Axceler's New ControlPoint Allows Enterprises To Centrally Implement Global SharePoint Governance Policies

ControlPoint Increases Usability with iPad Support and a Wizard-like Interface for Automating, Defining and Implementing Governance Policies

Axceler, the leader in Microsoft SharePoint governance, administration and migration solutions, recently introduced version 4.6 of its award-winning ControlPoint governance and administration solution. The latest version includes the Governance Policy Manager that simplifies and centralizes global SharePoint governance policies through a wizard-like tool. The wizard reduces the complexity of defining and implementing governance policies such as storage limit values, versioning settings for lists, permissions analysis and audit settings.  With these new features, standardizing policies across an organization is now centralized, more efficient, and easier than ever before. ControlPoint 4.6 is available later this month.

Axceler will demonstrate ControlPoint 4.6, along with the newest version of its Davinci Migrator for SharePoint 2010, this week at Booth # 1813 at Microsoft TechEd North America 2012, from June 11-14 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

ControlPoint 4.6 also increases administrative mobility by enabling users to access ControlPoint on an iPad through Safari. In addition, the new version of ControlPoint includes the ability to manage Microsoft Project sites with the rest of a SharePoint environment, giving users the ability for real-time monitoring of permission changes, and allowing duplication of custom permission levels and permissions comparison. 

“Without a governance plan in place, our SharePoint implementation was becoming difficult to manage and inconsistent for our end users in terms of their expectations and experiences while using the platform. We quickly realized we needed both improved administrative capabilities and a well-defined governance plan to regain control, and realize the inherent potential we saw in SharePoint,” said Jay Nebben, SharePoint Architect at Starkey Labs. “ControlPoint helped us regain control of our environment and bring it back into order. The new features in release 4.6 will further increase our capability to maintain and quickly adjust the alignment between our environment configuration and our governance plan.”

“The initial results of our SharePoint governance research indicate that even with the best-laid plans, most organizations have limited implementations of governance across their SharePoint environments,” said Michael Alden, president and CEO of Axceler.  “We are continuing our strategy to reduce the complexity and increase the usability of SharePoint governance and administration.” 

Addressing challenges identified in Axceler’s recent SharePoint governance survey and continuing discussions with customers, ControlPoint 4.6:

• Allows senior IT management to align IT objectives with overall enterprise goals and mandates. A singular view into all SharePoint governance policies and how they are implemented or managed across the organization gives senior management the ability to make better business decisions and leverage SharePoint to make those decisions more effective.
• ​Enables customers and consultants to define control at a more global level, with a Governance Policy Manager that simplifies implementation of governance policies.  The Governance Policy Manager streamlines the creation of broad governance policies and the application of instances of those policies across appropriate objects in a SharePoint environment.  For example, quota limit policies can be created, applied and enforced against different sets of sites, since the sites for one team may have a different quota than the sites for another.
• Increases access to ControlPoint for mobile device users – such as business administrators - with iPad support via Safari.
• Expands management of dynamic and ongoing change requirements, with real-time monitoring of permission changes; enables rollout configurations to multiple objects giving administrators the ability to define once and use everywhere; and the addition of Duplicate Site and List properties to assist in SharePoint configuration.
• Management of Microsoft Project sites including the ability to easily identify all MS Project sites and analyze activity in those sites.
• Extends SharePoint’s usability, by making it easy to create custom permission levels and manage them across any set of Site Collections, and providing the ability to easily inspect permissions settings over a period of time to quickly isolate or pinpoint changes that may not have been planned.

“Governance of our SharePoint environment is critical and a large part of my job as SharePoint Administrator. With the powerful capabilities that ControlPoint provides, I spend much less time worrying about governance and more time moving SharePoint forward and improving collaboration in our organization,” said Eric Riehl, Technology Solutions Engineer at SAIF Corporation. “The new Governance Policy Manager is a killer feature to enforce policies and iPad-friendly access to ControlPoint is coming just in time as we are just starting to deploy them in our company.”

About Axceler
Axceler solutions enable enterprises to simplify, optimize and secure their collaborative platforms. Today, Axceler is a leader in managing SharePoint governance, security, reporting and analysis. Among its numerous Microsoft SharePoint solutions, Axceler offers award-winning ControlPoint for administration and Davinci Migrator and FileLoader for migration. The Boston Business Journal has named Axceler a 2012 Pacesetter.  In 2011, ControlPoint won the Best of Connections Award, the Gold Editors’ Best Award and the Bronze Community Choice Award in the SharePoint category from the readers and editors of Windows IT Pro. More than 2,500 organizations worldwide are using Axceler products to control their SharePoint environments.  Headquartered near Boston in Woburn, MA, USA, Axceler maintains offices in Redmond, WA, Los Angeles, London and Sydney. For more information, visit http://www.axceler.com.

SOURCE: Axceler