SharePoint 2010 is not the Answer

The title of this post may be a bit surprising.  If you’re a regular reader, you know that Consejo firmly endorses SharePoint 2010 as an excellent platform upon which to build your intranet or extranet (internet sites are a different story).  However, we’ve worked with a few clients recently who seem very focused on the upgrade as a solution to their woes (mostly intranet woes).

Certainly, with every situation there’s always context.  I try not to preach to my clients (maybe a little) about why upgrading for its own sake is a bad idea.  Some may have very valid reasons for pursuing an upgrade.  Even when they don’t, many clients upgrade anyway.  However, to be clear, upgrading to the next version of anything is a bad idea if the only reason to upgrade isn’t directly attributable to platform capabilities.  SharePoint is no different.

Don’t get me wrong, SharePoint 2010 is a very robust product.  It has lots of advantages over 2007 and, if you’re a 2003 shop or an enterprise just getting started with SharePoint, I think you’ll be happy with 2010 (assuming the right implementation of course).  Further, 2010 is architecturally it is quite different from 2007 and far better at handling a more diverse set of infrastructure configurations.  It also has loads of goodies for the pedestrian user as well.  Be careful though: with all of this added capability and architectural robustness, there’s a price. 

In many ways, SharePoint 2010 is orders of magnitude more complicated to implement and not well suited for every environment (a 2007 failing as well).  There are new concepts like service applications, managed accounts, document labels, document IDs, content type hubs, external lists and a myriad of other very new and not so easily understood features.  Then there’s the idea that SharePoint can be all things to all people (e.g. a terrific web content management tool at the same time as it enables flawless document collaboration); it’s just not true.   SharePoint is good at a lot of things, but it’s not great or even capable at many more.

That said, clients, especially those in IT departments, seemed to be very taken with this new version.  Often they extol the virtues of managed metadata, better search, high count thresholds for document libraries, remote blob storage (eyes glaze on their business clients at this point) and better manageability (along with the other good stuff).  They heartedly recommend the upgrade to their business user clients and/or they simply say “if you don’t like your current intranet, blame SharePoint 2007; upgrading to 2010 will fix all of your problems and make you much happier.”  Inside of many clients, IT “owns” the intranet and issues an edict that they’re upgrading to 2010.  Worst yet, business users occasionally know that SharePoint powers their intranet and may have come to the potentially erroneous conclusion that SharePoint is the cause of their information management pain; this add further pressure to upgrade.

Honestly though, haven’t we all heard this before?  Wasn’t one of the arguments for SharePoint 2003 or 2007 that “the platform will fix all of your problems?”  Didn’t they (the ones pushing the upgrade) once tell you that SharePoint has loads of features you can use straight out of the box?  Even if part or all of the story was true, didn’t the move and/or upgrade cause you pain?  Don’t you and/or your colleagues, in some ways, have more complexity in your environment, more to manage and, potentially, more dissatisfaction with the intranet?  I suspect that at least some of you will answer “YES!!!” 

As yourself why.  Go ahead…. ask.

I suspect the answer is partially due to infatuation – SharePoint seemed (and seems) really fabulous (especially when that nice Technical Specialist from Microsoft showed you the Contoso Intranet or you attended an Strategy Briefing at a Microsoft Technology Center).  It’s also likely that you had a pretty broken intranet or a severe file-sharing problem.  Or could it have been that your organization had no previous mechanism for allowing various global business groups to share and collaboratively develop content together (save perhaps through very silly and uncontrolled file shares).  SharePoint seemed like it could work.  It seemed like “it” was simply the answer.

In practice, you now realize how much you didn’t know.  This is true for most things.  Martin White, of Intranet Focus, once quipped that “SharePoint demonstrated that most organizations didn’t know they had an information management problem because they never managed information before SharePoint.”  Once SharePoint was running, information management may have seemed even more out of control and users, in some ways, were even more dissatisfied.  This brings me back to my original point.  SharePoint 2010 is very likely not the answer to your intranet woes UNLESS you have very specific business requirements that can’t be immediately met with SharePoint 2007 (and potentially some combination of 3rd party tools); the new version is different, but it is still largely targeted at solving the same kinds of problems.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t upgrade.  In fact, if you can demonstrate that 2010 will actually solve your challenges in a way that 2007 and ISV products can’t, I would encourage you to upgrade.  We have a few clients that fall into this category and they’ve taken a very prescriptive approach to the effort.  Unfortunately, for most enterprises, this isn’t the case.

Here a few unjustified reasons I’ve heard for the upgrade and how I would (and have) respond:

• SharePoint 2010 has a better search engine and our search stinks
  I hear this a lot.  This is also the same argument, phrased differently, where search is generally the solution to findability.  Search is not the exclusive solution to findability and upgrading to 2010 (or, even better, 2010 and FAST) won’t help.    In many cases, organizations haven’t done the bare minimum to fix search with the tool they have.  This would include adding metadata (as basic as descriptive titles), creating a proper taxonomy, removed erroneous results from the index, created scopes, leverage pre-canned searches, gotten rid of outdated/irrelevant content or even provided search education to their end users (yes you need a little guidance to use search properly just like any tool).  Improve search first, upgrade later.
• SharePoint’s interface is hard to use; SharePoint 2010’s is better
  It’s true that Microsoft has radically changed the user experience for SharePoint 2010.  My colleague, Tony Byrne at Real Story Group, though questions whether the changes in SharePoint’s interfaces are really all for the better.  Even veteran users of SharePoint find the new ribbon challenging, much like the ribbon in Office.  Further, AJAX has made some interface more modern (and somewhat more reactive), much of what makes SharePoint, well SharePoint, is still very apparent.  You’ll also notice that there are still some exclusively IE features (though more compatible with Firefox and Safari), there are loads of forms for uploading things, the interface is still decidedly “SharePointy” and while you can create a theme in PowerPoint 2010, I’m not sure I would.  Good interface design should be handled by a professional designer and a good developer.  Also, end users are still going to need training (still).  You could/can create compelling interfaces in SharePoint 2007 and the approach isn’t much different in 2010.
• We don’t want to be too far behind Microsoft’s development cycle
  I get it.  You don’t want to be stuck on the equivalent of Windows XP ten years after it first shipped.  This is a valid concern.  However, SharePoint 2010 shipped less than a year ago.  Lots of organizations are still successfully using Office 2003 or 2007, as well as Windows XP.  To be fair, it’s far more difficult to upgrade 10,000 client workstations than a few servers and I don’t think there are very many people outside of Redmond that would defend Windows Vista.  However, the “old technology” argument only gets you so far.  SharePoint 2007 is very much still technologically current relative to Office deployments (though perhaps not too “Web 2.0”).  It fully supports the more recent versions of .NET and you can absolutely find vendors who support the platform with add-on products.  If this were February or August 2012, the argument works far better.  I’d also like to bring up my previous point about search.  Like search, few organizations really spent time or money on customized user experiences for their intranet or fully developed a true application on SharePoint.  They expected business users to simply use what Microsoft provided (more of the “build it and they will come” mentality).  In some cases this worked.  Mostly, collaborative sites experienced uncontrolled growth (causing much of the information management pain) and the larger intranet application languished unloved and underutilized.  This argument is a fallacy from the beginning and shouldn’t be considered a truly valid reason, unless perhaps you’re using IBM Displaywrite 4 (you could probably benefit from the upgrade to WordPerfect 5.1).
• We’ve already paid for the upgrade through our Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft
  This too sounds pretty reasonable on the face of it.  Your EA provides you with the ability to upgrade to the latest version of any included product; why not upgrade?  The reality is that unless you’re not going to renew your agreement during the next cycle, you’ll continue to pay regardless of what version you’re using.    It’s not going to cost you any more or less to stay put on SharePoint 2007 for a while longer (especially if you need to “fix” some of the more serious problems with your intranet).  In the end this argument is just a red herring to distract from the core issue at hand: your intranet doesn’t work for your employees.
• We have too many 3rd party tools for our SharePoint 2007 implementation; SharePoint 2010 provides [insert vendor here]’s functionality out of the box
  Really? I’d double check.  What appears, in some cases, like Microsoft may have covered a previously missing feature, they may not have completely covered it.  For example, metadata.  Microsoft implemented a new managed metadata service that goes a long way to helping enterprises implement a proper metadata scheme within their intranet.  The existence of the service would seem to eliminate the need for tools from companies like SchemaLogic, Smartlogic and more utility-like components from firms like Bamboo Solutions and Layer2.  However, these and other vendors not only appear to have a solid business for SharePoint 2010, they’ve found new opportunities.  If anything, the explosion in add-on products compatible with SharePoint 2010 would anecdotally suggest that SharePoint 2010 continues to have functional gaps.  In truth, there’s probably a better story for ISVs, not because SharePoint has gotten worse, but the platform improvements give these ISVs a far better foundation for valuable add-ons.  Do your homework and don’t get sucked in by good marketing.

Look, I’m on your side.  I love new stuff – especially that new DVD/download smell.  However, distracting everyone from the real problems plaguing your intranet by upgrading to SharePoint 2010 isn’t going to be productive.  An upgrade will likely not fix the real concerns people have about your intranet, nor will the upgrade process be satisfying.  In fact, upgrades usually tend to be migrations; painful, painful migrations.  You aren’t just replacing binaries on the existing servers and manipulating the content database schema.  “Upgrade” usually involves building brand new servers, buying more storage (get it while the gettin’s good), installing a net-new SharePoint farm, licensing brand new add-ons (yes there are still plenty of “opportunities”), licensing/using a migration tool (please don’t try it manually) to move content to the new farm and sending the IT team to training on the new stuff (developers as well as administrators).   Again, when all is said and done, core problems are probably still not addressed, nor have users significantly altered the behavior that lead to this “bad” place; there was simply too much to do getting the “upgrade” done.

In the end: fix what you have.  Get it right now, before you upgrade.  Prove it with real measures of success, then upgrade.  You’ll be happier.

Does SharePoint Destroy Intranet Design?

In the latest blog entry from Jacob Nielsen, he asks an interesting question: does SharePoint Destroy Intranet Design? The question is interesting in that we get a variation on that question frequently from clients: what sort of design can I use with a site running SharePoint (i.e. what constraints are there on my visual design)?  The answer to both questions is: no and anything you’d like.

In Nielsen’s article, he points out that 4 of the top 10 winning intranets from his 2010 survey use SharePoint.  In fact, this is a trend that has continued from the 2009 survey, where 5 of the top 10 used SharePoint.  Nielsen even has screen captures in his article latest article (and in the reports) showing pretty varied designs across each of the winners.  More evidence of different visual designs (and experiences) can be found in the SharePoint Sites on the WSS Demo site (interestingly, this site is now using SharePoint Foundations 2010, so it’s technically not a Windows SharePoint Services demo…).  So why all the trepidation?  I’ll blame the out of the box experience from SharePoint.

Regardless of whether you’re implementing an intranet, an internet or an extranet site, the SharePoint siren’s call of “out of the box” is very strong.  Microsoft has provided “good enough” standard site definitions, visual designs and functionality; that out of the box design experience is actually (pardon the pun) by design – Microsoft hoped to save people time.  Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone.  As a result, many organizations want to change the visual design and experience.  In the SharePoint community, this is called making SharePoint look less “SharePointy.” (I’m not sure who first coined this expression, but it now seems like common vernacular).

If you’ve come the place where you’re questioning how to improve the visual design of the application you’re building on top of SharePoint or being questioned by others about “constraints” or “restrictions,” here some key advice:

• There are no restrictions on visual design when using SharePoint
  It’s true that there are some elements that should be included in your new design, like the ribbon (in 2010) or the page editor toolbar (in 2007).  However, neither should stop you from creating a design that fits your organization.  Just keep in mind that SharePoint controls (e.g. web parts and the elements that appear during editing) may not render the way the rest of your design does.  I would recommend rigorous testing to ensure everything works as you expect.  Design what you like and apply it to your SharePoint application.  Really.
• You don’t have to start with a Microsoft-supplied Site Definition
  Since SharePoint ships with so many site definitions (and visual designs), most firms assume that you have to start there and then customize.  This is far from the truth.  In fact, you can create a custom site definition from scratch.  This option requires lots more work, but you may need to head down this path for any number of valid reasons.   If you decide to create your own definition, just remember that you’ll have to enable the specific SharePoint features that make sense for your design (e.g. the publishing feature or search).
• If your visual design isn’t complex or matches the “L” navigation natively in SharePoint consider a theme
  SharePoint themes are often a good way to create a unique visual design without the work involved in creating new master pages or, with more effort, site definitions.  Many sites, though visually distinct from the standard SharePoint design, can achieve their design goals simply with a theme.   Consider this: a theme takes a competent developer approximately 8 to 10 hours, while a master page could take two to three days and a site definition could take a week or more (depending on complexity).   If you don’t need the “extras” don’t spend the time.  Another benefit is the reduced testing and maintenance required, since themes are just CSS.

While there are some considerations when developing an intranet solution on SharePoint, the product does not destroy or adversely impact intranet design.  In fact, as Nielsen points out, platforms like SharePoint are optimized to create a solid intranet foundation.  In many ways, SharePoint improves intranet development productivity by reducing the design or implementation effort in other areas of your project.

Inserting Arbitrary Links in a SharePoint Calendar

Some time ago a client hired us to build a custom web part that, among other things, would color code events based on a category assigned to an event, embed an “information” link into each date of a 30 day calendar view and provide a printable view for a specific month.  At the time, SharePoint 2007 was relatively new, as an organization Consejo had been building custom extensions for SharePoint 2003 for some time and it just made sense to continue down the path of a custom web part.  Interestingly, the task of build a custom calendar web part that would properly display events in an event list is harder than you might think (another story).

First, I would always recommend trying to buy before building; as a developer it’s tempting to build, but usually less expensive long-term to buy.  And, while there were at least one or two commercial web part options that provided color coding (Bamboo’s calendar plus web part was something we seriously considered), nothing gave our client the ability to embed their information link.  The goal for this link was to create a “light” integration between the SharePoint event calendar (where they posted all of their corporate events) and a 3rd party application that would display information related to catering for that date.  Essentially, when you clicked the information link, a new browser window opened to the URL of the event application with the date associated with the specific icon the user clicked.  Pretty simple and easy.

After a far-too-long development cycle to complete, the web part has been generally working within that client’s environment for some time.  However, they recently approached us for an update.  The request kicked off another round of investigation and an epiphany of sorts.

While attending SharePoint Summit 2010 in Montreal, I had the good fortune of attending Mark Miller’s (End User SharePoint) session on enhancing the SharePoint interface through jQuery.  Coincidentally enough, very little of Mark’s talk was about jQuery specifically, though he did share a few examples.  What he did show were numerous ways that you could manipulate the standard SharePoint interface using other JavaScript bits, including color coding a calendar, creating a printable interface and creating a tabbed interface.  Many of these scripts were developed by Christophe Humbert from Path to SharePoint.

After attending the session, trying the color coding script myself (really a combination of a calculated column and JavaScript) and seeing the possibilities, I decided to try my hand at recreating the custom web part we developed using just JavaScript and calculated columns.  While Christophe’s approach helped with the print view and the color coding, he didn’t have an example for the information link.  Fortunately, a little experimenting on my part produced the script shown below.

<script type="text/javascript">
/*
Insert the event icon script
Written by Consejo, Inc.
Questions: info@consejoinc.com
*/

var iterator = document.getElementsByTagName("td");   
try 
{   
  var i = 0;
  var thisNode;
  while (i<=iterator.length - 1 && iterator.length > 0) 
  {   
    thisNode = iterator[i];
    var moreNodes = thisNode.getElementsByTagName("div")
    if(moreNodes != null && moreNodes.length > 0)
    {
        for( var x = 0; x < thisNode.attributes.length; x++ ) 
        {
            if( thisNode.attributes[x].nodeName.toLowerCase() == 'class' && (thisNode.attributes[x].nodeValue.toLowerCase() =='ms-cal-topday' || thisNode.attributes[x].nodeValue.toLowerCase() =='ms-cal-topday-today')) 
            {
                try
                {
                    var onClickEvent = thisNode.getAttributeNode('onclick').nodeValue;
                    var origEventDate = onClickEvent.substring(16,37);
                    var cleanUp = new RegExp(/^([1-9]|1[012])+\\u002f+([1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])+\\u002f+\d\d\d\d/);
                    var cleanEventDate = cleanUp.exec(origEventDate)[0];
                    cleanEventDate = cleanEventDate.replace(/\\u002f/g,"-");

                    moreNodes[0].innerHTML  += "<a href=\"http://www.videodetective.com/dvdcalendar.aspx?week=\"" + cleanEventDate + " style=\"font-size:8px;position:relative;right:-45%;\">Event Info</a>";
                }
                catch(err){}
            }
        
        }
    }
    i++;
  }
}    
catch (e) 
{   
  alert( 'Error: ' + e ); 
}

 

To implement this script, simply copy and paste this JavaScript into a Content Editor Web Part loaded after the calendar view web part.  If you want to enhance the link, simply insert an IMG tag where the text is shown. 

The link in the script is to a site that shows what DVDs were released on the date extracted from the SharePoint calendar’s onClick event; a little regular expression work helps to extract the value provided by SharePoint.    Obviously, you should change the URL in the script to something that meets your needs, unless you really want to know what DVDs are to be released.

I very much want to thank both Mark and Christophe for demonstrating a very light-weight approach to adding new functionality to the SharePoint interface.  Next time, I’ll think twice about writing mountains of C# when trying to achieve a client’s goals.

Getting to know SharePoint

Coming in May of this year, the new SharePoint 2010 promises to be a vast improvement over the existing 2007 version.  Like the transition from 2003, organizations are struggling to make key decisions about when to move to the latest version and what advantages it might provide.  In many cases, the answer greatly depends on your needs.    For enterprises that don't yet have SharePoint, but are evaluating the tool, the environment is probably even more confusing.

In an effort to help clients better understand both the upcoming version and the ecosystem in general, Consejo will be presenting at several regional and international events over the coming months.  If you're looking for greater insight into how SharePoint may or may not be a fit, I would highly encourage you to attend one of the following upcoming events:

1. "What's so special about SharePoint" (webinar) hosted by the Real Story Group, 6 April 2010, 1 to 2 p.m. EST.
   The buzz around Microsoft SharePoint has grown steadily since the product's introduction in 2001.  With the advent of SharePoint 2010, the buzz has reached a cacophony.  This raises the question: what's so special about SharePoint.  Shawn Shell, Principal and Founder of Consejo, Inc.  and Tony Byrne, Founder of the Real Story Group will present a one hour webinar to help organization separate fact from fiction and help organizations figure out if SharePoint is right for them.
   
2. SharePoint Summit 2010, 12 to 14 April 2010 in Montreal, Canada
   Shawn Shell, Principal and Founder, Consejo, Inc. will be presenting a session on "Managing a successful SharePoint Project" and participating on a panel discussing findability in SharePoint ("Findability to be or not to be").
   
3. Midwest SharePoint 2010 Conference hosted by Imerge Consulting, Milwaukee, WI, April 15, 2010
   Shawn Shell, Principal and Founder, Consejo, Inc. will be presenting a session on "SharePoint Tips, Tricks and Traps" to help organizations take advantage of all that SharePoint has to offer, as well as helping them avoid potential pitfalls.
   
4. Hardlines Technology Forum hosted by American Hardware Manufacturers Association (AHMA), 18 to 21 April 2010 in Schaumberg, IL
   Adonis Latham, Consultant at Consejo, Inc. will be presenting a session on leveraging InfoPath forms to help enhance SharePoint implementations. 

As the year progresses, there will certainly be more conference opportunities.  If you can't make it to one of these events, subscribe to our RSS feed to ensure you're aware of future events that may be of interest to you.

Nielsen/Norman Group’s 10 Best Intranets of 2010

Welcome to 2010!  I hope you had a fantastic new year! 

To start this year on a high note, I wanted to highlight Nielsen/Norman Group’s yearly 10 Best Intranets.   The 2010 edition, like past reports, provides insights into some of the best intranets across organizations of various sizes, shapes and industries.  What I like best about the report (as well as report’s like Jane McConnell’s Global Intranet Trends Report) is the chance to see how different organizations take on the challenge of improving employee productivity through content technologies.

Here are the some of the highlights I discovered:

• Intranets are getting a higher priority in the enterprise
  Better technology is enabling organization’s to produce better intranets.  NNG also notes the average increase in the size on intranet teams, giving enterprises more resources to produce and maintain these applications; in fact, the average team increased 27% to 14 people from 2009.  In Consejo’s own work, we have seen an increased focus on intranets across all of our clients; this is especially true of organization’s leveraging SharePoint, as much of those implementations involve internally facing applications.
  
• Mobile continues to garner attention
  It’s far from a widely adopted feature, but mobile access is becoming increasingly important.  Of the surveyed companies, 30% had special mobile features.  NNG made a specific point about creating unique mobile experiences instead of merely trying to adapt an existing intranet design to a mobile device.  For example, one of our clients built a specific Windows Mobile application to download list items from SharePoint.  NNG cites another client that built an iPhone app for their intranet.
  
• Social features gain real traction
  NNG called it the “year of social networking.”  Previously, NNG cautioned organizations about using the word “social” and many of our own clients refuse even use the word; one client prefers to use words like “collaborative” or “interactive” in lieu of social to avoid executive confusion with sites like Facebook.   However, as NNG points out, this trend is reversing and social media (as well as features) is gaining credibility.  For more insight into this area, take a look at the CMS Watch report on Enterprise Collaboration and Community Software.
  
• CEO Blogs
  NNG highlights that the typical “boss blog” is getting a bit of a “face lift.”  Instead of the monolithic and “talk at you” approach of historical executive blogs, more organizations are, in NNG’s words, “show[ing] executives with a ‘human face’ and [helping to] make them more approachable.”    Toby Ward at Prescient Digital wrote a terrific blog article on the “8 ingredients of a great  executive blog, ” which summarizes some of the same themes NNG found in their research, specifically the inclusion of social media and audience engagement (like comments).
  
• Focus on usability and improving features
  This point is a bit of an interpretation on my part, but NNG cites changes in the ways that organizations are encouraging use.  There’s less of the “built it and they will come” approach and more explicit, upfront research on usability and needs.  At Consejo, we typically encourage our clients to conduct surveys and in-person interviews to ensure the newly designed  intranet creates and improves productivity, as well as reducing the frustration that often accompanies change.  We also use that data to evaluate overall success of the intranet post launch, in addition to conducting post-launch surveys.
  
• Continue quality improvement
  A trend that should simply be “par for the course,” NNG cites efforts that many enterprises are taking to improve the quality of their intranets.  Interestingly (at least for a consulting firm that focuses on SharePoint) is that “frequent use of SharePoint” was the first bullet under this heading.  NNG does note that “many other technology platforms were common as well [and that] no one solution guarantees a great intranet,” but I thought it was an interesting point (especially since half of the “winning” intranets in 2009 ran on SharePoint).  As the SharePoint Report 2009 from CMS Watch points out and what we’ve learned through our SharePoint Fast Track offering, collaborative applications like Intranets are definitely a strength of SharePoint; NNG continues to reinforce this idea through their research.  Beyond SharePoint, NNG points out that search continues to be a problem (though improving), editorial workflow is more extensively used to ensure content quality, more organizations are using role-based personalization (as well as personal customization), companies are waking up to the idea that you need to measure success (Trend Micro saved $1.6 MM) and more intranets are creating consistent presentation through the use of page templates (something WCM and portal tools have long included).  All of these trends add up to a vastly different intranet and improved experience.

As 2010 offers fresh opportunities for enterprises to further improve their intranets, it will be interesting to see how the old trends continue and what new trends emerge.  And, while we have seen both successful and unsuccessful intranets in many different kinds of organizations, it’s gratifying to see the progress being made.

We wish all of our clients and potential clients a prosperous new year!  May your intranets bloom!

Content Types in SharePoint

Taxonomy expert Stephanie Lemieux (Earley & Associates) and I had a great Skype discussion about creating and managing content types in SharePoint.  The conversation centered around whether you should create lots of content types, supporting a very granular taxonomy of documents or creating fewer content types, supporting a larger variety of documents.  Stephanie published a great blog article about it on her blog.  

Stephanie and I both concluded that fewer content types is probably a far better bet.  In fact, there are both taxonomic and technical reasons supporting our position.  From a content management perspective, content management guru Bob Boiko had a great quote in the article:

"How many content types is the right number? The fewest possible to squeeze the most value out of the info you possess.”

Article: How to Monitor your SharePoint Environment

As SharePoint becomes a more critical component of your infrastructure, it also becomes a service that needs to be more closely monitored to ensure its availability. But many organizations mistakenly try to treat SharePoint like other application servers, such as SQL Server. The reality is that SharePoint can be incredibly more complicated.

The most common misconception is that it's SharePoint that you have to monitor. This false belief will lead most operations personnel to overlook the fact that SharePoint is really a combination of services that act together. Because these services are tightly integrated, your monitoring strategy needs to be multidimensional.

For more information, read “How to Monitor your SharePoint Environment” on SearchWinIT.

Make SharePoint Governance Plain and Simple

Much has been written on the topic of SharePoint governance (and just to satisfy the Bing lovers: SharePoint governance).  Microsoft even has a Governance Resource Center for SharePoint on their TechNet site.  While most of the content I’ve found is quite good, though a bit fragmented, I still felt like there was something missing.

In fact, all of the discussions around governance got me thinking about the idea that you should be able to create a model where governance just “happened.”  Before you go away thinking that I’ve spent a bit too much time inhaling paint fumes, hear me out:  is it possible  to create a self sustaining “culture” of governance where participants reinforce content and technology best practices because “that’s the way we do business?”  I think the answer is: YES.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of older companies – companies for whom computing technology is relatively new compared with their years in business.  Many of these older companies, especially those with a strong founder affinity, have a deeply engrained company culture.  This culture is so pervasive that it permeates virtually everything they do without being overbearing.  

I’m not speaking of the largely manufactured “culture” we saw sprout during the dot com days; that’s the kind of culture that never leaves any lasting impression beyond a few hollow words by an executive.  I’m speaking of , the real ingrained and consuming kind of culture.    Examples can be found in companies like GE, Caterpillar, Kiewit and the “old” IBM (somewhat paradoxically specifically because they’re a technology company).  These companies have a “way of doing business” and new employees quickly learn this “way” by having it reinforced by the processes and people around them.

Another such culturally rich company is PCL Constructors Inc.  They’re based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  PCL’s founder, Ernest Poole, created a memo that’s now called “Pooles Rules.”  At the time of its creation, it created the basis for a company culture, PCL’s business practices and values.  Even today, the words of Mr. Poole are displayed throughout their headquarters and guide the companies business practices. 

What struck me about the rules was the plain and simple language used to describe “how to do business.”  These rules can be applied to a broad set of circumstances, even ones that couldn’t have been anticipated by Poole himself.  Today, while the language may seem “old,” the concepts and guidelines haven’t gone out of style and PCLers still largely operate using the insight that Mr. Poole jotted down on a single piece of company letterhead nearly 70 years ago.

To demonstrate just how applicable the rules are, I’ve created a derivative work that could be used as a basis for a SharePoint governance “culture.”  I’ve replaced certain words in Poole’s Rules with more SharePoint or portal-relevant terms (if necessary). 

• Employ highest grade employees obtainable
  SharePoint is a unique product with it’s own complexities and nuances.  I’ve seen some companies try to “fit” employees into a SharePoint administration role or use less-experienced resources to create solutions.  Just as Mr. Poole suggests using the highest grade employees to build a building, you should strongly consider the same approach for your SharePoint environment.   Frankly this rule is just good business and common sense.
• Encourage integrity, loyalty and efficiencies
  Create an environment where your content consumers and contributors see the SharePoint solution as central to their work.  This means avoid “snazzy” features for their own sake and instead focus on real time-saving or productivity-improving functions.  These functions don’t have to be complicated and can be simply a good employee directory or the place to find the right template for proposals.  By considering the time your users will invest in learning the new SharePoint solution and leveraging any given function, you’ll avoid overloading them with frivolous content or features – this builds loyalty, trust and a sense that the SharePoint application is meant to improve efficiency, not make it harder to get work done.  Further, employees won’t try to use “rogue” applications to get their work done, since you’ve demonstrated real value.
• Avoid side lines
  Don’t try to make your SharePoint environment be all things to all people.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, SharePoint has strengths and weaknesses.  Make sure you know what they are and avoid trying to make SharePoint do something it wasn’t meant to handle.  It’s better to do a few thing well than create a broad, mediocre application.
• Do not permit side lines by employees [or SharePoint environments]
  Don’t allow rogue SharePoint implementations in your environment; more than one organization I’ve worked with suffers this problem.  Multiple, unmanaged SharePoint environments cause lots of pain in the organization and confuse the general employee population.  I would highly recommend working to create a tightly controlled, singular (or set of SharePoint) environment(s) that can be relied on, supported and recovered (in the of a disaster).  The idea is not to create a uber-SharePoint group, but rather apply real discipline to the management of the environment, even if more than one group physically operates an environment.
• Be fair in all dealings with owners [content contributors and consumers], architects [SharePoint managers], engineers [internal SharePoint developers] and sub-contractors [consultants]
  The critical bit of  the initial deployment as well as long term application management is to understand there are lots of individuals, groups and interests involved.  You will do well to develop very clear goals for your environment, a plan to achieve the goals and metrics to measure success.  In addition, communicate constantly with everyone involved.  How does this equate to fairness?  In the end, no one group can bear the brunt of the development or maintenance.  Your contributors can’t be expected to create content over night, managers can be expected to solve “world hunger,” it should be understood that it will take more than 24 hours to design/develop/test/deploy a SharePoint solution and any consultants you hire don’t know your business as well as you do.  In addition, you need to make the environment accessible and easy to use for your content consumers.  Try to minimize overburdening one group or another when developing and maintaining your solution.
• Keep your word as good as your bond
  This is about credibility.  If you (as the “owner” of the Intranet) want to encourage use,  make sure you deliver what you promise and what is useful.  This means not only delivering the obvious – SharePoint functions and the environment – but also the ongoing content contribution, continuous improvements and overall management.  Living web applications – whether their internally or externally facing --  need to be cared for and “fed” to survive.  Once you’ve built your solution, you or another group must be responsible for keeping your implied promise that the solution won’t be abandoned.
• Give encouragement and show appreciation
  I had the good fortune of working for knowledge management guru Susan Hanley while at Dell.  She was famous for saying that organizations should use techniques like “bribery” to create a vibrant community of content consumers and contributors to build up an intranet.  In fact, as she often pointed out, without both communities, a intranet will wither and die away.  Providing encouragement and showing appreciation is especially important for fledgling SharePoint environments; participation and adoption are paramount to success.  It’s also critical for ongoing success; consider your own population and develop a program that continuously provides encouragement and support to all communities involved.
• Be firm, fair and friendly
  Think outside the box, encourage suggestions and get folks involved.   Improvements or changes can come from all levels in the organization.  Treat all who participate as if they can constructively contribute to the environment.  However, it’s also equally important to set firm ground rules for that participation and refuse some requests if they’re either unreasonable or don’t fit the “model” you and your team have developed for the application.  See the “avoid sidelines” rule.
• Avoid jobs where design is not good or financing doubtful
  If you don’t have the funding, time, human resources or the budget to effectively create, deploy and maintain a SharePoint solution, don’t start one.  I have seen numerous companies attempt to develop a solution with insufficient resources, thinking “it’s just a simple intranet” or “SharePoint does that out of the box.”  There is nothing simple about an intranet and while SharePoint does provide a lot of out of the box functionality, more enterprises must buy add-ons, build customizations and deal with challenges that are often underappreciated.
• Good accounting and cash keeping are essential [Develop good metrics for success]
• Do not let finishing up of jobs or collecting payments lag
  These last two bullets are close enough to lump them together.  In construction, like developing a SharePoint solution, demonstrating success is critical.  How do you demonstrate success?  You have objective measure to compare against.  Whether this means that the new application supports a certain number of users, that it helps to reduce the time it takes to accomplish a task or eliminates work altogether, you have to be able to measure it.  Many organizations say that it’s impossible to measure productivity improvements or more “soft” metrics. I would agree that it’s very difficult in many cases to determine whether process improvements have saved time, for example; often you don’t have a baseline to compare against or it’s difficult to gather ongoing data.  However, even anecdotes can serve as a metric (e.g. here’s an example of how I save time generating a proposal using the new intranet).  Further, stay on top of these measures of success both throughout the initial deployment and the applications lifecycle.  It’s the only real way of figuring out whether all the time, money and effort paid off.

Keep in mind that I’m not necessarily endorsing this specific approach for everyone.  However, I think it’s an interesting model to explore when developing a governance program for a SharePoint environment.  Obviously, a good governance has to include more than just a few rules.  That said, writing this blog entry, for me, has only reinforced that there is an argument for creating a relatively broad set of guidelines that can apply across numerous circumstances.  Many companies fail to realize this and end up creating an inaccessible, overly complex governance policy.  In the end, their policy fails because no one understands it or it is too hard to follow. 

Consider creating your own “Poole’s Rules” for your SharePoint environment.  I suspect you’ll not only gain new insight on a practical governance strategy, but also end up creating something that outlives SharePoint.

Create a Support Program for your SharePoint Environment

A recent article in CIO Magazine provided some great content around the true cost of SharePoint.  Social software and portals expert, Peter Sejersen from J Boye, has expanded that discussion when he added a quick case study of a DIY SharePoint implementation at the municipality of Aalborg in Denmark.  However, one dimension of SharePoint that has not received a lot of attention is support.

In virtually every engagement we have with clients, the cost of supporting SharePoint comes up.   Clients want to better understand what it takes to “care and feed” for an enterprise SharePoint environment.  If you’re struggling with this same challenge, I’ve included some of the various support dimensions touched lightly in the CIO article and that may help you create your support program:

• Monitoring
  Do you want to get the most value out of SharePoint?  Make sure you monitor the servers, the applications and ensure up-time.  During your implementation’s early stages, little attention will be paid if it’s unavailable.  Once the site has been around a while, you better ensure it’s running in top form.  Beyond that, you should really know if errors are being generated in the event logs, issues manifesting themselves in the SharePoint logs or if your content databases are getting to large.  This means that you must get serious about monitoring and look at more than just ping responses.  Microsoft has System Center Operations Manager, which provides a good tool for monitoring your environment.  You can also leverage a combination of event log monitors, perfmon or manual checks.  At Consejo, we developed a monitoring agent with Panopta and integrated it into our SharePoint Support offering.   Whatever approach you choose, make sure you have one.
• Patch Management
  The SharePoint team releases patches with relative frequency.  They are sometimes in the form of a “hot fix” (an update the corrects a “small” feature or function within SharePoint), a roll-up (a collection of these hot fixes) or a service pack (the total collection of hot fixes plus updates not found in any hot fix).  Whatever the form, you need to have a program to apply them regularly, since you don’t necessarily want to update SharePoint the way you update the OS.  While you may have a program for applying fixes to your server and desktop OS, a lot of organizations fail to regularly implement SharePoint-specific fixes – some of which are required for working with certain OS and/or .NET framework patch levels.    The tricky bit about this element of  a support program is the number dependencies created by either custom or commercial add-ons; this means testing ahead of deployment.
• Reusable Components
  Companies like Telerik and Infragistics have made a good business out of creating new controls or components that fill in functional gaps between what Microsoft provides in the .NET framework and what you may have to create for your application.  In the same way, consider creating an organization specific set of controls, components or SharePoint add-ons that you can reuse across your SharePoint applications.   Examples of this might be a “print Wiki” function that can be used with any wiki in SharePoint or SharePoint site archive function that backs up a SharePoint site before deleting it from a Site Collection.    More granular examples may be components that make it easy for developers to connect to your specific SAP implementation.  While your needs may be different, creating a collection of reusable components will help improve development quality and speed within your organization.
• End-user Assistance/Help
  A lot of IT organizations tend to take the “build it and they will come” approach to SharePoint.  This approach suggests that IT organizations simply need to make a facility like SharePoint available; from there business users will “figure out” how to be more productive.  Unfortunately, most end users are unable to conceptualize how SharePoint can help them to be more productive as they tend to struggle with the basics like simply uploading documents or using search.  Instead, enterprises should create real training materials that translate SharePoint capabilities into tangible benefits in the context of the business.  This means demonstrating how users can be more productive in real situations using SharePoint to supplement or replace tools they already uses – like Word (just as an example).   When we deliver our Fast Track to SharePoint solution, we provide a license for the SoftwareFx Virtual Training Center for SharePoint (created by PortaLogiks) and embed them in the SharePoint application we create for our clients.   The materials give end users 30 second to 4 minute flash-based narrated videos on everything from uploading a document to a document library to customizing a page with SharePoint Designer.  Along with these materials, we typically recommend clients create application-specific help material that will further supplement the rather generic videos with specific information on their implementation.  In this way, business users don’t have to “imagine” how they can be more efficient -- they’re shown.   This will encourage use and help with adoption.
• Be Serious about Adoption
  Another frequent topic of conversation is end user adoption.  Adoption describes how you get your business users to utilize the new intranet, extranet or internet site you’ve built on SharePoint.   There are no easy answers to help to spur adoption; each organization will need to create a specific program to fit their end-user community.  However, success of your SharePoint implementation will depend entirely on end user adoption.   If you’re interested in learning more, check out a blog entry by Bianca Wong at Prescient Digital Media on change management strategies to support intranet adoption.

Admittedly, creating your own support program will be specific to your organization.   It also likely you’re doing some related activities already, so adding SharePoint-specific elements to those existing programs should not burdensome.  However, consider the alternative costs if you avoid creating a disaster recovery program or skimp on training your users.

Article: Effective Site Provisioning for SharePoint

One of the criticisms lodged against SharePoint is that you install it one day and the next day you end up with thousands of sites. Each site brings with it potential security risks from improper security settings and massive storage consumption resulting from, among other reasons, content dumping.

Even assuming you don't have either problem, it's always better to have a well managed SharePoint environment than one without appropriate controls on usage. That's where site provisioning comes in.

To be honest, there's no magic formula for managing the site-provisioning process on SharePoint. Different companies will have success with different approaches. But there are some guidelines that enable every organization to both provide flexibility to its end users and ensure an appropriate framework to help manage growth, security and usage.

URL: http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid1_gci1360488,00.html

NOTE: Beyond what’s mentioned in the article, SharePoint Solutions has a good tool for helping to managing the provision process called siteProvisioning Assistant.  The product provides a nice mix of pre-built approval processes and end user ease of use.

Free Webinar Series: Improving SharePoint Search

I will be joining a list of fantastic speakers on a free four-part webinar series on improving SharePoint search.  The series was developed by Earley & Associates. 

From the web site:

“From basic search scopes to custom properties, unstructured content to structured data, we’ll cover a variety of methods you can use to improve your search experience and results.”

Please join us for one or all of the calls during the month of June.  You can register here.

New Support Offering for SharePoint Farms

Today we announced the availability of a new SharePoint support offering called SharePoint Operational Support Solution or SOSS. 

Consejo has been focused on SharePoint development since our founding.  What we’ve found, particularly with small and medium organizations, is that it’s tough for IT groups to support the relatively new SharePoint implementations effectively.  Most often, we see organizations struggle to create a support plan that addresses all of the critical support areas:

• Level 2 and 3 support
  Level 1 support is typically handled by internal IT staff.  As long as the issue is related to basic usage, IT groups seem to be fine.  However, when the error or issue is more complicated, a number of IT groups have trouble resolving the issue without external assistance (be it a blog entry or a call to Microsoft).   With our offering, we supplement your team by providing the expertise at the ready.
• Farm monitoring to ensure uptime
  Is SharePoint running?  Why can’t users access their documents?  Is my SharePoint server nearly out of disk space?  These are common questions and without proper and active monitoring, you won’t known until your end users are already complaining to find out.  We partnered with Panopta to create a proprietary monitoring agent that leverages their existing global monitoring servers without the need to expose your SharePoint farm to the internet.  Our agent gathers multiple performance and status data points from your SharePoint farm and securely transmits that data to Panopta.  Both you and Consejo can see your SharePoint farm status through the Panopta monitoring dashboards, receive weekly/monthly reports and receive alerts when farm performance is outside of pre-established thresholds.
• Service pack and hot fix management
  It’s a pretty common problem: Microsoft issued a service pack or hot fix and you’re unaware it exists.  Unfortunately, the trouble you’re currently having with your SharePoint farm is fixed by installing the new fix.  The SharePoint Operational Support Solution corrects this problem by enabling Consejo to manage this operation for you:  we monitor Microsoft for all new service packs/fixes related to SharePoint, we’ll notify you about the existence of a fix, identify whether it’s important to install and physically install the update if necessary.
• Periodic strategic reviews of the environment
  Are you making the best use of SharePoint?  Are there ways to improve operations?  Are there new services or features that will impact your operations?  We’ll review your environment on a quarterly basis and identify areas for improvement.  Since we have performance data available, we’ll even be able to tell you if your farm is operating within established thresholds and where you may want to make changes.  

All of these services are delivered through our solution, which is sold as a subscription; we ensure you don’t have to “find” help when it’s too late.

If you’re interested in seeing what we have to offer and how we can potentially help your firm, check out the new solution on our web site or simple contact the Consejo Sales Group.

SharePoint Summit 2009 Recap

I have just returned from a fantastic trip to Montreal for the SharePoint Summit, where I taught one tutorial on making SharePoint work in the Enterprise and one regular session on Web 2.0 and SharePoint.    The sessions were very well attended (partially to my surprise) and I really enjoyed seeing a different side to SharePoint implementations – in the U.S., Consejo tends to see more commercial organizations and, while there were definitely a number of folks from commerical organizations, I saw quite a few Canadian governmental agencies represented as well.

Overwhelmingly, the questions about SharePoint remain largely consistent with the U.S.

1. What does SharePoint do well and where does it falter? 
   The answer to this question really depends on your needs.  I saw quite a few organizations who needed records management, for example.  However, as readers of CMS Watch’s SharePoint Report 2009 know, SharePoint does not have any real depth in records management; if that’s what you need, you should probably look elsewhere or find an add-on to improve SharePoint’s RM capabilities.  Beyond that (and imagining), SharePoint is a pretty mediocre player.  However, Mike Fitzmaurice  from Nintex (and his Microsoft days), made an interesting point: SharePoint doesn’t have to be the best at any one thing as long as it’s pretty good at a lot of things; partners, organizations or even Microsoft can add point capabilities to supplement what SharePoint does natively and cover a good deal of what organizations need to accomplish.  Interestingly, Mike made his point with a little “presentation zen,” by showing images that represented examples of the “best” animals in specific categories (e.g. Cheetah’s are the fastest land animals, the Bull Elephant is the strongest , a specific species of Shark is the fastest sea creature) and then comparing those “best of breed” animals to a human with a tool.  Obviously an elephant could lift, literally, a ton.  However, a human with a crane can best the elephant.
   
2. How do I control (govern) SharePoint in my environment? 
   This is something that I had the opportunity to give a keynote on during the conference.  I’ve also written a little about governance in the SharePoint Report 2009 and on SearchWinIt, in my article “Four steps to creating practical SharePoint governance standard.”  However, the short answer (if you don’t want to read the source material) is really about establishing “how” to use SharePoint within your organization.  Microsoft gave administrators some tools to limit growth or unused sites, but the tool won’t solve any real governance problems or create your policies.  Good governance has to be an explicit effort on your part.  You must actively engage in a process of policy creation and education to ensure your success.
   
3. Do I have to buy add-ons to SharePoint and/or why doesn’t Microsoft handle “this” out of the box?
   The answers to these questions are: “probably” and “by design.”  More often than not, organizations will have to buy/build/download add-on components to supplement SharePoint.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Microsoft could not be expected to anticipate every need or “solve” any specific requirement in a way that all organizations may require.  In fact, as Mike pointed out, Microsoft explicitly excludes certain features and/or components by design.  Mike shared that even Microsoft does not have inifinite resoures and when deciding on what features end up in a version of the product and which don’t, the product team focuses on “platform functionality” over “improvements to the UI or scenario specific” features.  The expectation is that partners, consultants or customers will fill in the gaps.  This approach doesn’t work for every customer, so be clear about your own goals and how much you’re willing to accept with regard to “missing” functionality and/or capability.
   
4. What’s in the vNext of SharePoint?
   Only the Microsoft product team knows for sure.  However, what I did hear from people in the know is that Office 14 (the version number of the next release) will be largely evolutionary with some slightly cooler, but not revolutionary components.  The one caution I will provide is that point 3 (above) still holds true; don’t expect Microsoft to cover every base and you should still budget for consulting and add-on products in your implementation.

Beyond all of the points I’ve made here, SharePoint is one of the fastest growing portal products on the market.  There were over 300 attendees at the conference and, universally, everyone was legitimately interested in better understanding SharePoint – primarily because they had all committed to using the platform for some web-based application within the enterprise.  I’m excited to see what’s coming in the next release and encouraged by the excitement I saw at the summit. 

SharePoint Migration PodCast

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a podcast regarding SharePoint migrations.  The podcast is in the style of an interview.  We cover topics like: what to watch out for, best practices for migration and practical planning tips.

You can register to hear the podcast here: http://library.theserverside.com/data/document.do;jsessionid=DE5FF872B3C13936ECBD952257887AC9?res_id=1237487165_496

SharePoint Page Layout Error: Only Content controls are allowed directly in a content page that contains Content controls

I recently built a SharePoint feature to provision custom master pages and page layouts for a client.  Overall the solution worked pretty well until one day, while making changes to one of the page layouts, I saw the following error: Only Content controls are allowed directly in a content page that contains Content controls.

Since other blog entries, referenced at the end of this article, can explain the background I'll get right to the cause and the solution.  The cause is improper case for the <asp:Content> control tags in my page layout.  A few contorls used a lower case "c" instead of an uppercase "C" in the word content.  The page layout that had trouble had tags that looked like: <asp:content> instead of <asp:Content>.  The specific offending tag is the one associated with the page title (<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server">).  The solution was as simple as correcting the case of the tag name and all worked well.

Here's an example of the symptom I saw.  Errant code is inserted in the page layout after it's deployed to the master page library in SharePoint and result is an error when trying to render the page; this errant code will not appear in the source, but you'll see it if you open the layout in SharePoint designer from the master page gallery:

<html xmlns:mso="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"xmlns:msdt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"><head>
<META name="WebPartPageExpansion" content="full">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<mso:CustomDocumentProperties>
<mso:PublishingPreviewImage msdt:dt="string"></mso:PublishingPreviewImage>
<mso:ContentType msdt:dt="string">Page Layout</mso:ContentType>
<mso:MasterPageDescription msdt:dt="string"></mso:MasterPageDescription>
<mso:PublishingAssociatedVariations msdt:dt="string"></mso:PublishingAssociatedVariations>
<mso:PublishingHidden msdt:dt="string">0</mso:PublishingHidden>
<mso:PublishingAssociatedContentType msdt:dt="string">;#Agenda item;#0x010100C568DB52D...;#</mso:PublishingAssociatedContentType>
</mso:CustomDocumentProperties>
</xml><![endif]-->
<title>Dummy Content Type</title></head>

SOURCE: Tech MOSS Team blog on SharePointBlogs.com

Where I found my solution:

• Rich Finn's Blog



• Tech Moss Team Blog (by Waldek Mastykarz)

Both of these blog articles were older entries, but they saved many more hours of work.  Thanks to both Rich and Waldek!

Customizing a SharePoint Site's Visual Design

One of the common questions we get from clients is "how do I apply a custom design to my SharePoint site?"  While SharePoint's interface is relatively clean, it has the ubiquitous "SharePoint Look."  Most clients want to make their sites match their brand, palette and navigational style.  However, it's not always easy to figure out the various elements that need to change.

To that end, here's a short list of options for changing SharePoint's look into something more complimentary to your brand:

1. Custom SharePoint Theme
   A Theme, in SharePoint terms, is like a fresh coat of paint over the existing SharePoint interface.  A Theme is driven exclusively by a series of CSS files located on the file system (in the "12 Hive").  The best custom themes simply override styles that can be found in the various CSS files that accompany the SharePoint software, like CORE.CSS.  The advantage to a custom Theme is that it takes very little to create some dramatically different interface styles; since so much of SharePoint's interface is CSS drive (to its credit), you can do quite a lot by simply changing the theme.  The easiest way to create your own theme is to copy an existing one (located in X:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\template\themes where X is your SharePoint installation drive).  Once you've copied the directory, renamed it, updated the included CSS and added your images, just modify the THEMES.INF to point to your new custom theme.  If you'd like detailed instructions, take a look at this MSDN article.
   
   
   Figure 1 - List of Themes included with SharePoint
   
2. Custom Master Page(s)
   In the .NET v2.0 timeframe, Microsoft introduced a concept called a "master page."  A Master Page, in SharePoint vernacular, represents all of the common elements of pages that share that Master Page.  Using an overloaded term, "template" might best describe at least part of the concept.  While Master Pages don't represent that entirety of the visual design, they establish the major elements and then determine where variable elements of a page can be placed.  By using "container objects," called placeholders (another overloaded term), Master Pages can establish the interface framework without interfering in a specific implementation.  Using various Master Pages with the same Page Layout (more on that shortly), you can produce vastly different looking sites.  In fact, SharePoint (MOSS) comes pre-loaded with several master page examples (mostly with names including "band" in them).   If you currently have a publishing enabled MOSS site (collaboration portal, News site or Publishing portal are the standard ones that enable this feature by default), you can change your master page in Site Settings.  There you'll have the option of choosing between various pre-installed Master Pages for both the Site Master Page and the System Master page.  In addition, you can create your own custom Master Page to introduce a radically different look.   If you are using WSS or don't have the publishing feature enabled, you can still use different Master Pages.  However, you'll either have to write a small utility to change the Master Page or you can download an open source extension to SharePoint from CodePlex to assist you in changing your master page (among other visual design elements).  Microsoft published a short article on customizing master pages on their MSDN site.  Remember though, you can have many Master Pages defined in your SharePoint site collection, but you can only use one Master Page per SharePoint site (unlike a traditional ASP.NET application).
   
   Figure 2 - Option in Site Settings for changing Master Page
   
3. Creating Custom Page Layouts
   Page Layouts, like Master Pages, were released as a part of the .NET v2.0 framework.  They are used in conjunction with Master Pages to create the overall visual design of a SharePoint site.  Page Layouts define what content will be placed into placeholders defined by the Master Page.  SharePoint ships with a number of different layouts.  By default, selectable Page Layouts are only available when using a publishing enabled site; you can choose a specific Page Layout for other SharePoint-types.  However, if you are using a publishing-enabled site, you can further refine your SharePoint site's look by leveraging customized Page Layouts.  Just keep in mind that Master Pages and Page Layouts are pretty tied together; if you create a Page Layout that uses placeholders from a customized Master Page, that Page Layout may not be "compatible" with out-of-the-box layouts.  For more information on creating Page Layouts, see this MS Office article.

In many cases, organizations will need to leverage more than one of these techniques to create the look they desire.    The specific technique will largely depend on how different you want your SharePoint site to look.

Once you've completed your changes, the best way to "install" the new, customized look, is through a SharePoint Feature.  A feature can provision all of the files involved in the customizations and programmatically enable them on one or more sites within the site collection.  The advantage to this approach is that by activating or deactivating the feature, the customized look can be enabled or disabled without vastly affecting the function of the site; this approach is also the way Microsoft recommends making changes to your SharePoint site.

Now, if all of this is too much to take in, or if you just need some help, Consejo has recently created a new SharePoint Branding Fast Track offering.  This offering is meant to help organizations quickly develop a customized the look and feel for their SharePoint site.   In a short 11 business days, we create a semi-custom visual design for your site, leveraging our pre-build master pages, page layouts and themes.  For more information or to discuss your needs, contact our sales group.

Gilbane Boston 2008 and SharePoint

As I finish up my presentations at the Gilbane Boston conference, I am still struck by the number of questions surrounding SharePoint.  During my "SharePoint in the Enterprise" talk, a number of attendees asked about whether SharePoint could be a stand along ECM solution.  Others were concerned about integration with 3rd party products -- specifically how SharePoint could co-exist with other technologies. Still others were interested in how to test applications built on top of SharePoint.

These are all excellent questions.  During my presentation, I covered a good many of them.  However, if you're still struggling to understand where SharePoint would fit or what functionality it provides in the box, I'd recommend picking up a copy of the SharePoint Report 2009 from CMS Watch.  The 242 page report covers virtually every aspect of SharePoint and gives pointed advice on everything from development on the platform, what's in and out of the box and, in this latest release, reviews of more than 20 add-on products that supplement SharePoint's functionality.

I'll admit I'm a bit biased -- I was the lead analyst on the report.  However, for the price, there's little chance you could hire a consultant to provide the same insight.  If, however, you're also hoping to get input from a consultant, Consejo has recently developed an offering which includes a copy of the report, in addition to a specific assessment of how SharePoint might fit in your environment. 

To learn more about our new SharePoint Assessment offering, please e-mail sales@consejoinc.com.

SharePoint Report 2009 Released

Consejo and CMS Watch have just completed an update to the SharePoint Report called the SharePoint Report 2009.  If you're in considering SharePoint for your organization, buying the report will save you both time and money.  For far less than it would cost to hire a consultant to deliver the same information, you are given pointed advice about what SharePoint does and does not do, as well as best practice information.  The latest report also includes reviews of more than 20 add-on products as well.

I would encourage you to download the sample content to see for yourself.  Also, if you have feedback, we'd love to hear it.  You can e-mail editor@cmswatch.com. 

SharePoint at the JBoye Conference in Denmark

As the JBoye 2008 conference in Aarhus, Denmark wraps up the final day, I can't help but be amazed at the popularity of SharePoint in both in the U.S. and abroad.  With a great deal of Consejo's work located in the U.S., it's easy to get caught up locally and forget the more global community.

During the conference, there was one consistent theme from the largely European-based audience: most European customers are struggling with the same or similar challenges as their U.S.-based counterparts.  Here are a few of the challenges I heard during my presentations:

• With very large installations (e.g. tens of thousands of employees), there are some significant challenges in SharePoint deployment.  The example I heard from an Austrailian (living in the Netherlands) was they had so many employees, they had to deploy multiple SharePoint farms just to enable My Sites for everyone.  As a result, surfacing alerts to users tended to be problematic, since alerts don't travel between SharePoint farms if you're not careful about your Shared Services configuration.
• Variations work generally well for presenting multiple language versions of a primary language site.  For example, presenting a Spanish version of an English site.  However, if you have two Spanish sites -- one for Mexico and one for Spain as an example -- SharePoint does not allow you to leverage the Spanish site to help "seed" the Mexican site.  Both the Spanish and Mexican sites can only be sourced from the English site.  This situation leads to one of two options -- spend more in translation OR copy and paste content from the ES-ES site to the ES-MX site manually.
• On the topic of languages, SharePoint will allow you to store content in any language in any site.  This is fantastic for sharing language specific content.  Unfortunately, the interface (administrative menus and functions) can only be displayed in one language.  This means that if your affiliate in France sets up a SharePoint site with the French language pack, everyone visiting that site will see the French administrative options and functions.  There's no capability for displaying English menus to the British or Spanish menus to the Spaniards.  While most companies I spoke with generally use English as their official company language (creating an English standard for all interfaces), that approach is limiting where English isn't pervasive -- like in Russia or France -- and where the native language isn't commonly spoken beyond the locale.
• SharePoint search facilities continues to be the target of both deserved and undeserved criticism.  Many attendees lamented about the lack of wild-card search support, the inability to submit boolean queries and the inability to "tune" results.  While results tuning is a weakness compared with other enterprise engines, wild-card and boolean support is the result of interface limitations and not limitations of the engine.  In fact, most add-on search vendors simply take advantage of build-in engine capabilities that the Microsoft-supplied search interface fails to surface.

Despite the various complaints, SharePoint is generally very popular.  Companies like Alfa Laval, ExxonMobil and British Telecom had representatives all sharing their experiences with SharePoint.  The attendee from Alfa Laval presented her experiences in developing a public web site using SharePoint  -- across 60 countries an 25 languages.  Despite the challenges she faced during the implementation, she was very positive about both the product and their implementer.

In the end, there was one common thread throughout the conference: users need better information and guidance on the best practices for SharePoint implementation.  This includes not only technology help, but general governance assistance.  In fact, one presenter suggested that the viral growth challenges of SharePoint were largely due to a lack of discipline in many large organizations.   As I and my co-authors point our in the SharePoint Report 2008, published by CMS Watch, there are number of factors to both successful and failed implementations.  However, good governance practices represent a key success factor for any organization.

If you would like to learn more about SharePoint or are looking for guidance on best practices, there are two upcoming conferences that I would recommend:

1. IIR's Enterprise-3 Conference in Las Vegas, 10 to 12 November
2. Gilbane Boston 2008 in Boston, 2 to 4 December

I'll be presenting SharePoint 1/2 day workshops at both conferences in addition to a regular session at the Gilbane conference.  I look forward to seeing you there!

Rookie mistakes to avoid during the SharePoint implementation process

Despite what may seem like a virtual explosion of SharePoint in the enterprise, it has been around since 2001. However, because of the various architectural changes in the recent version, SharePoint's popularity has taken off. The challenge now is to ensure that it is implemented properly in your environment.

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