People Ready Podcasting at the Asia Pacific SharePoint Conference
The Asia Pacific SharePoint Conference will kick off this Tuesday in Sydney, Australia. Some of you might have noticed that the conference website, www.microsoftsharepoint.com, is powered by MOSS 2007. (Hmmm, I think I’ll wrangle this domain name from my buddies Down Under after the conference is over. J) Given the tremendous amount of Web 2.0 (i.e. “Read/Write Web”) buzz these days, Microsoft Australia wanted to provide an easy way for the attendees and speakers to contribute content to the conference website. The solution: integrated podcasting, which allows easy creation and distribution of voice recordings. This was achieved by using Nintex Podcast Server 2007. And to ensure relevant and suitable content without hampering real-time creativity and sharing, a simple approval process was developed using Nintex Workflow 2007. Both products were designed to be seamlessly integrated with MOSS 2007, so the implementation was very straightforward.
How did they do it?
· Nintex Podcast Server and Nintex Workflow were installed and activated on the SharePoint farm. Several Podcast libraries were created, one for each segment of the “SharePoint pie.”
· The public landing page for podcasts (www.microsoftsharepoint.com/podcasts) made use of the Podcast Directory web part, which lists podcast libraries and metadata for each, including a link to subscribe to the RSS feed.
· To enable members of the public to contribute and record their own podcasts, a generic user account was created. This user was granted limited permissions, which can only create new entries in each of the podcast libraries. Upon signing in, links to record a new podcast were revealed in the Podcast Directory.
· The killer feature of Nintex Podcast Server is the ease in which a user can create new podcasts without having to install a separate client side program. Utilizing a simple and intuitive ActiveX control, users can record a new podcast directly with their browser (sorry, Internet Explorer only given the ActiveX requirement). After the recording is finished, it can be tagged with appropriate metadata and automatically uploaded to the server.
· To avoid the inevitable misuse and bogus recordings, Nintex Workflow was employed to automate a simple review process before new podcasts were visible by the public. With the help of ~10 trusted content approvers, each new recording is flagged as pending and triggers an e-mail notification that’s sent to the approvers. The podcast can be approved or declined by any of the approvers.
This solution was implemented within literally just a week’s time. There’s probably a lot more that can be done with this integrated podcast and content review/approval functionality, so if you have any ideas, please leave a comment. If there are any specific Web 2.0 features that you’d like to see built into SharePoint or available on top of SharePoint, please leave a comment.
<Lawrence />
