Secret Diary of Sidney SharePoint (Part 13)

Sidney returned from a week visiting his Auntie Ethel in Sidmouth and was amazed at how much work had been done on the new Pottersgate Paint’s SharePoint. The Action SharePoint Consultant had been working remotely on the system with the help of Colin Cousins and it was really starting to take shape. Colin was taking great pleasure in showing Sidney the Pilot Site for the IT Department and how it had a full inventory of all the IT equipment including support contracts. It was however quite worrying that the two main servers were both saying ‘Support Expired’. Luckily this was only because Colin had the regional setting for the site set to English (United States) and had entered the date in the UK format. Sidney was also excited about testing out the new IT Helpdesk.

“I’m bored”, came a small voice from behind Colin. Sidney then got to meet Work Experience Penelope Pottersgate who Colin had been entertaining last week. Apparently it had not been easy as Percy Pottersgate’s granddaughter seemed reluctant to do anything computer related. According to Colin she had said on the very first morning that she didn’t use keyboards and wouldn’t touch the mouse as it might have germs on it. Colin had then given her a brand new mouse, but Penelope Pottersgate said she only used pink mice. At least Sidney had missed the first half of Penelope’s work experience. Sidney asked Penelope if she would like to photocopy some invoices, but she replied that she was too busy updating her Facebook status on her iPhone.
Sidney waded through the three hundred plus emails he had received while he had been away. He was delighted that one had just arrived from Hannah Harper saying she had missed him. Hannah also was asking if Sidney wanted to help her look after Sam tonight at her sister Harriet’s house. Sidney was quite keen on the idea of spending time with Hannah tonight even if it meant him missing ‘Top Gear’. He also remembered that she had mentioned the family dog before. So Sidney typed an email back to Hannah saying he would love to join her, also telling her about the slightly mad behaviour of his Auntie Ethel and asking if they could watch ‘Top Gear’ together. The other emails included over twenty about the temporary closing of the staff car park, several messages from Gwen Gardner reminding people that the Disabled Toilets were only to be used by visitors who could prove they were disabled, several suggestions for names for the SharePoint project and lots of automated SharePoint Alerts. The Alerts were because Colin had added the IT Group to be alerted every time a new document was created in the IT Document Library. Colin had then uploaded over forty documents. At least it proved the alerts worked. The competition to choose a name for the new SharePoint system was proving very popular. Maybe the prize Gwen Gardner was offering of being immune from redundancy for the next two years was quite appealing. The ideas for names included; the familiar ‘PottersPoint’, the abstract ‘SIMON’ which apparently stood for ‘Sharing Information Manageably Online Now’, ‘SharePaint’ and the one Sidney quite liked ‘JIM’ which was ‘Just Information Manager’.

“I’m bored”, the short freckled girl tapped Sidney on the shoulder. So Sidney gave her a pound and sent her to the vending machine to buy herself a chocolate bar.

The afternoon saw the next meeting of the SharePoint Project Team. Sidney was very pleased to see that the team seemed to be really excited about the project. Even Gwen Gardner said that she had been working on creating an electronic system for requests for sheets of photocopier paper. Everybody seemed to have been playing with their test SharePoint sites and the Action SharePoint man had to pull them in a bit and explain the importance of giving the sites a standard look. He suggested they worked on designing a site template that would be the starting point for each site. By giving all the sites a standard layout it would help the users when they come to navigate the different sites. Action SharePoint also suggested creating a template for Document Libraries so they all contained the same basic columns and would meet Pottersgate Paints document needs. The Project Team members looked blank when they were asked if there was a corporate document management policy. By the end of the session the team had designed a template for Controlled Documents that included version control, approval, check-in/check-out, Document Owner and a calculated Document Review date field. The department site template would now have this ‘Controlled documents’ document library template on it as well as ‘General Documents’ on it. The ‘General Documents’ library would be for documents that weren’t critical and didn’t need all the tight controls and didn’t need to store old versions.

As Sidney drove to Hannah Harper’ sister’s house that night, in his Skoda, he reflected on what had been a very productive SharePoint meeting. He was confident that he would have something to impress Percy Pottersgate with when the MD returned from sailing his yacht around the Isle of Wight next Monday. Sidney was ready for his second real date with Hannah and had splashed on the Old Spice. He had also thought about Sam and visited ‘Pets at Home’ on his way and bought a big chewy bone.

Hannah greeted Sidney with a big hug at the door and Sidney said he had brought a present for Sam.

“Sam, Sidney is here and has brought you a present”, Hannah shouted into the lounge. Sidney was rather surprised when a small boy walked in with a big smile on his face with his hands out ready for his present.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 10)

Sidney couldn’t believe his luck. Hannah Harper was asking him out on a date. Well, it seemed liked that as she was saying that she wanted to see the new Shrek film, but hadn’t got anyone to go with. Sidney read the email six times to make sure he wasn’t reading too much into this. Animated cartoons might not be his kind of thing and he hadn’t been to the cinema for over a year, but this was Hannah Harper. The last time he went was when he was the only person in the cinema to see the film ‘The Dammed United’ the story of Brian Clough’s disastrous 44 days at Leeds. Sidney checked the times of the Shrek film at Star City in Birmingham and was really pleased to see that it was available in 3D at nine O ’ Clock this Friday. His only concern now was would he really look at his most appealing wearing those silly plastic 3D glasses. As it would be dark Sidney decided to go for it and emailed Hannah Harper back saying that if she was really really desperate to find somebody to go with then he could, if she wanted, take her on Friday night to see it in 3D. After pressing the send button Sidney sat back in his chair to wait for the response. Unfortunately as he lent back he knocked his souvenir IT Crowd mug, with its saying “Have you tried turning it off and on again”, off his desk. Maybe it was a sign of things to come that the mug hit the floor and broke into six pieces.

Peter Pottersgate was training again for the Pottersgate Paints five-a-side team with potential goalkeeper Gary Greedy, from the Gatehouse, in the staff car park. Colin Cousins had rung in sick making lots of coughing noises with a very husky voice. Sidney had pretended to believe Colin was sick even though he had heard him twice yesterday on the phone to his wife obviously preparing for an interview. So Sidney was left alone clearing up the remains of his ‘IT Crowd’ coffee mug. With the bin full of old unread copies of Computer Weekly Sidney opened one of the drawers in Colin’s desk and emptied in the broken parts of the mug. Maybe Colin could glue them back together when he returned? Just then an email arrived in Sidney’s Inbox. He checked hopefully to see if it was from Hannah Harper, but no it was from the MD, Percy Pottersgate. It was good news as Percy was giving the go ahead for Sidney to start a SharePoint Project.

Sidney was quite excited at the chance to really get involved with Microsoft SharePoint even if the lack of money Percy Pottersgate was budgeting for it would be a challenge. The idea was very much to try to considerably reduce the costs of the current Finance system and also to give the Sales Department less paperwork to do so they could have more time to sell. Another part of Percy Pottersgate’s email that was slightly concerning Sidney was that Percy wanted to Go Live with SharePoint to all the Pottersgate Paints sites on 1st September. This was going to be a challenge, but where should Sidney start? Maybe a good start would have been a nice cup of tea, but now with his favourite mug gone even that was difficult. Sidney could use one of Colin’s as Colin had left one unwashed for over six months that he was deliberately cultivating the green mould in. Then the postman arrived in the office with a delivery for Sidney to sign for. Sidney took delivery of a cubed shaped parcel while still trying to work out how exactly the postman had got past the Gatehouse and was walking around on site without a visitors badge. Surely Gary Greedy hadn’t left the Gatehouse unmanned?

Excitedly Sidney unwrapped the parcel and was delighted with what he found inside. There he found a gleaming white mug with the words ‘SharePoint Mug’ on the front and the SharePoint logo. He turned the mug over and found some more words ‘Don’t be a SharePoint Mug call Action SharePoint on 0121 3680055’. Sidney was so pleased not only could he have a cup of tea without having to scrape out Colin’s mug but he also knew exactly where to start his SharePoint Project. Those nice men at Action SharePoint would tell him what he needed to do.

The ping sound from his computer heralded another email and this one was going to bring an even bigger smile to Sidney’s face than his Action SharePoint mug had. It was from Hannah Harper from Accounts. She was saying how she would love to go with Sidney to see ‘Shrek Forever After’ at Star City on Friday. She would meet him there at half past seven and then they could have a bite to eat first. Sidney was really pleased and for once everything was working out so well. Perhaps this was going to be his lucky mug. Just then a loud scream came from outside the window from the staff car park. Sidney looked outside to see Gary Greedy lying on the floor obviously in great pain.

Within minutes Safety Manager Ronald Roughwood, with his custard stained tie, was treating poor Gary from the Gatehouse. The news was not good as Gary Greedy had obviously broken his left arm as he was trying to save a shot from Peter Pottersgate’s famous left foot. The angle his left arm was pointing was a bit of a giveaway.

A conversation with Action SharePoint went well and they confirmed that with the right Project Team in place it would be possible to deliver the project by 1st September and that if Pottersgate Paints used the free SharePoint version SharePoint Foundation 2010 then the budget figure was also realistic. The only issue was that to use SharePoint Foundation 2010 then they would need a 64-bit server. Their Senior SharePoint Consultant said that if the 64-bit server was a problem then they could start the project as Windows SharePoint Services (SharePoint 2007) and plan to upgrade later.

The next call Sidney received darkened his mood quite a bit. It was from a very stressful sounding Percy Pottersgate. He needed Sidney urgently. He needed Sidney to play in goal for the Pottersgate Paints five-a-side team in place of injured Gary Greedy. Sidney wasn’t keen as he knew how seriously Percy Pottersgate took the Midland Paints Cup. When Tommy Tomkinson, from Technical, missed that penalty last season Percy Pottersgate soon cancelled Tommy’s Twenty-Five Year Service Award. Things then got even worse for Sidney when he was informed that the tournament was on Friday night kicking off a 6pm. Sidney was about to give a reason why he couldn’t play but Percy Pottersgate just thanked Sidney for being a real Pottersgate Paints man and put the phone down.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 6)

Thanks to the joys of the M6 motorway it was after 9am when Sidney finally arrived in the office. He was usually first there but for once Colin and Peter Pottersgate had beaten him to it. The two were arguing about who should respond to Gwen Gardner’s email (typed entirely in capitals), saying “LASER PRINTER NEEDS TONER NOW!!!” Even though he was scared of the MD’s secretary or, ‘MD’s PA’ as she had started calling herself since last November, he wasn’t in the mood for Colin and Peter’s squabbles so decided to deal with Ms Gardner himself.

Sidney knew that Gwen Gardner’s printer was a newish HP Laser but could not remember which one. If only Colin had finished the very complex IT Asset Register he had started eighteen months ago. Perhaps if they ever did go for this SharePoint thingy it could help them to record their IT Inventory better. Maybe he could ask Hannah Harper if she knew if SharePoint could do inventories? There was only one thing for it; Sidney would have to go and make a note of the model number of the printer again.

Sidney was in luck because as he got to Gwen Gardner’s door he could see she was just going out for a cigar break. So Sidney hid outside the door until she had gone before creeping in to check which toner type the printer took. Sid never really understood why the company had so many different types of printers, but knew that Gwen Gardner always insisted on a new one if somebody else in the company had a better one than she did.

“Ah Sidney, how’s that nephew of mine doing?” Percy Pottersgate shouted from behind Sidney causing Sidney to bang his head on the open printer. “Hope you are looking after him and especially that left foot. Oh by the way I am calling an emergency Management Team Meeting at half ten so don’t be late”.

Sidney was already behind with his jobs for the day especially after Peter Pottersgate had declared that he didn’t think his uncle would like him changing backup tapes or updating virus checkers on servers. Last thing Sidney needed was another meeting but at least it showed he was now part of the Management Team.

In the IT Store Cupboard Sidney searched desperately for a toner box with the number Q2612A on. He found everyone but this number including fourteen C3906A’s. Which apparently was for the 6L series although Sidney didn’t think they had any of these printers left? Some kind of electronic Stock Control system was obviously needed so again Sidney made a mental note to ask Hannah Harper. Just as Sidney was about to give in on his search for a Q2612A he was relieved to see one right on the top shelf. It took some getting with a fine balancing act, but eventually Sidney retrieved the toner box. Unfortunately to Sidney’s dismay the box contained an already used cartridge. Oh no, he was going to have to tell scary Gwen that they had run out and he would have to order one. Last time it had taken nearly four weeks for a new one to arrive. This was partly due to the way that the Pottersgate Paints Purchasing Order system worked requiring two director’s signatures (made worse as it was during the Ryder Cup) and partly because the parcel had been delivered to ‘The Stores’ and nobody had told IT that it was there. Maybe if Sidney just gave the empty cartridge in the box a jolly good shake he could then pretend to Gwen Gardner that it was a new one?

Sidney arrived late for the emergency Management Team Meeting and all the seats had gone so he had to stand at the back. Gwen Gardner was moaning about the poor quality of the minutes from the last meeting and telling Percy Pottersgate that he shouldn’t have meetings when she was not there. It soon became apparent that the meeting had been called because sales at Pottersgate Paints were down and things were not going well. Cuts were going to have to be made. There was talk of restructuring and the need for voluntary redundancies. Gwen Gardner told the meeting that she would be circulating a list later today of people who in her opinion should consider ‘voluntary’ redundancy. It was decided to amalgamate Finance and Purchasing. Sidney didn’t think he should point out that it had been less than two years since they were split after originally being one department. It was clear savings needed to be made and Percy Pottersgate informed the meeting that as from the end of September they were cancelling the licences for the ERP system that they spent over two hundred grand implementing in 2007. So they would need to find a new system to deal with ordering, shipping and invoicing as well as staff records. Sidney’s heart sank and he knew that this was going to mean a lot more work for him. Maybe he would be lucky and his name might be on the Gwen Gardner ‘Voluntary’ List?

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 4)

It was a cold Thursday morning in the Server Room. Sidney was having an even more confusing day than usual, but then he never had got the hang of Thursdays. It had started badly when his assistant, Colin Cousins, had come back off holiday and requested his desk back. Then Sidney had to hear all about Colin’s wife Carol’s hysterectomy and as always how wonderful Carol’s company was. Colin always mentioned that ‘Carol’s Company’ gave all their Sales staff Blackberries as well as a free chocolate vending machine at their Head Office. Sidney had told Colin that morning that they needed to seriously think about ways of managing information better at Pottersgate Paints, but all Colin talked about was something called ‘Sharepoint’ that they used at Carol’s office. Apparently Carol used it to book medical leave for the operation that now meant Colin would have to be doing the hovering for the next month. Oh and the private hospital that Carol’s company paid for also used this ‘Sharepoint’. At least there would be no more little Colins as Sidney was still not sure if there were four or five at the last count.

The lack of room in the IT Office together with the need to get away from the cocky Peter Pottersgate was the reason that Sidney was now shivering in the noisy Server Room. He had switched the air conditioning off for ten minutes last Wednesday, but that resulted in the temperature alarm going off on three of the Dell servers giving off a piercing noise that had led a passing Betty Broadhouse to thump the break-glass and set off the Site Fire Alarm. At least the Fire Brigade arrived in under ten minutes so it was a good practice. So Sidney sat there in his coat reading his emails from one of the old PCs that was out of warranty. Despite this depressing scene Sidney was smiling as he had received an email from Hannah Harper who was actually being friendly and there were even several kisses at the bottom. Sidney decided it was time for action and sent an email back to Hannah Harper with the Subject ‘I Want To Meet You’. This was Sidney being assertive and trying to come over all masterful. He said how much he liked their flirty emails but thought it was time to meet up and put the flirting into action. He told Hannah in no uncertain terms that he would be at the Albert Anchor pub tomorrow, Friday lunch-time, at half past twelve and wanted Hannah to meet him there. He read it through and felt it was a touch too forceful so added a few softer words. The title became ‘I Don’t Know If You Want To But I Would Really Like To Meet You If You Fancy And You Are Not Too Busy’. He ended the message with four kisses then after checking three times that he was sending it to the right address he pressed SEND. Within seconds a reply zapped back. The subject read ‘Out of Office’ and the text ‘I am currently out of the office until Monday but your email has been forwarded to my Manager Harry Hawkins and his Manager Harriet Holmes’.

Just then there was a very loud bang on the Server Room door. To Sidney’s horror it was the MD Percy Pottersgate. Sidney quickly opened the door pretending to be pleased to see Percy Pottersgate.

“So this is where you are hiding whilst Peter runs the show. He’s a bright boy, but make sure he rests that left foot”, Percy Pottersgate was shouting like a sergeant major to be heard above the humming servers. “Anyway haven’t got time for idle chat. Just here to tell you that I want you at the next Pottersgate Paint Senior Management Team meeting. About time we got you IT lot onboard ”. Sidney was delighted at the chance to finally join the SMT. “Oh, next one is at 11am today. Oh and as Gwen is off on holiday you can take the minutes” with that Percy Pottersgate left the Server Room. Sidney was still pleased that finally he would be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ken Klondike, William Wilson, Roberto Raul and Harriet Holmes. Oh no, Harriet Holmes, Hannah’s boss, the email!

Sidney was first to arrive in the Board Room and although he had in the past spent hours trying to fix the Video Conferencing he had never before felt he belonged there until now. Sidney had noticed before that people always tend to arrive two minutes after the time of the meeting was due to start and all pretended to have rushed away from the very important work they were doing to be there. At two minutes past eleven they all started to pile in followed by Percy Pottersgate and his big white moustache.

“Have you all met Sidney whathisname? He is joining us from IT”, Pottersgate informed the room who all seemed to fail to recognise Sid even though he knew them all. “Pour the coffee then Sidney and then pass around these agendas”, the MD barked out.

Sidney hated these large coffee jugs with their strange opening mechanisms and was mighty relieved when Ken Klondike came to his rescue.
“Thanks for fixing that email problem for me, but what happened to the message I was sent last Tuesday from Morgan Meldrew?” Ken Klondike asked Sidney as he showed him that he had been pressing the wrong button on the coffee jug.

Eventually Sidney sat on the only seat that was left around the large oak table. When he sat down he realised that he was a good six inches lower than anybody else and worse still when he looked up was sitting right opposite Harriet Holmes. To make matters worse his chair was not only the lowest but had a very unfortunate squeak ever time he moved. Sidney read through the agenda and found a rather worrying pattern. Item 2 – Failings of IT, item 3 – Any IT Problems, item 4 – IT Overspend, item 5 – Poor IT Training and item 6 –Inappropriate use of internal email. Sidney was now feeling very uncomfortable and not only because he was sitting on his pager.

The meeting started and at least the first item was not about IT. It was about a possible company name change supposedly to give Pottersgate Paints a more global feel. Names were suggested including one from Percy Pottersgate himself. He suggested ‘Percy Pottersgate Paints’ which many said was an excellent choice. In the end it was agreed on ‘Pottersgate Paints International’ to show that they now had a customer in Ireland. So a new logo, corporate branding and signage was needed. Sidney realised that this was going to mean work for him. Lucy Longford then commented the need to thoroughly check the proofs for the signs to prevent another problem like the missing ‘i’ in ‘Pottersgate Paints’ last time.
For the next hour Sidney found why he was really there as everybody at the table aired their IT frustrations. There were many ranging from lack of toner in printer to the fact there were two Jack Jones listed in Outlook. Sidney defended his department all the way. The end result was that a completely new system was required for not a lot of money. Sidney was feeling overloaded and wasn’t really concentrating when Eric Emerson started talking about how they used something free called WSS to store all their marketing information at Tonks Tints. Percy Pottersgate liked the word ‘free’ and told Sidney to check out this WSS. In middle of item three the MD suddenly announced it was time for lunch and that they should all go down the Albert Anchor for a Ploughman’s. He didn’t make it clear who was paying and as Sidney only had two pound coins on him he decided it was best he should decline.

“No problems I am sure you have lots of IT work to be doing. Send young Peter along instead and tell him it’s on his Uncle”, Percy Pottersgate responded to Sidney’s polite refusal.

Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Part 3)

It was Friday lunch-time and with most of Pottersgate Paints down the pub Sidney was busy googling trying to find out about ‘managing information’. He had been invited to join them down the pub by the MD’s nephew Peter, but was instead glad to get some time alone in the office. It had been a very difficult week with Peter Pottersgate criticising most things that Sidney did. He had complained that the Administrator account was still called ‘Administrator’, he had complained that the version of Office was only 2003 and had criticised Sidney’s style of trousers. The annoying nephew had also by-passed the Corporate Firewall so he could get to YouTube, disabled his virus checker and downloaded four films in full causing the company Internet connection to grind to a halt.

Sidney now had just two weeks to come up with a proposal for the Board of how he could better organise the company’s mound of information. He hadn’t really got very far, but under Peter Pottersgate’s guidance had started using Social Networking to get to talk to other IT Managers. He had joined Facebook, started to Twitter and was now Linked-in. Sid was quite impressed that he now had nearly twenty Facebook friends even if only two lived in England and several had names he wasn’t sure how you pronounced them. He had even been contacted by a woman who claimed she went to school with him at Perry Barr High. He really couldn’t place her but thought best not to say. So on all these sites Sidney asked for everyone’s advice on ‘Information Storage’. The replies back ranged from the far too technical to the offer of a one-to-one session priced at £400 with ‘Luscious Lips Linda’. But at least he was getting to interact with real people.

Sidney was trying to complete the far too complex Excel Expense Form that Fred Farthing, from Finance, had designed. All Sidney was trying to do was reclaim his rail fare from his trip to London last week. Once completed the form had to then be signed by his Line Manager, witnessed by somebody who wasn’t in his department and countersigned by a director. All this usually took up to three weeks to achieve by which time it was either lost in the internal mail or the monthly Expenses BACs run had been missed. Perhaps there was a more efficient way of doing this. After writing the amount in the wrong box Sidney gave in and decided to just forget about the train ticket. Instead he decided it was a good time to go through the pile of mail in his In-Tray. Actually the incoming mail also filled his Out-tray and his Pending one too. Much of it was junk mail and Sidney managed to fill all three bins in the IT Office with it without the need to open any of it. As usual his ‘Computer Weekly’ remained in it’s polythene wrapper although like many IT Managers he did have a quick read of the Dilbert cartoon strip on the back and thought to himself, “how true”. It was as he was trying to find room in one of the bins for the ‘Computer weekly’ that he noticed the article just above Dilbert trying to put out a Server Room fire. It caught Sidney’s eye because it mentioned the launch of SharePoint 2010. This rang a bell because one of his new Twitter chums had said they were attending the launch of this ???when??. Sidney was going to read more about it and even ripped a hole in the polythene so he could do so when a new email message arrived on his computer.

Sidney was excited to see the email in his Inbox was from Hannah Harper. Now, after Hannah’s last email left him in no doubt that she never wanted to see him again after he had stood her up he was somewhat surprised that he was now reading a very severe telling off from her for the fact that he hadn’t emailed her all week. She was obviously still very cross with him and again the last line emphasised the fact that she never wanted to see him again. Sidney had never really managed to get to understand the working of the female mind. He was unsure whether a reply was required or not. The end of the message clearly suggested not but the start was complaining about him not being in touch. Sidney decided that he needed to write a grovelling apology as he really wanted another chance to see Hannah Harper. Just as Sidney was typing the email Ken Klondike came loudly in the room.

“Six days. Six bloody days I have been without my email”, Ken Klondike was not happy. Sid looked somewhat confused.

“Did you log a helpdesk call Ken?”

“I rang last Friday but nobody has bothered to come and fix it”, Ken was fuming and Sid tried to recall being told about this. “I want it fixed today”, Ken banged dramatically on Sid’s desk (well Colin’s desk) and then stormed out. Sidney was left to frantically check through his emails to see if he had missed something. He remembered Colin’s fondness for post-it notes and quickly scanned through the twenty or so around his desk. None of them mentioned Ken Klondike’s email. But then he noticed the one saying ‘Buy Hamster Food’ had something written on the back. Sidney turned over the slightly greasy yellow post-it and saw the words ‘KEN EMAIL BROKEN URGENT’. They really needed a better IT Helpdesk system. At that point Sidney’s PC flashed up a message saying that updates had been applied and it was restarting. It was asking him if he wanted to send the open message so Sidney clicked ‘Yes’. Unfortunately all Sidney had written in the message to Hannah was “Hi Hannah, I know I have been ignoring you so I will just...”