[Nota: Este artigo cross-lanzado Usuario final SharePoint aquí: http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/09/09/sharepoint-a-case-study-in-ask-the-expert/]

Ás veces, cando se está a traballar como consultor (como unha profesión, ou nun papel consultivo na súa empresa), you find yourself living in an Onion story. The Onion has a series of articles called “Ask an [especialista] sobre [problemas]". This follows the famous “Dear Abby” format where a concerned person is asking for personal advice. The onion’s “expert”, con todo, is so focused on his/her area of expertise and current problems that the expert ignores the question entirely and rambles on about his area of expertise. As consultants, we need to keep that in mind all the time and avoid falling into that trap. It’s classically described like this – “when you use a hammer all day long to solve your problems, everything starts to look like a nail.” We professional consultants are always on guard against that kind of thing, pero entramos en contacto con persoas que son profesionais serios no seu propio papel, but are not consultants. They don’t have the same need or training to do otherwise.

Semana pasada, Eu escribín sobre un dos clientes da miña empresa e un proxecto en curso we have to enable high quality collaboration between various eye doctors in the US and Canada performing clinical research on rare disease. In addition to leveraging core SharePoint features to enable that collaboration, we’re also working an expense submission and approval process. It’s complicated because we have so many actors:

• Un puñado de individuos en consultorios médicos distintos dos que poden entrar na liña de gastos.
  • Hai máis de 40 consultorios médicos.
  • Nalgunhas prácticas, o médico usa o sistema directamente.
  • En moitas prácticas, persoal do médico usa o sistema directamente.
• Un administrador financeiro (que traballa para o meu cliente directo) que analiza os gastos para a precisión e relevancia, aprobar ou denegar-lles a nivel de organización.
• A 3rd party accounts payable group. These people pay all of the bills for out client, not just bills coming out of the rare disease study.

The Accounts Payable group has been a challenge. Working with them yesterday reminded me of the Onion series. In my role as business consultant, Expliquei a necesidade de que a empresa contas a pagar:

• Clínicas locais de estudos (consultorios médicos) incorrer en gastos relacionados coa estudo.
• They log onto the “web site” and enter their expenses using an online form. Neste caso, the “web site” is hosted with SharePoint and the expenses are entered into an InfoPath form. Expense receipts are scanned, cargado e conectado directamente ao formulario.
• Un proceso de fluxo de traballo automatizado busca a aprobación do administrador financeiro axeitado.
• Vostede, dear 3rd party AP company – please review and approve or deny this expense. I’ll send it to you any way that you want (razoable).Neste punto na discusión, I don’t really care how it needs to be bundled. I want to work with the AP group to understand what they need and want.

Cando expliquei a necesidade, a 3 ª parte foi un mergullo profundo no seu argot mumbo Jumbo interno sobre os procesos de aprobación de gastos, A Oracle códigos, sinaturas vicepresidencia, 90 día turn-around, etc. And panic. I shouldn’t forget about the panic. One of the bed rock requirements of the consulting profession is to learn how to communicate with people like that who are themselves not trained or necessarily feel a need to do the same. Among other things, it’s one of the best parts of being a consultant. You get to enter a world populated with business people with completely different perspectives. I imagine it’s a little bit like entering the mind of a serial killer, excepto que non está arruinado a vida tras a experiencia (though entering the mind of an AP manager isn’t a walk in the park 🙂 [ver nota importante abaixo ***] ).

One of the great things about our technical world as SharePoint people is that we have ready-made answers to many of the very valid concerns that people such as my AP contact have. Is it secure? How do I know that the expense was properly vetted? Can I, como o pagador finais de, ver todos os detalles do gasto? How do I do that? What if I look at those details and don’t approve of them? Can I reject them? What happens if the organization changes and the original approver is no longer around? Can we easily change the process to reflect changes in the system? Podo revisar esa gasto, un ano despois, e cando eu fico auditivas e precisa defender o pago?

Como a xente do SharePoint, we can see how to answer those questions. In my client’s case, nós respostas las máis ou menos así:

• Forma de InfoPath para permitir que sitios para rexistrar os seus gastos e sometelos a aprobación.
• Sitios poden volver ao sitio web para ver o estado do seu informe de gastos, en calquera momento.
• Como ocorren eventos significativos (e.g. o gasto é aprobado e presentado para pago), o sistema de forma Proativo notificaralle-los por correo-e.
• O sistema notificaralle o administrador financeiro, xa un informe foi sometido á aprobación.
• Administrador financeiro aproba ou nega a solicitude.
• Tras a aprobación, o gasto é enrolado en un correo-e e enviado para a organización 3rd Party payer.
• O pagador parte 3 ten toda a información que precisan revisar o gasto e pode acceder ao ambiente do SharePoint para cavar os detalles (principalmente auditar o histórico para comprobar a "verdade" dos gastos).
• 3rd party payer can approve or reject the payment using their own internal process. They record that outcome back in the SharePoint site (que desencadea unha notificación de correo-e para as persoas axeitadas).
• No futuro, sería bo para cortar ese proceso de correo-e tranquilamente e, no canto alimentar a información de gastos directamente ao sistema.

En conclusión, hai un estilo de vida aquí que eu describir o punto do axente profesional de vista, but which applies almost equally to full time employees in a BA and/or power user role. Work patiently with the experts in your company and extract the core business requirements as best you can. With a deep understanding of SharePoint features and functions to draw upon, máis veces que non, será capaz de responder a problemas e ofrecer formas de mellorar o día de traballo, aproveitando recursos básicos do SharePoint.

***Importante: I really don’t mean to compare AP people to serial killers. Con todo, I could probably name some AP pro’s who have probably wished they could get a restraining order against me stalking them and asking over and over again. “Where’s my check?” “Where’s my check?” “Where’s my check?"

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