Midway through another year and Carelink is as busy as ever. We continue to maintain our reputation for Information technology in the NHS and customer feedback has been excellent. This issue of the bulletin explains more on the next release of the Microsoft Office series (including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) due out at the end of this year. We expect it will be in widespread use across all sectors next year. To make sure those in the NHS are fully prepared for this, we are running a hands on educational workshop on the 28th September and also a free seminar on the topic on the 22nd November (details of both are in the bulletin). The Carelink website has also been upgraded again, including registration and alerting facilities so that updates on pages of interest can be sent directly to you. As you might expect, there’s a new section on Office 2007 and the new version of SharePoint etc. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the bulletin and, as always, call us if you need anything.
Simon Hudson
simon.hudson@carelink.co.uk
This bulletin contains the following topics:
· Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007)
· MOSS 2007 Seminar – 22nd November 2006
· MOSS 2007 Workshop – 28th September 2006
· SharePoint User Group Upgrade
· New Wins
· New Additions to Carelink Website
· Interse’s iBox
· SMARTiD Single Sign On Web application
· NISAI
· NHS Mergers
· N3 Gateway Issues
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007)
The next instalment of SharePoint, MOSS 2007 is officially expected to be released in December 2006. ioko, a top Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, were one of the first companies to get the Beta versions due to our membership of the exclusive Technology Adoption Programme (TAP) for the Office 2007 System.
This new version sees major enhancements in the new Office SharePoint Server in comparison to the SharePoint 2003 and can be seen in the following table:
|
Capability |
SharePoint 2003 |
SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) |
|
Portal, Collaboration |
Good |
Enhanced |
|
Document Management |
Good |
Enhanced |
|
Records Management |
None (needs Meridio) |
Included |
|
Workflow |
Basic (needs K2.Net) |
Included (.NET3.0) |
|
Search |
Good |
Enhanced |
|
Business Intelligence |
None |
Included |
|
Content Management |
None (needs Microsoft CMS) |
Included |
MOSS2007 is now part of Microsoft Office System 2007. Office 2007 is far more than just another version of Office. In addition to improvements in Word etc., it provides an integrated platform of applications and services, portrayed in the architectural overview of the whole solution below:
For more information on Microsoft Office 2007, please click here or visit the Carelink website
If you would like to know more about MOSS 2007 and what it can do for the NHS, why not come along to our seminar, ‘SharePoint 2007: Meeting the Challenges of Information Management in the NHS’, on 22nd November at the National Learning Centre in York (more details immediately below)
SharePoint 2007: Meeting the Challenges of Information Management in the NHS’ Seminar, York, 22nd November 2006
Why you should attend?
Learn how you can meet your information management challenges with the new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). MOSS 2007 offers a unified suite of applications for enterprise content management with a breadth of new capabilities. This new functionality will bring considerable benefits to NHS organisations. It will allow you to:
- Increase productivity by simplifying the entire document management lifecycle from creation, collaboration and modification right through to expiry into a fully auditable records management environment.
- Reduce the internal administrative burden by creating rich online forms with powerful workflow to easily manage the approval process whilst at the same time automatically generating management reports.
- Simplify management reporting through empowering your managers to create and manage KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) directly from Microsoft Excel.
Find out how your peers are already using MOSS 2007 to meet the current challenges and demands within the NHS:
- Hear Chris Wallace, Senior Manager, Business Systems and Information, Oldham & Tameside Health Informatics, share his experiences of implementing a trust-wide document management system.
- Find out from Adrian Purcell, Head of Information Technology, how the online form building has been successfully applied within Hull and East Riding Health Informatics Service.
- Get the most up-to-date product information directly from Peter Askew, Office System and Collaboration Team at Microsoft who will be there to answer your questions.
- Get first-hand experience of relevant, topical issues and find out from Microsoft how to run a successful MOSS project.
Who should attend?
IT Directors, IT Managers, Business, Information or Communication Managers who are considering an upgrade from SharePoint 2003 or are new to SharePoint and would like more information on the significant business benefits that the major updates in Microsoft SharePoint 2007 can bring to the NHS.
For more details on this seminar, including agenda and registration details, please click here
In addition to this we are also running a MOSS 2007 workshop (details immediately below)
MOSS 2007 Workshop – 28th September 2006
Carelink are pleased to announce that we are running our first in a series of SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) workshops at our York offices on Thursday September 28th for NHS organisations who are keen to learn more about the technology with a hands-on-approach. Participants will be party to live demonstrations as well as hands-on-labs experience on virtual PCs for each individual. Those already attending the workshop include those from Southend PCT, North Bradford PCT, OTHIS (Oldham & Tameside Health Informatics Service) and Microsoft.
For more information on Microsoft Office 2007, please click here
SharePoint User Group Upgrade
If you can’t attend our seminar but want to keep up to date with the latest developments to MOSS then why not join our NHS SharePoint User Group. Membership is free and the aim is to provide you with a discussion forum and provide you with relevant information. If you would like membership, please email Raghunath.Pai@ioko.com with the subject line ‘NHS SharePoint Group registration request’. We plan to upgrade the user group to run on WSS2007 as soon as the production release code is available.
For more information on the SharePoint User Group, please click here.
New Wins
NHS Core site is our website solution built around Europe’s leading content management system; it provides a website that looks good, meets NHS guidelines and is quick and easy to maintain by non-technical people; whilst providing many advanced features to both authors and visitors to it. NHS organisations that have recently implemented this NHS Core Site include:
- East Lancashire Healthcare NHS Trust.
- Oldham & Tameside Health Informatics Service (OTHIS) for Tameside & Glossop PCT.
- East Cheshire Health Community, who are implementing two (one for their Acute Trust & one for their PCT) as well as a SharePoint solution for their intranet.
- Hull and East Riding HIS.
"We've been a satisfied customer of ioko for several years and were pleased to be able to continue this relationship by upgrading to NHS Core Site. Although a powerful CMS system, with ioko’s help we were up and running in a matter of days."
Chris Wallace, Senior Manager, Business Systems & Information, OTHIS
For the East Lancashire Healthcare NHS Trust website, please click here
For the Tameside & Glossop PCT website, please click here
For the East Cheshire Health Community website, please click here
For the Hull and East Riding HIS website, please click here
For more information on NHS Core Site, please click here
For more information on SharePoint, please click here
New Additions to Carelink Website
We continue to improve the recently redeveloped Carelink website and some of the latest features include a very quick registration facility where you can then choose to be sent updates on specific areas of interest to you and your organisation. Another, new section is our handy ‘Hints & Tips’ section. This page provides top tips for editing and administration in EPiServer and NHS Core Site and is another way for us to share knowledge with you.
For information on how to register on the site, please click here
For our Hints and Tips section, please click here
We are also pleased to announce that we have completed another case study for you to view. The latest in our line of case studies is that of the Hosting work for Link HR. It was the NHS ‘Agenda for Change’ initiative that brought together Carelink and Link HR and this case study portrays how both organisations worked together to mutually benefit.
For more information on project and other Carelink case studies, please click here
Interse’s IBox
A vast amount of staff time is spent accessing and handling information. Implementing the iBox extension for SharePoint will help your staff to do their job more effectively by providing the right information at the right time to the right person via an enterprise-wide metadata classification and search across systems and databases. As well as including SharePoint, other applications that will benefit from iBox include Microsoft CMS, Exchange, file servers and other third party databases. The iBox can help with FOIA and compliance issues by giving you enterprise search capability across both your SharePoint installation and your legacy data repositories, providing staff with one place to search for information, regardless of repository. iBox was the stand-out technology of 2005 for us and is demonstrating its value in many sectors. Interse are keen to work with some pilot accounts in the NHS to demonstrate its potential.
For more information on iBox Interse, please click here
SMARTiD Single Sign On Web application
We all have varying numbers of passwords for access to different websites. A common problem with this is the hassle of going through the cumbersome password reminders on different websites.
The SMARTiD smart card solution allows users to login in to the network and all websites with their NHS smart card, via a simple extension to Active Directory. For off-directory situations SMARTiD Web SSO provides a single PIN approach to any web application; passwords are stored securely with the directory user account. These work with Electronic Staff Records and NHS Contact (Mail) amongst others. The challenges of managing multiple logins and the drain on service desk resources due to this are well documented. The competitive pricing of SMARTiD means it can pay for itself in a matter of months
For more information on SMARTiD, please click here
Email smartid@smartidentity.co.uk for further information and/or to enquire about a demonstration.
NISAI
The Nisai Group has recently been carrying out some great work in e-learning in the NHS and recognises the business case of people only needing to know certain elements of certain modules so have designed bespoke e-learning modules, customised to your specific business needs. People learn best in different ways so the information can be taught in either of the two main methods of delivery: that of using virtual classroom technology as well as short 15-20 minute single learning events accessible via a secure web-based learning academy.
For more information on the Nisai Group, please click here
For the Nisai website, please click here
NHS Mergers
As many of the SHAs, Ambulance Trusts and PCTs are merging by October 2006, this will have a significant effect on many of the 200 NHS organisations that Carelink work with. Since we will now have various bill payers in the same organisation (and we don’t want to be taking extra money that is not ours!) If you could please forward this to those individuals accountable and ask them to contact simon.hudson@ioko.com, this would be most appreciated.
Please also see the Department of Health website for more information on this too.
N3 Gateway Issues
It has come to our attention that some organisations have been having problems with slow responses and connecting to the internet over their N3 connection. Whilst this issue is an issue that Carelink is not directly involved in, we have been assured that the N3/BT team is working to improve the situation. If we hear more we will pass it on via our Carelink website. To receive the latest updates for free on this and other areas specific to you and your organisation, please register on the Carelink website by clicking here.