5 Reasons to Use Sharepoint for Document Management

Why do people hate Sharepoint? 

Primarily, because in typical Microsoft fashion their are layers and layers of menus, functions, and options. Just listening to the list of features can be overwhelming, let alone actually making them work!

That being said, let's talk about why Sharepoint might just make sense for your business.

• It's already installed (or at least available with) most Windows Server installations.  Even the free components should suffice for straightforward document retrieval
• Search document titles, fulltext, and other metadata assigned to documents
• Eliminate need to install proprietary software, add new servers, and schedule new backups
• Once it is configured [properly] the interface will be fairly familiar to most users
• Integration with Microsoft Office and custom development with Visual Basic

Things to Consider

While Sharepoint does have it's advantages, there are still several key aspects to consider:

• While the software itself comes with support from Microsoft (primarily for bugs) they do not offer much in the way of implementation guidance
• Working with a document management systems expert will give you access to their knowledge of best practices and regulations specific to document retention
• For specific tasks, such as combining documents, document production, document import from capture devices (such as scanners) and integration with ERP systems, Sharepoint falls way short

National Scanning works with several outside consultants with Sharepoint integration backgrounds.  Click here to contact us about your project and request a list of consultants (or alternatives to Sharepoint).

Implementation tips

You can also use the Explorer view to copy multiple files to a document library. In the Select a View pane, click Explorer View, and then, from a Windows Explorer window, drag the desired files into the document library.

Out of the box neither WSS 3 nor MOSS 2007 will index content located in Acrobat PDF files, so you need to set up the IFilter. PDF files imported prior to the installation of the filter won’t be re-crawled automatically, so to be on the safe side you might want to kick off a full crawl (see below).

Installing iFilter

The following is from Microsoft's online knowledgebase (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927675/en-us)

Important: This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

1. Download and then install the Adobe PDF IFilter from the following Adobe Web site:
   http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2611 (http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=2611)
   Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.
2. Add the following registry entry, and then set the registry entry value to pdf:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions12.0SearchApplications<GUID>GatherSearchExtensionsExtensionList38
   To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
   2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions12.0SearchApplicationsGUIDGatherSearchExtensionsExtensionList
   3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click String Value.
   4. Type 38, and then press ENTER.
   5. Right-click the registry entry that you created, and then click Modify.
   6. In the Value data box, type pdf, and then click OK.
3. Verify that the following two registry subkeys are present and that they contain the appropriate values.
   
   Note These registry subkeys and the values that they contain are created when you installed the Adobe PDF IFilter on the server.
   • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions12.0SearchSetupContentIndexCommonFiltersExtension.pdf
     This registry subkey must contain the following registry entry:
     • Name: Default
       Type: REG_MULTI_SZ
       Data: {8315BA54-B69F-4275-AE11-31CB6359EB09}
   • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftShared ToolsWeb Server Extensions12.0SearchSetupFilters.pdf
     This registry subkey must contain the following registry entries:
     • Name: Default
       Type: REG_SZ
       Data: (value not set)
     • Name: Extension
       Type: REG_SZ
       Data: pdf
     • Name: FileTypeBucket
       Type: REG_DWORD
       Data: 0x00000001 (1)
     • Name: MimeTypes
       Type: REG_SZ
       Data: application/pdf
4. Upload the PDF documents to the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site.
5. Stop and then start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
   2. Stop the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, type net stop spsearch at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
   3. Start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. To do this, type net start spsearch at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
   4. Type exit to exit the command prompt.

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