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Monday, July 13, 2015

Do you think your workplace will upgrade and to what version of SharePoint? (What to Expect)



Abstract. The following are a compilation of comments from librarians and other business professionals on their experiences of upgrading SharePoint to another version.  These comments are generalized individual personal views and were disseminated in a non-conclusive Asynchronous Conference.  The comments are based on the information submitted through “Your Experiences with Microsoft SharePoint” questions on the Computer Savviness blog (http://computersavviness.blogspot.com/2015/06/your-experiences-with-microsoft.html).

1 Introduction


Librarians and other business professionals made comments on their upgrading SharePoint to another version experiences.  Their experiences were asked for through the Computer Savviness blog.  The following are their business sectors and their experiences with Microsoft SharePoint.  

2 Version of Microsoft SharePoint

                       
                                                           
Association libraries were either running SharePoint 2007 or 2013.     Educational Institutional libraries were running SharePoint 2013 and Office 365.  Law Firms, who had commented, tended to have the SharePoint 2003.

Government Agencies were found to be also using SharePoint 2013 with Office 365 on the cloud.   Corporate libraries were using SharePoint 2010.

3 Upgrading Microsoft SharePoint


 

Law Firm libraries were found to have SharePoint 2003 due to their IT departments not having the time and resources to upgrade.  The firm would have to determine if there was enough of a need to direct the IT department to prioritize this project.  A few of the Law Firm libraries, who commented on their experiences,  pointed out that there was not a strong need to upgrade to the latest SharePoint since their IT departments had already developed an extensive Intranet.  They were all satisfied with what they had working for them.   Learning how to use a new version would be quite different (nothing would be already there) so they would have to design all of the web parts needed to keep the library flowing smoothly with the firm. They all acknowledged that their firms seemed to have not realized the benefits of providing formal training for any upgrades to be made in the future.   
                        
Government Agencies commented that they were using SharePoint 2013.  They migrated all legacy SharePoint sites to SharePoint 2013 with Office 365 in the cloud. If there are any new versions, it will automatically update it.    
              
Association libraries lacked full implementation so key elements of document management and workflows were missing in the system.      
     
Corporate libraries commented that they were using SharePoint 2010.  They were planning to move to Office 365 sometime in the coming year (2016).

                                     

4 Thoughts

As with the Law Firms with libraries, if the intranet was working well with SharePoint, upgrading did not seem to be a necessity.  Government Agency librarians that had commented were automatically being upgraded so there was not an apparent debate about upgrading.

Association librarians, who had commented on upgrades to their SharePoint, did not know what thee version they were using for SharePoint.  They also were unware if there would be any upgrades.  The IT department was in charge of the upgrades so they did not think that information should have been shared with the Association librarians.