Secret Diary of Sidney Sharepoint (Final Week)

It had been a busy week for Sidney preparing for today’s Go Live of Pottersgate Point. After three months work the new SharePoint at Pottersgate Paints was going to be launched. The Pilot had gone very well and with the help of the super Action SharePoint guys everything in the Scope for phase one had been completed. Even Gwen Gardner’s idea for a form to be submitted when requesting additional loo rolls when down to the last one. Sidney had worked a lot of late nights getting things finished and was actually feeling quite proud of what he had achieved with SharePoint Foundation 2010. The sites looked smashing and Sidney was pleased how easy it had been to match the exact colour of the brand new Pottersgate Paint’s corporate colours. Percy Pottersgate had decided last week that he wanted the Pottersgate Paint logo to become purple.

During the many hours Sidney had worked late he not only made a few phone calls to Action SharePoint on 0121 3680055 but he also took every opportunity to call Hannah Harper to ask her advice. The highlight was, though, on Tuesday night when Hannah turned up with a pizza to share with Sidney. They sat on the floor of the IT Office eating pizza, garlic bread and laughing. Sidney was very tempted to kiss Hannah Harper but decided with the CCTV camera near it was probably best not to. The strawberry cheesecake flavoured Haagan Dazs ice cream also went down well even if it had turned into a milkshake after Hannah had driven to work.

Sidney sat at his desk feeling nervous as he prepared to switch all the Pottersgate Paint users on to Pottersgate Point. He had already changed the group policy settings so that everyone’s default home page on the Internet was http://pottersgatepoint.org , which they could also access externally and now he was about to turn off write access to the old file server. From now on any documents that needed to be edited or created could only be done on SharePoint. With the help of Colin Cousins, Sidney had placed on every desk in the company a triple folded page entitled ‘How to use Pottersgate Point’ on each desk. Unfortunately folding had never been Sidney’s strong point and some were better than others. All End Users should have attended the ninety minutes SharePoint End User training course with the Action SharePoint chap last week, but it was still felt that a ‘How to...” would be useful for the common small tasks. Sidney had wanted to get these laminated but was too scared to ask Gwen Gardner especially as she had interrogated him about his excessive staple usage last Thursday.

The first day of Pottersgate Point went very smoothly. Sidney and Colin were kept busy, but most of the calls were because people hadn’t got permissions to access documents they had previously been able to see. The Department Super Users did well and even Gwen Gardner appeared for a moment to have actually tried to help somebody. Louis Le Gover, European Sales Manager, did seem to be directing quite a few questions to Hannah Harper. Sidney told him that Simon Sedgley was the Sales Super User and all Sales SharePoint questions should be directed to Simon or to IT.

Comments on the launch of SharePoint were all very favourable. Even Quinton Quigley, the Quality Manager, congratulated Sidney on an excellent system that he said ticked all the Quality boxes and legal requirements. Sidney was really chuffed and noticed that people even started to use his name. He was no longer just that bloke from IT. He was even more pleased when Pottersgate Paint’s MD Percy Pottersgate came down to personally congratulate Sidney. It was a pity that Percy Pottersgate slipped on a patch of melted Haagen Dazs ice cream and went skidding off towards the Server Room, but only after announcing he was holding a party tonight to celebrate the launch of Pottersgate Point.

Sidney had been unsure about if he had been invited to the party that night and was delighted to receive email confirmation later that afternoon. The party was for Senior Managers and all the SharePoint Project Team. It was actually being held at the home of Percy Pottersgate at the address The Pavilion, Portway Parade, Perry Barr. Sidney was relieved to see the dress code was smart casual as he still hadn’t got that tea stain out of his best suit.

First thing Sidney had to do was ring Hannah Harper and see if they could go together. His mood soon changed when Hannah Harper told Sidney she had already agreed to go with Louis Le Gover. She did seem quite sad about this and then suggested that the three of them could all go together. Sidney agreed, offered to drive and to pick up Hannah first. He could tell that Hannah liked this idea. So four hours later after a visit to the hair-dressers, buying a new ‘non iron’ shirt from Asda and having a long shower Sidney was ready to pickup Hannah Harper.

As Sidney escorted Hannah Harper to the car he told her how lovely she looked in her black silky top. Hannah blushed slightly and then pealed Sidney’s ‘Reduced to £6’ label off the back of his shirt. The two shared many smiles as Sidney drove to pick up Louis Le Gover. Hannah asked if she should get in the back. But Sidney said that Louis could go in the back. All too quickly they were continuing their journey with Louis Le Gover cramped in the back and Sidney with the music deliberately turned up to drown out the Frenchman.

Both Monsieur Le Gover and Hannah were surprised to see Sidney going an unusual way to Perry Barr. Sidney then pulled outside a red coloured house with stone-cladding on somewhere in Gornall. Sidney had offered a lift to the party to somebody else and the two passengers were thinking who it could be as Sidney went to the front door. The look of horror on Louis Le Gover’s face said it all as a minute later Sidney was pushing Gwen Gardner towards him through the small driver’s side door of his two door car. Sidney had arranged a date for Louis Le Gover and told Gwen Gardner how much Louis was looking forward to it.

At the party Sidney and Hannah stayed close together and Sidney started to feel like they were finally a couple. Louis Le Gover was being dragged around by Gwen Gardner who was already on her seventh glass of wine and second cigar. The buffet was superb and Percy Pottersgate even introduced Sidney and Hannah to his wife Patricia. Then it came for Percy Pottersgate to make a speech and thank everyone who had been involved in the successful launch of Pottersgate Point. Sidney felt slightly sad that the guys from Action SharePoint weren’t there as they had been such a great help and really gone beyond the ‘call of duty’. They had charged less than £15,000 for all their work, training sessions and manuals. They had pointed Sidney towards lots of valuable SharePoint add-ons like his favourite scanning one Dark Blue Duck and the Holiday Planner from Pentalogic.

Percy Pottersgate then announced to his delight that the man behind the Pottersgate Point was here tonight. Sidney prepared to be called forward.

“I give you my nephew, Peter Pottersgate”, Percy Pottersgate announced and Sidney saw the familiar spotty face of young Peter Pottersgate. Sidney wasn’t too disappointed he had Hannah Harper holding on to his arm.

“I’m bored”, came a voice from behind Sidney and he turned round to see, Percy Pottersgate’s granddaughter, Penelope Pottersgate sticking cocktail sticks into the bottom of a very surprised looking Louis Le Gover.

Percy Pottersgate continued his speech and then made an announcement that shocked the whole room including Sidney.

“The use of SharePoint at Pottersgate Paints is going to save us tens of thousands of pounds and probably save Pottersgate Paints. I want to say a big thank you to Sidney, our IT Manager, for all his tremendous hard work. I didn’t get where I am today without noticing hard work. I have decided to reward Sidney by making him IT Director and giving him a place on the board of Pottersgate Paints. Well done Sidney. Hip hip...”, Percy Pottersgate started the cheers for Sidney.

Sidney was beaming and thinking things couldn’t get any better when Hannah Harper took his hand and led him out into the garden. The two kissed under a blanket of stars on this clear night.
Hannah Harper, from Accounts, suddenly stopped kissing Sidney, looked into his eyes and said, “I love you Sidney Sharepoint”.

Secret Diary of Sidney SharePoint (Part 15)

Sidney was delighted at the response to the pilot of SharePoint in both the HR and IT departments even if Nellie Nogo had rung him every hour pointing out things that were not quite right. It wasn’t really SharePoint’s fault more the SharePoint Project Team’s poor grammar. Nellie’s last complaint was because somebody had used the word ‘Peaked’ in the ‘News’ section when they really meant ‘Piqued’. Having the Personnel manual now available to all staff via SharePoint had also caused quite a stir. Sidney himself had suspected that in the ‘Paternity Leave’ section it should have read ‘5 days’ not ‘5 years’, but several other people were taking it literally.

Sidney had enjoyed working with the Action SharePoint Consultant using SharePoint Designer to produce some pretty impressive Work Flows for the IT Training Room bookings even if Nellie Nogo had complained she had received an extra three emails last Tuesday compared to a normal Tuesday.

Now Sidney had become a daily SharePoint Tweeter, on Twitter, as well as a popular SharePoint Friend on Facebook he was becoming quite well known in the SharePoint Community. He had even managed to somehow get invited as a guest of Action SharePoint to the launch, last Wednesday, of the new exciting SharePoint Village. He had even managed to persuade Action SharePoint to let him bring along a guest. His plan had been to take Hannah Harper with him, but unfortunately Gwen Gardner somehow intercepted Sidney’s post before the invitation reached him (surprising how many times she seemed to read Sidney’s post first). Despite all Sidney’s best efforts he was forced to take the scary Gwen Gardner, Percy Pottersgate’s PA, to the launch of SharePoint Village. The event was very impressive with some lovely hot carvery sandwiches, but as Gwen Gardner helped herself to her sixth glass of free wine, Sidney was left to feel very disappointed that it wasn’t Hannah that he was having to hold tightly to prevent her falling into a very large bowl of trifle.

At the launch of SharePoint Village Gwen Gardner really had had too much to drink and outside she had tried to light her cigar with her souvenir Pottersgate Paints pocket torch before asking Sidney if he wanted to dance. Sidney had decided that it was best not to take Gwen back to work so he had instead offered to drive her home. After making Gwen Gardner understand that he wanted to take her to her home and not to his own he started what seemed a very long journey to Gwen Gardner’s home in Gornall. Gwen Gardner had been very chatty and told Sidney things that he really hadn’t wanted to hear. Even five days later he was still struggling to forget what Gwen Gardner had said about what she had done with Percy Pottersgate in the Archives Room after the Christmas Party of 1994.

Although the SharePoint Pilot had been well received there had still been some concern about how to get all the tonnes of old paper documents stored in the Archives Room into SharePoint. Despite the fact that Sidney was trying very hard not to think about the Archives Room; scanning was something he wanted to discuss with the Action SharePoint chap. So he gave Action SharePoint a ring on 0121 3680055 and explained the scanning challenge them. Sidney told Action SharePoint how they needed a quick easy way of entering the documents into SharePoint removing the need for having to store these old paper copies. Sidney hoped that without the need to store these copies the Archives Room could then be locked and he would never have to enter that dark chamber of secrets ever again.

Within minutes Action SharePoint were pointing Sidney to a site with the rather surprising name of ‘Dark Blue Duck’. Sidney had no idea what sort of ducks were actually dark blue, but quickly became very impressed with the software. Sidney installed the trial version and within minutes each of the Document Libraries on his SharePoint Test Environment had an extra item for Scanning in their menu. It really was as easy as that. All he needed now was a copy of one of the documents from the Archive Room to scan as a test. Maybe this could wait!

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 12)

Even though it was now over a week since the football tournament Percy Pottersgate was still not a happy MD this Friday morning. Gavin Galloway had phoned him at least twice every day to gloat about Galloway Gloss winning the Midland Paints trophy, again. Sidney at least was still being claimed a star for his brave goalkeeping in the semi-final. Sidney had been feeling quite jolly all week as he was still remembering his date with Hannah Harper and was also delighted that Peter Pottersgate would not be returning to Pottersgate Paints after his own goal. Sidney was also very pleased that all of his requests for members of the SharePoint Project Team had been agreed including Hannah Harper. The only part that Sidney didn’t like was the decision that Gwen Gardner, the cigar smoking PA, would also be on the Project Team.

The first meeting of the new SharePoint Project Team yesterday was a big success. The Action SharePoint Consultant led a three hour Admin Training course to start with that even Gwen Gardner seemed to enjoy. They were all impressed at how easy the Action SharePoint man added a video of the latest Pottersgate Paint TV advert to one of the SharePoint sites. Although, Sidney did wonder why he had never seen any of the three glamorous looking ladies in the advert walking around the site? He decided not to comment as Hannah Harper was sitting quite near. The Training Department team member, Tonia Toothpick, was very taken with the ease in which she was able to create a ‘Trainee Feedback’ survey which even allowed her to ask extra questions depending on previous answers. Some of the other Project Team though created slightly more informal surveys. One did a survey on holiday plans and Gwen Gardner, scarily, did one rating the hunkiness of the male employees at Pottersgate Paints. Interestingly the survey created by Hannah Harper was on recent visits to the cinema.

Sidney had really enjoyed his date with Hannah Harper watching Shrek in 3D, despite having a rather swollen and squashed nose after his goalkeeping save. It made him sound like Melvyn Bragg off the South Bank Show, but Hannah seemed to take pity on him. She even called Sidney her hero for his heroic save even though she was slightly puzzled why he hadn’t told her he was playing in the 5-a-side tournament. With his disfigured nose Sidney did struggle keeping the 3D glasses on but this just made Hannah smile more. They even shared a tub of strawberry cheesecake ice cream. Sidney was slightly concerned that a few drops of blood from his nose had fallen into the ice cream but decided not to say. Hannah just said how nice the strawberry sauce was.

After the SharePoint Training session the Action SharePoint chap led the first real Pottersgate Paints SharePoint Project Team meeting. Even though Gwen Gardner refused to be minute taker, everyone had their say. It was clear that the Action SharePoint Consultant had done this kind of thing lots of times before. He was able to answer all of their questions including the continual worry from Quinton Quigley, the Quality Manager, about security. In the end Quinton Quigley was satisfied that confidential documents would in fact be more secure under SharePoint than they were on the desktop of his laptop. He was also delighted that the document control part of SharePoint would help the Pottersgate Paints’ ISO 9001 inspections.

The SharePoint meeting had finished with a discussion over the name they should give to the new SharePoint system at Pottersgate Paints. Ideas included ‘PottersPoint’ and ‘Pottersgate Resource and Training Site (PRATS)’, but in the end it was decided to make the choosing of the name a competition for all of the staff.

Just after lunch on Friday all the Pottersgate Paints SharePoint Project Team members met in the car park ready to have a group photograph taken for the company magazine ‘Pottersgate Paints News’. Sidney was quite excited because he had never been in the magazine before. He was also thinking that perhaps he could arrange it so he was standing next to Hannah Harper. He noticed that Hannah looked particularly lovely today in her black and white skirt. The official company photographer was Simon Snapper and he got the job because he owned the biggest camera. His photography skills didn’t really match his impressive equipment though and his nervous twitch often resulted in some surprising pictures. He also had a habit of cutting people’s heads off. Percy Pottersgate had not been over impressed at the opening of the Perry Barr site when Simon Snapper managed to cut the head off the Duke of Kent on the official photograph. Simon Snapper spent ages trying to position the SharePoint Project Team and just as he had them in the right place Gwen Gardner announced that she was going to go in the centre and pushed in the middle of Sidney and Hannah. Gwen Gardner had obviously planned her outfit for the photograph and was wearing a large hat with a feather on. It was certainly not what she normally wore to work even on dress-down Fridays. The feather was just in front of poor Sidney’s face. It started to tickle his nose and he felt the need to sneeze. He tried to hold it back but just as Simon Snapper finally started taking the photograph Sidney gave an almighty sneeze.

Just as Sidney was leaving the car park he was tapped on the shoulder by Gwen Gardner.
“We have a fourteen year old on work experience for the next two weeks and she’ll be spending it with you in IT”, Gwen Gardner informed Sidney.

Sidney’s heart sank as he knew how draining it can be entertaining a child on work experience. He asked for a name.

“Penelope Pottersgate. Percy’s granddaughter”, Gwen replied sternly just before taking a cigar out from her handbag.