo him taking a business (customer) scenario. Has helped to me to win the deal J most of the times
• 7. Do a POC that address a business scenario
• 8. Collect feedback from the POC users and showcase it to the Decision maker
• 9. Make sure you have solid data before you meet the business decision maker from all perspective.
• 10. Don't be technical with a business decision maker
• 11. Take customer's business process as an example each time to explain about the product

A chance once missed is missed, and it is hard to get a second appointment with the business decision maker.

Position the Cost Factor:

Cost factor is again a decision maker for any sale, when it comes to cost factor the sales team, partner, customers technical team will ask you for the following

• 1. ROI (Return On Investment) - Calculator / Doc
• 2. Case Studies
• 3. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) - Calculator / Doc
• 4. Scalability & Server Hardware Sizing - Calculator / Doc / Whitepaper

Hope you enjoyed the above content, We will see on how to demo Office SharePoint Server to technical & business audience in my next post.

Positioning Microsoft Office SharePoint - Part 1

Hi All,

It is a great experience to sell SharePoint products & services for the past 4 years till now, let's dive deep on how we can position Office SharePoint Server in a presales scenario.

Where & How:

Where and how you would come across this product, based on my experience you would come across MOSS when there is a following requirement in an organization

• Collaboration & Social Computing
• Enterprise Search
• Portal (Intranet / Extranet)
• Document Management
• Knowledge Management
• Business Intelligence
• Content Management
• Business Forms & Process
• Workflow

The above all are features of MOSS which are leveraged by many organization to address a specific or more business pain points.
To know more about MOSS features visit this link http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/capabilities/default.mspx

Understand the Need:

As a presales consultant all we do first is to understand the need of the customer or main business pain point in hand and in turn analyze whether the product /s can address the same during the initial discussion with the client.

Understand the Environment:

For any successful sale / ROI we as presales consultant should understand the customer environment. Understanding customer environment would help us to derive a successful proposal / discussion & solution which has positive customer buy in. So what are key environment factors which can influence a SharePoint buy in. Let’s have a look, as you know that Microsoft Office Suites (Word, Excel, PPT, InfoPath..) is a widely used desktop productivity tool and obviously Office works only on a Windows platform. This one of key environment factor which can push a customer to go with SharePoint and I preferably use the term “You can potentially use the existing investment, if you leverage the features of MOSS because MOSS goes well with Office Suites & Windows Environment” to my client’s . You may have questions about non Microsoft portal products even they can work on Microsoft Platforms & Suites, but not as better as MOSS. Understanding the environment is not just good for MOSS it is for every presales scenario.

Understanding the User Base:

As we are one or the other ways related to the term / category Information Worker (To know what information worker is visit http://blogs.msdn.com/bowerm/archive/2005/01/06/347803.aspx) we are the major consumers of collaboration products. So a user friendly collaboration tool is always a first choice from the IT team, because collaboration is for every information worker not just for geeks. So understand who would be the end customer in your customer organization. MOSS is very user friendly tool which is basically designed to have pleasing and simple tools for the end users. The UI is familiar to the Information Workers who has just seen Microsoft Prods and I believe most them has seen. Simple self administration tools enable users to actively participate and play around the product.

to be continued in part 2......

Cheers....Britto

Bandwidth planning for MOSS & HW Sizing

Check following articles for guidelines on bandwidth planning & hardware sizing.

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for portal collaboration environments

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/a76963dc-1cd0-4aff-ae9c-3736d89c42441033.mspx   

Estimate performance and capacity requirements (Office SharePoint Server)

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/054526b9-417e-4140-b251-79b68e771c9a1033.mspx   

HP have released a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Sizing and Configuration Tool and test results with MOSS:

http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/70675-0-0-0-121.html    

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA1-1793ENW.pdf   

 - Refer Page 21 in this PDF : Rules of Thumb

Estimate performance and capacity requirements (MOSS, SPS, WSS 3.0 & WSS 2.0)

Office SharePoint Server 2007

Topics:

Overview: Estimate performance and capacity requirements (Office SharePoint Server)

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for Windows SharePoint Services collaboration environments (Office SharePoint Server)

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for portal collaboration environments

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for search environments

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for Excel Services environments

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/031b0634-bf99-4c23-8ebf-9d58b6a8e6ce1033.mspx?mfr=true

Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointportaladmin/HA011647621033.aspx  

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/WSS/en/library/cbe73f34-5679-4455-8632-7529488b3c711033.mspx

Windows SharePoint Services 2.0

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/winsharepointadmin/HA011607741033.aspx

SharePoint Document: Microsoft Office Programs and SharePoint Products and Technologies Integration – Fair, Good, Better, Best

The Mosted Wanted WhitePaper is ready

Brief Description

Microsoft Certified Partners Group Launches Community Portal

If you are a Microsoft Partner you may want to take advantage of this community portal

International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners (IAMCP), which this week launched an online community portal called SoftwareBizExchange.com (http://www.softwarebizexchange.com/sites/swex/default.aspx ) that's aimed at providing sales, marketing and general business resources and live advice for Windows-based software vendors.

Presence Information (In WSS/MOSS) Using MSN Live Messenger / Windows Messenger

It is good to take a break - that too for a week :) ...I am back from my vacation with lots of energy

Here we go with a little creativity to start with

Presence Information Using MSN Live Messenger / Windows Messenger

Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server 2007 has this presence information feature, You know the Messenger Status(Free, Busy,...) of the person who added the information (Docs, Alerts, Announcements) in the wss site to collaborate effectively.

The presence information is coupled with Microsoft Office Communicator in most of the docs. Instead of Microsoft Office Communicator as an alternate you can try this feature with MSN Live Messenger or Windows messenger (I have tested with yahoo but didn't work well you can give it a try) - works well

To enable the same provide the email id which you use in the Live / MSN Messenger in the email (for e.g. britto_gilbert@hotmail.com) field of user properties of the Active Directory so that when the users are added to the WSS /MOSS it will display the presence information of the user in the WSS / MOSS Page.

Note: The presence information of federated (Yahoo 360) user is also displayed in the WSS / MOSS Site.

Groove portal on MSDN is live at

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb308957.aspx

Microsoft now have a home for developers who want to learn more about Groove and how to develop solutions on the Groove platform.  The site also links to relevant content on TechNet and Office Online, providing easy access to those materials.  This enables developers new to Groove to build a solid foundation of knowledge before taking Groove deployments to the next level by building a custom solution.

Groove 2007 Ready Reckoner

Product Definitions

Client Products :

Microsoft Office Groove 2007:

This is available as a standalone or as a part of Office 2007 Suites Enterprise or Ultimate, This product is unmanaged  out of the box and can be managed via Groove Enterprise Services or Groove Server 2007

Free Trial 60 days : http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/product.aspx?sku=3082923&section_id=211&culture=en-US

Microsoft Office Live Groove:

Groove client available from Office Online Trial download site and may be converted into a 1 year subscription. This product is unmanaged.

Managed                : Groove client accesses the Groove Server 2007 at the customer site or Groove Enterprise Services

Unmanaged           : Groove client accesses the public relay upon download. Customer has no ability to manage the workspaces, domain, etc.

Free Trail 60 days : http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officelive/FX101945661033.aspx   

Server Products :

Microsoft Groove Server 2007

Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 is comprised of three, separately installed server applications

Groove Manager

Office Groove Server Manager is an easy-to-use, Web-based interface for managing all aspects of Office Groove 2007 deployments, including user account configuration, domain creation and certification, policy setting and enforcement, reporting and compliance, and more.

Groove Relay

Office Groove Server Relay provides three essential services that enable teams using Office Groove 2007 to work efficiently and productively anywhere, online or offline, with members inside and outside their organizations. The three services are(To find more click this link): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/grooveserver/HA101655281033.aspx#2

Groove Data Bridge

Office Groove Server Data Bridge facilitates data integration between Office Groove 2007 client-side workspaces and enterprise databases and applications. Office Groove Server Data Bridge also enables IT organizations to build custom solutions that efficiently bridge the gap between the centralized data center and project teams working in an unstructured manner. As a result, teams stay productive anywhere they need to work with centralized data, and enterprise applications and data stay automatically up to date.

Note: Contact licensing Team for licensing information

Free Trial : No free trial for Microsoft Groove Server 2007 you have to try the Groove Enterprise Services http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidGrooveES

Hosted Services :

Groove Enterprise Services

Office Groove Enterprise Services provides IT organizations with powerful, Web-based tools to centrally manage smaller deployments of Microsoft Office Groove 2007 without any on-site infrastructure. Office Groove Enterprise Services includes two primary services: Groove Enterprise Services Manager and Groove Enterprise Services Relay. This is a Web-based offering that requires no on-site server infrastructure or changes to network configurations

Office Groove Enterprise Services is offered on an annual subscription basis with a price-per-user fee structure.

Note: As of now licensing team do not have this information you to contact the distributor (like Ingram Micro, Tech Data..) for pricing and purchase information

Free Trial 30 days : http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidGrooveES.  You need to have a Windows Live or Passport Account and a Volume License account code. 

Difference between Groove Server 2007 & Groove Enterprise Services (Hosted) :

Customers consider two criteria when choosing Office Groove Enterprise Services or Office Groove Server 2007: cost and functionality. Generally, Office Groove Enterprise Services is more cost-effective for smaller deployments, while Office Groove Server 2007 is more cost-effective for larger deployments. Office Groove Server 2007 also provides additional functionality such as directory integration and server-side data integration. Larger organizations that value these capabilities should acquire Office Groove Server 2007.

Advantages of Groove Server 2007 :

While most of management capabilities in Office Groove Server 2007 and Office Groove Enterprise Services are identical, having a dedicated Office Groove Server 2007 on-site does provide additional capabilities. These capabilities include Active Directory integration, administrative control over server functions through roles-based access control, the ability to create multiple domains, and custom reporting opportunities using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services or Crystal Reports for Microsoft Visual Studio.

Reference Links:

Groove Home :

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/grooveserver/FX101674161033.aspx

Groove System Requirements:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/HA101945381033.aspx

Office Groove 2007 FAQ:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/HA101650611033.aspx  

Groove Server FAQ:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/grooveserver/HA101655281033.aspx#2

Groove Enterprise Services FAQ:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/grooveservices/HA101655291033.aspx

Groove Licensing:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101754511033.aspx

Vertical Case Studies:

IT Project Teams                                 : http://www.groove.net/index.cfm?pagename=Segment1

The Public Sector                                : http://www.groove.net/index.cfm?pagename=Segment2

Managing a Small Business             : http://www.groove.net/index.cfm?pagename=Segment3

Consulting Practices                           : http://www.groove.net/index.cfm?pagename=Segment4

Why File Shares & DFS Shares move to SharePoint - "File in use"

One main reason why file shares / DFS shares can be moved to SharePoint Document Library is "FILE IN USE" 

Office Suites has an awesome feature of informing the other users when the Office Document in a document library is open by another user.

"File in Use" PopUp window has the following 3 options

• Open Read Only copy
• Create a local copy and merge your changes latter
• Receiving notification when the original copy is avaialalbe
  

Open a Read Only Copy

Opens the document in read only mode when you try to edit or save back it gives us an option to “save as” to do editing on the document

Create a local copy and merge you changes later

Opens the document in edit mode, When changes are made and you try to the save the document. It prompts the users to save a copy of the document locally.

undefined\\my documents\SharePoint Drafts

Receiving notification when the original copy is avaialalbe

You will receive notification when the document is checked back by the owner of the document

PS: I did had a screen shot of the entire process and didnt had time to put the same way i have in the document to the blog with screen shot. Email me to get the copy of the document.

Advantages of office 2007 with Office SharePoint Server

I see few partners asking me about what are the advantage of using Office 2007 with Office SharePoint Server. Here you go to get a few i know about MOSS + Office 2007.

If you are currently using Office XP or 2003 against SharePoint 2003 and you upgrade SharePoint to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, your experience from Office XP or 2003 won't change. You'll have the same amount of integration with SharePoint, no more, no less.

If you upgrade the client applications to Office 2007 from 2003, here are the additional end-user benefits realized when interfacing with SharePoint 2007

The following are the SharePoint Integration benefits with Office 2007 which you don't get when you use Office 2003 with SharePoint 2007

Outlook

• Ability to take SharePoint content offline: document libraries, contacts, calendars, and tasks
• Ability to overlay SharePoint calendars with other calendars (people, resources, etc.) and fully edit the calendar in Outlook, including offline
• Ability to send an HTML email version of a SharePoint calendar to anyone, including outside the organization
• Ability to send InfoPath electronic forms via Outlook as an email. Results can be stored in SharePoint. Drops-downs can also be fed from SharePoint.
• Ability to have tasks from OneNote, SharePoint, and Project Server consolidate inside of Outlook
• Ability to approve tasks/workflows right from Outlook without having to open SharePoint or the Office content
• Records management for email messages (assuming Exchange 2007 is installed) and the ability to integrate those emails with SharePoint's record management capabilities
• RSS reader - all SharePoint content is available via RSS feeds, Outlook 2007 has an integrated RSS reader
• From SharePoint, people can now e-mail a link directly to a document/file. When the user clicks on the link, the document will open in read mode and a button will appear telling the user they can edit it or check it out to make changes. This allows sending a link for both read and edit purposes.

Word

• Enterprise Content Management
• Ability to complete meta-data in the Information Property Panel
• Ability to create custom Information Property Panels with business logic using InfoPath
• In-client workflows (initiate, complete, etc.)
• Ability to see a document requires workflow actions (approve, sign, etc.)
• Ability to see a document is locked and requires check-out to be modified
• Ability to see relevant corporate policies right in Office
• Rich Document signature workflow process
• Ability to author and publish web content
• When opening a Word 2007 document from SharePoint 2007...
• Ability to see all previous published and draft versions
• Ability to restore back to any previous version
• Ability to perform a graphical comparison between any two versions
• Ability to create a new Blog posting or Wiki in SharePoint right from Word
• Barcodes and meta-data labels when printing content

Excel

• Publish spreadsheets to Excel Services
• Web-based spreadsheet access
• Web-services interface to the spreadsheets
• Enterprise Content Management
• Ability to complete meta-data in the Information Property Panel
• Ability to create custom Information Property Panels with business logic using InfoPath
• In-client workflows (initiate, complete, etc.)
• Ability to see a document requires workflow actions (approve, sign, etc.)
• Ability to see a document is locked and requires check-out to be modified
• Ability to see relevant corporate policies right in Office
• Rich Document signature workflow proces

PowerPoint

• PowerPoint slide libraries
• Enterprise Content Management
• Ability to complete meta-data in the Information Property Panel
• Ability to create custom Information Property Panels with business logic using InfoPath
• In-client workflows (initiate, complete, etc.)
• Ability to see a document requires workflow actions (approve, sign, etc.)
• Ability to see a document is locked and requires check-out to be modified
• Ability to see relevant corporate policies right in Office
• Rich Document signature workflow process

InfoPath

• Ability to publish forms to SharePoint Forms Services. This enables the InfoPath forms to be accessed from Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Netscape, or mobile devices.
• Ability to send InfoPath forms as emails to Outlook 2007 users. Results can be stored in SharePoint. Drops-downs can also be fed from SharePoint.

Access

• Ability to publish rich reports using formats like PDF/XPS from SharePoint lists
• Ability to centralize the data storage to SharePoint lists
• Ability to take work offline

Groove

• Ability to synchronize SharePoint document libraries to Groove Workspaces for secure collaboration whether on-line or offline. This enables easy collaboration with customers, suppliers, or partners which aren't part of your network or don't have access to your SharePoint servers. Also enables at least 192 bit encryption of all content in Groove workspaces.

OneNote

• Ability to create shared notebooks hosted/saved on a SharePoint site.

Project

• Project Web Access is implemented via SharePoint, thus all features apply - like take document libraries offline in Outlook
• Project Lite - users can create Project task lists in SharePoint and then promote them to Project Professional and make them full-blown projects
• Reporting - Project will provide what we're calling the "Reporting Center" which allows for customized Excel and Visio templates which can automatically populate based on back-end data.
• Workflow - we now can have routing and approval of project- and resource-related information

Disclaimer:

This is test was conducted in the lab referencing few internal resources. A final document may be available in Microsoft website soon. I will post it here when I come across one.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Case Studies

One of the most popular question in the presales "Do you have case study?" / "Success Stories" / "Reference" . Case Studies has become a key deciding point for a client to go for the solution. To start of with the office team (not sure) has published the following case studies under different LOB and SharePoint capabilities.

Office SharePoint Server – Multiple Capabilities

Province of British Columbia
Ministry of Attorney General connects justice partners by exploring the 2007 Microsoft Office system workflow, search, and collaboration tools

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003988

Chevron
Chevron to use the 2007 Microsoft Office system to reduce information management risk and costs and improve worker productivity

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003972

Office SharePoint Server – Collaboration

Del Monte Foods
Leading food manufacturer automates product life cycle processes using content management capabilities in the 2007 Microsoft Office system

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003984

CGI - IBS
IT consulting firm to streamline proposal process and improve team collaboration with the 2007 Microsoft Office system

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003992

Office SharePoint Server – Portal

AXA Tech
Global insurance and services company deploys the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution to centralize project operations

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003979

United Properties
Commercial real estate firm projects sizeable ROI from building a collaborative workspace and document management solution using 2007 Microsoft Office system

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000004009

Office SharePoint Server – Search

Province of British Columbia
Ministry of Attorney General connects justice partners by exploring the 2007 Microsoft Office system workflow, search, and collaboration tools

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003988

Office SharePoint Server – Enterprise Content Management

Chevron
Chevron to use the 2007 Microsoft Office system to reduce information management risk and costs and improve worker productivity

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003972

Bank of Thailand
Bank of Thailand to use the 2007 Microsoft Office system to streamline corporate meetings and encourage greater collaboration

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=200211

Office SharePoint Server – Business Process Management

MTV Networks International (MTV)
Media and entertainment powerhouse uses the 2007 Microsoft Office system to improve handling of internal concert ticket requests

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003992 

CGI - IBS
IT consulting firm to streamline proposal process and improve team collaboration with the 2007 Microsoft Office system

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003996

Office SharePoint Server – Business Intelligence

ACNielsen
ACNielsen uses the 2007 Microsoft Office system to extend anytime access to market analysis for clients worldwide

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000004006

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics (OCD), a Johnson & Johnson company
Johnson & Johnson diagnostics firm to improve report integration and analysis with new business intelligence capabilities in the 2007 Microsoft Office system

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=1000003991

Seasons Greetings...

Hello Everyone,

Season's Greetings

Wishing you all the best for the New Year

I just wanted to say a great big thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Next year is going to be great and I have some posts flowing in regarding Office 2007 System Presales.

Cheers..Britto