From content management to social communication, the exhibitors at SPTechCon displayed a wide array of solutions to extend the out-of-the-box capabilities of SharePoint.
Concept Searching announced two product releases at SPTechCon: conceptClassifier for SharePoint 2010 (for integration with third-party taxonomy management and auto-classification software); and conceptClassifier Content Type Updater (for generating “higher order” semantic metadata).
conceptClassifier for SharePoint 2010 supports Managed Metadata Services and integration with SharePoint 2010 Term Store, so users can apply conceptual metadata to content and have that metadata automatically classified to the Term Store. This enables the metadata to be populated across the documents stored in SharePoint in one step.
The tool is bidirectional, so users can also make changes in the Term Store that immediately appear in the taxonomy manager, where concepts are generated automatically to refine auto-classification. That refined structure is then made available back in the Term Store, providing the advantage of reducing maintenance and risk, as well as speeding the development of metadata models, according to the company.
conceptClassifier Content Type Updater is also integrated with Managed Metadata Services and the Term Store, enabling users to use the tool to automatically tag content and apply content types, the company said. The company produced a webcast in conjunction with Microsoft to show the product’s capabilities.
IT consultant Knowledge Management Associates (KMA) now offers SharePoint Managed Services, which it said will help organizations with the administration, maintenance and performance of their SharePoint implementations.
KMA’s SharePoint Managed Services will give clients access to SharePoint resources that are diverse and often difficult to find, the company said, which will allow them to manage evolving administrative requirements of SharePoint.
Lightning Tools has launched Social Squared, collaboration software that extends what users can do in SharePoint 2010. It has features such as sticky notes, full rich-text editing, tagging, e-mail notification and more, according to the company. Users can even reply to posts via mobile devices.
E-mail creates versioning, storage and duplication problems, while instant messaging applications don’t address saving conversations or finding them again.
Social Squared provides a forum for chat, which Lightning Tools’ Brett Lonsdale said is “a little bit like sending your employees out to the local bar for a drink. Sure, they may discuss television or sports, but it is also amazing how many people communicate about work-related topics, and how many great ideas are discussed that ordinarily wouldn’t appear to be important enough to share by e-mail.”
And MetaVis Technologies demonstrated its new Information Manager for SharePoint 2010, which enables users to easily import, copy and classify content. The company said the tool is embedded in the SharePoint 2010 ribbon, letting users work with familiar controls and interfaces to manage content.
Users can use the tool to copy content between different SharePoint sites and site collections as well as lists and libraries. It can also import content in bulk from file shares and apply metadata tags right from the ribbon. This, the company said, improves search and findability.
With the tool, users can maintain or remove existing folder structures from file systems; change content types for multiple selected documents or items; re-map fields to copy metadata values from one field to another; enter values directly or select them from SharePoint columns (including Managed Metadata Field linked to Term Sets); and perform metadata enrichment and content classification in SharePoint sites.
