Organizations have struggled for years to balance the wants of business system users with those of IT. Users want more features, friendly interfaces, and less IT oversight. On the other hand, IT wants systems that scale, align with security and acceptable use policies, and provide more control. Over the last few years, we have seen a dramatic tip in the user vs. IT scale in favor of the users. It isn’t hard to understand why, for it is these same business system users that also use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and have either created or participated in a blog. What do all these systems have in common? Well for starters, they are all easy to use, intuitive, and require little to no approval to use. These are exactly the same characteristics users want when it comes to their business systems, and it is these characteristics which are included in Microsoft SharePoint.
Microsoft SharePoint is one of the fastest growing software products of all time, far outpacing other ECM systems. Users find it very easy and intuitive to use for collaboration and basic ECM, while providing a rich user experience. These characteristics have truly empowered the business user to utilize SharePoint pretty much at their whim. Users can easily set up SharePoint sites, upload documents and other content, and begin collaborating on any in-process project or task.
It is also these characteristics that cause SharePoint to spiral out of control within organizations. Users find it so easy to use and available that before organizations have a chance to properly manage it, they instead find themselves burdened with 100s if not 1000s of unmanaged sites containing orphaned content. This poses many risks for an organization, including non-compliance with content retention policies. Without the proper amount of SharePoint governance and oversight, organizations will be challenged with managing the system so that maximum return and benefits can be realized.
Proper SharePoint use and site management can be achieved by pairing SharePoint with a true, enterprise content management system like Oracle WebCenter. Doing so can satisfy user requests for easy collaboration with IT’s requirements around governance, scalability, and security. Fishbowl Solutions has made this possible with our SharePoint Connector for Oracle WebCenter Content. Fishbowl’s SharePoint Connector provides the ability for SharePoint and WebCenter to co-exist, allowing organizations using both systems to fully exploit the benefits of each without having to ultimately pick one over the other. In doing this, organizations are able to harmonize user needs for easy and intuitive collaboration with best-in-class content management paired with industry leading infrastructure. Highlights of the connector include:
- Manage all content resulting from SharePoint collaboration: For any Word Doc, Excel Spreadsheet, form, image, etc., that was used as part of the collaboration process for a new product design, marketing brainstorm, content creation, or executive planning, the content created would ultimately reside and be managed in Oracle WebCenter.
- Maintain SharePoint user experience: Ensure that SharePoint users can continue to create and contribute content while in SharePoint and use it as the primary system for collaboration.
- Configurable, yet transparent content storage: Provide organizations with flexible rules for which content that resides in SharePoint gets moved to WebCenter. This includes the ability to holistically manage all content or select content based on characteristics, such as file size.
- End-to-End content lifecycle management: Enable organizations to effectively manage content through its lifecycle, and in turn, reduce the amount of orphaned content and ungoverned SharePoint sites that could lead to security and accessibility risks.
Please join Fishbowl Solutions during our webinar on Wednesday, December 14th at 12 PM CST as we further discuss the ways in which our SharePoint Connector for Oracle WebCenter can harmonize users wants with IT requirements.
