When to use a database, SharePoint, or wiki.
"My client asked me to come up with a presentation of whether to use to Sharepoint or Wiki or both and how. Our team is an international team with members in New York, Singapore and London. Currently we have a wiki and Sharepoint set up but there is no clear guide/structure of how or when to use each."
This describes how databases, SharePoint, and Wikis
should operate. Real life varies. Always remember that
we're building processes, not temples.
A database stores structured data. The structure is
typically designed and owned by an individual.
Politically, it's a dictatorship. Line-of-business
applications which gather and distribute raw data are
typically associated with databases.
SharePoint provides webs to store lists and documents.
Think of this as loosely-structured data. SharePoint
lets you control this data with versioning, backup and
recovery, workflow, security, policies and auditing. The structure might be seeded by an individual, but
ownership is distributed. SharePoint should be designed
to unfold according to to will of the distributed
owners. Politically, SharePoint provides representative
leadership like a parliamentary system though the
leaders are typically appointed rather than elected.
SharePoint is used by "information workers" to create,
manage, and publish information typically stored in
lists and documents. SharePoint is used as an interface
to databases. SharePoint is a social tool used to
recognize and reinforce relationships among people.
Through either SharePoint's business intelligence
capabilities or its integration with Reporting Services,
SharePoint can report on data from structured and
loosely structured data stores. SharePoint can index and
provide search for structures, loosely structured, and
unstructured data stores.
A wiki provides webs to store text with embedded
references to media. This is unstructured data. Wiki content can be seeded with the intention to unfold
acording to some master design, but politically, it's
anarchy. A wiki allow control through versioning and
moderation. A wiki is well-suited for collaborative
documentation.
Cheers,
-Eli.