SharePoint Social Simplified
With the evolution and maturity of the SharePoint platform and release of the SharePoint 2010 product, many organizations have surpassed the 'Get it Installed, Get it Launched" phase and are wrestling with user adoption and increasing the overall activity of their SharePoint site(s). In particular, the use of SharePoint's social features can be challenging for organizations and users alike. Whether it be the use of MySites, Activity Feeds and Profiles or managing and governing self-service site creation for team collaboration and interaction the road to increased adoption and higher collaboration can become a lot less daunting and a lot more realistic with SP Community from SusQtech.
SP Community Overview
The out of the box social capabilities of SharePoint 2010 are much improved from that of its MOSS predecessor with the addition of activity feeds, note boards and better My Sites. These new features tend to be a bit rigid, however, not allowing SharePoint administrators much in the way of configuration options and overall flexibility to adjust to meet the needs of their organization. Our SP Community Suite gives you the flexibility and enhancements you need to create highly usable online communities in SharePoint 2010. With an interface that users of Facebook, LinkedIn and Buddy Press will easily recognize, your online SharePoint Community will be up an running in no time.
SP Community Highlights
- Expanded Activity Feeds keep your colleagues update
- Activity Feed comments allow you to comment on colleague activities
- Two-Way Colleague option gives users control of who their colleagues are
- Easier interface to locate and make colleague connections.
- Easy to use and configure web parts to build your community pages.
- Custom Master Pages and Page Layouts get you going out of the box.
- Simplified status bar for posting status updates (including easy document and image uploads).
- Self Service group wizard to allow users to easily create and manage peer groups.
- Enhanced My Content and My Profile pages.
Social Features: SP Community vs. SharePoint 2010
SP Community - Solution Accelerator Pricing
SP Community is available as a Solution Accelerator for SharePoint 2010 Standard and Enterprise Editions. Please contact a product specialist at 1.888.603.0304 or via email at sales@susqtech.com for pricing..
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the requirements if I’m installing on our server(s)?
A working install of SharePoint 2010 Standard or Enterprise Edition is all that's needed to get started with SP Community. The site collections that you wish to deploy SP Community to will need to be created from the My Site Host site definition and the web application will need to be connected to a properly configured Managed Metadata Service, Search Service, and User Profile Service. The windows account that is being used to install SP Community will need to be explicitly configured as an administrator with permissions to invoke each of the three service applications.
What version of SharePoint is required?
(I know the website says, “SP Community requires SharePoint 2010 Standard or Enterprise Edition and utilizes the My Site Host (although a full deployment of My Sites is not required)”
SP Community should work fine with pre SP1 editions and post SP1 versions of SharePoint 2010. The 1.5 release was developed and tested in sync with SP1 and the August Cumulative Update.
Can you hide the Content Sites?
Yes.
What are the options for integrating with my organization’s CRM/AMS systems?
SP Community sits on top of SharePoint 2010 and allows you to leverage the native integration features of SP 2010 for integrating with your organizations AMS. You should be able to use any standard SharePoint APIs, features, or third party products. The only requirement is that the SP Community users each have a profile in the attached User Profile Service Application.
What flexibility do you have on the profile fields to match our organization?
The profile fields can be fully customized through the attached User Profile Service Application.
To what extent can I customize the look and feel of my community?
There are very few limitations to customize the look and feel of SP Community components. The master page, page layouts, and CSS files are all able to be overridden.
Can I modify the activity feed functionality?
The activity feed uses the OOTB SharePoint API for dealing with the activity feed. This means that there are no limitations on your ability to create new activity types or modify the built in activity types. The look and feel of the SP Community activity feed can also be customized using CSS and XSLT.
Can I delete my own status? Not Comments, but status.
You can clear your current status, but you are not currently able to delete previous status activity items.
Can I create a sub group to a group?
You can add the create group wizard to a sub group. This will allow you to create nested groups.
Can I use OOTB functionality like ratings, like it/tag it? If so, what is the impact on the current product functionality and my ability to upgrade?
Yes, but some of the features will be limited in a default configuration. By default, SP Community limits access to several of the OOTB my site host pages. By deactivating the "SqtCommRedirects" redirect feature you will be able to restore access to those pages. This will allow for users to be able to access and manage their tags. Ratings should be available with or without the redirects enabled.
Can I use other SP 3rd party products, like Nintex workflow or Bamboo’s discussion board, within SP Community? If so, what is the impact on the current product functionality and my ability to upgrade?
Yes. There are no known conflicts with either of those products and it shouldn't limit your ability to upgrade.