Gaps and opportunities in SharePoint

The following are some key and core gaps and opportunities that are common within many SharePoint environment:

•       Lack of business focus

•       Lack of formalized support structure for SharePoint

•       Lack of scalability of the architecture

•       Lack of evaluating business risks around content stored in SharePoint

•       Lack of an information management records and taxonomy management policy

•       Lack of appropriate service level agreement for SharePoint

•       Lack of high availability and a disaster recovery strategy

•       Lack of a monitoring strategy

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User Centered Design (UCID) Methodology

To have a focus on end users throughout a SharePoint project – the UCID is sometimes utilized.

The methodology includes four stages and both developer/designers and end users are engaged and work together at each step:

Research concept and plan – at this stage getting the user and compatibility requirements is done.

Design prototype – via a white board or wireframe – an actual working prototype is built – because most end users are visual.

Define branding – what are the color schemes and logo to be utilized.

Develop, launch and test – the prototype is developed then put into production and tested for general usability and accessibility.

Odd SharePoint Terms

The following are some odd SharePoint terms that some newbies and even intermediate level SharePoint users – need to know about:

Breadcrumb – a set of hyperlinks that show the path from the home page of a site to the current page one is on – example:

Custom actions – an extension to the user interface, via a command button on the ribbon, a link on the site settings page or a command on the list item menu – actions may also appear based on permissions – example (in this case one won’t see the Site settings unless they have the proper owner permissions):

 

External content type (ECT)
– data stored in an external data source such as SQL Server, Oracle, external data source. This data can be consumed by SharePoint. The selection box for a External Content Type looks as such:

Feature – allows one to activate/deactivate functionality in a site, site collection, web application or farm – example:

The Beauty of the Link

A link in SharePoint is a beautiful item. Historically, individuals fire up their e-mail client and create an e-mail and then attach a file. This maybe good if the contents of that file – will not change – however in reality what if a typo is found or information changes? Now – if it’s attached that file is frozen in time and thus the typo stays forever – as does the information in that said e-mail.

Using a link allows one to fix that typo as well as make sure that everyone is looking at and receiving and viewing the latest information. Therefore – utilize the simple link by navigating to your document library and clicking that … then highlight the link displayed (the one starting with http:// or https://) and right mouse click it – and then select copy – go to your e-mail client – then right mouse click and select paste and then you will have your desired link in an e-mail:

What to Govern in SharePoint

The following are key items to govern in SharePoint:

Content which can have many pieces to it – some of which may include:

Customization policy

Lifecycle management (active and unused sites)

Branding and templates

Data protection

Quota templates (how much data can be stored in a site collection)

Self-service provisioning

Asset classification (for example, high, moderate, or low business value)

Development which can be broken down into:

Application architecture

Design standards and best practices

Platform aspects which may include:

Technical architecture

Operations

Support

Capacity and Performance

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SharePoint Governance Goals and Vision

The following are some key items in regard to goals and vision of SharePoint:

•          Reduce total cost of ownership -> optimize, drive efficiency and create cost transparency

•           Encourage Standards and Consistency -> drive common brand and manage risks

•          Provide services and solutions -> empower business. empower teams and empower end users

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What is SharePoint Governance

SharePoint governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guides, directs, and controls how an organization's business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals in relation to SharePoint sites and technologies.

•          People - roles and responsibilities (end users, developers, operations, security, etc.)

• Gain needed improvements through delegation and empowerment.

•          Process - how to accomplish common tasks such as creating a new site or requesting new business requirements.

•          Technology - automate enforcement by leveraging templates. Have proper policy, security settings, rights management etc.

•          Policy - documented collection of principles - for example, what users, site owners, administrators and developers should / should not do.

• Part of policy includes the information, security and customization as necessary elements so it’s clear what the proper policies are to entail.

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