For most growing businesses, collaboration and efficiency become increasingly complex and time-consuming. For many, just keeping all those plates spinning smoothly on their poles becomes a goal in itself. The big picture becomes blurred details. Simplifying processes and enhancing collaboration is the best way to stay focused, saving time and money in the process. The big question is: How is it done?
Many invest in SharePoint®, but find, usually somewhere down the line, that it doesn’t have solutions for every issue. Bamboo Solutions enters the picture here. So let’s raise three common issues and see how components of just one specific solution can help you take control of your SharePoint environment.
Product: Administration Toolkit
1. Problem: An increasing number of users and multiple groups are now being managed, with IT involvement being unavoidable and burdensome. I need to delegate, but that raises many issues, including security and organization.
Solution: User Manager for Sites allows you to delegate user management capabilities to specific users, allowing them to view users, change passwords, create and manage users and groups, and edit AD profiles, all within a predefined Organization Unit (OU). And it does this using a simple, centralized user interface. It also features multiple default views, allowing managers to handle large numbers of users easily.
In other words, you decide who is given authority to modify user information and which OU they have that authority over. If you don’t wish an account to be accessible to the product, you can exclude it. You oversee every manager and OU. Delegation is successful.
2. Problem: SharePoint’s dynamic site creation capability is great in theory, but increasingly problematic in practice. Administrators are now reluctant to put it into the hands of end-users because there are too many hurdles to jump – entering a site name, a description, a URL path to the new site; selecting a template; identifying which users should have access, and, crucially, remembering to add the new site to a links list. I have to agree with their concerns.
Solution: Site Creation Plus allows administrators to standardize URLs and user group naming while restricting the site templates available to users. Best practices are therefore protected. Users have far fewer hurdles to jump and new sites are added to a links list automatically. Back to work, then.
3. Problem: I take security seriously and, as such, have date limits on all passwords. Unfortunately, this creates one of those nagging issues that amount to a serious waste of time, with overhead costs I don’t need. I’m constantly dealing with end-users who are experiencing login problems, due to their passwords being past their expiry dates. I don’t want to have to choose between security and continuity.
Solution: Password Expiration web part pre-warns users that their password will expire. You choose the grace period and how the warning is given: email and/or web part. You can also add the Bamboo Password Change web part to give users a direct link to the password change page. Password Expiration also gives the option of creating account exceptions the web part will ignore. Another valuable asset is the Password Reset web part, allowing users who’ve forgotten passwords to execute a reset simply and securely while cutting out the need for IT admin assistance. Not surprisingly, Password Expiration, Password Change, and Password Reset web parts are part of a bigger story called Password Management Toolkit.
Remember that the three problems and solutions highlighted here are only part of the Administration Toolkit solution. Select the link provided to see the full offering. Bamboo® offers a full range of services and solutions appropriate to the sheer size and scope of both SharePoint itself and your own plans for efficiency and growth – all from a single, trusted source. That’s because your SharePoint experience is our business.
