lighterside

Ever logged a call for support and then get asked questions you couldn’t answer if you had swallowed an IT Dictionary? Well it happens to all of us – DAILY!!

When you work with SharePoint – it normally gets blamed for anything that goes wrong. It’s important to understand the other factors that could influence your user experience and or errors you might be receiving. Which brings me to how many users out there are working on applications – without having a clue of how the rest of things work. And I’m talking a high-level overview here – just the basics.

So SharePoint’s not working like it should – and you log a call. First thing they ask you is what OS you’re on and what is your IE version. This (very) basic question would make most users break out in cold sweat and cancel the call with a muffled “Oops don’t worry, I came right” statement. Sad but true.

For my recent presentation at SharePoint Saturday Johannesburg 2013 (#SPSJHB) – I spoke about Unleashing your SuperPowers in SharePoint. My focus was on the users and not on the application. Why? Because I believe that with happy, empowered, capable users – any system will be a success and of course – the opposite is true as well.

Are we the (IT) culprits creating the so-called “stupid users” that so irritate us? Simply because we don’t take the time to educate them? The below PDF guideline took me two hours to create – but I NEVER have to do it again. So next time you ask a user a question they cannot answer, point them to the one pager PDF’s you’ve taken the time to create and which you’ve uploaded on your Intranet (SharePoint) site. Mine is based on Windows 7 32bit + Office 2010 32 bit. Feel free to download and use it. This PDF includes a visual step by step of how to obtain the following information on your machine.

• Resolution Settings
• OS (Operating System)
• Windows Edition / Service Pack
• Product ID
• 64bit / 32bit
• System Information
• Processor
• RAM
• Computer Name & Description
• Microsoft Office Detail
• Product Activated
• 64bit / 32bit
• IE (Internet Explorer) Details
• Computer Hard Disk Drive

Click here to open the PDF guideline / presentation:
Unleash your SuperPowers in SharePoint Part 2: Empower the user
Unleash your SuperPowers in SharePoint

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Note: eMPowerMe is an initiative of The Guid Stuff (Pty) Ltd. to reach out to people and change their lives by empowering them. Please share this with other users and in the process empower them as well.