SharePoint in Real Life
Two recent case studies at Opus
Two Case Studies
www.opuscorp.com
External/Customer-facing site
“O·net”
Intranet/Portal
Case 1: External Site
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Background
Our approach
Why SharePoint?
Technical overview
Lessons learned
Background: Pain Points
• Time-consuming/expensive to maintain
• Poor reliability
• Few options for integration
Background: Site Components
• Structured/dynamic content
(Job Postings, Projects, Press Releases, News Letters, Testimonials, Bios, etc…)
• Static content
(Company History, Mission Statement, Descriptions of Services, etc…)
• Canadian site
(www.oredevelopment.com)
• Project search
• Site search
• Flash content
Core Requirements
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Maintain same design (“pixel perfect”)
Reliable
Use internal IT resources sparingly
“Good” ROI
Easy maintenance
Complete by end of year (6 Months)
Friendly to search optimization
Other “Nice to Haves”
• Delegation of content management
• Full control over design
• Integration options (for other Opus systems)
Our Approach
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Gather full requirements
RFPs/vendor selection (Inetium)
Site design
Implementation
Content manager training
Main site launch
ORE site development
ORE site launch
Why SharePoint?
Built-in content management capabilities
• Web content management (critical)
• Document management (to a lesser extent)
Publishing model
• Schedule date to release
• Version control
• Approval workflow
Templates
• Multiple page layouts (article with image on left etc.)
• Custom (policies and procedures)
Design Flexibility
Content Architecture: Design Process
Existing Site
List of Site Entities
•Relationships
•Who Publishes
•When/How Often Published
Taxonomy
Content Architecture
• Structured site to be free of extraneous managed
code
• Designed to accommodate modular security needs,
with a central approval process
• Leveraged OOB navigation for top and left navs
• All data maintained in lists, including a couple
thousand images
• Data – joins and filtering of lists revealed interesting
quirks in SPD
• Leveraged Reusable content
Site Infrastructure
*Internet
“www.opuscorp.com”
www.opuscorp.com
ISA Server
(Rev-Proxy/Firewall)
*DMZ
Content Switch(s)
“exweb”
(Cisco CSS 11501)
*Internal
Database Cluster
Front-End Web Servers
(MOSS 2007)
(SQL 2005)
Lessons Learned
• Look for ways to use re-use content
(lists, master pages, and page layouts seem to be the key)
• XSLT is an essential skill for highly-customized
SharePoint sites
• The learning curve for customizing SharePoint is
high, but the reward is a site tailored to your
needs.
• The Reusable Content list is a great little tool
• Because of schedule constraints, using external
consulting services (Inetium) was important.
Q&A
Case 2: Onet Redesign
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Background
Our approach
Why SharePoint?
Implementation details
Lessons learned
Onet Redesign
Background
 Designed exclusively by IT
 “Org Chart” taxonomy
 Extensive/complicated menu system
Slow to load/as many as three levels to navigate
Onet – The Ugly Years
 Search - Google Search Appliance
 Platform: FrontPage (static content)/.Net (custom web apps)
 No “portal” tools (collaboration, personalization, etc)
Onet Redesign
Pain Points:
 Outdated design
Onet – The Ugly Years
 Difficult to find “stuff”
 Difficult for content publishers to update
 Difficult for IT to support content publishers
Our Approach
• Assemble a committee
(from a variety of disciplines and levels)
• Establish high-level scope
• Gather feedback/research
(from the committee, content publishers, and employees)
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Analyze feedback/research
Establish/communicate full scope
Implementation
Deployment
Why SharePoint?
• Ease of publishing for content owners
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Item-level Security, Web Parts
• Standard Portal Features
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Personalization, Alerts, RSS, etc..
• Built-in content management capabilities
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Custom lists and views (lots)
Version control
Approval workflow
Web content management (just a little)
Document management (surprisingly little at first, but more and more)
• Familiar platform (existing staff)
• Design flexibility
The Theory
Good
Design
Good Design
Updated/Interesting
Intuitive
Navigatio
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Intuitive
Navigation
Multiple Taxonomies
(by category, by
Org. Structure,
alphabetically)
Useful
Site Tools
Forms Center
Site Index
Professional/More
“Usable”
Contextual Help
Colorful/Human
Useful
Search/
Site Tools
New Home Page
Features (like
audience-based
news articles)
Personalization (My
Links, Preferences)
An Easierto-Use
Site?
Gather Feedback!
Design Options
Navigation/Taxonomy Options
• Option 1 – No Change
• Option 1
• My Life
• My Job
• My Company
• Option 2 (Variation of Current Scheme)
• Departments
• Application
• Forms
• Employee Center
• Project Delivery
Taxonomy: Our Approach
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Company-wide survey (ONET Top 5)
Department/steering committee surveys
Focus groups (card-sorting sessions)
Consulting services (Inetium)
Industry best research and best practices
(Nielsen Group, Human Factors Int’l)
(Almost) Final Taxonomy
Implementation
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Design Implementation
• Master pages
(for SharePoint & ASP.Net custom apps)
• Layout pages
Custom site definition
Custom controls
• Location-aware tab-strip
• Custom breadcrumb
• “My Links”
Convert content sites
(Both SharePoint and FrontPage sites)
Develop New Areas
• Main Areas (forms center, landing pages)
• “My Location” sites
• Utility areas (Help, Site Map)
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Home Page
The Final Result…
Site Infrastructure
http://onet/
Content Switch(s)
(Cisco CSS 11501)
/sites/*
/applications/*
Database Cluster
(SQL 2005)
Front-End Web Servers
(MOSS 2007)
Custom App Servers
(C#/.Net)
Search Server
(Google Search Appliance)
*Internal
Growth Rate
Go-Live
Project Kick-Off
Number of Sites
Favorite Features
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Audience targeting
Article publishing system
Forms/surveys
Custom lists
Business Data Catalog (BDC)
Not-So-Favorite Features
• Deployment process
• Backup/restore
• Site definitions are permanent
(cannot be changed after site creation)
• Hardware requirements
(makes development difficult)
• SharePoint designer bugs!
Other Fun Stuff
• Several My Location sites have launched locationspecific suggestion box lists, local announcements,
and local calendars
• Departments have gone above and beyond by
helping employees in new ways. (eg. Tax
department posts personal tax tips)
• RSS feeds are becoming more popular
• A number of custom lists are being developed to
replace previously manual processes
The future of Onet
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Opus Project Library (done!)
Lease Library (in progress)
Project Delivery (‘08)
Records Management/Document Retention?
FolderNav vs. SharePoint document libraries
Another Perspective on Systems Integration
The future of Onet
• Project Delivery
• Lease Library
• Records Management/Document Retention
Q&A