Monday, November 2, 2009

UNC SharePoint = A Web Based Collaboration Tool!

Microsoft SharePoint is a unique online collaboration tool that can be accessed from your web browser, without having to install anything to your computer. SharePoint was designed to make collaboration between members of a team (the member must be an employee of UNC) efficient, effective, and comprehensive. With SharePoint, people can have access to resources and knowledge shared by their entire team. The features within SharePoint include: a calendar, file sharing, task assignment, announcements, surveying, helpful links, RSS feeds, and posting messages to Microsoft Outlook.

The calendar is beneficial because it gives a snapshot of important events coming up (meetings, vacation, absences, and holidays). With the file sharing feature (this is similar to a swap drive) documents can easily be accessed by persons within the team, allowing many people to work a particular document. Tasks can be assigned through SharePoint. This makes it easy to delegate and keep track duty assignments for your team. Posting an announcement can be done on SharePoint in order to inform your team of important news. If you are interested in feedback from your team, you can use the survey feature. This feature allows you to collect helpful data on how to improve within your team. If there are helpful links to websites that are relevant to your tasks and duties that your team performs on a regular basis, they can easily be posted onto the SharePoint page for all to readily access. An RRS feed can be subscribed to so announcements that are sent to the SharePoint will also be sent to your Outlook email account.

SharePoint was designed to keep people in touch with co-workers in an effort to facilitate and improve collaborative efforts. To get Microsoft SharePoint for your team, please visit www.unco.edu/it/supportu.htm and search “SharePoint Creation”. Follow the link “SharePoint Site Creation Form”, fill out the form, and fax it to UNC’s Technical Support Center at (970)351-1354 and a representative will assist you. For more information on using SharePoint and its many features, please refer to this tutorial http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA102055631033.aspx.

1 comment:

  1. without a doubt sharepoint is a great collaboration and management tool, though as for me it still has a huge disadvantage against the alternative solutions - price. Have you heard of our collab and pm system Comindwork?

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