Rewriting General Mills’ R&D Lab Notebook Application in SharePoint 2010 Michael Tenlen

Benjamin Bach

Who are we?

Michael TenlenGeneral Mills Information SystemsSharePoint Center of Excellence

Benjamin BachGeneral Mills Information SystemsR&D/ITQ Shared Services

Session Content

SharePoint

CustomCode

90%

Current Version

CustomCode

SharePoint

90%

SharePoint 2010 Rewrite

We will share our experience inUsing SharePoint 2010 as the development platform to rewriteand replace a custom written.NET application

A project goal is to use 2010SharePoint features to replacea delicate custom writtenapplication and greatly reducesupport requirements

Electronic Lab Notebook

Session Roadmap

Quick overview of General MillsLevel-set – how we use SharePointEvolution of our lab notebook applicationDeep dive

Rewrite projectSharePoint 2010 features

Summary - Q&A

World’s 6th largest food company

$15.9 billion in FY09 net sales*

30,000 employees

Market in morethan 100 countries

* Includes proportionate share of JV sales

General MillsCompany Overview

*Includes proportionate share of unconsolidated JVs

FY09 Worldwide Net Sales: $15.9

billion

Bakeries &Foodservice

International

U.S. Retail

General MillsA strong portfolio for growth

General Mills Brand Rank

Refrigerated Yogurt 1Dry Dinner Mixes 1Refrigerated Dough 1Fruit Snacks 1Dessert Mixes 1Grain Snacks 1Frozen Hot Snacks 1Mexican Aisle Products 1RTS Soup 2RTE Cereal 2Frozen Vegetables 2

U.S. Retail BrandsSource: ACNielsen, 52 weeks ending May 30, 2009

General MillsCategory-leading brands

FY09 sales: $2 billion

Focusing on growth channelsSchools, businesses, c-stores

Focusing on branded items(65% of portfolio)

General MillsBrands on the Go

Fastest growing sector of the companyKey platforms

CerealSuper-premium ice creamConvenience mealsHealthy snacks

General MillsInternational: A Growth Engine

General MillsCore Strategies

General Mills – SharePoint AdoptionHistory – 2001 events drove adoption

October 31, 2001General Mills acquiresThe Pillsbury Companyto create one of the world’s largest food companies.

Image place holderBig G + Barrelhead = Combo-Logo

General Mills – SharePoint AdoptionHistory - SharePoint 2001

SharePoint 2001 was implemented as the merged-company document management solutionCustomized to assign unique document IDsMigrated data from two legacy document management systems Developed Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) system for 800+ R&D workers

General Mills – SharePoint AdoptionHistory - SharePoint 2003

Missing document functionality forced corporate to stay with SPS 2001 and not migrate documents Widely used as a collaboration tool by Supply Chain and Technical Communities (Engineers) 1,500-2,000 sitesTightly controlled use by corporate areas with only 35-50 sites deployedCentral deployment at headquarters12 standalone installations at larger plants

General Mills – SharePoint AdoptionHistory - SharePoint 2007

2007 TAP participant - early adoptersDeveloped custom migration program to move SPS 2001 docs directly into SPS 2007Updated Electronic Lab Notebook to use 2007 document libraries but kept existing code baseMigrated 500+ SPS 2003 sites to SPS 2007

Description 2008 Count 2009 Count % Growth

Site Collections 50 628 1156%

Sites (Team and Publishing) 1,196 1,926 61%

Blog Sites 43 70 63%

Wiki Sites 19 28 47%

Documents 1,605,250 2,128,288 33%

Discussion Threads 1,347 2,115 57%

Workflow Processes 288 1,206 319%

628 1,926

2,128,288

index propagation

General Mills – SharePoint AdoptionSharePoint 2010 - TAP

October 2008Previewed SharePoint 2010 features at 2008 Microsoft Business Division Advisory Council (MBDAC)

November 2008Informed and engaged R&D/ITQ Team

January 2009Microsoft TAP Team visits General MillsEstablished ELN Rewrite as official 2010 TAP project

OngoingWeekly meetings to keep things moving

General Mills – ELN HistoryEvolution of ELN – Scope

ELN is the repository for all research documentation

Experimental dataInvention records Plant trial requests and resultsSensory resultsStorage test resultsTechnical product preparation summariesTechnical reports

General Mills – ELN HistoryWhat is a lab notebook?

scientist experiments documentation

General Mills – ELN HistoryEvolution of ELN – Documentation Musts

Legally BindingAuthentic and unchangeable recordsSigned, dated and witnessed experimental documentsValidates “First to Invent” claims” (Patents)Audit trail of document history

Regulatory CompliantFederal Code (21 CFR**)

** Electronic Signature & Witnessing

General Mills – ELN HistoryEvolution of ELN – Physical Notebooks…

TR manages Lab notebook microfilming

Developer signs & dates

documents

R&D developer creates &

prints experimental

work documents (Word, Excel,

Loose Leaf Paper)

Cuts & tapes documents

into lab notebook

Compare research

findings/notes with project

team

Developer takes lab

notebook to Tech Records

(TR)

Developer creates a

summary page & enters into lab notebook

Developer creates a table of

contents page & enters into lab notebook

Developer finds a

witness & witness signs

and dates documents

General Mills – ELN HistoryEvolution of ELN – Version 1 concepts

Createa

ProjectNotebook

CreateNew

Documents

Sensory Storage Experiments

PlantTrials

TechnicalReports

ProjectResults

&Conclusions

CloseProject

Notebook

Document Management FeaturesDefine and organize as unique projectsAutomatic data field population to minimize re-keyingAutomatic signing and datingAutomatic alerts for witnessing stepClose process to set permissions to READ ONLY

General Mills – ELNWhat users are saying

“With enough brute force, you can make it work.”

“I try to search, but it’s a guessing game.”

“My ELN works only about 50% of the time and even when it works a lot of errors come up, so it would be good if that didn't happen.”

“ELN is slow - drives me nuts.”

“Make it easier to organize and find items in ELN. I have never found anything!!!”

“All the files just get dumped into the project folder. There is no way to organize within the project folder.”

General Mills – ELNCurrent system

General Mills – ELNCurrent system

General Mills – ELNCurrent system

General Mills – ELNSystem layout

SQL Server

Custom workflow

ASP .NET

Client side scripting

SharePoint 2007

Browser

File shares

Office scripting

General Mills – ELNWhat does it need to do?

Store, Find, Retrieve DocumentsImproved organizationProvide for project needs

WitnessingClosingTemplates

Flexible search and filteringEasily used by a wide variety of skill levelsPersonalized viewsInternational friendly

General Mills – ELNWhat does it need to do? (Continued)

ExtensibleProvide interface for 3rd party system document inputHandle multiple security layers and user typesSearch and store multiple file typesScale

UsersStorage

Administration (auditing, reporting)

General Mills – ELNDevelopment options

ASP .NET application

Hybrid solution

SharePoint 2010

General Mills – ELNASP .NET application

BenefitsUtilize developer experienceComplete control over environmentUse company standard development and deployment strategies

ChallengesRework (storage, UI, workflow, search)SecurityAuditing

General Mills – ELNHybrid ASP .NET/ SharePoint

BenefitsSimilar to current environmentImproved .NET and SharePoint APIs enable new possibilitiesPotential integration with Microsoft Office Web Applications

ChallengesSimilar to current environmentMultiple failure pointsRework

General Mills – ELNSharePoint 2010

BenefitsOut of box functionality satisfies requirementsUpdated and improved interfaceStandardized and familiar feelRobust storageAPI accessibility where neededSingle point of developmentOffice Web Applications

ChallengesNew platformInexperienced developer team

General Mills – ELNSharePoint 2010 - TAP

WhyPotential to influence feature setLeverage newest Microsoft technologyPositions company better for corporate wide adoption

ProcessOnsite requirements evaluation Proof of concepts (POC)Access to Microsoft SharePoint team and POC resources

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

Document SetsProjects are Document Sets

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

Structured taxonomy

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

Content typesDocument information panel & templates

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

Extensive use of workflowsEasy creation with SharePoint Designer

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

Search & Filtering

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

Office Web ApplicationsView and edit documents

General Mills – ELNLeveraging SharePoint 2010 features

APIs (Silverlight, JavaScript)Personalization

ELN on SharePoint 2010

demo

General Mills – ELN 2010Infrastructure overview

ELN will run on atemporary VM farmuntil the full productionenvironment is configured

Development and QA farms support ongoingmaintenance

QA - Farm

Development

Thank YouELN TAP participants (in no particular order)

General Mills TeamJenny HonMike RobertsEric JohnsonJason LatzkaJoe SauerMichelle CheckMark Widner

Microsoft TAP teamRob LeffertsBill GriffinMaxim LukiyanovQuentin ChristensenLuca BandinelliSean GabrielAnd many others…

Recap & Questions

Remember to fill out your evaluations on MySPC for your

chance to win two HD web cams and a designer mouse

(3 prizes awarded daily)

Learn More about SharePoint 2010

Information forIT Prosat TechNet

http://MSSharePointITPro.com

Information forDevelopers

at MSDNhttp://MSSharePointDeveloper.com

Information forEveryone

http://SharePoint.Microsoft.com

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.

The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after

the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.