Confessions of a SharePoint Skeptic (A Network Administrator’s SharePoint Awakening)

By Robert Schley

I worked as a Network Administrator for many years.  I joined the Marines straight out of high school as a “small computer systems specialist" and  worked for eight years setting up and maintaining many diverse systems, ranging from straight Cisco networking to Windows Enterprise support to WAN/LAN transmission mediums.  I took for granted the amount of technology that I was being exposed to over my enlistments.  Once I left the military, I realized I needed to choose a specific area of expertise rather than be on call for general IT support.  So, for the next four years, I worked for four years as a Department of Defense contractor teaching Information Technology to Marines.

SPGA 2013: A Site Vending Machine

Recently we announced the release of our newest software add-on: 
Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2013 (SPGA 2013).

The beauty of SPGA 2013 is that it enables every site to be provisioned just the way you want it – every single time. It’s a site vending machine that generates on demand, uniformly and automatically.

Why is this so important?

SharePoint User Migration Training

These 2-day courses will get you up to speed on the new version in a hurry!

As an information worker who works with SharePoint every day in your job, you feel very comfortable with SharePoint and know exactly how to do what you need to do.

But now your company is migrating to a newer version of SharePoint, and you’ve heard that it’s very different.  There are even new features and capabilities you may be able to leverage to make your job easier.

But which course would be the best one for you to learn all about the changes and improvements?  The answer to that question depends on which version of SharePoint you HAVE been using, and which version you WILL be using.

The Microsoft Self-Service BI Toolset: A Quick and Efficient Way to Mine Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence can help you turn mountains of data into manageable, meaningful information, which can give your business decision-makers the insights they need to make better-informed decisions.

Having the right BI right tool is the key to making this process quick and efficient.

Without the right tools, it can take months for highly specialized IT professionals to gather, assimilate and share Business Intelligence data. With the right tools, that process can be done in mere days by business professionals.

A Whole New Way to Learn SharePoint 2010

We are very excited to introduce a new training alternative for those needing SharePoint 2010 training. And it’s so affordable, you could have your WHOLE ORGANIZATION trained on SharePoint, right at their desks.

I’m talking about our new Self-Paced Online SharePoint Training. We’ve taken our most basic course, Introduction to SharePoint 2010 – Using SharePoint Foundation 2010, and made it available in an online eLearning format that you can go through at your own pace.

The Self-Paced Online option is a lot like auditing a college course: you will see SharePoint’s features explained and demonstrated by a skilled instructor in a recorded presentation, but you will not have the printed course manual, the hands-on lab experience, or the assistance of a live instructor. Our goal is that at the end of the course, you will have a practical understanding of the basic features of SharePoint 2010.

Just $399

Microsoft Self-Service Business Intelligence (BI) Explained (and taught!)

by Jeff Cate

Last fall, my employees came to me and complained that they could not get the answers to their business questions from our data.  We have TONS of data.  We are a small company, but are highly automated and have data in ERP, CRM, Marketing Automation, Google Analytics, various Cloud services, Excel spreadsheets, etc.

Of course, all of our business systems have some degree of built-in tools for reporting and data analysis.  But, even so, there are still problems such as:

Live Online SharePoint Training – A New Class Attendance Option

by Randy Moody

Need SharePoint training, but can’t travel?  No problem!

Each week we hear from students across the country who would like to attend one of our SharePoint training classes, and have money in the training budget, but are not able to travel.

Maybe that’s your situation too. If it is, then I have some great news!

SharePoint Solutions is now offering a Live Online Remote Attendance option for our classroom-based classes.

New SharePoint 2010 Training Course: Designing SharePoint Document Management and Records Management Systems in SharePoint 2010

by Randy Moody

For many companies, SharePoint Document Management really amounts to little more than eliminating file shares and storing documents in SharePoint document libraries.  But that is only the beginning of what SharePoint 2010 is capable of when it comes to managing your organization’s documents and records.


SharePoint 2010 allows you to actually design and create Document Management systems.

Not Like Everybody Else

by Randy Moody

I’m not like everybody else.

Take restaurants for example. When I go into a restaurant, I want to sit at a table, not in a booth.   Recent studies show that everybody except me wants a booth. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that you can’t push booths together to make one REALLY BIG booth (“Eisenstein, party of 16.”), tables might disappear from restaurants altogether!

Microsoft’s Hosted Solutions Bring Big Company IT to Small Business

by Robert Schley 

At the SharePoint Conference 2012, I was blown away by the ideas that Microsoft is putting out. In the past I've seen them as wanting to slowly creep into controlling every aspect of what IT folks want to do. It could just be that I'm in a different place now and not as directly involved with IT platform work. I think that may only be part of it, though. I am farther outside of the server farm than I have ever been, but I see the IT infrastructure more from a business perspective now. It's not, "Wow, that's awesome. I want it." I now see IT as, "What can it do for me and is it worth the money I put into it?"