Sharepoint 2010 and Confluence

Andrei [errno]

we run Confluence with great sucess for about 2 years, but now our Enterprise is joining the herd and rolls out Sharepoint to the masses.

many people ask - where would you want to post content: SP 2010 or CONF? I know what CONF can do, and have lived with SP2007 before (terrible experience).

Has someone gone through this before? what rules/suggestions did you have for your users?

I know about Sharepoint Connector - might be a no-go for us as the SP will be in the cloud (Office365)

MatthewC

Hi there,

We've got a similar situation. We started with Sharepoint 2007 run by IT and no-one expect the PMs and IT wanted to use it, it was just plain horrible in it's default configuration. We've about to roll out Sharepoint 2010 and the same questions are being asked. technical users love Confluence, business users prefer Sharepoint. They don't care if they don't have the flexibility or the ability to hook into so many data sources, they rarely have needs outside of Word or Excel.

Business users consider the Sharepoint interface to be "professional" and the Confluence interface to be "not-for-business". It's a harsh call & I don't agree with it but it's what we get every week.

I've also asked the same question of Atlassian & partners at the local user groups but the answers are usually vague & come down to use the connector. In an ideal world it's good advice, use each software for what it's good for but in reality it's never that clean. With you the Sharepoint is in the cloud, with us, there no appetite for purchasing & hosting it because it doesn't belong to any one budget (even if everyone would us it if it was there!).

We've started giving the general advice:

• If you need to put a workflow around your documents, then use Sharepoint
• If have a business process to model, then use Sharepoint
• If you want somewhere to keep project documents for management that no-one uses day-to-day (project costs, PCB reports) then Sharepoint works.

However,

• if you want a place to colloborate then use Confluence
• If you want to create a friendly jump off point for documents, use Confluence
• Confluence is the daily heart beat of your teams, Sharepoint is the reference platform behind Office

It's still a bit vague & people aren't entirely comfortable with it but if your re-enforce the point that Confluence is always the place to go to find what you need, they tend to take to that.

We're also using Adaptavist's Theme builder plugin to help build a more Office feel to Confluence to make business users feel more at home.

I don't have a simple answer for you but I don't think one exists. I would recommend you look at the reasons why your company thinks Confluence isn't enough & why they want to use Sharepoint. Use these reasons to draw the line between the two. Confluence isn't Sharepoint & never will be thankfully!