Hello,
We’re building a state service portal that gives a set of permission documents by a request. I’d like you to suggest better information architecture based on SharePoint lists, columns and content types.
There are 30 types of requests from child adoption to building a house. Every request can be sent by either a person or an organization. So every request should contain a block of fields about the author (person or/and organization). However, depending on the type, a request also contains a unique block of fields that describes the object of the request (f.e. a construction site address, or some info about a child to adopt, or some params of a building to construct). The requests then are counted different in statistics reports, like how many were approved, denied or being in work and so on. The requests are also grouped by their statuses and categories (like “my requests”, “requests assigned to me”
So now I’m thinking about how to organize the architecture of this information in a better way. Do you have any ideas?
Hi Michael
You have look first at defining the users of the site and what information they need to see, what tasks they have to do and what outcomes you need to show from a reporting point of view. You have already done this to a point but need to see it from the users end.
So look at it from the users point of view. Where do they start? What options do they have when they get on a page? What do you want them to do? The purpose of IA is to guide people along a path. Determine what the paths are for the content you are creating then see how you can present that information.
You could create pages or sections or dashboards depending on the users, use links/button images to create new forms from content types and then create all the necessary views in the relevant lists.
One option for keeping all the data on a dashboard page is this Tabs solution which is a great way of bring multiple lists/documents onto a single page. This works great and is simple to set up (no code required!). It’s also great for end users as they don’t have to click around to different pages, lists or views. You keep them on a single page.
http://www.bitsofsharepoint.com/ExamplePoint/Site/TabPage.aspx
Hope that helps.
regards
Andrew
