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ERIC Number: EJ970466
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Mar
Pages: 5
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1041-7915
EISSN: N/A
Help Central: Creating a Help Desk and Knowledge Portal in SharePoint
Ennis, Lisa A.; Tims, Randy S.
Computers in Libraries, v32 n2 p6-10 Mar 2012
This article discusses the authors' implementation of Help Central, a site within the Lister Hill Library Collection on the University of Alabama-Birmingham's SharePoint server. Initially, Help Central was designed to address the inadequacies in the library's old, static HTML web-based support system, including haphazard issue reporting by staff and tracking these issues and their solutions. The old request form provided only limited fields for defining the request (name, email, and comments). Further, the web-based support system lacked intelligent workflow design. While none of the problems caused library services to come to a screeching halt, the authors knew they could do better, and they believed SharePoint held the solution for them. SharePoint is great for developing dynamic lists and forms quickly, attaching intelligent workflows to them, and integrating list data with other products for analysis and reporting. The migration of the library's website to Joomla! provided an excellent opportunity to implement a new, user- and management-oriented solution to their web-based support needs. SharePoint's reporting capabilities really shine through in Help Central. Overall, implementing Help Central in SharePoint has been successful on multiple fronts. For the systems staff, having everything in a central location has definitely increased efficiency and accuracy in dealing with the variety of requests.
Information Today, Inc. 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055-8750. Tel: 800-300-9868; Tel: 609-654-6266; Fax: 609-654-4309; e-mail: custserv@infotoday.com; Web site: http://infotoday.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Alabama
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A