SharePoint Designer – Why Not for End Users

The following are my core list of items why end-users should not have SharePoint Designer installed:

1)      Powerful tool

2)      Need owners access to fully utilize

3)      Spent a lot of time on governance and want governance to stay intact

4)      Designer can make master page and page layout changes

5)      Don’t want end users – creating workflows

6)      If SharePoint Designer is installed on one end users PC – others will follow (need governance then just on using SharePoint Designer)

7)      Delete site easily

8)      Training issues (keeping up training users with basics)

9)      Corrupt site easier and break it with just a chance of some tags

10)   Outside scope of many job titles – end users shouldn’t be pseudo developers/coders

 

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SharePoint 2016 - Deprecated Items

The following are some key SharePoint 2016 that have been deprecated.

Note: Deprecated doesn’t mean un-available anymore it just means the functionality will not be updated.

1)      Tags and notes

2)      Excel Services – lose functionality when one upgrades from SharePoint 2010 to 2016

(Part of Excel online in Office Online Server)

3)      SQL Server Express

4)      SharePoint Foundation

5)      AppFabric (used in newsfeeds) – provides caching services that are distributed

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SharePoint Search Planning

SharePoint Search Planning

The following are some core search planning items to consider and plan for:

·         Where is the information located to be crawled (file share, SharePoint, other location)?

·         What content sources need to be set-up?

·         If full or incremental crawls are utilized what are the schedules?

·         Will continuous crawl be utilized?

·         What words will be utilized in a best bet

·         Who will monitor search to ensure that crawls are running successfully?

·         When and where will reports on search usage be run and placed?

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SharePoint Planning Personalization’s

SharePoint Planning Personalization’s

The following are useful when planning personalization’s:

·         Decide what Active Directory attributes should be utilized and imported for profiles

·         Decide what profile attributes to display on user’s profile

·         Decide and implement on a profile import schedule

·         Decide what audiences to create

·         Decide when audiences should compile (after the profile import)

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SharePoint Root Directory Quick List

SharePoint Root Directory Quick List

The following are some core SharePoint root directories – these are common directories on a web front end and typically what type of files they contain in them:

C:\Programs Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\

Then the last directory will be as follows – depending on the SharePoint version utilized:

14 = SharePoint 2010

15 = SharePoint 2013

16 = SharePoint 2016

 

The following are the common directories then the types of files in them:

/ISAPI – Web Services (*.svc, *.ashx and *.asmx)

/Resources  – Resource files (*.resx)

/TEMPLATE/ADMIN – Application pages used in central administration

/TEMPLATE/FEATURES – Feature definition files (*.xml)

/TEMPLATE/IMAGES – Images (*.gif, *.jpg and *.png)

/TEMPLATE/LAYOUTS – Application pages (*.aspx)

/TEMPLATE/LAYOUTS/1033/STYLES – CSS files (*.css)

/TEMPLATE/LAYOUTS\ClientBin – Silverlight components (.xap)

/TEMPLATES/Site Templates – Site definition files (onet.xml)

/TEMPLATE/XML – Custom field type definition files (fdltype.*xml)

 

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SharePoint Governing Information Architecture

SharePoint Governing Information Architecture:

Governing the information architecture is a key to the successful use of SharePoint Server and requires the participation of business managers, content managers, information workers, site designers, and IT professionals.

Defining information-governance plans requires an understanding of the site topology, the purpose of each offering (example Intranet, Extranet, OneDrive etc.), and preferably a knowledge of future planned offerings, such as business intelligence.

Information policies need to be defined for each site within the SharePoint deployment. A policy needs to be defined per topic area for each site offering.

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Document Library Planning:

Document Library Planning:
The following are some items to follow in regard to document library planning:

1)      Enable the require checkout option for editing

2)      Keep the number of documents in a view below 2000 items if possible

3)      Limit the number of major versions typically recommend set to 25-50

4)      Educate users on proper naming conventions example:

IT Contacts Doc = BAD

IT_Contacts_Doc = GOOD

IT Contacts 7142017 = BAD

IT_Contacts_7_2017 = GOOD

5)      Think about if turning on metadata navigation or using document sets makes sense based on the data that will be housed in a said library.

Metadata navigation can be used when it make sense to have the ability to dynamically filter and find content in lists and libraries by using a navigation hierarchy tree control to apply different metadata-based filters to the view.

Document Sets can be used if one has a group of related documents that can be created in one step and then managed as a single entity.

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