Off and racing with SharePoint for Melbourne Cup 2015
The office sweep gets a modern makeover with a free app available to install from the Microsoft SharePoint Store and contributed by Sydney solutions’ provider SharePoint Gurus.
The app works for SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online. You can easily find the app by searching for "Sweepstakes" in the SharePoint Store or download it HERE.
The app is simple to use. There are one or more "race stewards" that are responsible for running the sweepstakes. They set up a number of separate sweepstakes, each with their own entry fee. People can then enter a sweepstakes by clicking the "enter" button beside the sweepstakes name. This will allocate them a horse randomly and add it to their "Your Bets" panel. Once the race is complete, the results are downloaded and the winnings automatically calculated.
SharePoint Gurus founder and consultant Ivan Wilson, said, “It’s free and we think that it can provide a fun experience for staff and demonstrate how flexible SharePoint can be.
“Each year, in workplaces across Australia, the office administrator runs the Melbourne Cup sweepstakes. This is a very manual process, usually with participants picking names of horses from a hat, possibly multiple times for different sweeps. Then, once the results come in, calculating the winnings for each of the stakes.
“We had a look at this process and asked ourselves how it could be improved if you used SharePoint. We wanted to create something that was fun to use and would make the office administrator’s job easier. We also wanted to build it using popular development frameworks such as Angular JS. Finally, we wanted to write it as a SharePoint Add-in so that people can easily install it from the SharePoint App store.
"Going from concept to reality was an interesting process. We learned about the legal requirements for running a sweepstakes (must be under $A20,000 in NSW, $A,000 in Victoria), we debated what to do if the winning horse hasn’t been assigned in a sweepstake and we figured out how we can make the race results available once the race is complete.
“The finished product keeps the user interface simple while still making it easier for the office administrator. We hope that apps such as this one can demonstrate how SharePoint can be used in novel ways. We also have a bunch of ideas on how to make the app better next year.”
(Ivan is available to assist if have any questions or need assistance with deploying the app Email ivanw@sharepointgurus.net or call 0425 232 423)