The SharePoint Community is here to help
Let’s say you’ve come dangerously close to solving a tricky SharePoint problem, only to run into a hitch in the home stretch. You know there’s a way to make SharePoint do what you want; you just need to find someone who has had the same problem and come up with a smart solution. When you’ve got questions, where’s a good place to go? In general, how can you find out more about the beast known as SharePoint?
The good news is SharePoint’s got groupies. Tons of them in fact, scattered all across the globe. When you google “SharePoint Community”, more than 13 million results pop up. Most of these sites belong to friendly, SharePoint hungry folks – members of the SharePoint community – who love to dish about what’s new, what’s changed and how they can help.
Want in on the action? Here’s a few of our favorite resources you can use to get your questions answered and become more familiar with the many faces and facets of SharePoint.
1. For answers, visit a few of these:
Run by SharePoint superstar Mark Miller, you can find answers to an enormous variety of SharePoint questions on either one of these great sites. Both contain thousands of articles, with questions ranging anywhere from ‘how to install SharePoint on a small farm’ to ‘creating SharePoint 2010 managed metadata with Excel 2010’. Almost every article on these sites is written in a concise, user-friendly language that’s really easy to follow.
This blog, written by the Microsoft End-User Content team, highly encourages contributions from the SharePoint user community. Related links, useful blogs and articles separated by category make this blog a top-notch resource for any SharePoint qualms that may arise.
This site can be a SharePoint user’s life raft in a sea of SharePoint-related questions. Completely community driven, it features useful links to SharePoint discussion boards, blogs, articles, vendors and books. There’s even a survey you can take to help make sure the site is doling out the information you need. This site is constantly being updated, so it’s best to check back often.
2. See a live demonstration courtesy of SharePoint Saturdays.
There are great community events happening every weekend, driven by SharePoint powerhouse Michael Lotter, called SharePoint Saturdays. These free, community-driven, not for profit, one-day conferences happen every weekend in various cities across the US. The events always feature leading SharePoint superstars who voluntarily share their expertise to help the SharePoint community.
3. Network and learn at a SharePoint conference.
Pack a suitcase and prepare to learn about the latest and greatest in the SharePoint world. Each conference has a different agenda, so make sure you pick one that aligns with your goals, your user level and your current projects. SharePoint vendors will be present at each of these, including the Road Crew from Fpweb.net, to deliver advice and offer their services.
- With class levels ranging from beginner to expert, SPTechCon Boston (October 20-22) is well on it’s way to becoming THE place to go for SharePoint technical information. Whether you’re an IT administrator, a developer or a business user, all classes are taught by SharePoint greats and are geared toward users who are wishing to become experts in the field.
- Best Practices Conference in Washington, DC , (August 24-27) will help you avoid common pitfalls during deployment and features content that will appeal to almost everyone involved in SharePoint. This conference will tend to focus more on the “why” of a decision instead of the “how”, while teaching core methods that achieve the best outcome.
4. View some of Fpweb.net’s support archives.
We’ve got tons of information on our site, including tips on getting started and popular questions and answers. Check out one of our many tutorials, with topics such as Email Alerts, Web Part creation, SharePoint Wikis and more.
5. Join a local SharePoint user group.
SharePoint user groups are springing up all over and it’s easy to find one that’s close. Visit www.sharepointusergroup.com to see if there’s a group near you or google your city’s name and the words ‘sharepoint user group’. Just by simply joining, you can participate in online discussions, ask questions and find helpful tips, tricks and information. These groups usually meet once a month or more to discuss various SharePoint topics and network.
This is just our starter list! This is not by any means a complete list of all those SharePoint lifesavers out there. Valuable community sites, events and tips are created daily, so make sure you give yourself time to explore!
Know a site or tool that has gotten you through a sticky SharePoint situation? Feel free to add it below!
My favorite resource is the “sharepointdiscussions” group, which is supported by Mindsharp (“Educators in Technology”). I like getting the feed as emails, but there is also a searchable web archive at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sharepointdiscussions/
Many expert and wise people comment in this group, and a very wide range o f topics appears. Check it out!