SharePoint in a Crisis

There will always be surprises. While some are pleasant, others can be downright nasty, and it can take a group effort to handle them. Managing a crisis effectively entails internal and external communication, sound policy, group support, and an easy-to-use communication platform that can reach everyone.

Hey, guess what? I recommend SharePoint. I've gone on and on about certain features before, but this time I want to bring them together for a particular purpose. Here's a recipe for emergency management with SharePoint. First, there's a lot of prep work. Your organization should already have an emergency website with policies, procedures, internal contact info, friendly media contacts, first responder information, etc. Of course, you are already subscribed to the RSS feed for any important changes. What? You don't have this? Hmmm... OK, there's your first step.

Set up a site template for a discrete crisis. Make sure you have the features you want and everything is placed in line with your users' expectations. When a crisis occurs, launch a new site under your emergency site using the crisis template. Then you can assign a crisis manager and assistants, fill out forms, collaborate on press statements, make internal announcements, all within SharePoint. For the thumb-typers out there, SharePoint has a mobile version so people in the field can get the same info. Just append "/m" to the URL.

When the crisis is resolved, archive the site. If a new one occurs, launch another one. SharePoint may not save a life or a building, but if you provide good communication on a reliable platform, you just might.

P.S. Put your SharePoint server in the cloud so a location threat doesn't knock out a valuable piece of your global communications.