Sharepoint for Nonprofits: Introduction
- 1. SharePoint Introduction Collaboration in the Cloud What We Learned from Habitat for Humanity SKC File Server Replacement Kevin Phaup – [email protected]
- 2. What is SharePoint? • Included in your donated enterprise subscriptions • Web based collaboration platform with a long history as a local server product, brought fully to the cloud in 2013 • Out of the box solution to create simple internal team or board sites for sharing documents, lists, social networking (Yammer), & calendars • Can easily scale to thousands of sites, and multiple subsites in a site • Page layouts and content can be easily modified, and “web parts” or widgets can be added to a page. No HTML experience required. • Using free Sharepoint Designer application, site can be fully customized. Not necessarily recommended for a smaller non-profit. • Can access files from any browser or device, including mobile • Solid technical phone and online support provided by Microsoft as part of subscription
- 3. Alternative Collaboration Software It is a vibrant marketplace In practice most non-profits are likely using a hodgepodge of email attachments, Dropbox, and mix of Google calendars or sites.
- 4. File Hosting in Cloud – General Tradeoffs • Benefits of cloud-based document storage • Access files, edit and share Office files from anywhere • Across devices: desktops/laptops (PC, Mac, work/home), tablets, phones • Secure external sharing to anyone – volunteers, partners • Easier to manage. • All files are backed up in the cloud. • Can control access in one place • Single logon. User only needs one password to remember. • Tradeoffs • May be slower in some scenarios. May require upgrading your internet speed. • Requires an internet connection for most operations • The “good-news/bad-news” of access from anywhere. Need clear sharing policy. • More discussion in free Microsoft eBook:
- 5. SharePoint Hierarchy • A site collection contains a top- level site and subsites • Security or access control can be either inherited down, or broken at any level to provide unique security as needed down to item level if needed. • Can use Office365 security groups to manage access more easily. • At Habitat we created separate permissions for board site, for team internal and external members, and for private folders only managers in a team could view and access. • Keep it simple and avoid item level security
- 6. SharePoint Control • It takes time and discussion with staff to determine the right balance of information control for a given site or project. • Don’t want to impede work, but don’t want to accidently open up HR and payroll files • Think hard about who needs access both internally and externally, and who has the right to share externally
- 7. Document Libraries • Most documents are commonly placed in document libraries. • This article nicely summarizes the tradeoffs of using folder views. • Search is your friend. Much faster than digging down into folders • Can search from top level site down, or just within a document library • With more rigid data, requiring metadata fields may improve organization and search • Libraries can be synced to a local computer for offline access. Unfortunately this is at library not folder level, and there is a 5000 file limit. This is an area Microsoft knows they need to improve. • To add multiple files to a library, using the Explorer View is best option, but this add-on only works in IE browser.
- 8. Document Co-editing • Multiple people can edit a document simultaneous • If online, will see each others changes as they are made • Works well for a document where multiple people own different sections • If multiple people are editing the same parts of the document, may have conflicts to resolve • Best to practice a few times with someone to learn the features and limitations. • Works great in meetings where multiple people are putting together a presentation • Old habits die hard.
- 9. Data Protection • Versioning can be enabled for document libraries to enable saving the last N versions of a file. • When files are deleted by a user, they are placed into the user’s Sharepoint recycle bin, where the user can recover if needed. • After 30 days the files are then moved to a site collection recycle bin where the administrator can recover if needed. • After 30 more days the files are truly deleted. • Microsoft backs up your complete cloud instance for recovery against catastrophic failure to multiple physical sites, and can restore to a point in time, but individual item recovery is generally achieved via the recycle bin. • Good walk through on how this works here. • Several 3rd party services offer backup of Office365/SharePoint data to alternate clouds like AWS for “deep” long term backup/recovery. • Consider how one might recover from the Cryptolocker virus.
- 10. Sharing – Internal and External Controls • Probably the most cumbersome aspect of setting up a SharePoint site is configuring the security groups and access controls. • By default users may share externally. Most organizations will want more restrictions. It can be controlled with the right selection of privileges – these are not obvious. • Best to create a new named privilege set rather than changing the features of the in the box named such as “editor” or “contributor”. • Best to create a “test” team site and a few dummy users with different privileges so you can test various sharing scenarios, or other changes • Think through how staff and external users need to get their work done. • Think through how to ramp on and off employees. What security groups do they need to be added to. How do you maintain and audit settings over time? Entropy is not your friend.
- 11. Habitat Project Goals • Provide document collaboration "anywhere", "any" device • Eliminate aging, expensive and complex file server infrastructure • Enable secure collaboration among staff (10's), volunteers (100's) and with partners (10's) • Support flexible collaboration: links, co-editing • Protection of data against loss • Minimize operational complexity • Minimize cost
- 12. Functional Design • Performed initial file usage audit on server and desktop using free file analysis tools, then extensive file cleanup. Make full backups before starting any cleanup process. Only employees know what can be archived or deleted. Moved many files to an archive folder. Identified large media files. • Made distinction between One Drive for Business and SharePoint usage. Not always clear to staff. Deployed OneDrive before SharePoint. OneDrive was a good introduction to SharePoint mentality. • Decided to use one large SharePoint site with subsites to simplify access, and global search. Well within SharePoint limits. • Kept it simple. Kept folder view as primary view on doclibs. Added other useful views. Limit customizations that staff can make to avoid chaos and maintain look and feel across team sites. • Mapped department model already in place on file server to subsites. Already well understood by the organization. • Created subsites for both departments and committees. Committees have external constituents. • Piloted with one department until happy with design, then easily cloned to other departments using site templates.
- 13. Functional Design - continued • Determining proper access control measures required the most research • Wanted to limit external sharing at launch until we understood usage and ramifications. Created customized permission. • There is some cross department need for access. Employees often have multiple roles. Kept that simple by creating "Extended" group for each team. • Security Model • Used Exchange security groups to control access. No SharePoint objects have individual staff permissions. Each subsite breaks inheritance with the top level site. • Restricted sharing ability to team leaders, and to a single top level folder "external" in each team's doclib. Simplifies auditing. • Each team doclib has a "confidential" folder for those files that a team wants to restrict access. • Each team had slightly different access needs - all of which were easily handled by model. • Search and Tagging. Explored use of tagging to allow cross folder/team meta search across folders for more structured file grouping. Easy to implement, but burden is on staff to take the time to tag.
- 14. Implementation 1. Planning (1+ person days, org size dependent) 1. Identify department structure, leads ("champs", tech savvy ), users 2. Project overview with management and leads 3. Identify department requirements with leads: files, usage, security, external sharing 2. Desktops/Laptops 1. Verify/update desktop/laptops Office 2013 ready (CPU, memory). An hour per machine. 2. OneDrive for business cutover (1 Hr/machine) - Install ODB client, map documents, sync - (1hr/machine) 3. Teamsite - Preparation 1. Leads manage file preparation - (4+ hours, data dependent, plus staff time) 1. Cleanup unused files 2. Identify/Organize files to be moved to teamsites 3. File name scrub - path length, characters 4. Archives, very large files (video, typically) to remain on file servers 2. Configure sites (1+ person day): Master sites, subsites, security groups, documentation 3. Staff lead training - (4 hrs) 4. Verify leads test, experiment (4+ person days + staff time) 5. Staff training (4 hrs)
- 15. Implementation - continued • File migration/Cutover (1+ person days, data dependent) • Set file shares to read-only • Upload (overnight) and verify • Live on SharePoint • Follow-up (1+ person days, org dependent) • addition (re)training • individual sit-downs with staff as needed • Training varies greatly by individual
- 16. Training • Department Champs • Trained first with a few sessions • Extra training on external sharing • All staff • 90-min training session with simple ppt, demos and videos • Follow-up - respond to questions, spot check employees
- 17. Documentation • Documented security model so the on-site IT staff can follow it. • Some level of auditing to verify compliances is needed. • Need better adherences to IT checklist for new staff, and staff departure • Used Microsoft's own training materials and video wherever possible. • Created helpdesk alias so SharePoint questions could be answered as soon as possible • Created wiki to document most common staff questions. • Rapid rate of change of Sharepoint interface and features makes keeping documentation current a challenge
- 18. Costs • Without AD sync • $2/month/user with Office Client (Office Pro non-profit, 5 devices) • Free for web-only (E1 non-profit) • $3.50/month/user with AD sync (E3 non-profit, includes Office ) • Cost to upgrade machines to be Office 2013 ready • memory/disk upgrades • machine replacement These numbers change frequently.
- 19. Lessons Learned • Wide range in staff's ability to adapt to change • Piloting one team before wider rollout was crucial to success • Keep it simple • Microsoft support was responsive to issues • Expect some desktop upgrades. Older desktops could not handle load of updated software. Many user issues were desktop configuration issues. • Folder level sync is sorely missing . Staff need to be trained in using Explorer view which can be cumbersome. • Reinforce with staff the benefits of access from anywhere, as some day-to-day tasks are going to take more steps and be slower than using fileserver. • 3rd party tools to identify long directories and naming issues helped, but weren't perfect. Bulk upload of documents was cumbersome and difficult to restart. Expect rates of about 4GB/hour. Could take a few weeks to upload a TB. Need to perform in waves. Bulk modifications to folder structure are painful once files are in SharePoint • Can't be in a hurry. Takes time to get everyone on board.