Swedish Armed Forces Learn SharePoint

Besides designing the kalmstrom.com software, I like to lecture on advanced IT course. During this first half of 2013 I have had an interesting commission: to teach SharePoint to intranet editors from the Swedish Armed Forces.

Intranet editors
The Swedish Armed Forces uses a SharePoint 2010 intranet, and to get the most out of this platform the organization decided to educate its intranet editors. The courses were organized by Cornerstone, Microsoft Gold Partner and the leading Swedish institution for in-service training courses.

Custom SharePoint 2010 solutions
The Swedish Armed Forces has implemented a custom SharePoint 2010 intranet with many site collections, and my task was to teach the editors how to use it. This intranet has some intresting solutions that I don't think are so common elsewhere.

Permissions
All 400 editors can edit on any site of this big intranet, but they cannot publish anywhere. This means that it is easy for the editors to add documents or change pages, but the additions and changes do not take effect until an editor with permission to publish on the particular site releases them.

The most common scenario is probably that the editor with publishing rights also makes the changes, but for other scenarios the Swedish Armed Forces has chosen to give editing possibility to all.

Navigation
Maybe you have watched my video in the kalmstrom.com Tips section where I show how to create a common navigation in a small site collection? The Swedish Armed Forces have done the same on a bigger scale, because they have one common navigation for all their site collections. This is of course very convenient for the editors, as they have the permission to edit all sites.

Social features
The Swedish Armed Forces have expanded the inbuilt social features of SharePoint 2010, to encourage users to comment and be active in other ways. This is a feature that benefits all users, not just the editors.

Stimulating task
For me the teaching is stimulating. I appreciate the interaction with the students, as they often ask interesting questions and give me new ideas.

The classes from The Swedish Armed Forces gave me the idea for a product I have described in the kalmstrom.com Ideas section. That is why I have used their official documents as an example on how highly structured documents can be managed in a SharePoint list.

Do you need help with SharePoint, Office or Windows education or teaching aids? I can provide it all, so please contact me!

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions