SharePoint Lied: It Isn’t a Document Management System, It’s Really a File Management System by Eugene Rosenfeld - SPTechCon

SharePoint Lied: It Isn’t a
Document Management System;
It’s Really a File Management
System
Do you feel that your document management system is missing
something? It is. It’s missing documents. Sure it manages files well enough,
but are files and documents the same thing?

This session focuses on the differences between files and documents, and
examines some strategies for converting SharePoint from just a file
management system into a document management system.

Eugene Rosenfeld
CTO, Black Blade Associates, Inc.

8 www.BlackBladeInc.com | * Info@BlackBladeInc.com | ( +1-703-260-1111

About Eugene Rosenfeld
 CTO, Black Blade Associates
 Two-time SharePoint MVP

www.BlackBladeInc.com
twitter.com/erosen03
ThingsThatShouldbeEasy.blogspot.com
erosenfeld@blackbladeinc.com


About Black Blade
Specialize in SharePoint document and records
management, information architecture,
distributed systems, and systems integration

www.BlackBladeInc.com
twitter.com/BlackBladeInc
www.blackbladeinc.com/pages/blog.aspx
info@blackbladeinc.com


About this Presentation
 Session is best suited to content managers
and information architects
 Focusing on:
 Capabilities
 Usage scenarios
 Requirements
 No code or configuration
 Lessons learned from our implementation


About You
 How are you using SharePoint today?
 Do you have a particular problem you’re
hoping this presentation can help you
address?
 If you could make just one problem go away
by snapping your fingers, what problem
would that be?


Overview
 Define Document Management
System
 File ≠ Document
 Convince you that need a DMS
 Our SharePoint DMS
implementation


Setting Expectations
 Advanced document management
 Not everyone needs or is ready for this
 Investment required
 3 – 12 months to implement
 Will require re-engineering business
processes to get full value


Collab vs. Doc Management
Collaboration Document Management
 Goal is to exchange  Goal is to produce and manage
information a work product
 Quick to start  Benefits from greater planning
 Free-flow process  Structured process
 Little control  Granular control
 Live in the now  Manages full document lifecycle
 Collaboration should be part of
document management
 Makes collaboration productive


Who Should Think About This?
 Life sciences
 Financial
Regulated industries
 Energy
 Government
 Publishers Media
 Television / Video
 Academia / research
 Manufacturing
 Consultants


What is a document
management system?


One Definition
A document management system (DMS) is a
computer system used to track and store
electronic documents. It is usually also capable
of keeping track of the different versions
modified by different users (history tracking).
The term has some overlap with the concepts of
content management systems. It is often
viewed as a component….


Essence of a DMS
 Document data storage and retrieval
 Document processing operations


Document Data Storage


SharePoint stores document data as files. So…

Question: Is there a difference
between files and documents?


File ≠ Document?
 Yes
 What is the difference?


What is the difference?

Content


Question: Is a document just a
“special type” of file?


Document a special type of
File?
 Not exactly
 Though they are related


File and Document
Relationships
 Single-document files
Adequate
 One document per file support

 Word, Excel, PDF, etc…
 Multi-document files
 A single file contains multiple documents Minimal
support
 Zip files, databases, email w/attachments,
etc…
 Multi-file documents No
support
 Huh??


What are multi-file documents?


What is a Multi-file
Document?
 Single logical document
 Ex: a proposal, a book, a report, a presentation
 Divided into parts
 Stored as separate, but related files
 Ex: multiple chapters, slides, images, spreadsheets
 Work with the each document part separately
or with the document as a whole
 Two main types:
Virtual and Compound Documents

Isn’t this just a Document Set?
 No.
 A multi-file document is a single document
 Document set stores several different
documents together, like a folder


Are Multi-file Documents New?
 No, just new to SharePoint
 You’ve already used multi-file documents
 HTML pages
 Reusable Content in SharePoint publishing pages
 OneNote notebooks
 Word compound documents
 FrameMaker documents
 TeX
 Source code


SharePoint Document Support
 Single-document files - Adequate support
 Multi-document files - Minimal support
 Multi-file documents - No support


Document Processing
Operations


What SharePoint can do now for
document management


File Management Operations
 Organization (tagging, metadata, storage)
 Concurrency control (check in / out)
 Single permission set for entire file
 Versioning
 Publishing (content approval)
 Workflow


File Consumption
 Multiple accessors / readers
 Search


Document Authoring
 Single author, multiple readers
 Authoring with Microsoft Office
 Potential multi-format documents using
document conversions


What about Co-Authoring?
 Requires Office 2010+ or web app
 Authoring restrictions within a document are
not stored in SharePoint
 Users can still get edit conflicts
 Must download full document to edit
 Cannot use check in / check out
 Bottom line: collaboration or review tool


SP DM Features?
 Document authoring / viewing
 Kind of – more a feature of Office Web Apps
 Search indexing


You need a SharePoint DMS


We will look at a common scenario involving a team of people creating
and distributing a proposal. The team will include an engineer and sales
person from our company, and a sub-contractor. The proposal will also
make use of materials provided by the marketing and legal departments.

Question: Is SharePoint
Document Management “Good
Enough?”


Is SharePoint Document
Management “Good Enough?”
 No
 Why?
 Data storage inadequate
 Operations on data are woefully inadequate
 Should have all the web content management
features for documents


Difficult to Implement Scenarios
 Authoring with partially-trusted users
 Partners, customers, vendors, anyone besides you
 Creating financial documents
 Data from financial system and human write up
 Ensure human doesn’t fudge financial data
 Enforcing document content compliance
 Ensure every employee offer has official NDA
 Presenting a consistent brand
 Update all marketing materials with new logo


Our SharePoint DMS


SP DM Limitations in a Nutshell
 SharePoint provides lots of
tools for managing the
document in its file shell
 …but what about the tools
to manage the meat of the
document, the important
parts inside the file shell?


SharePoint DM Vision
 SharePoint document management
limitations stem from single-file documents:
 Lessons from the web:
 Separating the elements of a web page (the
document) into multiple files makes for a much
stronger management system
 We need a system that can manage documents as
if they were web pages
 We need multi-file documents


Proposal as Multi-file
Document


We will see how HTML’s multi-file document structure allows us to easily
make global changes across many documents,

Demo: Web Pages – the-20-
year-old multi-file document
format


Sample User Interface


Demo: Our internal SharePoint
multi-file document DMS


Authoring: This is what we
had…


Authoring with Standard Documents

Total Time

Larger team = more wasted time


This is what we have now…


Total Time
Authoring with Virtual
Documents

Larger team = faster completion time


Partial Trust Authoring
Proposal

Trusted
Executive Employee
Summary

Technical Partially Trusted
Proposal Sub-Contractor

About the About the
Company Legal Terms
Company
(Reference)

Legal Terms
(Reference)

Proposals Document Market Department’s Legal Departments
Library Document Library Document Library


Automated Systems Authoring
Mutual Fund
Prospectus

Investment Analyst
Objectives

Historical Data
Returns Warehouse

About the About the
Fund Legal Terms
Fund
(Reference)

Legal Terms
(Reference)

Proposals Document Market Department’s Legal Departments
Library Document Library Document Library


Requires Process
Reengineering
 Current process
 Is serial
 Centered around managing the nut
 New processes
 Will be parallel
 Focused on managing the contents inside the shell


Closing


Summary
 DM = storage and processing
 Multi-file documents provide the key to
unlocking SharePoint DM capabilities
 Devote 3-12 months to build the capability
 Need to re-engineer your business processes
to leverage new capabilities


What multi-file documents can
do for you


Multi-file Document Capabilities
 Better authoring
 Controlled concurrent authoring
 Reusable, live content
 Multiple authoring format with multiple
consumption formats
 Granular management
 Enhanced version control / record management
 Granular permissions and auditing
 Targeted approval workflows


More Capabilities
 Real-world distribution
 Distribute document in multiple formats
 Easily correlate published and authored versions of
a document
 System signs all published documents
 System encrypts sensitive content to remove
second-hand information leaks
 Records processing
 Detect retention conflicts within documents


New Usage Scenarios
 Team-based Authoring
 Authoring with External Users
 Geographically Distributed Authoring
 Sensitive Document Authoring / PII
 Combined Automated and Human Authoring
 Brand management
 Digital Asset Management
 Compliance reporting


New SharePoint Applications
 New usage scenarios enable new apps
 Proposal Builder
 Project Management
 Digital Asset Management
 Financial Reporting
 Book Authoring
 Brief Builder
 PDF Publisher


Strategies for creating a multi-
file document capability on
SharePoint


An Ideal Implementation
Ok multi-file documents Ideal multi-file documents
 Require you to use special  Uses your existing file
file formats. I.e.: formats – no changes
 Web pages require .HTML  Word - .DOC, .DOCX
 FrameMaker requires .MIF  PowerPoint - .PPT, .PPTX
 Require custom authoring  Use existing authoring
apps or add-ins apps – no add-ins
 Special web app  MS Office
 Office add-ins  OpenOffice
 HTML editor  WordPerfect
 FrameMaker  Author as multi-file,
distribute as single-file

General Approach
 Completely server-side approach
 Use native document formats
 No custom apps or Office add-ins needed
 End result had to be a single file per
document format
 Low operational and maintenance costs
 No data loss


Components
 Document content data
 Document processing engine
 Process management
 User interface


Document Content Data
 Store documents, sections, and relationships
 Options
 Store in SharePoint using folders
 Store in SharePoint using document sets
 Store in SharePoint using metadata
 Store in custom data store
 Final answer
 Store in SharePoint using metadata
 Heavy use of content types


Document Sets as Documents
Document Sets Multi-file Document
 Final product is a  Final product is a single
document collection document
 Based on folder  Based on document
paradigm paradigm
 Can’t control order  Full ordering support
 Flat list  Full hierarchy support
 Requires SharePoint  Nice to have WSS / SP
Server 2010 Server and 3.0 / 4.0 support


Document Processing Engine
 Performs work on document and sections
 Options
 List item event receiver
 Workflow
 Windows service or Timer job
 Stand-alone processing engine service
 Final answer
 Stand-alone processing engine service, loosely
coupled to SharePoint using WCF services


Process Management
 Feeds the processing engine with work items
 Options
 Document queue on processing engine service
 Document queue on SharePoint farm
 Final answer
 Document queue on both the SharePoint farm and
the processing engine service


User Interface
 Allows the user to interact with the system
 Options
 Web parts or Application pages
 UI on processing engine service with WSRP
producer support
 Final answer
 List views
 Application pages
 UI on processing engine service but no WSRP


SharePoint Lied: It Isn’t a Document Management System, It’s Really a File Management System by Eugene Rosenfeld - SPTechCon

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SharePoint Lied: It Isn’t a Document Management System, It’s Really a File Management System by Eugene Rosenfeld - SPTechCon