26 May 2009

Free Webinar Series: Improving SharePoint Search

I will be joining a list of fantastic speakers on a free four-part webinar series on improving SharePoint search.  The series was developed by Earley & Associates

From the web site:

“From basic search scopes to custom properties, unstructured content to structured data, we’ll cover a variety of methods you can use to improve your search experience and results.”

Please join us for one or all of the calls during the month of June.  You can register here.

04 May 2009

New Support Offering for SharePoint Farms

Today we announced the availability of a new SharePoint support offering called SharePoint Operational Support Solution or SOSS. 

Consejo has been focused on SharePoint development since our founding.  What we’ve found, particularly with small and medium organizations, is that it’s tough for IT groups to support the relatively new SharePoint implementations effectively.  Most often, we see organizations struggle to create a support plan that addresses all of the critical support areas:

  • Level 2 and 3 support
    Level 1 support is typically handled by internal IT staff.  As long as the issue is related to basic usage, IT groups seem to be fine.  However, when the error or issue is more complicated, a number of IT groups have trouble resolving the issue without external assistance (be it a blog entry or a call to Microsoft).   With our offering, we supplement your team by providing the expertise at the ready.
  • Farm monitoring to ensure uptime
    Is SharePoint running?  Why can’t users access their documents?  Is my SharePoint server nearly out of disk space?  These are common questions and without proper and active monitoring, you won’t known until your end users are already complaining to find out.  We partnered with Panopta to create a proprietary monitoring agent that leverages their existing global monitoring servers without the need to expose your SharePoint farm to the internet.  Our agent gathers multiple performance and status data points from your SharePoint farm and securely transmits that data to Panopta.  Both you and Consejo can see your SharePoint farm status through the Panopta monitoring dashboards, receive weekly/monthly reports and receive alerts when farm performance is outside of pre-established thresholds.
  • Service pack and hot fix management
    It’s a pretty common problem: Microsoft issued a service pack or hot fix and you’re unaware it exists.  Unfortunately, the trouble you’re currently having with your SharePoint farm is fixed by installing the new fix.  The SharePoint Operational Support Solution corrects this problem by enabling Consejo to manage this operation for you:  we monitor Microsoft for all new service packs/fixes related to SharePoint, we’ll notify you about the existence of a fix, identify whether it’s important to install and physically install the update if necessary.
  • Periodic strategic reviews of the environment
    Are you making the best use of SharePoint?  Are there ways to improve operations?  Are there new services or features that will impact your operations?  We’ll review your environment on a quarterly basis and identify areas for improvement.  Since we have performance data available, we’ll even be able to tell you if your farm is operating within established thresholds and where you may want to make changes.  

All of these services are delivered through our solution, which is sold as a subscription; we ensure you don’t have to “find” help when it’s too late.

If you’re interested in seeing what we have to offer and how we can potentially help your firm, check out the new solution on our web site or simple contact the Consejo Sales Group.