- Why Would an Organization Want to Use SharePoint?
- Sharing, Managing, and Finding Documents Made Easier
- Finding Relevant Information
- Providing Efficiencies for Meetings
- Adding Value by Using Alerts
- Engaging in Online Discussions
- Getting Information from Users
- Informing Users with Announcements and News Items
- Creating Sites to Meet the Needs of the User Community
- Expanding SharePoint by Integrating with Microsoft Office 2003 and Other Applications
- Replacing Corporate Intranets
- Hosting SharePoint Sites on the Internet
- Communicating with Partners and Customers Through a SharePoint Extranet
- Summary
- Best Practices
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Informing Users with Announcements and News Items
Most organizations have a way of distributing information and announcements to employees. An email containing the information can be sent to everyone, the information can be stored on some publicly accessible network resource such as an Exchange Public Folder, or the information can be printed and posted on bulletin boards throughout the organization.
However, wouldn't it be nice to have all company announcements and news items in one place, easily accessible, and available for a set amount of time? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to view only the applicable information and not have to sift through ones you don't care about? If users are going to the portal on a daily basis, having important company announcements and news items right in front of them where they can't be removed or deleted is an efficient way of disseminating information to the users. Placing them in a portal also removes the load of sending information to all users off the email server. An expiration date can be placed on announcements so that they can be on the home page for as long as necessary and then automatically removed. Using the SharePoint audience feature, announcements and news items can be targeted to a specific group or department. This saves users having to sort through a long list of items to find the one(s) that apply to them.
For example, late-breaking news about a competitor can be directed to the sales department. Announcements about employee promotions can be directed to everyone, or in a large organization, to the group that works with the employee. When people are going to be on vacation, they can post the vacation dates and who is covering for them as an announcement directed at the employees who are affected.