Nicky Bleiel is a senior information developer at ComponentOne with over 17 years of experience in technical communication. She is also a director of the Society for Technical Communication. In this presentation, Bleiel discusses using SharePoint for content management and its integration with Doc-To-Help. She addresses common myths about SharePoint, highlighting how its document management features provide a basic but practical content management system without large investments. Bleiel also outlines SharePoint's translation management capabilities and how Doc-To-Help can create an end-to-end authoring and publishing solution when integrated with SharePoint.

1. Nicky Bleiel
Senior Information Developer
ComponentOne

2. Biography — Nicky Bleiel
• 17 + years of experience as a technical communicator.
• Director, Society for Technical Communication
• Written and designed documentation for software products in the
documentation, media, industrial automation, simulation, and
pharmaceutical industries.
• Speaker at STC, WritersUA, tcworld, LavaCon, and DocTrain on a
variety of topics, including: embedded help, tools and technologies,
user assistance design, single sourcing, wikis, Web 2.0, and
convergence technical communication.
• Articles published in STC Intercom, tcworld magazine, TechCom
Manager, WritersUA website, and the Content Wrangler.

3. What We Will Cover
• Why Use SharePoint?
• Myths and Legends
• SharePoint’s Document and Translation
Management Features
• How Doc-To-Help and SharePoint Work
together

4. Why the “Realistic?”
• Content management initiatives can be a huge
investment of time, money, and resources.
Huge investment = Huge risk
• This is a practical way to implement a content
management process without a big
investment.

6. “SharePoint is hard to implement and our IT
staff would never install it.”
• SharePoint is already installed on the majority of
organizations’ networks. The network admin just didn’t tell
you.
• If you don’t have it, SharePoint is easy to install. It starts by
installing all the prerequisites and configuring the server for
you and then installs the application itself. It will even
automatically install and connect to SQL Server Express.
Handy blog post:
Curious About SharePoint? It is Easy to Install
http://helpcentral.componentone.com/CS/help_authoring_2/b/d
2h_team_blog/archive/2011/03/17/curious-about-sharepoint-
it-is-easy-to-install.aspx

7. “SharePoint is too expensive.”
• SharePoint is free!
– SharePoint has paid versions, but SharePoint Foundation 2010 is free (as
is its predecessor, Windows SharePoint Server 3.0).

8. “It would take me too long to learn to use
SharePoint.”
• SharePoint 2010 uses intuitive Silverlight® driven menus that
makes features more discoverable.
• Since SharePoint is so popular, self-help support information is
available. You can find training, tutorials, blogs, forums, and
more.

9. Let’s examine the concepts related to
content management

10. SharePoint 2010
Content
Management
Search
Business
Intelligence
Streamline
Processes
Portals
Collaboration
A platform for:
• Teamwork
• Access
• Workflow automation
• History
• Source control

11. Content Management in SharePoint
Regulatory compliance/ Records
management
Enterprise accessibility and search
Web Content Management (WCM) Document Management
Enterprise Content
Management (ECM)

12. “But you said Content Management”
• SharePoint stores everything in Document
Libraries.
• Documents can be virtually any file.
• Content is stored in files.
• Document management = Content
Management for our purposes.
• You get most content management principles.

13. Document Library: The Foundation
• Interface to open, view, and edit documents
• Metadata that describes each document
• Templates to create new documents
• Permissions to control access

14. Source/Version Control
• Convenient toolbar helps manage documents:
– Require that documents be checked out before editing
– Version history
– Version comparisons
– Approval process

15. Workflows
• “In-the-Box” workflows automate processes:
– Work tracking
– Review/Approval
– Sign-off
– Translation Management
• Create your own:
– SharePoint Designer
– Visio
– Visual Studio
Active Complete
Ready for
Review

16. Translation Management! Really?
• Automate/track translation processes with a special
Translation Management Library:
– Automatically create copies for each language
– Assign translation tasks to translators
– Compare versions

17. SharePoint’s base document
management features

18. Pros and Cons
• Pros:
– Basic content management with existing/standard tools.
– SMEs, Marketing, etc. can contribute using familiar tools
rather than learning a new application.
• Cons:
– Not component content management. Reuse is limited to
the document/file level

19. Is it For You?
SharePoint
Scenario
Full CMS
Scenario

20. To Summarize ...
• SharePoint is everywhere and sometimes it’s free.
• Implementing SharePoint for content management is
virtually risk-free.
• SharePoint’s document management features are
useful even if you work alone.
• SharePoint’s Translation Management features are
easy-to-use and powerful.
• Doc-To-Help’s integration with SharePoint creates an
end-to-end authoring, management, and publishing
solution.

21. Questions?
Contact information:
Nicky Bleiel
ComponentOne
Pittsburgh, PA
nickyb@doctohelp.com
www.doctohelp.com
Blog “Technical Communication Camp”
blogs.componentone.com/CS/blogs/techcamp/default.aspx
Twitter: nickybleiel
Free
Doc-To-Help
download
@
www.DocToHelp.com