SharePoint – also for your external website
by Guy van Leemput
April 20, 2012
Tags: cms, sharepoint, web content management
Comments: No Comments
Popularity of Microsoft SharePoint continues to rise. This is mainly thanks to a growing set of sophisticated features, making it a powerful platform not only for collaboration and document sharing but also for content management, forms processing, business process management and social collaboration.
So if SharePoint is so great for your intranet, why not use it for your website too?
SharePoint as a web content management system: the experience of DePaul University
One area where SharePoint has not been widely adopted is as a web content management system for external websites. Lack of flexibility to build highly dynamic websites, or issues with customization and user interface are often quoted as reasons to avoid SharePoint and go for a separate web content management system. The downside is that your organization will have to manage two completely different content management systems, and often two different technical skill sets.
At DePaul University, the decision was made back in 2010 to implement a single, university-wide content management system that would support both the internal needs of students and staff as well as the external target audiences. SharePoint was selected as the new platform, and migration started in 2011.
Deborah Maue and Sharon Miller are leading this complex conversion project. Deborah is Associate Vice President for University Marketing, leading the university’s strategic marketing effort. Sharon is Director of Internet Communications, overseeing the design, creation and maintenance of depaul.edu.
Join Deborah and Sharon at the SharePoint conference track on Wednesday May 9th to hear their story:
- Why DePaul made the decision to use a university-wide solution
- Why they chose Sharepoint
- The timeline/implementation plan for the project
- The assumptions/principles they used to develop the project approach
- University governance of the project
- The migration status
- Lessons learned along the way
Want to learn more?
Do you want to learn more about the pros and cons of using SharePoint for your external websites? Then sign up now and join the SharePoint conference track!
More background reading: One CMS for intranet and website?