Saving PDFs to SharePoint direct from Adobe Reader

It is not that easy to save a PDF to Microsoft SharePoint using out-of-the-box Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.  And yet PDFs are important to a lot of organizations and more and more organizations are looking to use SharePoint as their document management platform.  There needs to be a better way, which is just what MacroView have provided with their new WISDOM PDF SharePoint Save plug-in for Adobe.

Installing WISDOM PDF SharePoint Save adds a ‘Save to SharePoint’ item to the File menu of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat.  It also adds a custom ‘Save to SharePoint’ button to the Adobe Reader toolbar, which is convenient when you have opened a PDF from a website, and so Adobe Reader is running inside your web browser.

When you click ’Save to SharePoint’ you get an intuitive tree-view display of your SharePoint environment, so that you can easily choose the document library where you want to save the PDF.  The tree-view respects SharePoint security, so you only see those sites and document libraries for which you have at least Contributor permission. The tree-view initially locates the the document library that you used most recently (which is nice).  The tree-view display provides a number of ways that make it quick to navigate a large SharePoint environment and find the site and library that you want.

Once you choose a document library and click OK you are then prompted for any meta-data that is defined in that document library. The plug-in supports multiple Content Types and all the column types available in SharePoint 2007 (including Business Data columns if you have the MOSS Enterprise license).

The WISDOM PDF SharePoint Save makes working with Microsoft SharePoint as easy as using Windows Explorer, with the added advantage of capturing meta-data that enables more flexible searching.

Moving and copying documents and files in Microsoft SharePoint

If you are using out-of-the-box Microsoft SharePoint you can move and copy files from one document library to another by cutting and pasting in the Explorer View or by opening in Windows Explorer. Trouble is that this does not preserve any Version History on the files and neither does it prompt for any meta-data required in the destination library.

As part of their WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 MacroView provides WISDOM Explorer, which does a great job on moving and copying files around in SharePoint. 

WISDOM Explorer displays an intuitive tree-view of your SharePoint environment so that you can visualise all the document libraries that you have permission to access. WISDOM Explorer let’s you drag-and-drop to move (or copy) files from one document library to another. As it does the move or copy WISDOM can re-use any meta-data that it already recorded for the file(s) and will prompt for any new meta-data columns that are defined in the destination document library. WISDOM supports all the meta-data column types that are available in SharePoint, including Business Data columns (if you have the MOSS Enterprise CAL).

WISDOM will also preserve any Version History that is available on the file(s) that you move between document libraries (provided of course that Version History is configured for the destination library). 

WISDOM makes moving and copying documents and files in SharePoint easy for users, while maintaining the effectiveness of SharePoint as a document management environment.

Unique Document Numbering in Microsoft SharePoint

As organizations consider using Microsoft SharePoint to manage their documents they ask whether SharePoint can provide the features of ‘traditional’ document management systems, such as the ability to assign a unique Document ID to each document or file as it is saved.

Unique Document Numbering is not provided by ‘out-of-the-box’ Microsoft SharePoint 2007, but it is one of the features that come with a SharePoint add-on called WISDOM DMF Professional, developed by MacroView, a Microsoft Gold Partner.

Saving or uploading a file to a SharePoint document library that is managed by WISDOM DMF Professional assigns the next available unique Document Number. This Document ID can be configured to be unique across all the Site Collections in the organization’s SharePoint environment. Numbering can also be configured to start from a certain point, which is very useful in situations where you are migrating from an existing DM system.

WISDOM also provides an intuitive tree-view display of the SharePoint environment, and allows you to drag and drop to move files between document libraries.  As files are moved, WISDOM maintains existing Document IDs.

WISDOM DMF Professional adds best-practice document numbering to SharePoint document management solutions.

Working with Large Document Stores in SharePoint

Organizations that are using SharePoint to manage all their email messages or all their documents typically find that their SharePoint environment grows very large quite rapidly. They can have millions of documents stored in thousands of site collections, huge site trees, large numbers of document libraries and deeply nested folder structures. With the native web-browser interface of Microsoft SharePoint it is very difficult to visualize these large SharePoint document repositories and to navigate them efficiently.

The WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 from Microsoft Gold Partner MacroView makes working with even the largest SharePoint document stores very efficient in both human user and machine resource terms.

WISDOM DMF provides each user with an intuitive tree-view display of their available SharePoint document storage environment.  WISDOM totally respects SharePoint permissions – a user’s WISDOM tree-view display will not show anything that he / she could not have accessed via the standard SharePoint web browser UI. At the same time WISDOM displays all the areas of SharePoint wherein documents can be stored.

The WISDOM DMF tree-view display makes viewing and working with SharePoint as easy and familiar are using Windows Explorer to view and work with file shares in Windows Explorer.  The WISDOM tree-view can cope with very large SharePoint environments – indeed some existing WISDOM DMF customers are major organizations with extensive SharePoint environments.  WISDOM has been shown to work well with a document libraries containing over 130,000 folders with more than 20 levels of nesting – just what a big organization might need when they are migrating their File Shares and Public Folders to SharePoint. 

WISDOM DMF provides a number of facilities that make it quick and easy to navigate a large SharePoint document store. These include:

• SharePoint Favorites – for one-click navigation to frequently used sites, libraries and folders;
• Filtering – so that WISDOM displays only wanted sub-sites, libraries or sub-folders;
• ‘Search Site Tree’ – which harnesses the power of the MOSS Search Engine to rapidly locate a wanted site or library even if you do not know how the SharePoint environment is structured.

WISDOM DMF uses smart caching (both server and client side) and choking techniques to ensure consistently good response times and efficient use of bandwidth when navigating even the largest SharePoint environments.

Migrating Files and Emails to Microsoft SharePoint

There are a range of specialist migration toolkits available to handle the bulk migration to SharePoint from existing File Shares and Microsoft Outlook / Exchange.  However many organizations are looking for a way to enable individual users to migrate their own files and key email messages into their new SharePoint document management environment.  Using this ‘grass roots’ approach to migration can be quite appropriate – it not only removes a major resource-intensive task from the IT Department, but also allows individual users to be selective about which files / email messages are worth migrating and provides an opportunity for those users to capture any additional meta-data that is required by the new SharePoint-based document store.

The WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 from Microsoft Gold Partner MacroView is a great tool for streamlining the upload of files and email messages to SharePoint. WISDOM DMF is a neat tool for ongoing management of files stored in SharePoint – it also provides good support for uploading multiple files and email messages, which are very handy when you are initially migrating existing content into SharePoint.

WISDOM DMF provides each user with an intuitive tree-view display of all parts of the SharePoint docuemnt store that they are permitted to access. This makes it easy for someone who previously was using Windows Explorer to visualise and work with files stored in File Shares.  It is also a familiar paradigm for a user of Microsoft Outlook, where email messages are organised into nested folders. 

You can upload multiple files simultaneously into a document library or folder in SharePoint simply by dragging and dropping them from a file share folder into the WISDOM tree-view display. With WISDOM you can also drag and drop to save multiple email messages into SharePoint - WISDOM will uniquely name the resulting message files and ensure that attachments are preserved.

WISDOM DMF captures meta-data as its saves or uploads to SharePoint. Indeed WISDOM supports multiple Content Types and all column types that are available in standard Microsoft SharePoint, including Business Data columns.  Even better, when you are uploading multiple files or messages, WISDOM can prompt you once for meta-data and then apply that common meta-data to all the files (or messages) being uploaded.

Tests have shown that WISDOM DMF works successfully when uploading over 5,000 files from a file share folder – it will comfortably handle the migration needs of individual users.

Integrating SharePoint Document Management with your CRM

For many organizations the CRM system is the best source of details about Clients and the Jobs that are done for them.  For law firms and other professional services organisations the Practice Management or Case Management system plays the same role.  With the increased interest using Microsoft SharePoint as a document management platform many organizations are asking how best to integrate the new SharePoint-based document store with an existing CRM or other client management system.

While some CRMs (e.g. Microsoft CRM) have the capability to store documents and files, the best approach is to store the documents and files in SharePoint and have the SharePoint document store mirror the structure of Clients and Jobs (or Projects / Matters) in the existing CRM or Client management system.

To do this you need to ensure that as new Clients and Jobs are created in the CRM system, corresponding Sites and document libraries are created in the SharePoint document store.  You also need to record a link to those new Client Sites and Job Libraries in the newly created records within the CRM. That way users can easily click to see all the documents, emails and other files that have been stored for that Client or Job; alternatively the user can browse the SharePoint document store and (subject to permissions) see all documents, emails and other files organized into a familiar hierarchy of Clients and Jobs.

The WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 from Microsoft Gold Partner MacroView is a great tool for providing a familiar tree-view of a SharePoint document store.  MacroView can also supply Smart Templates that streamline the creation of new SharePoint sites for Clients and new SharePoint document libraries for each Job (or Project or Matter).  The resulting document libraries contain automatic meta-data columns, which minimise the effort required of users as they save a new document, email message or other file to SharePoint.  WISDOM itself adds customizations that make SharePoint document management capabilities directly available while you work in Microsoft Office, Windows, Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat.

Making Document Level Security work better in SharePoint

One of the good things about Microsoft SharePoint 2007 is that it provides Document-Level security – that is the ability to set the set specific access permissions for an individual document within a document library. This allows sensitive documents to be stored alongside other related documents but only be editable or even visible to a restricted set of users.

The problem is that with out-of-the-box SharePoint 2007, only those users with Design or Administrator rights are able to set document level security. In a typical SharePoint deployment most end-users are assigned Contributor permissions to document libraries, which means that they do not see the menu option to Manage Permissions when they right click on an individual file in a document library.

Microsoft Gold Partner MacroView have developed a SharePoint 2007 add-on that addresses this problem.  Their Enhanced Document Level Security module allows Contributor-level users to configure access permissions of an individual document so that the only users that can see or edit the document are the current user and optionally another user who has been nominated as the Author for the document. This meets a very common need, which is for an administrative support person to save a sensitive document on behalf of a senior staff member (e.g. a paralegal on behalf of a lawyer).

MacroView normally licences their Enhanced Document Level Security module as part of their WISDOM Document Management Framework.  WISDOM DMF is designed to enable fully functional, easy to use document management solutions based on Microsoft SharePoint 2007.  Other nice features of WISDOM DMF include an intuitive tree-view of the user’s available SharePoint environment, consistent handling of meta-data in SharePoint and excellent support for saving emails and their attachments to SharePoint.

The Enhanced Document Level security module is also available separately.  It installs as a SharePoint Feature, which can be stapled to any document library.  Once this is done, Contributor-level users can set security for individual documents simply by selecting ‘Yes’ for a ‘Secure Document’ column when saving or editing the document.  WISDOM then does the rest.

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