Compliance Server Public Beta

I've been testing a new add-on for SharePoint called 80-20 Compliance Server (hey, I don't make these names up) for some time now and it's a pretty nice package. The team responsible, 80-20 Software, has been quite voracious in getting new builds together, responding to feedback, and keeping the product up and stable in the last few weeks.

The package is made up of a few components that site next to SharePoint (including a server, Web Parts, admin tools etc.) and is primarily targeted at managing the retention lifecycle of content in SharePoint. It does this by applying business rules that you define to handle the retention for you. This is a little more than just archiving as it has search and other goodies for the documents and just doesn't offload something to a tape farm but applies business processing against them like what should be retained, how long they should be kept, etc. It's quite nice and has some added value if you're looking for this sort of thing that SharePoint doesn't provide OOTB. It also has a SDK (unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time to play with yet) which allows you to integrate their system with your own CRM, ERP, or whatever you want.

The official release of the public beta is for Monday but you can check it out now on their page here and join the public beta program.

Also I'm leaving Cowtown on Sunday for PDC all next week. Can't wait to meet everyone out there so be sure to look for the big geek spouting SharePoint goodness to everyone. Stay tuned to the blog for daily blow-by-blows, pics, and of course the infamous Whack-a-Fitz videos (subject to participation and state and federal export laws).