April 15, 2004
Please feel free to invite some of your colleagues from your or another city/county if you think it would benefit them to be a part of our group.
Location: City of Overland Park
Attendance
City of Gardner, KS: .............. Susan Schultz.
City of Gladstone, MO: .......... Kelli Behr and Kreg Cox.
City of Kansas City, MO: ....... Rich Lovett.
City of Mission, KS: .............. Julie Wiltman.
City of Overland Park, KS: ..... Chris Audano, Marvin Sommerfeld, Kate Hays,
and Susan Waters.
City of Shawnee, KS: ............ Roman Madrigal and Sonya Fendorf.
Johnson County, KS: ............ Karen Lynne Sorensen.
Wyandotte County, KS: ......... Angela Her.
Online collaborative environments! They used to take days, months, even years to create. No longer! Wade T. Powell, a Senior Microsoft Technology Specialist for State and Local Government, created an intranet-like portal for team projects with incredible ease. "No coding!" Jane A. Thompson, our regional Microsoft Account Executive, arranged the presentation and accompanied him.
Their presentation, "SharePoint Solutions," began with a slide show listing today's information challenges which lead to a demo of two products integrated closely together, Windows Sharepoint Services and Sharepoint Portal Server (2003, not 2000!).
The challenge? Everyone works with documents, but not everyone can structure how they work with their colleagues on these documents. The process from document creation through intranet publishing is usually a string of time-consuming, disjointed processes.
With SharePoint Portal Server, the user has the ability to quickly deploy an out-of-the-box portal solution ("No coding!"). It facilitates finding, creating, and sharing all of your mission-critical data. The Web-based interface is based on your organization’s needs.
SharePoint Solutions is the beginning of "Longhorn," Microsoft's plan for the next generation of SQL file sharing, or storage in virtual places.
Nearly all of the document management items demonstrated is accomplished with fill-out-the-blanks, check-the-appropriate-boxes, wizard-like forms...flexible and doable by the average user. Features demonstrated included the following:
- Search Engine: Retrieve text using state of the art probabilistic ranking plus auto-categorization of crawled content.
- Data Access and Indexing: Crawl and search file, folders and Web servers.
- Subscriptions: Subscribe to a document, folder, category, or search query so you are notified when changes are made, in the portal or by e-mail.
- Categories: Classify content under a set of customer-defined categories. This allows easy navigation to information.
- Indexing: Support manual and scheduled crawls, as well as adaptive and incremental crawling, to ensure that your search results contain the most recent information.
- Check-in and Check-out: Enables optional enhanced Web folders so that documents can be reserved by individual users for updating.
- Document Versioning: Document changes, including metadata such as keywords, are tracked and assigned different version numbers.
- Security: Built on Microsoft Windows security, only users with appropriate access can see a given document.
- Lifecycle Management: Create private drafts, review and revise, then publish, with optional approval routing.
Plus: document libraries, picture libraries, discussion boards, modifiable templates, permission options, surveys, "bubble-up" content levels, remote access (no ftp), a SQL alternative - MSDE (that’s, MS “Design Engine” or “Desktop Edition”), and more, lots more.
To summarize, the Sharepoint Solutions is a flexible portal system with all the capabilities of an intranet (without the coding). These solutions let you find, share, and publish information easily, collaboratively. However, for long term storage of information which requires backups, the Sharepoint Solutions system needs to be balanced with a more traditional server. Also, for those interested in a more detailed tracking and history of transactions, Microsoft's Content Management system deserves attention. Two cities in Kansas, Wichita and Lenexa, as well as Jackson County, are some of the latest local government newcomers making a commitment to these solutions.
Special thanks to Wade for visiting us from Chicago (wadep@microsoft.com). For your own demonstration (using your organization's content as an example!) or just an overview of the costs involved, contact Jane A. Thompson. She can offer a solution that: 1) includes a vendor you are accustomed to working with and, 2) helps you reap additional government discounts. Her contact information is:
Jane A. Thompson, State & Local Government Account Executive
US-SLG Central District
janethom@microsoft.com
Microsoft Corporation
10801 Mastin Blvd. Suite 620
Overland Park, KS 66210
http://www.microsoft.com/governement
Cell/Pager: 913-481-2213
Tel: 913-323-1209
Fax: 952-896-0120
Extra information worth noting:
For Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 highlights, consider visiting:
http://office.microsoft.com/home/office.aspx?assetid=FX010909721033
To order Product Evaluation Kits, visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/trial/default.mspx
Trial kits are available worldwide for free, but shipping costs are $7.95 US
for
the first kit and $4.95 US for each additional one.
2004 Government Webmasters Conference Update
September 23-24, 2004, “Conference 2004”
Susan Waters provided a quick update. Twenty three people have registered, so
far.
There’s something for everyone, from beginners to the advanced.
The fee is $125 if it is submitted by August 2; $150 by August 2-10. Meals included. There’s no profit to keep costs down. Room rates are $88 until “the block is gone.” All info will be posted on the MAGWeb site as the planning progresses.
The revised list of possible topics, include:
- Accessibility with screen reading software demonstrated.
- Cascading Style Sheets.
- Content Management.
- Digital photography and editing.
- Free and cheap resources.
- Web tours including Web cams.
- Writing for the Web.
Plus:
- Breakout sessions (shorter than last year’s) geared towards small and
large governments, technical and non-technical Web production personnel.
- Dreamweaver and FrontPage.
- Dynamic Web pages (ASP, CGI, etc.).
- Open sessions for discussion.
We need more vendors! Both local and national representation is preferable. Please continue to send your suggestions to Chris Audano.
MAGWEB Website RedesignRoman Madrigal and Rich Lovett have added some ColdFusion interactivity!
Upcoming Meeting Topics
PhotoShop! Tips and Techniques!
Next Meeting
May 20, 2004. MARC, Kansas City, MO.
Meeting minutes: Karen Lynne Sorensen, Johnson County Wastewater.