White Paper SharePoint 2013 in Diverse Industries SharePoint has been around for more than 5 years. It started for secondary intranet areas within the enterprise that required a product to manage documents. With the growing maturity of features in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 we were seeing an aggressive adoption of SharePoint in large enterprises to have SharePoint implemented for their Enterprise Content Management, Records Management, Collaboration and Records and Email Retention needs. Now businesses are using SharePoint in Enterprise class solutions that need to be robust, scalable and of high performance. The purpose of this white paper is to show the domain agnostic nature of SharePoint 2013 and the way SharePoint 2013 core features can be used in different business scenarios in various industries big and small. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 1
About the Author Veena Sarda Veena Sarda is a Consultant at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and has 15 years of experience. She is presently engaged as SharePoint Architect with the Banking Technology Group. She can be reached at v.sarda@tcs.com TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 2
Contents Introduction... 4 Travel Industry... 5 Pharmaceutical Industry... 7 Oil and Gas Industry... 9 Construction Industry... 12 Education Industry... 13 Legal Industry... 14 Banking Industry... 16 Conclusion... 18 TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 3
Introduction At its core, SharePoint is content-centric software. Its greatest applicability is in heavy information environments with large numbers of knowledge workers. Across all industries some of the SharePoint 2013 features that can be used commonly are as follows Enterprise Content Management to manage content and documents for various divisions and processes within the enterprise. Advanced Search - The new SharePoint 2013 Search where FAST Search engine is merged in the core product provides advanced capabilities such as Contentprocessing pipeline, Metadata extraction, structured data search, Deep refinement, Visual search, advanced linguistics, Visual best bets with extreme scale and performance to give end user a very gainful and engaging experience while performing search. Workflows to implement business specific processes. Business Connectivity Services to connect with external systems within the enterprise and different vendor software systems. Collaboration and Communication to collaborate and communicate internally within the enterprise and in extranet scenarios. Taxonomy and Managed Metadata enterprise specific taxonomy and managed metadata to provide effective search, routing and content organization. Branding and Navigation effective branding and navigation structures can be easily achieved. Security Infrastructure solid security infrastructure in place that can be utilized out of the box. Apart from these each industry has its own typical requirements. Following sections describes the requirements and the key SharePoint 2013 features that can be used in each of the scenarios. This white paper is no way a complete list of industrial processes and SharePoint features but a guide to the key features in each key scenario. You need to carefully evaluate the requirements and match the features. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 4
Travel Industry The common business requirements in travel industry are details on different Flights, Time Tables, Navigations, Hotels, Meals, Tour Guides, Transfers, Trips, Flight Status, Redeem Miles and so on as shown below. Along with the internal processes data can also be shared to the Government if required and to other associated industries like event management, tourism and so on. Another common requirement is management of Air Fare details, Cancellation details, Policy details, Travel Information details, Membership details and so on. Key SharePoint Features The key SharePoint features that can be used in this scenario are as follows Sites for internal facing data (employees) Intranet Sites for informationand documents required internally by employees to take decision, provide customer support. Sites for external facing data (end users) Internet Site for information and documents required for Tour Guides, Membership details and so on. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 5
Sites for extranet facing data (partners) Extranet site for information required for event management, tourism partners, hotel partners and other partner sites. Service Applications Service Applications for Flights, Time Tables, Transfers, Flight Status and so on. Services can then be individually consumed from anyweb Application providing flexibility to utilize services based on application needs. Access Service Applications Smaller Applications can be created in Access for ex to Redeem Miles and keep information about miles an Access Service application can be created and utilized. It provides a Rapid Application Development platform with SharePoint. Applications can be quickly turned around. The overview of access services architecture is as shown below In an on-premise environment, Access 2013 apps are hosted by SharePoint 2013 while the data is stored in SQL Server 2012. SharePoint 2013 provides authentication, authorization, and security for Access 2013 apps. The back-end tables, views, macros, and queries are stored in an SQL Server 2012 database. Access 2013, through the Office 365 and SQL Azure services, provides a method to deploy an Access app to the cloud. SharePoint Mobility mobility solutions for travellers to do a web check-in. SharePoint Server 2013 supports applications on mobile devices that should receive notifications from a SharePoint site. SharePoint Alerts - SharePoint Server 2013 to enable users to subscribe to alerts that are sent by using Short Message Service. SMS such as reminders for flights, payment, miles information and so on. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 6
Pharmaceutical Industry Typically in pharmaceutical industry at a broader level we see a need to manage patents, drug discovery processes and formulations as shown below. Processes are required for new product R &D, compliances and manufacturing. Key SharePoint Features Apart from the regular enterprise content management features to manage loads of information, documents, the key SharePoint features that can be used in this scenario are as follows Versioning for multiple versioning of data required during R &D, drug formulations. Auditing for data related to drug discovery and process administration. Records Management for managing patents and compliance requirements as required by regulatory authorities. Information Management Policies Policies for Records Retention, Records Expiration, and Records Closureas required for compliance requirements and intellectual property retention. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 7
Visio Services to manage visually and graphically drug discovery process. In SharePoint 2013 Visio Services has very powerful capabilities with these benefits o Visualize diagrams in your favorite browser o Build real-time business solutions o Full Fidelity rendering as PNG or Silverlight o Native support for Visio file format Applications can be built such that users can directly comment in the drawing as shown in the image below o Users can add comments to a Visio Drawing collaboratively on the web via Visio Services in full page rendering mode. o Comments are embedded to actual visio file Available in client as well Data Connectivity to Visio Services is also possible to get data from other systems within and outside the enterprise. The capability to recalculate all shapes and shape sheet formulas based on underlying data helps in creating very engaging applications. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 8
Oil and Gas Industry Oil and Gas industry projects involve huge projects for rig management, well completion, field management, design activities, underground scanning and processing and other production activities.each of these activities isa huge project in itself. Like for ex. Rig Management can involve Contracts Management, Rig Operations, Rig Maintenance, Pipeline Maintenance, Risk Management, Resources Management, Finance & Accounting, HR Management and so on as depicted below. There is also a need for the ability to transfer oilfield data between different vendors software systems. Key SharePoint Features The key SharePoint 2013 features that can be used in this scenario are as follows For large scale Project Management Project Server 2013 built on top of SharePoint is designed to extend the capabilities of Microsoft Project for large scale enterprise project management. Project sites in SharePoint Server 2013 enable people in an organization to effectively collaborate on projects. A project site provides rich set of project management features such as: TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 9
Project Summary Web Part Visual timeline of the project's tasks Complete task schedule for a project Library for storing relevant project documents Notebook for quickly capturing and organizing information about the project Shared calendar for team events Ability to connect to the Project 2013 client application The entire team can have a real time view of the project plan, status and can have their individual tasks at one place. Project related documents are also stored on the same place. Project managers can quickly get a sense of what is going on in a project, and team members can quickly see how their work fits into the overall context. It is difficult to cover all aspects here but following is the general architecture diagram that gives the sense of scalability and flexibility. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 10
Visio Services - The oil & gas plants are so huge that they need pictorial representation in the form of diagrams with different shapes, connections, events connected to the shapes. Visio 2013 provides a powerful platform to create these kinds of solutions for c exploration and navigation of the plant using Visio rendered diagrams. New objects, collections, properties, methods, enumerations, and events, along with new ShapeSheet cells and functions, give more options for defining the behavior of the elements in your solutions. Connecting external systems data to the visual diagrams in Visio is also possible. Visio 2013 diagrams can now be connected to external lists on SharePoint Server 2013 servers. An external list is a content source external to SharePoint (for example, a SQL Server table) that has been connected to a SharePoint list by using Microsoft Business Connectivity Services (BCS). Visio Services supports the ability to refresh the Visio diagrams as the data updates. Performance Point Services for creatingcontext-driven dashboards across systems to o Provides transparency and accountability o Interactive access using browser o Bring together data from multiple data sources o Visualization of data with charts & graphs o Drill into data with Decomposition Trees TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 11
Construction Industry The following diagram captures some of the typical business requirements in construction industry. Managing assets, drawings, projects, employees, sub-contractors, supply chain, finances are some of the typical processes required in construction projects. Key SharePoint Features Apart from the key Enterprise Content Management features the key SharePoint 2013 features that can be used in this scenario are as follows Project Management for managing multiple construction projects in easily and intuitive manner Project Server 2013 built on top of SharePoint 2013 can be used to utilize resources effectively as discussed on the previous page. Records Management for various Government compliances Records Retention, Expiration, Closure for compliance requirements, intellectual property retention Advanced Workflow features to streamline business processes Document Management features to manage AutoCAD & Engineering documents. Data Analytics, Reporting and Business Intelligence Excel Services to build meaningful reports on huge sets of data. Visio Services for design and development of architectural designs. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 12
Education Services Gone are the days of blackboards and whiteboards. Animated characters, animation films, videos, 3D Graphics, 3D videos are becoming prominent in helping learn difficult concepts. Education has become a big industry in itself. The medium for education has now changed from classrooms to internet, intranet using videos and different rich media types. Even handheld devices, mobile devices can carry educational information in different types of applications particularly for medical studies. There are many big private business players in education services industry. The typical business need for this type of industry is content management, collaboration, communication and social networking features. Key SharePoint Features SharePoint 2013 is an ideal platform for content management. With the new video, mobile, social and cloud capabilities the capability to reach millions of people have become a dream come true. Typically we can use the following key SharePoint 2013 features for these kinds of projects PowerPoint Automation Services - Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 has a brand-new look and primed for use on tablets and phones, so that users can swipe and tap their way through presentations. Presenter View automatically adapts to the projection setup. Students working with teachers can add comments to ask questions and get feedback on the presentation itself. Microsoft PowerPoint Automation Services is a new shared service of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 that provides unattended, server-side conversion of presentations into other formats. It processes many presentation files in a reliable and predictable manner that can help in education services which may have their own particular needs for storing, distributing, and updating their presentations. Collaboration and Content Management - Enhanced Content Lifecycle Management capabilities of SharePoint 2013 can be effectively utilized. Social Features Tracking Feeds, tracking colleagues, activity feeds, task aggregation, My Sites featurescan be used effectively by students and teachers. Excel Services Application to create dashboards of results, score cards, web base interactive reports. Translation Services Application to translate content on demand basis. Blogs, Wikis, Surveys,Threaded Discussion Forums features can be used effectively. Image Renditions, Video and Rich Media features can be used excellently. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 13
Legal Industry Typically in legal industry documents such as case files, transcripts, correspondence, attorney notes, billing information and so on are required to be securely accessed. Key SharePoint Features The key SharePoint 2013 features that can be used in this scenario are as follows E-Discovery to locate and produce electronic information to support events such as litigation, audits, or investigations. SharePoint 2013 ediscovery is made easier with a few new tools. o ediscovery Center o SharePoint In-Place Hold o Exchange In-Place Hold o Query-based preservation These improvements in SharePoint 2013 include the ability to perform ediscovery queries across multiple SharePoint farms and Exchange servers, to preserve and export discovered content, to preserve content in-place from Exchange mailboxes and SharePoint sites while allowing users to continue working with content, and support for search and export from file shares. The following is the ediscovery process in SharePoint 2013 TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 14
Information Management Policies Policies can be implemented to help an organization comply with legally mandated requirements such as Expiration policy, auditing policy, retention policy and labeling policy for documents. Policy features can be enabled and configured by a server administrator and, when they are enabled, they can be used by site administrators to define policies as shown below Team Folders These can be created with integration with Exchange such that the incoming email enables teams to store the email that they send to other team members without opening the SharePoint site and uploading the content that was sent in email. Document Sets Logical grouping of documents can be done to make them as document sets and provide a unique identity TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 15
Banking Industry Apart from core banking solutions there are other requirements in banking industry like document management for products and services, loans, insurance, investments, demat services, benefits and rewards, research desk, project finance and so on. Some of the apps can be as shown in the figure below Key SharePoint Features The key SharePoint 2013 features that can be used in this scenario are as follows Apps Apps can be created to build each of these requirements. Business Connectivity Services offers improvements to the way that SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 clients can access data that is stored outside of SharePoint. These improvements include support for apps in SharePoint, external list improvements to TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 16
provide functional parity with other SharePoint lists, and support for OData Business Data Connectivity (BDC) connections. Visual Studio 2010 can connect to an OData endpoint through business Connectivity Services to automatically generate a BDC model for OData data sources. There is a SharePoint 2013 event listener and subscriber to receive notifications from external systems when data changes. Performance Point Services The huge data that is present can be analyzed effectively using performance point services in SharePoint 2013. The generic architecture is as shown below Huge data from different data sources can be combined to create dashboards to be used by decision makers. Performance Point Service application enables users to create business intelligence (BI) dashboards that provide insight into an organization's performance. Developers can create custom reports, filters, tabular data sources, and scorecard transforms to extend the native functionality of PerformancePoint Services. For example, in Banking scenario a developer can create a custom report visualization that is optimized for this industry and then integrate it into a reusable vertical solution. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 17
Conclusion SharePoint as a product has matured rapidly to make a strong foothold in all enterprises big and small. As we see across all domains SharePoint 2013 can be implemented in various forms and features. Apart from the industries covered above SharePoint is also useful in Consulting firms, Beverages industries, Publishing industries, Logistics, Telecommunications, Retail, Manufacturing, Music industry and any such industry where document management, content management, collaboration capabilities, Search based applications, Business Intelligence capabilities, advanced workflow capabilities, records management and compliance and social computing features are required along with the other Office features as discussed in this white paper. TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES Page 18