Pilothouse Releases Rating and Experts Module for Microsoft SharePoint Server

Business Wire, Dec 6, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CASTRO VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 6, 2002

Pilothouse Consulting Inc. has announced the availability of the Rating and Experts Module for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server(TM). This module allows employees to offer structured feedback on shared documents through a system of voting and commenting. In addition to providing a valuable and visable assessment of document quality and user opinion, the module also identifies top experts within the organization, pointing the way for employees in need of expertise.

Many large information portals such as MSN and Yahoo!, as well as an increasing number of smaller sites, provide a rating system which allows users to voice their opinions about the content. However, until now, this functionality has not been offered in corporate portals. Despite the tremendous popular success of Microsoft SharePoint, with a corporate user base already surpassing ten million in the short eighteen months since release, users have been hampered by the lack of a structured document feedback mechanism. Pilothouse Consulting has filled this gap.

"The rating module significantly enhances the SharePoint offering," said Larry Todd Wilson, IEEE Acting Director of Knowledge Management. "The module allows users to express their opinions about the relative value of peers' contributions. Rating can serve as a good foundation for community member profiling. It can also be a positive cultural dynamic."

Pilothouse Consulting chose to develop and market the Rating and Experts Module because it saw an opportunity to provide functionality for corporate portals that users have come to expect on the consumer side. Additionally, the Rating and Experts Module is an employee-driven performance measurement system that gives executives an excellent picture of company performance. Average document ratings and average author ratings measure the quality of information and expertise in the organization, as well as the level of communication.

To learn more, or to take a product tour, please visit: http://www.sharepointrating.com.

About Pilothouse Consulting, Inc.

Pilothouse Consulting provides solutions and products for information management. Select clients have included Cisco Systems and SupportSoft.