[thelist] Recommendations for Intranet Applications

Ken Schaefer ken at adOpenStatic.com
Wed Jul 14 05:23:15 CDT 2004


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "Burhan Khalid" <thelist at meidomus.com>
Subject: Re: [thelist] Recommendations for Intranet Applications


: > (I suppose the question revolves around: do you already have systems
: > for these functions that you want to integrate into some kind of
: > intranet "portal", or do you need to build/implement this stuff from
: > scratch?)
:
: Right now we are using a mixed bag. One application from
: vendor x for support tickets, another application for webmail
: access, etc.  I would think that if all this functionality was
: built-in to a portal (either prebuilt or written as components
: inhouse), it would provide for tighter integration.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, what I think you want is some kind of portal - when you mention
Outlook's "Home page" below, that tends to strengthen my belief. Something
that can pull data from disparate systems to present a summary to the user.
The portal may also include some kind of application logic that will allow
the user to manipulate the legacy system from within the portal (so they
don't need to go into the other system to perform common/simple tasks).
Additionally, you may add new functionality that doesn't already exist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: > Also, you mentioned a Windows client network: do you use MS Office for
: > your document creation or something else? Outlook for messaging?
:
: Yes, we have Office 2003 for all document tasks, and we use Outlook for
: office email.
:
: In the end, the hope is to create a dasboard that the employee can login
: to from either office location (and also remote locations -- we have a
: few sales guys that go around carrying laptops), and they are instantly
: upto date on all happenings in the company. They can see their email,
: their tasks, any support tickets assigned to them, etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think you really want to take a look at Sharepoint if you have an existing
investment in Office. There are two main product lines:
Windows Sharepoint Services (free download)
    -and-
Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 (separate product you need to pay for)

Office 2003 already have stuff built into it so that users can interact with
Sharepoint from within Office itself (if you open the task panes in any
Office 2003 app, you'll see the "Shared Workspace" tab. This integrates into
a Sharepoint server, and lets the user create/manage a shared document
workspace from within Office apps).

Additionally, Sharepoint has a web interface, so remote users can get the
same information. The Sharepoint website interface is a collection of "web
parts". There are a set of prebundled "web parts", plus you can buy you own,
download some for free, or simply write your own using .NET.

If you run Live Communications Server (LCS), then you also get corporate
instant messaging/presence info that ties into Outlook, Office and
Sharepoint. It's quite a neat package. Since you're not using Exchange or
Notes for mail, you'd probably need to get hold of some kind of POP3 (or
IMAP) web part that you could place onto your Sharepoint site. User would be
able to see their mail that way.

For your other systems, if they have some kind of API, then you could use
.NET to write your own web parts to get at the information they hold.

The only reason I'm gushing about this is that I used to think Sharepoint
was a piece of cr*p (in its earlier incarnations), but I've done a recent
test deployment, and it's a lot better now if you need the types of things
that it provides. I can send you some screenshots if you want.

Cheers
Ken

:
: Now that I think about it, a good example of what I would like would be
: the Outlook "home" page. The one that shows you your pending tasks,
: calendar items, mail summary, etc.  Something like that, but web based,
: to which we can add other components (like billing, accounts, hr,
: tickets, news, content from our partners, etc.)
:
: The main issue here is that right now, if an employee wants to check the
: support system, they have to login to tickets.* (or open up the desktop
: client for the system). If they want to check their email, they have to
: open up Outlook (or login to webmail.*) ... if they want to check on
: client accounts, they have to login to billing.* ... and we don't have a
: hr/salary system. We want to pull all these things together into one
: application/platform. So in the end, the employee logs into staff.* and
: they have access to everything.
:
: The reason we are looking into this now, is because we are planning a
: re-write of our billing system, so this is an ideal time to integrate
: other components and get it done correctly.
:
: I thank you all for your time.



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