- The document summarizes the results of a survey conducted by PleaseTech Ltd at two Microsoft SharePoint conferences to understand customers' experiences and opinions of SharePoint's document collaboration capabilities. - Key findings include that 80% of respondents' jobs involve document creation and review, 90% experience issues with document review in SharePoint but are satisfied, and most would consider alternative solutions that save time and improve collaboration. - The presentation concludes that while SharePoint provides basic collaboration tools, specialized third-party technologies are needed to improve specific business processes like document review, and that user adoption of collaboration tools remains a challenge.

1. Research results – SharePoint
document collaboration
Dave Cornwell
CEO
PleaseTech Ltd

2. Agenda
•
Introduction to PleaseTech
•
About the survey
•
Key findings
•
Survey results
•
Conclusions
•
PleaseTech solutions
•
Questions / discussion

3. Introduction to PleaseTech Ltd
•
PleaseTech is a growing software products company
HQ in UK & development team in KL, Malaysia
•
We design collaborative document review and authoring solutions
For the creation, co-authoring and review of documents
Collaborative, simultaneous, controlled, secure
•
Serve a range of industry sectors
~65% business in Life Sciences
Others include Defense, Utilities, Government, IT, Manufacturing, Financial
Services
Customers range from small consultancies to global organizations
•
Existing partnerships with leading content/document management platforms and
workflow systems

4. About the survey - background
•
SharePoint is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the collaboration space
•
PleaseTech is a Microsoft partner and is integrated with SharePoint
•
We all agree that document collaboration is a critical business process, which:
Consumes considerable resources
Most do not recognize inherent inefficiencies and frustrations
Still subject to manual processes & workarounds
•
PleaseTech was eager to learn what existing SharePoint customers thought:
Away from the marketing hype, is SharePoint meeting expectations?
What do they really think of SharePoint’s collaborative capabilities?
Would they consider additional solutions and why?

5. About the survey
•
Conducted during 2 Microsoft SharePoint conferences
Forum for learning more about SharePoint 2010
USA - Anaheim, October 2011/ 7000 attendees
Europe - Berlin, October 2011/ 1000 attendees
•
275 completed surveys: 83% IT professionals and 17% business users
Participants were asked to classify themselves
Business users: business analysts, business representatives or those involved
directly in SharePoint projects

6. Key findings
•
80% stated document creation & review is part of their job
•
90% experience issues with document review but are ‘satisfied’
•
Business users and IT professionals differ in their opinion of user satisfaction with
SharePoint
•
User adoption is important when researching alternative document collaboration solutions
(IT)
•
SharePoint’s collaboration capabilities meet general requirements - but many have a
simplistic view of what constitutes collaboration
•
Majority would use SharePoint more if had the functionality to help with specific business
issues

7. Survey results – document collaboration & review
Issues experienced working on a multi-person
review
Whilst satisfied with their existing
review system, nearly all business
users experience issues when
No issues
working in collaboration with
No team collaboration on the
review
others on the review.
Europe
Meeting deadlines
USA
Accuracy of content
Lack of control over the
process
0%
10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Please note, in the interest of time, not all
results can be included in this presentation.

8. Survey results – document collaboration & review
Reasons for selecting an alternative review solution
Nearly all would consider an
No- not interested
alternative review solution.
Other
Results in a better quality
document
Europe
Improves collaboration
USA
Saves time
Improves upon the existing
process
Easy to learn & use
0%
5%
10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

9. Survey results – document collaboration & review
Reasons to research an alternative
solution
42%
14%
adoption and ROI are the two key
Potential user adoption
5%
39%
IT professionals believe potential user
reasons for researching an alternative
User pressure
document collaboration system.
ROI
No input
User adoption = 42%
ROI = 39%

10. Survey results – SharePoint collaboration
SharePoint is widely accepted &
used
3%
7%
24%
Strongly agree
34%
32%
Agree
Business users widely agree that
SharePoint is widely used across
the organization.
Neutral
Disagree
Not applicable
Agree/strongly agree = 66%
Whereas, nearly half IT
User adoption of SharePoint is an
issue
6% 5%
15%
19%
29%
26%
Strongly agree
Agree
professionals state that user
adoption is an issue within their
organization.
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
N/A
Agree/strongly agree = 44%
vs. 25% who disagree/strongly disagree

11. Survey results – SharePoint collaboration
SharePoint collaborative capabilities within
the organization
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
USA (Business)
Europe (Business)
As a generic collaboration tool,
SharePoint does provide the
collaborative capabilities required
when working with others, both
USA (IT)
within and outside the
Europe (IT)
organization.
SharePoint collaborative capabilities outside
the organization
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
USA (Business)
Europe (Business)
USA (IT)
Europe (IT)

12. Survey results – SharePoint collaboration
Sequential viewing is considered
'collaboration'
3%
9%
13%
17%
26%
32%
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Not applicable
I like SharePoint's co-authoring
functionality
Until SharePoint 2010, sequential
access to a document was the only way
to collaborate. IT professionals are
divided, but most disagree that this can
be considered collaboration.
Disagree/strongly disagree = 39%
Neutral = 32%
SharePoint 2010 introduced
simultaneous co-authoring. Business
Strongly agree
13%
38%
32%
17%
users are more positive about this
Agree
functionality.
Neutral
Agree/strongly agree = 55%
Not applicable
Neutral = 32%
Not applicable = 13%

13. Survey results – SharePoint collaboration
Would use SharePoint more if it had
functionality to help with specific issues
Nearly 80% agree that they would
use SharePoint more if it had the
functionality to deal with specific
16%
8%
41%
Strongly agree
35%
business issues.
Agree
Neutral
Not applicable
Agree/strongly agree = 76%

14. Conclusions
•
Attendees are SharePoint advocates
Had expected more enthusiastic endorsement of its capabilities
•
Despite perceived satisfaction, most experience issues with their current document review
solution
It’s a question of education - participants accept these issues as a necessary evil
Whilst SharePoint provides general collaborative capabilities, this isn’t the case with
document review
Looking for time savings, ease of use, greater control, improved collaboration
•
IT professionals acknowledge they must consider how alternative solutions meet user
needs in addition to their own internal requirements
3rd party organizations must address solution benefits to both line of business end
users and IT communities

15. Conclusions
•
Expectations are low in terms of collaboration
Education still required on the benefits of true collaboration – simultaneous
access to and interactive collaboration on a document
•
SharePoint provides the platform for collaboration to take place, but…
Specific business processes are not always improved using SharePoint alone
Specialist technologies provided by 3rd parties are necessary
User adoption remains an issue, but this can be fixed

16. Collaborative & simultaneous review for most
Component-based structured authoring and
document types
content reuse for Microsoft Word
•
•
Everyone saves valuable time
No copy & pasting
No duplication of effort
Less time spent by staff on each review
Fewer review cycles required & shorter
review meetings
•
True collaboration and transparency
•
Documents can be reviewed securely
•
Browser based – keeping the cost of
•
ownership low
High document quality
Standard content & layout
Consistency of styles & formatting
Higher quality document results
•
Enforce document compliance – more
control
Less review management required
•
Save time
•
Reduced author training & effort
•
Reduced review requirement

17. Questions / discussion
Thank you for your time
david.cornwell@pleasetech.com
www.pleasetech.com
“PleaseReview is a powerful and unique piece of technology that completely alters the
way a business can manage co-authoring and collaborative review of documents,
combining intuitive ease of use with absolute control and accountability