I was asked recently what were the top features you get with SharePoint right out of the box for project management. A simple and direct but a very good question! To answer the question I had to go back to first principles! I had to answer the question - what do you get with SharePoint itself - what are the top SharePoint features?! The question when asked was confined to the "free" version of SharePoint" - WSS - Windows SharePoint Services.
I listed these as the top 12 features you get with SharePoint itself. As you can see I was trying to build up from the smaller units (e.g. a field) to the larger units (e.g. web applications).
- List Items Collection (for field values)
- Lists Containers (for list items)
- Views Different (views into the lists)
- Libraries and Doc Mgmt. (Document check in and out)
- MS Office Integration (Open Office docs from web)
- Workflow (Ability to move information)
- Web parts (Windows into information)
- Web part pages (Collections of windows)
- Navigation (Quick Launch, Top Link)
- Sites (Housing for lists, libraries, etc)
- Site collections (Housing for lots of sites)
- Web applications (Housing for site collections)
I then walked through the same list but this time added simple project management usages for the same base SharePoint features.
- List Items (Add fields, e.g. project type)
- Lists (Project Tasks and Issues)
- Views (Datasheet and other views)
- Libraries and Doc Mgmt. (Project document control)
- MS Office Integration (Lower deployment barriers)
- Workflow (3-State Workflow)
- Web parts (Views into task, issue lists)
- Web part pages (Project summary home page)
- Navigation (Add basic structure to projects)
- Sites (Project workspace)
- Site collections (House all common projects)
- Web applications (Contain all customer projects)
If you are finding this hard to visualize what I am describing above then you can ... Download Presentation ... and see with some SharePoint screenshots. Alternatively you can review the webcast below. Have fun!
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