With content aimed at supporting ongoing end user training

Nov 25, 2011 12:55 GMT  ·  By

Service Pack 1 of Microsoft’s Productivity Hub 2010 is now available for download for those interested in support for their ongoing end user training efforts.

What the Hub represents is a SharePoint Server site collection that can be used as a learning community and which offers a wide array of customizations.

One’s training efforts can be based on the Productivity Hub at ease, since it comes with content from a series of Microsoft’s core products. Moreover, it delivers updated content through new packs that Microsoft is pushing out to it.

The Hub is taking advantage of SharePoint Server’s social networking capabilities, including blogs and discussion groups, and also comes with a Coach program that should prove of great help when it comes to training end users to self-help.

The Coach program is aimed at improving productivity in a collaborative way, and it meant to reduce the burden on a company’s training and IT staff.

The new Productivity Hub 2010 SP1 also sports a quiz feature, Silverlight, and a special section called ‘Get it Done’ that should offer training for a series of tasks such as email management and collaboration.

In Microsoft’s opinion, the Productivity Hub is:

- Format: Pre-loaded SharePoint site collection, optimized for Web 2.0 functionality and easily deployed within SharePoint 2010 SP1 environment - Content: Convenient end user productivity training in a variety of formats (documents, videos, podcasts, etc.). Receive free periodic updates of content that you will learn about through the Productivity blog. - Blog: The Productivity blog offers tips and tricks for end user productivity. Use it as is, or your training staff can use the posts as their own to help them get started in running an internal blog. - Train the trainer: Includes IT/Manager section to aid with deployment of the site collection, and guidance to develop the Coach program - Products: Office (2007 & 2010), SharePoint (2007 & 2010), Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9, Project (2007 & 2010), Visio (2007 & 2010), Publisher (2007 & 2010), Live Meeting 2007, Communicator 2007, Groove 2007 and Lync 2010

The content of the Hub can be updated through additional packages aimed at expanding the training materials available for end-users.

The Productivity Hub 2010 SP1 arrives with support for Windows XP or later platforms and requires 2007 Office System, SharePoint Server 2010 SP1 with August 2011 CU, and Silverlight.

Microsoft's Productivity Hub 2010 SP1 is available for download from here.