Furthering SharePoint governance

AvePoint has launched DocAve Governance Automation Service Pack (SP) 5, which allows administrators to implement an extensible data governance strategy that is said to empower users, is easy to maintain and scales as the organization grows. The company says Governance Automation gives business owners oversight into SharePoint site provisioning as well as content and permissions management in order to help develop an information architecture based on enterprises’ specific needs.

Further, by offering permission level control, Governance Automation SP 5 provides more flexible security options during provisioning by defining specific groups and allowing requestors to add additional members during the site/site collection provisioning process. Administrators can now also limit the permission levels a requestor is allowed to ask for when making a permissions request.

AvePoint highlights the capabilities that provide deeper SharePoint integration:

• access denied redirect—streamlines all security features through one system with a managed service request process via Governance Automation in order to provide more insight into each request, including who requested access, time of request, who approved the request and the level of permission granted;
• policy bar—drives Governance Automation-related information and insights directly to users via the SharePoint interface with a banner or “badge,” which can now be auto-populated on the top of all SharePoint pages to display a color, graphic and label indicating the specific policy applied;
• site information card—eliminates the need to leave a SharePoint site by allowing access to Governance Automation-maintained information (such as site contacts, metadata, quota usage and life cycle information) and providing easy access to service request details within the site itself; and
• grant permission level control—provide more flexible security options during provisioning by defining specific groups and allowing requestors to add additional members during the site/site collection provisioning process. Administrators can now also limit the permission level a requestor is allowed to ask for when making a permissions request.

AvePoint notes the following performance optimization features:

• automatic content database allocation—enables administrators to enforce and automate stated database processes and policies by specifying intended content database server targets, naming schemes and size thresholds; and
• site quota change service—allows administrators to set more conservative initial quotas and easily allow authorized users to request quota increase/decrease for site collections with automated execution upon approval; IT administrators can reduce the overall cost of storage by starting users with conservative storage quotas, only increasing if usage exceeds the set limitations.