Making SharePoint 2010 Collaboration Rock by Increasing Findability

1. SPC245 Making SharePoint 2010 Collaboration Rock by Increasing Findability Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

2. Meet Scott Jamison • Chief Architect at Jornata (booth 650) • SharePoint partner with Gold Competency in Portals & Collab • Formerly a Director at Microsoft • SharePoint MVP • Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint • Author: • Essential SharePoint 2007 • Essential SharePoint 2010 • Five whitepapers on SharePoint 2010 • Blog: www.scottjamison.com • Twitter:@sjam

3. In This Session, We Will: • Show Ways that Out-of-Box SharePoint collaboration can be “Less Than Ideal” • Content Contribution • Browsing • Views • Navigation • Folders • Searching • Explain why it’s not obvious as to how to make things easier to find • Review five key ways to make “Findability” better (and SharePoint easier for users!)

4. Assumptions • You know SharePoint to some extent (this isn’t a 100-level) • But we don’t get too deep in the weeds (it’s a 200-level) • You’ve either got the no-governance model (“wild west”) • Porridge is too cold • Or a complex model (“users just don’t understand it”) • Porridge is too hot • You just want to make Findability better! • Porridge is just right

5. Typical Ways to Set Up SharePoint for Collaboration Option 1: Like a file share (folders and default views) • Folders – lots of clicking, single dimension for viewing • No tags – no navigation, no search Great for contributors, a nightmare for consumers Option 2: Metadata instead of folders • Unfamiliar to users • Forces users to add metadata (they’re lazy and will pick the 1st choice) • No good drag & drop & tag Great for consumers, a nightmare for contributors

6. Out-of-the-Box Team Site Experience demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

7. YOU’VE GOT A GLORIFIED FILE SHARE (IT’S JUST SLOWER AND MORE EXPENSIVE)

8. Team Sites + SharePoint Defaults =  • Not Ideal using Out-of-the-Box Defaults • Site/Library Structure Dictates: • Navigation (poor) • Views • Number of Clicks (too many) • Same Poor Experience for Content Contributors and Consumers

9. No Worries… SEARCH WILL FIX THE PROBLEM! ?

10. Poor Search Results (It’s only partly SharePoint’s fault) demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

11. Team Sites + SharePoint Defaults + Search =  • Domino effect: • Poor Team Site Content Management leads to Poor Search Results • SharePoint searches full text, filename, and other metadata properties • IMPORTANT: Title is used for searching *and* is displayed in results • Copying an existing document leads to really wrong titles

12. So How Did We Do?The Typical Way (aka the “Old Way”) Contributor Experience: POOR Browsability: LOW Findabilty (via Search): LOW

13. How Do We Fix This?

14. STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD: PART 1 Treat your content contributors differently than your content consumers

15. STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD: PART 2 Create Columns, Not Folders* *Only Then Are You Allowed to Create Folders for Contribution Purposes (Scott said it was okay)

16. Better Collaboration and Findability: The Playbook • Step 1: Fix Contribution • Folders and default properties • Different views (UX) for contributors and consumers • Step 2: Fix Consumption #1 (Browsing and Navigation) • Different views (UX) for contributors and consumers • Configure navigation • Step 3: Fix Consumption #2 (Search) • Encourage better Titles • Definitions, best bets • Step 4: Align Taxonomy • Seven places to configure things (you don’t have to do them all) • Step 5: Integrate Social • Enable social tagging promotion and tag feeds

17. Better Collaboration and Findability: The Playbook • Step 1: Fix Contribution • Use the best of folders and columns • Different views for contributors and consumers • Contributors: folders with default metadata& permissions • Consumers: views without folders • Use Managed Metadata (Term Sets) • Provides type-ahead and centrally managed terms

18. Creating A Better Site Experience:Contribution demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

19. Better Collaboration and Findability: The Playbook • Step 2: Fix Browsing and Navigation • Configure your menus • Different views for contributors and consumers • Contributors: folders with default metadata • Consumers: views without folders • Use Managed Metadata • Enables metadata-based navigation and filtering

20. Creating A Better Site Experience:Navigation demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

21. Better Collaboration and Findability: The Playbook • Step 3: Fix Search • Educate users on the Title property and how it’s used • Educate users on how relevance works • Configure facets • Configure keywords, best bets

22. First: my $.02 • SharePoint search can be *really* good • SharePoint search doesn’t work well at all • To clarify: SharePoint Search will work at about 20% satisfaction with the typical “Turn it on” approach • But…you can get close to 100% • You will need to do an additional 4 steps! • Each gives you another 20% of value

23. Improving Search Results in 4 Easy Steps • Improve search engine relevancy • Enhance with stuff outside the engine • Review search reports and end-user feedback • Improve the overall experience

24. Improving Search Results in 4 Easy Steps • Improve search engine relevancy • Enhance with stuff outside the engine • Review search reports and end-user feedback • Improve the overall experience

25. Improving Search Results in 4 Easy Steps • Improve search engine relevancy • Name things well • Don’t bury relevant content • Use metadata (make sure Title is correct!) • Make sure people are tagged, too

26. Name Things Well • The name of your file matters • So does the URL • Which means document library names and folder names • For example: • http://marketing/boston/Q2-2011-sales.docx is better than • http://mktg/bosq211sls.docx

27. Don’t Bury Highly Relevant Content Fewer slashes in a URL = higher relevancy Therefore: http://sharepoint/thatfile.docx is more relevant than http://sharepoint/hr/subsite/folder2/thatfile.docx

28. Get Things Tagged • Better tagging will give you more things to search on • SharePoint searches full text, filename, and other metadata properties • Title is used for searching *and* is displayed in results • Copying an existing document leads to really, really wrong titles

29. Search Results & Titles: What is going on? • Clean up your titles • The Title property is important • And it’s often wrong • SharePoint will use title property for searching and weights it heavily • But wait…there’s more! Since Title is often either wrong or blank, SharePoint sometimes attempts to ‘fix’ this • Actually a *feature* of SharePoint 2010! • It’s called “Optimistic Title Override”

30. Search Results & Titles: What is going on? • Optimistic Title Override takes the first sentence of the document instead of the actual title property • Don’t like it? Turn it off: • In registry, navigate to the key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\14.0\Search\Global\Gathering Manager] • Change the hexadecimal value for EnableOptimisticTitleOverride to 0 (zero) on the right hand side. [Also one for EnableLastModifiedOverride] • Restart SharePoint Search service by typing the following commands in command prompt.net stop osearch14net start osearch14 • Perform a full crawl

31. Make Sure People are Tagged • Get your user profiles in order • Take the time to define properties that will be used, along with governance and usage policies • Things like: • About me • Title • Expertise • Interests • Projects

32. Improving Search Results in 4 Easy Steps • Improve search engine relevancy • Enhance with stuff outside the engine • Review search reports and end-user feedback • Improve the overall experience

33. Improving Search Results in 4 Easy Steps • Enhance with stuff outside the engine • Define keywords • Define 1-2 best bets per keyword • Provide a definition for keywords and acronyms

34. Define Keywords • Manually configure the top items that users will search on…things like: • Product Names • Industry Terms • Office Locations • Acronyms • Provide synonyms (“Microsoft”, “MSFT”)

35. Add Best Bets • Create 1-2 best bets for *each* keyword • For example, if someone types in: • Product Names • Provide a link to the publishing page for that product • Provide a link to the external product catalog • Provide a link to the product manager (user profile) • Office Locations • Provide a link to directions or office manager • Common Terms • Provide a link directly to the lunch menu or handbook

36. Use Definitions • Definitions are a great way to: • Clarify what an acronym means • Clarify what an industry term means • Provide actual data in the search result itself

37. Improving Search in 4 Easy Steps • Improve search engine relevancy • Enhance with stuff outside the engine • Review search reports and end-user feedback • Improve the overall experience

38. Improving Search in 4 Easy Steps • Review search reports and end-user feedback • Review the search reports on a regular basis • Put a survey link on the search results page • Based on feedback, go see steps 1 & 2

39. Review the Search Reports • There are great search reports in SharePoint 2010 • Make it part of your governance plan to review them and act upon them • Especially: • Queries with no results • Queries with no best bets

40. Put a Survey on the Results Page • The #1 way to improve SharePoint? • Ask users what is working and what isn’t. • Find out what people are searching on and what they expected to find • And fix it!

41. Improving Search in 4 Easy Steps • Improve search engine relevancy • Enhance with stuff outside the engine • Review search reports and end-user feedback • Improve the overall experience

42. Improving Search in 4 Easy Steps • Improve the overall experience • Configure search facets • Configure Scopes and Tabs • Make search a one-stop-shop with federation • Enable search from anywhere • Train users

43. Configure Search Facets • Change the properties that users can filter with • Step 1: Promote your crawled property to a managed one • Step 2: Change the XML to make sure the facets work

44. Configure Scopes and Tabs • Scopes enable you to segment content into easier-to-consume chunks • Examples: file types, locations, departments • Tabs let you create great UX for displaying scoped content

45. Making Search Results Better • The #1 Thing you can do? • GET THE TITLE PROPERTY CORRECTED! • It’s pretty simple: • Explain this to users. Yes – train them! • By default, show the Title property in the default view • Tie the Title property to an actual field in the document

46. Creating A Better Site Experience:Search demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

47. Better Collaboration and Findability: The Playbook • Step 4: Make Sure Taxonomy-Related Items Align • SharePoint Gives You SEVEN Places to Configure Things! • Site Columns • Term Store (Lookup Values) • Folders (default values) • Search: Managed Properties • Search: Keywords (Definitions and Best Bets) • Global Navigation • Local Navigation: Use Metadata (Library) Navigation

48. Creating A Better Site Experience:Taxonomy Alignment demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata

49. Better Collaboration and Findability: The Playbook • Step 5: Integrate Social • Promote authoritative tags to social ones • Can Track Status In: • Tag Clouds • Status feeds

50. Creating A Better Site Experience:Integrating Social demo Scott Jamison Chief Architect Jornata