If you were looking for one more good reason to get to 2009 Australian Tech.Ed on the Gold Coast this year, we’ve just announced that attendees will receive a complimentary HP Mini 2140 NetBook PC.
Full details including Terms and Conditions around this offer are found on the Tech.Ed site here http://www.msteched.com/australia/Public/windows-7-experience.aspx
Be sure to bring a sticker or name tag for yours… there be a lot of mix ups at the event with a couple of thousand people having the same model Netbook!
I see on the SharePoint Team blog that they have announced some changes to the 
SharePoint home page on Microsoft.com.
While there is many SharePoint sites I can show you, plus some that Microsoft runs publicly, it good to see such a mainstream site using the Web Content Management features of SharePoint for it’s publishing. http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint is the place to check it out….
Here are some more examples of Microsoft Sites running MOSS:
Also take a look at my mate Ian Morrish’s site out of New Zealand for over 500 references to MOSS public websites:
Last year we had over 50 unsolicited requests to be a speaker with 142 session ideas for the Office System track at Tech.Ed Australia.
This year we have a new tool to manage submissions and provide transparency of the progress and status of your submissions in the Tech.Ed Call for Content tool.
Alistair Speirs has written a nice summary for what we are looking for, and how to submit your nomination.
http://blogs.msdn.com/alspeirs/archive/2009/05/07/guidance-for-potential-office-system-track-speakers-at-tech-ed-australia.aspx
For those of you who have heard me talk about the reasons Microsoft continues to innovate and build evolutions of the Microsoft Office Suite is about providing capabilities to organisations for the workplace that is still emerging.
One of the tenets that I like to reference is the concept of Managing a Dynamic Business. Microsoft’s Director of Business Insight, Dan Rasmus, does scenario based planning around the future of business. In his exploration of how a business needs to operate in a Dynamic Environment Dan discusses how many external forces are applied to a business that it can’t control – such as changing demographic of a population, disintermediation, and disease.
It’s topical now that disease, in the case of Swine Flu, is getting hyped in the media and spread extremely fast through networks such as Twitter which amplify the conversations happening on a topic.
Consider this though. If your HR team looked at the risk, and said - “OK – all employees need to work from home until further notice” would your business be able to cope with this? Are you setup in a dynamic way to allow this to happen at a moments notice?
Dan has published a 16 page whitepaper on Managing a Dynamic Business. Read this with Swine Flu in mind as you absorb his thoughts around managing things you can’t control. http://www.microsoft.com/business/peopleready/en-us/?ng=insights#&&ng=insights&ct=articles&id=4
Check out more from Dan at his Listening to the Future site: http://www.listeningtothefuture.com/
I’ve spent the last few working days briefing Government Agencies about how Microsoft approaches a new release of Office and decide on the investments in new features to give our customers new capabilities to support the emerging world of work.
I highlight activities that provide insight to us for what the workplace will look like in the future such as:
For those of you that have heard me talk about Microsoft Office, I am passionate about creating a workplace that attracts and retains young workers. But it’s more than that – it’s about creating an environment that gives your workforce a capacity that allows high performance and use technology to their advantage if a person chooses to. More and more over time high performing people are leveraging technology, in fact rely on technology, to be a high performer.
Consider this now obvious case – if a smart young MBA straight out of University joins an organisation that does not use Email. An MBA won’t be able to work in a style that they are accustomed to. While email is ubiquitous to most workers these days, we analyse the emerging capabilities that people will “need” to get the job done – Blogs, Instant Messaging, Social Networking with Colleagues as some possible examples.
However I’m waking up to a new reality that extends these concepts. With a troubled economy and a workforce of people that are close to retiring age have recently lost a large % of their superannuation and retirement savings. These people are now going to be working longer and demanding more flexibility in their work arrangements with concessions such as part time, work from home etc while they delay their retirement.
Today in The Australian Newspaper there is an article by Bernard Salt – Demographer and Analyst with KPMG that outlines this situation nicely that organisations, in particular Government, better get ready for a generation of demanding retirees. In the article http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25361112-5000117,00.html Bernard closes with:
“Work will be, in fact must be, a large part of this new narrative for life beyond 60. The challenge for all levels of government will be to co-ordinate and to facilitate this lifestyle for the first generation of over-60s who will be educated, opinionated, articulate and, perhaps most confronting, well organised.
Stand by for a new generation of demanding retirees. Demanding of work, of their families and especially of government”
Alistair Speirs has written a great entry on his view of Electronic forms. His description of the spectrum of approaches and calling out lots of overlap in possible solutions/technologies is right on.
Check out the full detail at http://blogs.msdn.com/alspeirs/archive/2009/03/09/should-i-use-infopath-for-my-electronic-forms.aspx
I’ve been spending some time lately talking with customers around the use of SharePoint to support the Learning and Development activities for the organisation – including User Readiness for Office 2007 deployments.
The 40,000 employee National Australia Bank (NAB) has just released a nice case study on how they use SharePoint and Office Communications Server to create a collaboration portal called The Academy for their learning activities, centred around an online profile of each employee called My Profile (which is a rebrand of the SharePoint MySite).
Check out the entire case study at http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000003904
As I mentioned in my email approach PIFEM one of the rules I have turned on in Outlook is to delay sending email by 1 minute.
This allows me to catch any emails I didn’t mean to send just yet, or more commonly, I remember to add something else just after I press send, such as another recipient, more text or an attachment.
This rule I have is called “Delay sending by 1 minute” is really handy sometimes – shown below in my Rules and Alerts dialog of Outlook. You might want to consider adding this if you write a lot of emails or if you frequently forget attachments.
Interestingly, I see Google has added a similar feature to delay sending by 5 seconds to Gmail http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/gmail-panic-button/2009/03/22/1237656745000.html I can’t foresee how delaying by 5 seconds gives people enough time to catch it. I know that I’d rarely be able to catch it that fast.
Maybe I’ll rename my Office Outlook rule to be “The Panic Button”.
A colleague of mine, Ketan, mentioned these free Screen-cast videos for SharePoint – provided by the crew at SharePoint e-Learning.com. Asif and Wendy have put together a great set of audio narrated videos showing how to leverage a bunch of capabilities from Office and SharePoint. Check them out as an option if you are looking for some e-Learning for SharePoint.
http://www.sharepoint-screencasts.com/
Experience Level: 1_Beginner
What is SharePoint?
An overview of SharePoint Products and Technologies. Why would you want to use it...
8:14
Overview
What's new in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
An overview of what is new in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as opposed to the older version SharePoint Portal Server 2003
10:54
Overview
Creating a SharePoint Site
SharePoint comes with multiple site templates. This video shows how to create a SharePoint site using those templates
6:54
Admin, End User
Adding Users to a Site
Security in SharePoint is a necessity. Learn how to add users to SharePoint sites
9:48
Admin
Adding Web Parts to a Site
Web Parts are essential to providing componentize functionality in SharePoint. Watch this video to learn how to add web parts to a SharePoint site
5:09
Admin, End User
Introducing Document Management
Document Management is a robust feature in SharePoint. Learn the various capabilities that are offered out of the box by the document mangement features.
9:09
Admin, End User
Using the Recycle Bin
Learn how the two tier Recycle Bin works in SharePoint
6:20
Admin, End User
Alerts
Alerts can be setup on SharePoint lists, libraries or individual items to send out an email notification when a condition becomes true (ex: a document is created, uploaded, modified etc). Also, watch this video to learn how to subscribe others to alerts as well
11:57
Admin, End User
Subscribing to List or Library RSS feeds
RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is very prevalant throughout SharePoint. Learn how to use RSS in SharePoint lists and libraries
7:45
End User
Experience Level: 2_Intermediate
Target Web Part to an Audience
Learn how to target web parts in SharePoint Server (MOSS) to a particular audience. Audience can be a SharePoint Group, Active Directory Group or a Global Audience defined within SharePoint.
7:34
Admin
Delete a SharePoint Site using SharePoint Designer
This screencast shows how you can delete a SharePoint site within SharePoint Designer. It also points out some limitations and the type of sites you cannot delete with SharePoint Designer.
3:12
Admin
Check In Multiple Documents at once in MOSS
The process to check in multiple documents at once in a document library - MOSS only feature
5:59
Admin
Publish Web Parts to the Web Part Gallery
Web Parts can be uploaded to the Web Part Gallery to make them available throughout the site collection. This screencast shows how you can take a Web Part file and publish it to the Web Part Gallery.
9:33
Admin
Convert Word Forms to InfoPath
Conversion of Word based forms to InfoPath forms using built in converters in InfoPath
11:03
Admin, End User
Creating Lists in Sites
Lists are used in SharePoint to manage and present like data. Learn how to create various lists in SharePoint sites
9:05
Admin, End User
Enhanced Survey Functionality
Implement Surveys within any SharePoint. You will also see how to use branching logic within the surveys
11:42
Admin, End User
Using a Picture Library and Image Web Part together
Host your images in a Picture Library and show them using the Image web part
7:15
End User
Customizing Current Navigation in WSS
Learn how to customize the Quick Launch navigation in Windows SharePoint Services
12:52
Admin
Create Custom Lists
Create Custom Lists in SharePoint if you want to create a list from scratch. Define your own custom columns and the type of data that you wish to store in each column
11:32
Admin, End User
Adding Columns and Data to a Custom List
Learn how to create columns and add data to the custom list
12:42
Admin, End User
Copying Lists between sites
Copying/Moving/Backing up lists. With or without data
8:38
Admin
Exploring built-in MOSS Workflows
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server comes with many pre-built workflows out of the box. Learn how you can utilize those workflows and create additional ones directly from the browser
11:55
End User
Introducing Search Center
Use the Search Center capability to search Enterprise data in your environment
11:08
Admin, End User
Security Overview
There are various levels of security that can be implemented in a SharePoint deployment. Content can be secured at the site, list, library, folder or at the item level.
11:29
Overview, Admin
Understanding and using the new Features concept
The Features feature in SharePoint allows the site administrator to add/take away functionailty to the site
6:02
Admin, Developer
Introducing Meeting Workspaces
Meeting workspaces are similar to sites in SharePoint, but provide additional functionality such as a strong tie-in to Outlook and the ability to create and link meetings to SharePoint events list. Learn about these things and more by watching this video
12:26
Admin, End User
Understanding Master Pages
Master Pages are used to create a consistent layout of pages on a SharePoint site. Watch this video to better understand how they are used and where they are stored on a site
10:37
Admin
Get to know My Sites
The My Site feature in SharePoint helps to greatly enhance the user experience by providing them with a Personal site that they can use to share documents, links, pictures, their profile information and more. This video explores the My Sites capability in SharePoint
12:04
Admin, End User
Experience Level: 3_Advanced
Using the Disposition Approval Workflow
This Video demos the Expiration Policy feature of the Records Management functionality in SharePoint Server 2007. In particular, the Disposition Approval Workflow is implemented as part of the Information Management Policy to properly dispose of the document once its specified retention period has been reached.
11:11
Admin
Site Delete Capture - Recycle Bin for deleted sites
SharePoint out of the box does not contain the functionality to archive deleted sites. Use the Site Delete Capture feature made by available by Microsoft IT on CodePlex to implement the site delete capture functionality
18:55
Understanding and using Site Columns
Use Site Columns in SharePoint to create list column templates
10:06
Admin
Creating and using Blog Sites in SharePoint
Creating a Blogging site in SharePoint is now possible. Use this type of site to host internal or external blogs
14:06
Admin, End User
Use Wikis in SharePoint to Whiteboard your Thoughts
Create a knowledge base using the Wiki capability in SharePoint
11:44
Admin, End User
Understanding and using Content Types
Content Types are used to store multiple template types and associated meta data. Learn how to use Content Types by watching this video
10:18
Admin
Exploring SharePoint's Central Administration
Central Administration in SharePoint is where all the magic happens. This video will explore the various functionality that is accessible to the SharePoint Admin through the Central Administration site
10:24
Admin
Importing Profiles from Active Directory into SharePoint
Import user profiles from your Active Directory directly into SharePoint. This allows for audience targeting features and people search
13:55
Admin
Backing up Sites with STSADM utility
The STSADM utility is a very powerful friend of a SharePoint admin. Watch this video to learn how you can use this utility to back up SharePoint sites
12:38
Admin
I’m in the middle of working with a customer who is planning their Office 2007 deployment to their 10’s of Thousands of end users. They felt there was a need for user training and readiness for most of their users. Because of the large number of users, they wanted a way to provide training at low cost, on demand, and preferably through a computer.
The final solution was to use software, and training courses they already owned or had access to without a licensing hurdle to overcome.
There are a few moving parts in the final solution, which are:
1) Microsoft Software Assurance (SA). SA is the comprehensive maintenance offering that
helps customers get the most out their software investments including things like phone support, partner services, in person training, Tools to help deploy and manage software, plus access to the latest version of software (upgrades). One of the benefits of the program is something called E-Learning.
E-Learning provides employees access to self paced, interactive training that is developed by training experts. Assessments, hands-on virtual labs, expert advice, and an interactive, nonlinear approach make E-learning an engaging and flexible experience for your users.
E-learning also eliminates time and location boundaries, so your staff can study when and where it's convenient with just an Internet Connection and a browser. The comprehensive course list is available online: Download the complete Software Assurance E-Learning course list (Portable Document Format file, 120 KB)
You can also download the entire course set, and run the courses internally on your own Learning Management System – allowing you to keep track of who has taken and passed the courses.
2) SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK). There is an open source project for a Learning Management System that runs on top of SharePoint. You can download the SLK from http://www.codeplex.com/slk and run it on your SharePoint server.
The SLK hosts courses using the same format as the E-Learning. This format is called 
SCORM and is a standard format of structuring and packaging online training courses. Other applications such as the LCDS and Camtasia create SCORM format files too allowing anybody to create a course if they want and upload it to the SLK.
That’s it! If you have WSS 3.0 or SharePoint 2007 running, and have Software Assurance go get the E-Learning courses and make them available to your users so they can get ready for an Office 2007 deployment, or learn advanced techniques to build upon their existing skills.
Note: The SharePoint product team also released their End User training for use with the SLK – which I have blogged about before here. My mate Ian Morrish in New Zealand is running the SLK on his public WSS site, and also has a Flash demo of what it looks like. Check it out at http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/SLK.htm
My manager Peter was asking my advice for how to help organise a weekly meeting that he organises. It’s a number of managers that are the leadership of our team, and they discuss the operations and strategy for the team etc.
One thing they struggled with was how to keep track of actions and follow up items that arise from the ongoing meetings.
The team was using ongoing emails to keep track of the outstanding actions, owners and status of those tasks. But this had problems such as lack of visibility into the status of other people’s tasks. And they found that some people didn’t necessarily focus on the action items between meetings – only in the meetings.
I talked to Peter about options they could use – including SharePoint Meeting workspaces, a shared OneNote file, SharePoint Tasks, and Workflow’s to manage the actions.
In the end, Peter started using a Task List in SharePoint to assign and follow up on, well, the tasks. He’s really happy with the solution because:
- It was super easy to set up; and
- With the integration into Outlook he actually has visibility into the tasks between the meetings and works on them.
So, if you are organising or involved in recurring meetings, here is a way to keep track of the action items:
1) Create a Task List in a SharePoint/WSS site somewhere – such as on your team site. When you click Site Actions –> Create there is a custom list called Tasks under the Tracking group.
2) In the browser, you can add tasks, assign them to people, add free text for details, the due date and the current status.
3) Before the next meeting – each action owner should update the tasks with the status. They can simply open the task in the browser and update.
4) However, an easier interface for the task owners is to synchronise the tasks to your Outlook task list. In this way – the task owner does not even need to open the browser to view all the related tasks, and update them. To synchronise them from SharePoint, click Actions –> Connect to Outlook. This will create a synchronised copy of the tasks in Outlook.
5) Now, each task can be opened, edited and even closed directly from Outlook. Because Outlook works well both Online and Offline – the tasks can be updated in either mode.
NOTE: I use Task Lists to manage a the items from a number of meetings. What I do to keep them visible is to Arrange the ToDo Bar in outlook by Folder. This compresses large tasks lists into groups by location, such as Inbox or Team Meeting X. I find this way works well to sort and group the aggregated list of Tasks that are displayed in the ToDo Bar from SharePoint, Outlook, Project and OneNote.
It’s a simple solution that has helped my manager run a recurring team meeting of his peers in an efficient and effective way. That can only help him, and me at performance review time :)
I was talking to a Technical Decision Maker at a customer of mine, and we were talking about the differences in SharePoint 2007 Enterprise versus Standard Edition. The customer already owned and deployed SharePoint 2007 Standard for their Intranet, so this summary below is what I sent to them as my interpretation of the differences.
SharePoint Enterprise provides 3 main features over SharePoint Standard.
1) Web Forms and Workflows (Form Services – Ian’s Summary)
Microsoft Office contains an application called InfoPath. This is the Office tool to allow for both the creation and filling of forms. In the same way Excel is to spreadsheets, Word is to Documents, InfoPath is to Forms. Any user with InfoPath may create a smart interactive form for their own use – such as Invitation to Team Christmas Party, Surveys, T-Shirt order form, Marketing Bill of Materials Order and gives the ability share/email that form in a similar way to a word document. A user simply opens the form in InfoPath, fills it in electronically and saves/submits/emails the form back. It is a fantastic tool for broad paper form replacement.
Equally, InfoPath has the ability to include very complex logic, data connections, etc to automate your most structured and business centric forms processes. For example the Expense form, Leave Request, Travel Approval, Access Request forms that integrate to your systems can be achieved and developed. In fact – developers actually like creating complex forms because InfoPath integrates with Visual Studio and allows those people with developer skills to write managed .NET code in the form logic (not just JavaScript like some other common form design technologies)
Because the forms (.xsn files) are treated like other Office document files, SharePoint is a natural tool to manage the form versions, permissions, auditing, and the workflow processing of the form. SharePoint acts as the Form Management tool.
InfoPath, however, has a legacy of being an Office Application. Historically, to interact with a form to fill it in you need to have InfoPath installed – just like you require Office Word to view a Word document. Some organisations may not have InfoPath deployed to the desktop yet, or want to have forms public facing. In this case – the requirement is to be able to fill in the form, submit it into a workflow and process the approvals without a dependency on the InfoPath client.
SharePoint Enterprise includes InfoPath Form Services. These form services render the InfoPath .xsn form file into a web browser without the need to have the InfoPath client. The web version of the form provides a very rich experience for the user – maintaining dynamic growing of the form as conditional sections are filled, data connections remain, logic, calculations and validations still are enforced to ensure data is accurate.
The combination of Office InfoPath and SharePoint Enterprise including InfoPath Form Services provides customers with a single, Office based form process management environment for all forms. The benefits of this are:
i) As new form processes are proposed to be automated, there is simplicity in what tool to use and no decision or procurement for each project
ii) Internal Skill sets are developed and the creation of Office based forms becomes a standard business activity (like creating spreadsheets)
iii) The design environment caters for the average business user, all the way up to Developers who prefer to write managed code for the logic of forms.
iv) The forms can easily be embedded in other web sites and applications.
v) SharePoint is used to manage the form templates and also the submitted forms. This allows customers to leverage the significant investments already made in SharePoint infrastructure, Administration skills, and end user training and skills. If you already have skilled people in the use of SharePoint for document management – the InfoPath form is simply another document type in this model. Because it is part of Office, there should be high adoption of InfoPath forms solution if it is made available.
A classic example of how InfoPath and SharePoint Enterprise is used to create a consistent forms platform is ports company DP World based in Sydney. Their public case study is found at http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000002583.
2) Business Intelligence and Reports (Excel Services – Ian’s Summary)
In a similar manner to InfoPath Form Services, SharePoint Enterprise includes Excel Services. This allows an Excel Spreadsheet that is saved in SharePoint to be viewed in a Web Browser, while still maintaining rich views, charts, pivot tables, filters, sorting and conditional formatting.
The usefulness of Excel Spreadsheets in a browser is many fold. Consider these advantages over a normal Excel Spreadsheet .xls or .xlsx file.
i) If the spreadsheet is large in size, to be able to view the data the spreadsheet does not need to be emailed or downloaded to somebody’s PC to simply view it. Looking at this spreadsheet in the browser is a lightweight and fast Web version of that spreadsheet. This alone can save storage space in File Shares, Hard Drives and Email storage by not emailing large spreadsheets around or downloading. My team at Microsoft has a large 51MB Excel spreadsheet and viewing it in a Browser is much easier than downloading that document each time we want to view it.
ii) The data in an Excel Services spreadsheet is protected, and can’t be altered by those who don’t have permission. Because end users only have access to a view of the file, it may be that some tabs of the spreadsheet are not even published. Additionally – there is a single point of truth for the spreadsheet in SharePoint. If a spreadsheet is emailed around – somebody may have changed the data, or filtered on something which could change the intent of the data. Decisions could then be made on incorrect data. Consider Gray Knowlton, an Office Product Manager, who was monitoring the download volume of a specific component of Office from the Microsoft.com website. The volume of this download was very important to some people – including the top executives of Microsoft who were making strategic decisions based on it. Gray decided to publish the download volume data in an Excel Services spreadsheet. In this way – executives could look at the data whenever they wanted, could not inadvertently change it, and be confident that the data was correct because only Gray was able to publish and edit that data. From a Risk and Compliance point of view – Excel Services can assist with hardening the decision making confidence of your company.
iii) Some spreadsheets have significantly complex calculations and models built in. I’ve seen spreadsheets that take 30 minutes to recalculate on a PC – which ties up the PC and person for 30 minutes while it runs. Consider if the processing was happening on a powerful Server. The time would be reduced significantly and the load would be on a server and not a PC. This would be particularly important for any users that model financial situations in Excel for planning and analysis purposes – your finance team or treasury would find this useful.
iv) Finally, when a Spreadsheet is published into Excel Services – all the calculations can be accessed as a Web Service call. This means that other applications and web services can call that calculation. This allows somebody at your organisation to maintain the logic and financial models in a spreadsheet, and simply save it to SharePoint. Traditionally – the model would need to be documented and interpreted by a developer to convert to Java or .NET code – leading to longer deployment and maintenance complexities to involve a developer every time the model changed. In this model, whoever owns the model can actually change it in the spreadsheet –publish it to SharePoint and have the online calculations in a web application updated automatically.
A fantastic example of this ability to manage the logic of web applications in a spreadsheet is South East Water who run the Water Savings Calculator in an Excel Services Spreadsheet. Check it out live at http://www.southeastwater.com.au/watercalculator/
While the interface to this is a custom .NET application hosted on their public website, it calls an Excel Services spreadsheet for calculations on water usage, cost, savings etc based on the questions answers. Indeed – if South East Water ever updated their rates the only thing that would need to be changed would be the relevant cells in the spreadsheet.
3) Enterprise Search and Integration (Business Data Catalogue – Ian’s Summary)
The Business Data Catalogue (BDC) is essentially the middleware used to integrate other data and systems into SharePoint Portals and SharePoint Search. Considering that you may be using SharePoint for the Intranet, there will likely be needs to expose data from other systems into the Intranet. Some common or likely use cases for a cuatomer might be:
i) Integrating SharePoint with your CRM system entities. This allows you to search on your customers, suppliers and business partners CRM information from SharePoint.
ii) Integrating SharePoint with your Asset Management system. This would allow you to enforce document meta-data of asset related files/documents to be only those known assets in your Asset Management System.
iii) Thirdly – you might decide to create applications in SharePoint that use CRM, Sales, and ERP data. This is a way to have the data from those system exposed in SharePoint to allow people to manage and take action on them
A customer that I work with has SharePoint Enterprise, and uses the BDC to link Contract Numbers from the Contracts system into SharePoint. This allows their employees to search on Contract details, and also use the Contract Numbers as a meta-data field for documents managed within SharePoint.
iv) Finally, I’ve also recorded a video that shows a demonstration of integrating SharePoint Enterprise into Finance and CRM systems, and how a finance person could move a Sales Opportunity in CRM to an Invoice and Accounts Payable Management all using SharePoint as the interface. (It uses a 3rd party tool to wrap LOB systems in Web Services as well – but that part is option to expose other systems as web services). This video, I think, is good use of how the BDC connects data and actions from LOB systems into your MOSS portal.
http://cid-e7db9bf957528709.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/MOSS%20BDC%20with%20SAP%20CRM/MOSS%7C_BDC%7C_WITH%7C_SAP%7C_AND%7C_CRM%7C_DATA.wmv (45MB)
I was talking to a customer of mine in Sydney yesterday, and the discussion of forms came up as a way of reducing the amount of paper the organisation uses.
I recalled there was a study done by CitiBank about their use of paper, and ways they reduced their consumption, saved an impressive amount of money, and helped the environment too! (Thanks for the link Andrew Lowson!)
See in the figure below from the Pulp & Paper 2002 North American Factbook that amount of paper being used for Business forms is steadily dropping. This drop in paper use for forms is thanks to Forms automation technologies like Microsoft Office InfoPath. Because InfoPath is included with Microsoft Office – it is an easy way for organisations to start moving away from paper forms, and getting them into electronic format so they can be emailed, shared, distributed, integrated and archived electronically. The benefits are clear – integration with back end systems so there is no need to rekey the data, less paper usage, able to track where your form is, smart forms with validations so the data captured is sure to be correct etc.
While paper forms are on the decline, other paper (Copy Paper) is still on the rise, and the cost and environmental impact is probably not appreciated by most people.
A really nice summary of the CitiGroup study, in partnership with Environmental Defence, on their paper usage can be found here: http://www.edf.org/documents/2860_Citigroup_CopyPaper.pdf
They also have a paper calculator on their site: http://www.edf.org/papercalculator/
Consider this from the report:
The study shows an average employee uses 20 reams of paper a year, which equals a tree a year. They also figured out that the TCO of a ream is 16 times the cost of purchase. So let’s work this out for, say, 10,000 employees:
- 10,000 employees * 20 reams * $4 cost per ream * 16 TCO = $ 12,800,000
- So if we managed only to reduce 10% of paper usage through business process automation that equals $ 1,280,000
- And if you include productivity improvements, fewer errors and rework then the number gets even bigger.
Want more proof, here is a link to the DP World case study on how they use InfoPath and SharePoint as the standard tools to automate forms and the processes for the organisation. This is a good example of the vision I have for using Microsoft Office and InfoPath as a paper form replacement.
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000002583
Here is another case study from BT Financial Group about their use of InfoPath and SharePoint
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?casestudyid=200522
In Australia, the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has been quite visible about their experience and benefits of deploying Office 2007 across the bank – including Mark Griffith from CBA presenting their approach at Australia Tech.Ed 2008.
By deploying the 2007 Office system in its workstation environment, Commonwealth Bank provides its employees with the stability, interoperability, and capacity to deliver services flexibly and efficiently to customers.
They have also released a Video which is a nice final piece.
Nice work Mark Griffith (CBA), Rab Thynne (Microsoft), and Alistair Speirs (Microsoft) for the great work in this project, and getting the video put together.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia - Office 2007 Video Case Study
Gray Knowlton, Office Group Product Manager, just posted a nice blog entry Bits on Boxes about the cost savings of deploying Office 2007 versus doing nothing at all and staying on Office 2003. He has some interesting stats such as 73% of all security vulnerabilities reported for Office do not apply to Office 2007.
He includes additional justification that complement my recent post on 10 Ways Microsoft Office 2007 Can Save Companies Money
Thanks Gray!
