Transition to AMC SharePoint site set for April 3

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  • By Tyler Hemstreet
  • Staff writer
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  Air Mobility Command officials moved one step closer to making it easier to share information within squadrons, wings and across all of AMC on March 20, wrapping up a 14-month Enterprise Information Management deployment tour across the command.

The seven-person EIM team spent three weeks at McChord, meeting with SharePoint site managers across the 62nd Airlift Wing in an effort to prepare them for the transition to the command's EIM site April 3.

"The new site will have a different look and feel, along with better user interface and added capabilities," said Leroy Rolston, a contract consultant traveling with the team.

In addition to teaching site managers the nuances of the new system, the team also took note of some of the best SharePoint practices developed by McChord Airmen, taking the information back to AMC headquarters, said Maj. Ken Nguyen, EIM branch chief.

The transition helps standardize the look and feel as well as the delivery of capabilities across the across the command, he said. When someone in AMC relocates to another AMC base, they'll easily find information at the new base because it's fairly standardized.

"Sharepoint itself is pretty self explanatory," Major Nguyen said. "What we often see after we leave a base that has been transitioned are individuals, on their own, will come up with several different creative ways of getting things done on the EIM site using Sharepoint's out-of-the box capability."

McChord was one of the bases among the command where units really took charge and maximized use of SharePoint, the team said.

"Benchmarking processes across AMC is the key to making the system better," said Master Sgt. James Irwin, EIM deployment team lead.

The new system provides an avenue for customer-oriented offices to create interactive request forms and automate processes without the expense of buying new software. Since EIM is powered by Microsoft Windows, users already familiar with SharePoint shouldn't have much of a problem navigating it, Major Nguyen said.

One of the improved features includes giving users the ability to synchronize their Outlook calendar with the SharePoint calendar.

"We're making everyone's jobs easier," Mr. Rolston said. "It's going to make everyone more efficient and make it easier to find and share information."

In addition to training site owners, the team said there will also be user tutorials and other written material available to help Airmen get familiar with the new site.