Welcome to the
Minnesota SharePoint
User Group
January 12th, 2011
SharePoint Implementations:
When to Crawl, Walk or Run
Wes Preston, Raymond Mitchell
http://www.sharepointmn.com
Meeting # 74
Agenda
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Introductions
Overview
Part 1
Break
Part 2
Q&A
Free stuff!  online too!
http://www.sharepointmn.com
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User Group Goal / Objectives
Develop and support a local community focused on Microsoft
SharePoint Technologies
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Educate user group members about SharePoint Technologies
Transfer knowledge within the community
Communicate best practices
Introduce new products / solutions
http://www.sharepointmn.com
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Introductions – MNSPUG Sponsors
Avtex (www.avtex.com)
• Technology consulting company
• Microsoft Certified Partner
• Practice area focused on SharePoint
Benchmark Learning (www.benchmarklearning.com)
• Microsoft Certified Partner
• Training on many technologies
Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)
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www.sharepointmn.com
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Website for user group
SharePoint resource documents
SharePoint resource links
RSS Feeds
Meeting Schedule
Past User Group Presentations
• info@sharepointmn.com
www.sharepointmn.com
New year = new site? We hope so!
http://www.sharepointmn.com
Meeting # 74
Social Networking
• Linked In group – The most interactive… includes job postings…
– http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1878792
• Facebook group
– http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=27333305456
• Twitter: @MNSPUG and #MNSPUG
http://www.sharepointmn.com
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Upcoming Schedule
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Next Meeting
• February 9th 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
• Microsoft’s Bloomington Office
• Topic: [TBD]
Check www.sharepointmn.com for updates!
• Ongoing Schedule
• 2nd Wednesday of every month
• 9:00 to 11:30 am
• Microsoft’s Bloomington Office
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Local Events
Manage Projects with SharePoint 2010 and Project 2010 –
Presentation and Hands-on Workshop – January 19, 2011
By Microsoft, BrightWork and Aspect
https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=152081
SharePoint Saturday – April 9, 2011
Normandale Community College
Call for Speakers coming soon!
http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/twincities/default.aspx
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Conferences
Best Practices Conference – Week of March 7th, 2011
http://www.bestpracticesconference.com/
La Jolla, CA
SharePoint Connections – March 27-30th, 2011
http://www.devconnections.com/conf/default.aspx?s=162
Orlando, FL
Next Microsoft SharePoint Conference … October 3-6, 2011
http://www.mssharepointconference.com
Anaheim, CA
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Books
coming soon!
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SharePoint Planning
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Why are we talking about this?
• To
Because
What
this:is the
thedifference
effort is not
in the
effort
same
to go
and
from
generally
this: isn’t
trivial…
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Meeting # 74
Why is this important? - Management
• What are typical examples of how SharePoint is used
• Develop a roadmap or a platform strategy that
matches organization’s strategic direction
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What features get implemented when
Where are resources focused (limited capacity)
Set user expectations
Set budget estimates
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Why is this important? - Project Managers
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Ensure timely delivery of functionality
Create project timelines
Estimate budget needs
Forecast required resources and availability
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Why is this important? - Users
• Set expectations for what functionality will be
available and when
• Reduce requests for functionality
• Identify training efforts
• Provide feedback to prioritize feature deployment
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Why is this important? - IT Pro
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Develop hardware, configuration and growth plan
Defining governance plans
Identify training plan
Define integration plan
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Why is this important? - Developers
• Identify training plan
• Identify projects, staffing and timelines
• Development focus areas
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Forms / InfoPath
Workflow
Web parts
Integration
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Assumptions:
• You can’t do everything at once – recipe for failure
• Each project is different
• Each organization is different
• Available staffing resources have different strengths
• This presentation isn’t about deployment details,
each topic has enough content on its own…
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Key Categories
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Key SharePoint Topics/Categories
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Intranet/Portal Solutions, Content Management
Department/Team/Project Collaboration
Business Process, Workflow, Digital Forms
Business Intelligence, Composite Applications, Dashboards
Search
Extranet Solutions
Social Networking
Internet Solutions
Branding
Customization
Do you have others?
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Intranet/Portal Solutions, Content Management
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Corporate intranet/portal
Divisional portals
Topical portals
Document and Records
Management Repositories
• Communication
• Platform for enterprise
content and functionality
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Meeting # 74
Intranet/Portal Solutions, Content Management
Crawl:
• Use out of the box features to make content management
easier and isolated from branding/styles
– Foundation – List and view-managed content on pages
– Server – Publishing features, page layouts and more web parts…
• Wiki and blog templates (all versions)
• Create specific topical portals to bring related sites together.
• Allow linking between SharePoint and Document and Records
mgmt tools.
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Intranet/Portal Solutions, Content Management
Walk:
• Increasing the quantity and complexity of content
– Content Query Web Parts and Data View Web Parts surfacing content
• SharePoint Designer customized pages
• Add features and functionality to topical portals
• Provide integration between SharePoint and Document and
Records management tools
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Intranet/Portal Solutions, Content Management
Run:
• Replace existing intranet portals with SharePoint-based
solutions
• Replace existing Document and Records mgmt tools with
SharePoint-based solutions
• Customized web parts and controls added to pages and
interface (also see Branding)
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Meeting # 74
Intranet/Portal Solutions, Content Management
Other Notes:
• Not intended to replace ‘Best-in-breed’ document
management or records management products
• Storing Customer/Client data
• Aren’t a lot of features added as you get more difficult, just
adding more content and complexity
• If you have existing systems, complexity goes up as you decide
to integrate and/or replace them
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Collaboration
• Hierarchical teams
• Cross-functional teams
• Projects
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Collaboration
Crawl:
• Only use out-of-the-box site templates and branding
• Centralize site administration (SharePoint team still
administers sites)
• Manage site growth using smaller quotas
• Integration with Microsoft Office Suite, Exchange, Lync (IM
and Presence)
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Collaboration
Walk:
• Add site and list templates, organizational branding
• Add 3rd Party web parts
• Train site administrators and decentralize site administration
• Automate site lifecycle (request, creation, archival, etc…)
• More complex list views
– Filtering, sorting, grouping
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Collaboration
Run:
• Add more robust site and list templates
• Advanced workflows and policies
• Even more complex list views
– Location based views
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Collaboration
Other Notes:
• Not recommended just for replacement of file shares
• Do not create a site for every list/library
• Not intended for storing customer/client data
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Business Process, Workflow, Digital Forms
• Replace paper forms with digital forms
• Replace manual business processes or steps with automated
steps and flows
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Meeting # 74
Business Process, Workflow, Digital Forms
Crawl:
• Introduce simple list and InfoPath forms
• Customize list forms with SharePoint Designer (2010)
• Use out of the box workflows
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Business Process, Workflow, Digital Forms
Walk:
• Introduce SharePoint Designer workflows
• Introduce 3rd Party workflow tools
• Use more complicated InfoPath forms
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Business Process, Workflow, Digital Forms
Run:
• Develop more robust workflows, .NET workflows, integrated
systems
• Advanced forms
– Digital signatures, external systems, offline use
• Use Visio Services to visualize business processes
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Business Process, Workflow, Digital Forms
Other Notes:
• Don’t attempt to fully automate every step of every business
process. Evaluate which steps are appropriate and stop there.
• Don’t force InfoPath to do too much. Understand when to
use custom web forms.
• Take the time to analyze potential ROI from process
automation
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Business Intelligence, Composite Applications,
Dashboards
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BI Dashboards
Excel Services
Ad hoc Reporting
SharePoint Designer
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Business Intelligence, Composite Applications,
Dashboards
Crawl:
• Expose existing reports using web parts, minimal integration
points
• Advanced Web Parts – connections, filters
• Build dashboards using wizards and out of the box tools
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Business Intelligence, Composite Applications,
Dashboards
Walk:
• Introduce connections to data external (BDC/BCS) to
SharePoint
• Build customized Data Views
– Leverage conditional formatting
• KPIs based on data surfaced by Excel Services
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Business Intelligence, Composite Applications,
Dashboards
Run:
• Leverage Performance Point, data cubes, 3rd party BI
Platforms
• Introduce customized BI web parts as needed
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Meeting # 74
Business Intelligence, Composite Applications,
Dashboards
Other Notes:
• Don’t introduce new data sources within SharePoint when
existing repositories exist (SharePoint is for surfacing the
information, not storing and processing)
• Don’t create extreme reporting solutions – too general to
meet all needs or too specific
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Break
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Search
• Index and search SharePoint content
• Index and search file share and external system content
• People and profile searching
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Search
Crawl:
• Index out of the box content sources (SharePoint content, file
shares, other web servers)
• Use out of the box search results pages
• Provide People Search
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Search
Walk:
• Customize search results pages
• Add more scopes, results pages, Best Bets
• Add Federated search results
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Search
Run:
• Build solutions based on SharePoint search
• Build more complicated search architectures to accommodate
remote data
• FAST integration
• Extend search beyond SharePoint
– Browser search provider, Windows Search, Custom applications
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Search
Other Notes:
• Do not index EVERYTHING. Be wary of indexing whole file
shares or other large repositories.
• Using FAST for all SharePoint environmental search
functionality
• Administrators should not be the only ones configuring search
- delegate to content owners (best bets, keywords)
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Extranet Solutions
• Collaboration point with external audiences
– employees, vendors, clients, partners
• Personalized portals for external users
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Extranet Solutions
Crawl:
• Simple collaboration sites (e.g. Financial Advisors and their
customers)
• Focus on internal users + 1 audience
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Extranet Solutions
Walk:
• Add features, functionality, and personalization to external
portals and sites
• Expand to support multiple audiences
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Extranet Solutions
Run:
• Deeper integration with other systems and processes
• Advanced personalization
– Audience + location / role
– User specific personalization
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Extranet Solutions
Other Notes:
• Do NOT leap into a full solution without understanding the
security, regulatory and policy implications
• Do NOT manage on the same hardware/architecture as
internal-facing solutions
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Social Networking
• My Sites as personal
dashboard
• Profile pages and people
search
• Blogs, Wikis, Forums, Notes,
Ratings and Tagging
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Social Networking
Crawl:
• Enable profile information from AD to be exposed via people
search and profile pages
• Use Wiki site and list templates as part of out of the box
functionality
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Social Networking
Walk:
• Enable full My Site functionality as replacement for personal
file shares
• Allow blog template usage as part of My Sites
• Add custom user profile properties and modify
privacy/display policies
• Expand user profile content sources to include data stores
other than AD
– LOB/HR application, other directories
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Social Networking
Run:
• Enable and train users on Notes, Ratings and data Tagging
throughout the environment
• Customize My Site and User Profile experience to include
external sources (facebook, twitter, flickr)
• Expand functionality with 3rd party applications
– NewsGator, custom
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Social Networking
Other Notes:
• Not for: Do not roll out My Sites without governance,
extensive user training and communication
• Do not roll out without dovetailing with existing social
policies, acceptable use, etc…
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Internet Solutions
• Public-facing Internet sites for corporate marketing
• Blog / Wiki / informational site
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Internet Solutions
Crawl:
• Build Internet presence with minimal branding and out of the
box capabilities
• Limited system integration with external data and systems
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Internet Solutions
Walk:
• Additional functionality, integration and deeper branding
• Broader and deeper content with multiple content managers
• Publishing content approval
• SharePoint Usage Analysis / Web Analytics
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Internet Solutions
Run:
• Extensive branding, custom functionality and personalization
features
• E-Commerce, Visual Search (FAST), etc
• Advanced Web Analytics (WebTrends, etc)
• User Personalization
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Internet Solutions
Other Notes:
• Not for replacing existing solutions without extensive
evaluation of required capabilities, expectations of branding
and user experience for both content managers and
customers
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Branding
• Required for client-facing solutions like Internets and
Extranets
• Highly recommended for internal solutions such as Intranets
• Collaboration – Optional, but usually minimal branding
applied.
• Different solutions within an organization (collaboration,
intranet, special, etc…) should be consistency, but still have
enough UI design differences for users to know what kind of
site they are on
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Branding
Crawl:
• Configure site logos
• Out of the box themes (limited)
PowerPoint 2010 themes (New!)
• Site Collection theme configuration (in the UI)
• Content Editor Web Parts
• Adding graphics directly to pages
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Branding
Walk:
• Limited customization of required pages, sites and templates.
Behind the scenes pages and unused templates (at the time
of design) may not be branded.
• CSS changes, MasterPages, Layout Pages
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Branding
Run:
• Full customization of each site type and page for a complete
UI experience.
• Sites that users may not immediately identify as SharePoint
• Advanced customizations
– Masterpage/Layout page customizations
– Delegate controls
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Branding
Other Notes:
• Have governance in place to discourage poor photo choices
and random theme selection
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Customization
• SharePoint is a Platform
• Where does SharePoint fit with other development platforms
and approaches within the organization
• Governance
– Who can do customizations
– What training is required / available
– What standards are in place
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Customization
Crawl:
• Use the out of the box building blocks
– Web Part Pages, Web Parts, Lists
• Simple SharePoint Designer
– Custom List Forms & List Actions, Simple Data Views, Workflows
• EUSP solutions (Content Editors + CSS, JavaScript, jQuery)
– Easy Tabs (http://blog.pathtosharepoint.com/2010/07/26/easy-tabs-version-5-is-out/)
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Customization
Walk:
• Install 3rd party solutions & templates / Web Parts
– Fab 40 in 2007
– Bamboo Solutions
• Advanced SharePoint Designer
– Advanced Data Views (XSLT), BCS
• Visual Studio Solutions
– Visual Web Parts, Event Receivers, Features
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Customization
Run:
• Install 3rd party Applications
– Advanced workflow: Nintex, K2
• Advanced Visual Studio Solutions
– Custom SPD Workflow Actions, Application Pages, BCS
• Integrate custom applications into SharePoint
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Customization
Other Notes:
• Many development/customization paths
– Identify customization focus areas and plan training accordingly
– Carefully consider architecture paths – lots of ways to solve problems
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Now What?
• Align your business priorities to platform capabilities
• Develop a roadmap or platform strategy
• Do you have business needs that align well with
‘Crawl’ and ‘Walk’ capabilities?
• Which longer term business goals overlap with shortterm capabilities that can be built on?
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Q&A
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Thanks for coming!
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