Category: SharePoint

Why “SharePoint for Dummies” is not enough for your end users…

Very often, I talk to IT-people about providing end user training for their SharePoint implementation. Recently, on two separate occations, two IT managers made the same remark: “Just give them the “SharePoint for Dummies” book and they will be fine.”

I really hate it when people talk about “dumb” end users. But this set aside, I want to make clear why this is not really a good solution for end user training for SharePoint:

  • A SharePoint end user training should always be a custom training: the SharePoint feature palette is so vast that while books discuss most of the features, companies only use their 20% of the functionalities. So why bother giving information about the ones you do not use?
  • There is more to it than just SharePoint functionality: very often, the implementation of SharePoint brings changes in work methods, procedures, information sharing… Those are specific for your organisation.
  • You need to sell your SharePoint solution to your internal audience. People are resistent to the change in their work habits, even if it is an improvement. Giving a book is not a very good sales pitch.

Microsoft released some interesting material to accomplish this. Very good material, but don’t make the same mistake: don’t throw this at your end user “as is”. Customize, customize…

Error at the end of approval workflow

An interesting problem this week: a customer configured a workflow in a document library, based on the out-of-the-box Approval workflow. The workflow seemed to work fine, but every time after the workflow completed, an error showed up in the workflow history: Error – System Account – An error occurred in <name of your workflow>. OK, I admit, I have seen more meaningful error messages ;–)

Nothing special was showing up in the logs. After some testing, we discovered that in the workflow the option “Update the approval status” was checked. As the document library did not have content approval activated, this was the cause of the error. Just deactivate the option or activate content approval.

Adobe Captivate and SharePoint Learning Kit

The SharePoint Learning Kit is a lightweight LMS module that can make your SharePoint site a mini-LMS. Especially together with Windows SharePoint Services, it is a very cost-effective way to distribute e-learning content in your organisation with a minimum of “tracking”.

Of course, you do not get the very detailed reporting a true Learning Management System offers, but you can track progress (not attempted, in progress, completed), track score of a test, assign learning content to users or usergroups, and grade tests manually. Your content needs to be SCORM-conformant, as the SLK uses the SCORM API for communication between content and LMS.

The SharePoint Learning Kit is a feature that needs to be deployed on your farm, assigned to a web application, and gives you a feature that you can activate on a site level. It includes an “assignment” web part that instructors and learners use to assign, follow and grade content.

I had some trouble getting Adobe Captivate content to communicate with the SLK, I did not get the scores from a test. Finally, I found this article. In the .HTM file that is generated by Captivate, you can tune and tweak some scorm parameters. Changing var g_intAPIOrder = 0; from 0 to 1 does the trick for the SLK.

Use one Site Collection or multiple Site Collections?

Some important concepts:

  • a site collection is a unit of information belonging together; if information should be isolated/secured, it could be a separate site collection;
  • having multiple site collections might require some additional development (e.g. packaging content types or site columns that you want to reuse in different site collections in features);
  • a lot of built-in web parts only work inside a site collection, not across site collections;
  • it’s good to have separate site collections for a corporate, governed intranet and the wild wild west of collaboration 🙂