Intranet - Sharepoint?

[RugenNixie]

I work for a small company that is wanting to build an intranet to serve the purposes of communicating general announcements, sharing project information internally, gathering input such as improvement ideas and safety concerns, and document management. I'm leading this project because I'm the closest thing to IT that the company has (mechanical engineer by trade). I've played around with Sharepoint and think this should work well. The document management is the part that scares me the most. We want to be able to approve and route documents through the intranet and be able to track versions. Sharepoint is supposed to be able to handle this.

I've got to build and manage the system myself, so it's got to be something that won't be too very time consuming. Also, the budget is small, so purchasing a specialized document management package is most likely out of the question.

Anyone with Sharepoint experience that can tell me whether this sounds like a good solution?

 

[Icemastr]

Have you used Sharepoint before? I think Sharepoint will do a good job of what you are talking about, but I do not have too much experience with using version tracking with Sharepoint so you may want to try it out and see if it will meet your needs. In my experience Sharepoint is pretty easy to manage and use. There may be other options out there that I am not aware of, but I think Sharepoint will work well for what you are talking about.

 

[CmdrTallen]

I would recommend checking out the MS SharePoint templates;
http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/templates.mspx

I would bet there is one of those that includes the document workflow you are looking for, or at least contains the beginnings of something that you can easily build on.

 

[maxedoutcc]

unless you are running small business server, sharepoint will most likely be out of your budget.

check out backpack from 37 signals. its cheap, extremely simple and easy to use.

http://www.backpackit.com
check out the intro for an overview

 

[DeaconFrost]

I use Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 for my company's intranet. I think it would do what you need it to.

unless you are running small business server, sharepoint will most likely be out of your budget.

Free should be doable in his budget.

 

[-Sean Casey]

Yes in his case Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 should work great. And its pricetag (FREE) is very doable on just about any budget.

He does not need the extra features and licencing considerations that Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 provides (Infopath form serving capabilities rock! I am using this to help turn much of my companies internal form into paperless)

I am a very big Sharepoint fan, and the degree to which is can be expanded on is very nice.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Maybe I should look into the full fledged product. My VP of Finance was asking me if we could turn some of our documents into online forms.

 

[travanx]

my work just got sharepoint setup a couple weeks ago. its actually pretty cool. even the owners were reading and replying to the discussions i was trying to start with other engineers in the office.

 

[Ockie]

I think it's a great solution. I recommend share point to a lot of businesses, it's such a simple system and has great potential. It's a great product and it flourishes at document management.

Your single biggest hurdle will not be the implementation or management approval, but to have users be aware and knowing how to use it.

 

[RugenNixie]

Yes in his case Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 should work great. And its pricetag (FREE) is very doable on just about any budget.

He does not need the extra features and licencing considerations that Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 provides (Infopath form serving capabilities rock! I am using this to help turn much of my companies internal form into paperless)

I am a very big Sharepoint fan, and the degree to which is can be expanded on is very nice.

Don't I need Sharepoint Server in order to gain the capability for document workflow? I need to be able to have someone propose a document for addition to the document library. That document would need to get approval from 5 or 6 people, at which point it would be added to the document library. From what I've read, that isn't built into Sharepoint Services.

Also, I read that Sharepoint Server provides a lot of document management tools that would make the system nicer to use and manage. I know that adding Sharepoint Server will cost a good chunk of change, but I think it's needed for what I want.