SharePoint 2010 for Legal Services

Information Management Goals

• Better findability• Less reinventing the wheel• Better information sharing• Flexible searching and browsing

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Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

SharePoint OverviewAdvocate Goal How SharePoint Helps

Find things easily • Good, filterable results• Universal search (includes network

drives, SharePoint, and Outlook)• Managed metadata to avoid noise

Avoid reinventing the wheel whenever possible

• Content types = templates• Granular management of boilerplate

snippets• Easily point others to your own most

frequently-requested docsShare information with little effort • Colligo allows upload to SharePoint

from within Outlook• Existing network drives sync with

SharePoint document libraries• Profiles / social networking

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Managed Metadata

Faceted browsing

Tagging suggestions

• Get more powerful navigation (left)

• Prevent clutter/noise in metadata by using approved terms (right)

• …but note: you can still provide a place to accept user-generated tags for later inclusion in the taxonomy

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Search Result Filters

SharePoint automatically provides filters, which can be customized if needed.

Early tests on the search results seem good. We’ll see what happens at scale.

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Search Everywhere at Once

Exchange Public

Folders

Network Drives

SharePoint Document Libraries

One search

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Content Types

• As granular or as general as you choose

• Both unique attributes and common ones

• Associate each content type with a specific Word template, then fill in data automatically for each case using Business Connectivity Services and your Case Management System*

*Long-term goal!! Additional assembly required

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Granular Management of Boilerplate

• Always pasting that one RLTA citation into every letter? Store and manage it in a central location

• Quickly share boilerplate snippets with others

• Use these snippets from within your Word document without switching to SharePoint

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Share Your Commonly-Requested Docs

• Are you famous for your frequently-updated and indespensible Housing brief? Give it a special home.

• Others can find it without asking, with assurance that it is the latest version

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Colligo

• Lawyers love Outlook, so make it easy to publish information to SharePoint from there

• There will be additional costs for this, though

http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/colligo-contributor-add-in-for-outlook/

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Easy Network Drive Integration

Have the benefit of SharePoint searching and browsing without giving up the file structure experience people are used to (at least at first)

Identical

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Better Information Sharing: Profile

• Ask Me About lets people know what kinds of cases you are knowledgeable about

• Recent Activities shows people your recently-shared docs

• Highly customizable; don’t get carried away

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Cloud vs. LocalSharePoint Online in Office 365 (Cloud) SharePoint Server 2010 (Local)

Currently, no possibility of sharing data with your case management software*

Can connect with your CMS through Business Connectivity Services

Can’t bring case data into Word and other Office products*

Can import case data into Word

Fewer resources required Need at least 1 local server

Accessible equally from all offices Branch offices must use VPN

Limited bells and whistles related to search

Full search: tunable relevance, deep refinement, federated results, “Did You Mean?”, query suggestions, related queries

In most other important respects they are the same

*As of Nov 2011, Microsoft began adding this functionality to the online version. Currently only supports (surprise) Microsoft Azure external systems

Full feature-by-feature comparison on page 35 of the official SharePoint Online Services Description at http://bit.ly/rQFUcy

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Challenges

• It’s not intuitive. Period. Full stop.– Building a SharePoint site means learning Microsoft-ese

vocab words: sites, libraries, columns, farms, etc– Learning curve is fairly steep

• No common template yet exists for legal services orgs

• Choice can be crippling– You can do almost anything you can think of, therefor

you have to work extra hard to define goals and constraints

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion

Thanks!

• Questions?

Intro | Findability | Reuse | Sharing | Cloud v Local | Challenges | Conclusion