Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Yes, I'm a geek...

Let's hear it for Microsoft for creating SharePoint, the (mostly) easy to use and (fairly) well-designed database application that gives us analyst types a new way to manage information distribution to the masses...

I've been using SP for several months now, ever since my company (Cingular Wireless) officially adopted it for use by it's IT and Customer Service centers. As a senior analyst, I've been responsible for the development and maintainance of billing issues reports for several years now - it's a constant cycle of improve, refine, release, repeat - utilizing several regionalized Excel spreadsheets at first, then consolidating those down to a single Access database which fed a set of national reports.

But all of those tools were limited by the fact that they had to be produced by hand by myself and one or two other persons, then approved by management, and then held until a weekly release date. The system worked but it was wonky...

With SharePoint, I've been able to create a fully functional database that creates instant reporting based on data entry by all the members of our Billing Issues team. They enter the issues they are tracking, they are routed automatically to managers for approval - once approved, these issues display instantly within various reports based on different parameters - all with no intervention from me.

I really do love SharePoint - it's made all of our jobs a lot easier...

I am SUCH a geek.

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