atw: Re: Internal Resource Map
- From: Melanie Kendell <melanie.kendell@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:55:08 +1000
Hi Ken
If you already have SharePoint I would suggest that you use that to
manage your documents by working out an information architecture
(document library/folder structure, content types, metadata, etc) with
document retrieval in mind and promoting the use of SharePoint to
store documents. If that's not doable (and it's not a trivial
exercise) you can at least use SharePoint to do an aggregated search
across intranet and fileshares so people have somewhere to start from.
This is all handled much better in the new 2010 version of SharePoint,
but it is possible (although harder to manage - with no centralised or
hierarchical metadata, restricted numbers of documents in libraries,
etc ) with the 2007 version. If you are on 2003 I think it will be too
hard (document management is pretty rudimentary in that version -
although there is still version control).
It depends on whether you are prepared to do (or your company is
prepared to pay for someone to do) a chunk of work now to save a whole
lot of work down the track or whether it is easier politically to
manage this stuff manually forever - I know how hard it is to get
support for these types of projects.
If you do go for the resource map route, I think you will find it
becomes all consuming to keep it updated and even if you throw it open
for everyone to edit you'll more than likely find that there is little
interest from anyone else to ensure it is maintained.
Good luck!
-Mel
On 20 September 2010 15:40, Ken Fredric <KenFredric@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hope this request isn't too left-field for this list. If it is, and if there
> is a better place to ask this question, please let me know.
>
> I imagine we're no different from many companies (around 80 staff) in that
> we have thousands of commonly used documents & files stored in various
> locations such as network folders, intranet (SharePoint), the company
> website, customer portal that doubles as a resource for staff, etc.
>
> Because staff don't know where a particular resource is located, this leads
> to many requests along the lines of "where can I find the latest version of
> ABC.doc". And because I'm the techncal writer, it's assumed that I must be
> responsible for all documents, so all the requests come to me.
>
> We have staff based all around Australia, with head office here in Brisbane.
>
> I am in the initial stages of planning what I have called a 'Resource Map'.
> The purpose of this map will be to provide a single point where all staff
> members can come to search for resources such as documents and files that
> are stored somewhere in a location that is accessible to all staff.
>
> Haven't yet gotten to the point of deciding on the format, or decided
> whether it should be editable by all staff, e.g. a wiki.
>
> I'm wondering whether others on this list have faced this problem and come
> up with a workable solution. Also wondering if there is any software out
> there that could help with this.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ken Fredric
>
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