Using SharePoint as a Collaboration Tool Matthew Zimmerman UT Southwestern Medical Center May 27 th, 2011

Agenda What is SharePoint? Goals Before SharePoint? Challenges/Issues Encountered Assessment

SharePoint Microsoft Web Application Platform Intranet Portal Content/Document Management Blogs, Wikis, Discussion, Workflows.

Goals Facilitate communication and access to information Provide a single, secure and reliable access point to the Library’s internal information Streamline the management and distribution of documents Streamline internal workflows

Before SharePoint Multiple logins Need to learn multiple applications Some applications difficult to use Difficult/time consuming to find information

Implementation Task force formed January 2007 Survey Library staff Environmental scan (e.g. Confluence, Drupal, Joomla, SiteScape, SharePoint) Download and test products Decided on SharePoint Launch site on April 2008

Why SharePoint? Top Five Staff Requests: – Search site and documents – notifications – Calendars – Integration with Windows Login – Site Directory

StaffWeb Site Map

Main uses Staff Blog Unit Sites Team Sites Calendars Strategic Planning

StaffWeb Tour

What we like Robust/scalable Network drive searching Workflows (calendar/strategic planning) Staffblog Windows

Challenges/Issues Encountered Customization of the interface Calendar issues – integration with GroupWise, calendar merging

Assessment Began assessment of StaffWeb’s effectiveness and value added to Library in 10/08.

Assessment - Quantitative LinkBase 2007 (pre-StaffWeb) – Home page visits/day: 41 – No. of internal blogs: 17 – Blog authors: 16 (31% of staff members) StaffWeb June 2008/June 2009 – Page requests/day: 782 / 843 – Distinct users: 57/59 – No. of searches: 301/329 – No. of internal blogs: 18 – Blog authors: 43 (83% of staff members)

Assessment - Quantitative Average requests per day over past 30 days: 694 Distinct users over past 30 days: 56 Queries Over Past 30 Days: 200

Assessment - Qualitative 11/08 SurveyMonkey survey – 86% staff members responded – 6 questions What staff is using% Response Calendars (e.g. Who’s Out, time-off request etc.)93.2% Staff blog88.6% Minutes65.9% Other blogs (e.g. unit, team, task forces)52.3% Wikis (e.g. policies and procedures)47.7% Task list (e.g. unit, team, taskforces, individual)45.5%

Assessment – Qualitative (cont.) StaffWeb effectiveness ratings: FunctionNot Effective Somewhat Effective Very Effective Collaboration and communication among staff 9.1%56.8%34.1% Management and distribution of information 2.3%36.4%61.4% Information retrieval through search11.4%61.4%27.3% Ease of access2.3%31.8%65.9% Management and distribution of documents 15.9%52.3%31.8% Workflow (e.g. time-off request)4.5%22.7%72.7%

Assessment – Qualitative (cont.) Usability testing using TechSmith Morae software 6 Library staff members with differing technical skills invited 13 tasks and some open ended questions Findings consistent the general SurveyMonkey survey results

Assessment - Outcome Outcomes attributed to the deployment of StaffWeb – Improved Library staff communication without clogging up mailboxes – Fostered sense of content ownership – Bring staff up-to-date with Web 2.0 technologies – Freed DSTP staff to work on other priorities – Consolidated information silos resulting in secured and easy access – Enabled single search across multiple repositories – Streamlined workflows for a number of tasks (e.g. time-off request, strategic planning submission and tracking