SharePoint and Regulatory Compliance - Part 2

A colleague who works in conjunction with the financial industry brought to my attention a recent proposal by FINRA, the independent regulator for the financial services industry in the United States. FINRA has proposed (FINRA proposal SR-FINRA-2009-30) that members create a contemporaneous record, for customer and order information. Basically, if I understand this correctly, this will require the member Broker/Dealers and Investment Advisors to standardize and track information and orders for compliance, preferably electronically. Most of the larger firms, the Fidelity’s of the world, already have systems and the resources in place to comply. But what about the individual or small group firms that may not have the technological resources to implement a solution?
Of course I am going to suggest SharePoint, it can be implemented, configured to force standardization, and maintain records and versions of data. As in the previous post, Microsoft has a section of their Office site that points out the benefits of using SharePoint for regulatory compliance for all industries.

Note- the link seems to have gone away for the MS site could not find anything after a quick search so here is a link to download MS documentation in regards to compliance.

SharePoint and Regulatory compliance

One of the less understood benefits of SharePoint is how it works with Regulatory Compliance.
SharePoints ability standardize processes, keep track of versions and assign specific rights to various users; makes it a great product to utilize for regulatory compliance.

Microsoft has a whole section of their Office site dedicated to this particular usage with the overview, technology and products that can make it work. Below I posted a link to a Complaince Paper download from the Microsoft site.

SharePoint and compliance.

SharePoint Community

One of the main problems with SharePoint is the lack of proper resources for knowledge, it's mostly Googling (or "Binging" to stay within the Microsoft realm), in order to find any relavent information on your particular question or issue.
There are many SharePoint User Groups that regularly meet and comisserate/share experiences and information. You should seek out a local group and make connections with as many different people as possible, whether it be for understanding SharePoint better, an Admin getting to know a developer, or just to see how other companies are using the product. Here is a list of many SharePoint user groups around the US from the folks at SharePointsearch.com.

SharePoint User Groups

SharePoint Service Pack 2 Issue

It's been a while since my last post, just taking a bit of a decompression break, but I recently saw this little blurb from Microsoft and decided this would be a good entree back into the Blogoweb.

And for those who don't feel like clicking, this should make you tremble if you are an early adopter:
During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed.

Um, WHAT? Now I know most people wait out the installs of anything from Microsoft for this very reason. Luckily the product has not been available for more than 180 days from when this was announced, but wow, what a mess.

The fix is fairly simple, just re-enter in your product key through Central Admin as described in this KB article:

Update:
There is now an automated fix that can be installed if you click the KB link above.

So much for QA.....