Spotlight on 2010: Does It Deliver End-User Empowerment?

By Steven Fowler
“Connect and empower people” was a benefit often mentioned about SharePoint 2010 in the literature, keynote, and by session speakers at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 in October. But how specifically has Microsoft delivered on this?
One of the new pillars of SharePoint is Composites. Composites are rapidly created business solutions that meet the needs of a specific line of business (LOB). These solutions are typically defined by decision-makers and subject matter experts (SMEs) who know the information they need. The twist with SharePoint 2010 is to deliver tools that allow these same decision-makers and SMEs to build their own solutions rather than turning to an in-house IT pro or software developer, or external vendor.
With a consolidation in workforce, there are more systems for the IT pro and software developer to design, develop, support. By empowering the end user through the use of Composites, the IT pro and software developer become an advisor to the process rather than a bottle-neck. They are there to insure that Composite solutions are implemented properly and are left to those activities that only their professional skills can perform. In reality though, increased capability comes with an inherent complexity that must be considered.
Consider that SharePoint 2010 allows users to define and manage the experience using rules-based audience targeting, SharePoint groups and distribution lists. This requires that a user be adequately trained on how to use these feature/functions and that IT anticipates levels of support needed for users they empower. There will be times when the IT pro or software developer may be called upon to triage and remedy a production issue related to a decision the empower user has made, but in the big picture, that’s a price worth paying.
The more popular Composite applications are those implemented as Office 2010 client applications, such as: Word, Excel, and Access. SharePoint 2010 also extends this to include offline capability with Workspace 2010 and Visio 2010.
Custom content management workflows are common in every organization. Visio 2010 addresses the challenges associated with workflows in allowing the person that defines the workflow (the SME) to also implement the workflow.
SMEs can use Visio 2010 to express the intent of the workflow process, and export it to SharePoint Designer 2010 for further implementation of business logic and rules. Depending on the complexity of the workflow, a developer resource can be utilized, and even exported to Visual Studio 2010 if it is determined that complex or broad-scoped business requirements are present.
These workflows are people-based activities, not just interfaces between systems; they allow the information worker to collect data. SharePoint collects the information between workflow process stages and steps with the use of forms that are rendered to the browser, Office clients, and SharePoint Workspace. With SharePoint 2010 the SharePoint Designer generated the necessary forms using InfoPath 2010 that SMEs can then customize.
Along with these enhancements over SharePoint 2007 is the ability to monitor workflow process. Once workflows have been triggered and are in various process steps, SharePoint 2007 made it difficult to determine their status based on the overall workflow execution plan. SharePoint 2010 makes this easier via workflow visualizations within Visio Services that render a graphical representation of the entire workflow execution plan and indicate what stage the workflow is currently in.
Has SharePoint 2010 delivered? It seems so. SharePoint 2010 has matured many of the well-adopted SharePoint 2007 features, allowing users to self-service their business automation needs.

Steven Fowler is an author, speaker, instructor, and consultant with more than 14 years of progressive software project management, architecture, and engineering experience. His current focus is delivering SharePoint design, development, and support services at a founder of SharePointPS.com