Best solution to present information to end users
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@Reid-Cooper said:
Sharepoint really seems like an obvious choice. You have Windows servers already, presumably?
Did you see the part where I said Sharepoint looks like crap? It's fine for a document repository, but it's not a webpage that encourages casual browsing. At least the ones I've seen.
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You can theme Sharepoint however you like. Totally customizable.
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@scottalanmiller said:
You can theme Sharepoint however you like. Totally customizable.
I would love to see examples.
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@Dashrender Google Images would be your friend here.
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Have you made any progress on finding a solution that you want to present?
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No, I haven't had or made the time. Lately, dealing with the day to day issues have keep me from much research.
That said, I like the link that Scott provided about Sharepoint.. so I might take another look. I'd love to get away from traditional fileshares with files that get abandoned and never cleaned up.
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@Dashrender said:
files that get abandoned and never cleaned up.
You think Sharepoint will fix that?
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Sharepoint can automate that if you make a job for it.
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or specifically, what can you do in Sharepoint to prevent "files getting abandoned and never cleaned up" that you can't do with traditional file sharing on a file server?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Sharepoint can automate that if you make a job for it.
How does that work?
They are called Workflows. It is one of the key features of SP.
You can also make custom aps that run on SP too.
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Can you give an example?
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I'll try to find an example of one. But a quick description of how they are popularly used:
Jane submits a reimbursement form to the reimbursement queue or drop box.
Paperwork automatically determines her manager and routes to the for approval. If denied Jane is notified. If approved to flows on the finance manage to approve. Again if denied Jane is notified otherwise it moved on.
Finally request goes to processing and this could be a human or an API that automatically creates a check for her.
When complete Jane is notified that her reimbursement is paid.
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I get that. But @Dashrender said he has a problem with old files on his file server that get abandoned or never cleaned up. A common problem, and what that I struggle with myself. What I don't get is how moving those files into Sharepoint will enable them to be cleaned up or archived and deleted correctly.
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Or to put it another way: I have a problem with people creating new documents and storing them on the file server, then instead of cleaning them up once they are no longer useful (by archiving or deleting), they just leave them there forever. Particularly bad examples might include half-a-gig of jpegs entitled "Office Christmas Party 2004". With Sharepoint, they'd just upload them there, instead of saving them on the file server.
Basically, people add data faster than they remove data - so you get sprawl and eventually it becomes unmanageable. How is that prevented on Sharepoint in a way that can't be done with a file server?
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We do have workflows for the file server. For example, we might keep scans of documents relating to particular customer projects that are only needed to be kept for 6 months. I could write a script to delete all docs in the relevant sub-directory that are older than 6 months. Or the user could keep them in sub-directories named by year 2010,2011,2012 etc etc, and then once a year delete the oldest sub-directory, so he only keeps recent years.
Of course, this can and will be replicated in Sharepoint. What I'm interested in is what Sharepoint can do to prevent data sprawl that a file server and a bit of scripting or manual user intervention can't.
Of course, I really need to know exactly what @Dashrender meant.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I get that. But @Dashrender said he has a problem with old files on his file server that get abandoned or never cleaned up. A common problem, and what that I struggle with myself. What I don't get is how moving those files into Sharepoint will enable them to be cleaned up or archived and deleted correctly.
Oh. A workflow can detect old files and send them for review automatically.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I get that. But @Dashrender said he has a problem with old files on his file server that get abandoned or never cleaned up. A common problem, and what that I struggle with myself. What I don't get is how moving those files into Sharepoint will enable them to be cleaned up or archived and deleted correctly.
Oh. A workflow can detect old files and send them for review automatically.
so essentially it "bird dogs" abandoned/forgotten/orphaned/loner/hidden/destitute files and says "hey you, do somethin with these ey!!??"
Spoint (which is what AI sharepoint named itself) -
Yes. Lol. That's one way. Or it could clean them up itself!
