SharePoint 2013 and WCXM

A lot has been written about and presented on SharePoint regarding it’s use as a WCM/WCXM tool.  My position, generally, is that unless you’re using SharePoint across the enterprise, it probably won’t be a good fit for the majority of firms as a WCM solution.   I reiterated this guidance in a SharePoint 2013 WCXM advisory paper and subsequent “Just how good is Web CMS in SharePoint 2013” web cast for the Real Story Group.

After I tweeted that little had changed between 2010 and 2013 WCM capabilities, Waldek Mastykarz suggested that I “didn’t get the memo.”  Waldek and I had a short twitter discussion on whether the latest release significantly improved SharePoint’s WCM capabilities.

Admittedly, there was some merit to his response, though I still maintain that for the majority of cases, SharePoint’s WCM capabilities are not significantly changed and the platform isn’t any better a fit for loads of WCXM scenarios than 2010.  However, I thought it would be interesting to post a set of questions I asked Waldek directly and let you hear what he has to say.   At Waldek’s suggestion, I’ve also included some additional commentary that he and I exchanged through e-mail.

1. In a blog post I published on the Real Story Group blog, I contend that not a whole lot has changed for WCM in the new SharePoint 2013.  You tweeted that I “hadn’t read the memo.”  Have I missed something really materially different?
   
   In SharePoint 2007 and 2010 the publishing model was based on Publishing Pages. One of the consequences was tight coupling between the physical location of the page and how it would appear in the site’s structure and in URLs. Additionally it was challenging in previous versions of SharePoint to reuse content across different sites. Finally it was maintenance-intensive to have an intelligent website which content and presentation would adapt to who the visitor is and which device he uses to browse the website. All of those can be now solved using the standard capabilities of SharePoint 2013.
   
   Next to the new search-based publishing SharePoint 2013 contains a number of capabilities that help you optimize your website for public search engines. In previous versions of SharePoint those capabilities had to be covered by third party solutions. Those are just two of the many WCM capabilities that SharePoint 2013 offers and that change how we think about and build websites on the SharePoint platform.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE] The search-based publishing features are not available in the Office365 version of SharePoint and only available on-premise.
   
   
2. You contend that search driven navigation is a major change in the WCM capabilities in SharePoint 2013.  How so?
   
   In previous versions of SharePoint the navigation was based on the physical structure of the website. If you wanted to publish a press release, you would navigate to that particular branch of your site and create a new press release page. With SharePoint 2013 search-based publishing and Managed Navigation this is no longer necessary. First of all we can leverage Managed Metadata and taxonomies to build more flexible navigation structures. Secondly using search-based publishing we can tie those taxonomies to the content and have everything published dynamically on the website. This not only increases web content management flexibility but also lowers the effort required to build and maintain websites.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE] SharePoint’s managed metadata service was available in 2010, though basing web site navigation on the term store is new to 2013; in 2010 metadata-based navigation was available for document libraries and presenting documents ordered by terms applied to those list items.
   
   
3. What are some of the other changes in SharePoint 2013, with regard to WCM, you think deserve highlighting?
   
   SharePoint 2013 contains many new and improved features for building public-facing websites. First of all it provides us with Search Engine Optimization features that we can leverage to optimize the website for public search engines. Next there are the Rich Text Editor improvements that make it easier for content managers to work with content. One of the common challenges in previous versions of SharePoint was working with content from Microsoft Word where all of the internal markup would be copied into the web page. In SharePoint 2013 this is no longer an issue as it automatically cleans the HTML of any Word markup. With regard to search-based publishing we can now leverage information about the visitor, such as information from social networks or his click-behavior, to personalize the content displayed on the website. With this we can build truly intelligent websites where the presented content is automatically tuned based on who the visitor is and what he did on the website.
   
   SharePoint 2013 also simplifies building websites optimized for mobile devices. Using the new Device Channels and Image Renditions capabilities we can now easier build websites optimized for different audiences using SharePoint 2013.
   
   Also, when it comes to scalability, because SharePoint 2013 uses enterprise-class search engine (previously known as FAST) as a fundamental piece of the content delivery mechanics, it is much more scalable than traditional database-driven approaches – especially if you take into account content personalization capabilities such as Recommendations and User Segments that are now a part of the standard functionality of SharePoint 2013.
   
   Another thing worth mentioning is that using the new and improved REST APIs it is so much easier to reuse content from SharePoint 2013 outside of SharePoint. With the new API you can very easily create native apps for Windows Phone, iPhone or any other device/OS that will interact with the content store in SharePoint. With the new APIs you not only get access to the static content but can also benefit of the powerful capabilities based on search-based-publishing such as recommendations and user segments which allow you to easily build apps with rich and dynamic experiences.
   Even though SharePoint 2013 has been released just recently, there are already some customers having their production websites live built using SharePoint 2013. One of the cases is available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822912.aspx and presents the implementation of the mavention.nl website which was the first website worldwide live on SharePoint 2013.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE] Search engine optimization features include improve URL readability (e.g. no longer necessary to have the “pages” library name in the URL in all cases) and the ability to inject arbitrary metadata into a page through SharePoint site settings.  I had noted editor improvements (specifically improvements in markup produced), though SharePoint still lags other editors like TinyMCE.  Device Channels and Image Renditions are improvements,  the capabilities represented by these two features were available 2010 (automated thumbnailing was a feature of an image library and the mobile capabilities of 2013 simply make configuring device channel easier, though there’s little improvement over 2010 and you’re still required to build an entirely new site to support specific mobile devices).  Finally, the FAST engine was available in 2010 and the capabilities represented, beyond search-based publishing, are little improved (if at all) in 2013.
   
   

   [Waldek’s Response] Image Renditions are more than the thumbnail capability available in the previous versions of SharePoint. In the past SharePoint automatically generated thumbnails for images. Those were however fixed and always sized (as opposite to cropped). With SharePoint 2013 you can specify yourself which kind of Image Renditions you want to use on your website and how every single image should look like for a particular rendition. This makes Image Renditions way more useful than the thumbnails from the past.
   
   [Shawn’s Response] I did point out that Image Renditions were updates to thumbnailing.  I understand that there are some additional capabilities with redition; as a developer, it does open up some possibilities that weren’t available OOTB in 2010.  However, I question, as the average IT buyer, how much value the feature adds over thumbnailing in the context of WCM.  For me, it’s not hugely consequential across the range of sites potentially “powered by” SharePoint (i.e. for product-oriented sites, image renditions could be very valuable; for the average marketing site, not as much – or at all).

   [Waldek’s Response] Device Channels in SharePoint 2013 are nothing like the mobile capabilities of SharePoint 2010. In the previous versions of SharePoint, whenever it detected you were browsing from a mobile device (detection was done based on User Agent-substrings and properties from the .browser files on the server) it always served you with a predefined experience that was challenging to customize. The only customization capability here was to use Control Adapters (custom code) to modify the rendering of various pieces of the website. In SharePoint 2013, with the introduction of Device Channels, this whole situation has changed. Not only we can distinct between multiple channels, but we can also use different Master Pages and content panels to optimize how the website is rendered on mobile devices. I also don’t agree with you when you say you need a whole separate website for mobile. In my opinion, when optimizing content for mobile you have three options: you can use responsive web design, build a mobile website or build a mobile app. With SharePoint 2013 you can make use of all those options (or a combination) but neither of them is a must.
   
   [Shawn’s Response] Again, my point was that mobile channels are an update and not a radical departure from 2010 capabilities.  I would argue that the variations feature, combined with the agent detection provided roughly the same capabilities as the 2010 mobile channels functionality (including control over master page and layouts).  Is it the same, no.  Are device channels easier to manage and control, perhaps.  However, for whom are these features relevant? I would argue they’re mostly for developers, not business users or even “power users.”  In the same way, I’m evaluating value to the end buyer.  This functionality will be useful to only a narrow range of customers and site within the context of WCM tool buyers.   Lastly, mobile channels are not available in all versions of SharePoint, most notably in Office365.

4. Would you say that improvements in WCM are evolutionary or revolutionary?
   
   Some of the new WCM capabilities provided with SharePoint 2013, such as SEO-related features or Rich Text Editor improvements, evolved with the product. As SharePoint matures more capabilities are added and the existing capabilities are being improved. On the other hand there are also some capabilities like search-based publishing that are new and that offer us new ways of thinking about how we manage and publish web content. Using search in SharePoint 2013 we can now build more dynamic websites where the content is displayed not only based on relationships known to content managers but also based on information that we have about the visitors ensuring that they see the most relevant content that the website has to offer.
   
   
5. Given SharePoint’s fairly heavy infrastructure requirements (e.g. disk space, RAM, number of servers to run the various services), do you believe that SharePoint can effectively compete with other, more pure-play WCM tools (e.g. SiteCore)?
   
   The exact hardware requirements depend on what you are exactly trying to achieve so even when you see some high numbers, it doesn’t mean that this is exactly what you need just be able to publish a website on SharePoint 2013. The only way to really determine what you need is to get a clear understanding of your requirements, test your website against them and make an educated choice about what kind of infrastructure you need to fulfill those requirements. Given the changes in how SharePoint 2013 is licensed for public-facing websites as well as what the rich Web Content Management capabilities it offers, SharePoint 2013 is a very interesting candidate to consider for choosing a web platform – even for organizations that don’t have SharePoint implemented yet. Compared to the past, licensing of SharePoint 2013 is very attractive now. Not only the price per server is lower but you also get best-in-class search capabilities as a part of that license.
   
   [SHAWN’S NOTE]  I’m not sure I agree that pricing is improved over 2010 and certainly the “it depends” answer on hardware is an appropriate response (I use that answer frequently).  However, “best in class” search is something you, as the buyer, should evaluate in the context of other available search technologies.  The Real Story Group has very deep research on Enterprise Search Technologies that will help you understand your choices and the trade offs.
   

I want to thank Waldek for participating in the discussion and hope that it has helped you, the buyer.

About Waldek

Waldek is Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP and works as SharePoint consultant at Mavention. Waldek participates frequently as a speaker and expert in community events such as SharePoint conference in London, SharePoint Connections, SharePoint Saturday and DIWUG. Recently Waldek became a Virtual Technology Solutions Professional for Microsoft Netherlands. In this role he answers customer questions around SharePoint Web Content Management (WCM).  Blog: http://blog.mastykarz.nl  Twitter: http://twitter.com/waldekm

Office and SharePoint 2013 Products Revealed

On 16 July 2012, Microsoft publicly announced the previews for latest versions of Office and SharePoint 2013.  For many of our clients, the announcement will be significant as these products may form the foundation of their information management and collaboration architectures for many years.
As a part of my continuing work with the Real Story Group, I just published a short blog post on our initial SharePoint 2013 advice for dealing with the avalanche of content that will be broadcast about the platform.

SharePoint in Geographically Disperse Organizations

As SharePoint 2010 continues to grow in popularity among larger organizations, the collaboration platform is likewise being used by an increasing number of geographically dispersed companies that see it as a tool to keep far-flung employees on the same page. Because of SharePoint’s architecture, however, such implementations can add new administrative burdens whether you’re trying to keep workers across North America or around the world connected and communicating with one another.

SearchContentManagement just published an article I wrote on how to manage SharePoint is these distributed organizations.

The Myth about SharePoint Browser Support

Microsoft posted a blog entry today that pointed readers to SharePoint’s browser support page on TechNet.  In this post, they detail what browsers SharePoint supports and any specific support limitations.  However, I want to raise an important point that seems to be missing from the conversation: browser support isn’t entirely about SharePoint.

Unfortunately, what most everyone fails to mention is that browser support is actually a combination of what Microsoft supplies and the solution that you’ve built.  In other words, Microsoft’s support, or lack thereof, for specific browsers is limited to Microsoft-supplied interfaces.  Depending on the type of solution you’ve developed, much more of your solution’s browser capability could be dependent on your development than on Microsoft’s.

Here’s a quote from TechNet:

“For publishing sites, the Web Content Management features built into SharePoint Server 2010 provide a deep level of control over the markup and styling of the reader experience. Page designers can use these features to help ensure that the pages they design are compatible with additional browsers, including Internet Explorer 6, for viewing content. However, page designers are responsible for creating pages that are compatible with the browsers that they want to support.”

Obviously, this quote relates specifically to publishing sites; primarily those internet-facing sites that are primarily content serving sites as opposed to more collaborative/intranet/extranet kind of sites.  However, even in the case of sites built with other site definitions (like Team Sites), browser support can and will be affected by new master pages, custom web parts or other components supplied by you or 3rd parties.

The myth here is that SharePoint’s support for specific browsers is somehow exclusively Microsoft’s domain.  In fact, true browser compatibility is a combination of Microsoft supplied interfaces (that are used in your solution) and those solution-specific interfaces that you or a vendor create.

[Good] Communication is Key

Every now and again, a really fantastic opportunity to illustrate a best practice just falls in your lap.  The opportunity, just as occasionally, presents itself through inspiration found in the most surprising places.  In my case, I found this communication example in the men’s room at a client: 

This sign provides an excellent template to use when communicating with your audience: 

• It starts by presenting the message at the time when the recipient is engaging in a related behavior
• The messaging points out a very specific feature of the tool being used
• A statement of community support for that feature is provided
• An aspirational goal is included to (through implication) encourage a specific, future behavior
• All of this is followed by a polite.. thank you!

Ignoring the specific subject matter involved in this message, this could easily serve as a model for feature-obsessed technologists and enthusiastic Intranet managers on how to encourage intranet or technology adoption.

What do you think?

[EDITED TO CORRECT SPELLING AND WORD CHOICE]

Multilingual SharePoint Sites–Part 2

Some months back, I wrote a post about the basics of multilingual sites in SharePoint.  The post was a good primer for anyone that needs to understand SharePoint-centric concepts regarding multilingual web sites.  Unfortunately, the post didn’t really describe important details outside of the SharePoint sphere.  In particular, the post excluded all the ASP.NET-centric details.  In this post, I want to share at least some of those additional details.

Globalization

One of the early design goals that Microsoft had for SharePoint was that ASP.NET developers would be comfortable creating SharePoint-based solutions.  The theory is that if you’re a competent ASP.NET developer, you can simply pick up the additional SharePoint API universe; SharePoint is a good .NET citizen, so this idea shouldn’t be a stretch. 

Whether or not you believe a good ASP.NET developer could easily pick up SharePoint, SharePoint does borrow very heavily from many .NET facilities.  With regard to multilingual sites, this includes the Globalization namespace. 

The Globalization namespace is a group of classes that are responsible for allowing ASP.NET applications to understand the numerous languages and cultures that applications can target.  It includes everything from calendar differences and languages to date/time formats and string comparisons (and a whole lot more).  It also, importantly, provides a facility to allow developers to create a resource pool of commonly referred to assets (e.g. element labels, images).  These assets are all referenced using standard labels, creating an index of asset variants for each culture.  At runtime, based on the culture of the current user (usually indicated by a browser setting), the .NET framework will dynamically select the appropriate asset/resource based on a generic label describing that asset or resource. 

Resources and Resource Files (RESX)

Resources or multilingual assets are defined in a Resource File (RESX). There’s a resource file for each culture represented in the application. All resource files use the same labels to describe the asset, but with a culture-specific value.  For example, the text shown next to the text box where a user would enter their user ID to authenticate with the application would be an example of a reference resource. 

Figure 1 – Resource example for Login Page

In the RESX file, which is just XML, you’ll find the following entry

Figure 2 – Login_UserID label in the EN-US resource file

To add, edit or delete values, Visual Studio provides a “designer” view of the file.  In the designer, you have the ability to quickly and easily define the various labels and the corresponding values.  Figure 3 shows the Visual Studio interface for editing a RESX file.

Figure 3 – Visual Studio designer interface for RESX file

For every culture your application needs to support, you create a specific RESX file.  Each file would be named for the culture it supports and every file would contain the same labels, with values corresponding to the specific culture.  The example presented here, the RESX file is for the culture EN-US (US English). For more information on resource files, naming conventions and details on creating the files, take a look at this MSDN article on resource files. 

In SharePoint terms, the RESX would correspond to a specific variation of the same culture.  In effect, you will have at least one RESX file per variation.  These files define elements of the user interface that end users do not supply.  Whereas content on any given page is created and managed by content contributors, there are also elements, like the label for the User ID field on the login page, that are “baked” into the code of the application.  RESX files provide a mechanism to define what that label will say in the context of a specific variation or culture selection (usually set by the browser displaying the page).

Information Architecture and Visual Design

Beyond the somewhat mechanical processes for inserting culture specific content into a page, a more critical aspect of multilingual sites is Information Architecture (IA).  The IA defines the navigation paths (global navigation and its relationship to other sections and pages within the site) and the overall interface layout.  This means the decisions about where various interface elements are placed, what nomenclature is used and what sort of content is shown are all made through and by the IA (both the person – Architect – and their output – Architecture).

When developing a multilingual web site, consider that the interface will be at least slightly and potentially radically different based on the language being displayed.  The simplest example is word length.  If we compare an interface in German and one in English, it’s very likely that there will be different space needs for labels in the navigation, as well as content.  As a result, the IA must anticipate interface movement and allow for enough white space to accommodate an interface that will grow and shrink based on the language’s need.  This too is a challenge for constructing HTML and JavaScript, since both components of the web page may need to “react” to language differences.  However, beyond this relatively easy challenge, presenting content is matter of having the appropriate language-specific content.

A more complicated scenario is one involving differences in how a language is read.  For Hebrew or Arabic (as two examples), the languages are read right to left.  As a result, the whole orientation of the interface needs to shift.  The main navigation will need to start from the right, global navigation elements will be positioned in the upper left and text will flow from right to left within the content sections.  As such, you may require a unique master page and page layouts for these languages to sufficient accommodate the display differences.  The same is true for languages that are read vertically instead of horizontally as in Manchu.

Continuing with the above example, you also have the challenge of fonts.  Languages that utilize radically different character sets will require the IA and the designer to consider both font face and size choices. For example, for any font size choice in the cascading style sheet, will the text be readable across all languages represented by the site.  Most European languages have characters with relatively little detail compared with Asian languages.  Font sizes that are too small or font faces that carry too much embellishment may make detailed characters muddled or simply unreadable.  As such, these choices represent both a visual design and information architecture challenge, since font size differences will also present spacing issues to resolve.

Bringing it all together

With all of the details provided in the two posts of this series, here’s a quick review of the important parts:

• When developing your Information Architecture for a multilingual site, include the various cultures included.  Each culture, in SharePoint terms, will be a “variation.”  A culture, remember, is a combination of a language and a country, represented like EN-UK (English – United Kingdom) or PT-PT (Portuguese – Portugal).  This culture approach makes it easy to distinguish between two countries that share a broad language (e.g. Spanish), but differ in usage (e.g. Spain vs. Mexico).
• Developing an IA for a multilingual sites involves many more decisions and test cases to resolve than a single language site.  It’s important to explore the implications for your specific IA based on the languages that need to be supported and, when the visual design is complete, any challenges a specific design might pose based on the supported languages.
• Within SharePoint, decide what variation will act as a the “primary” or source variation.  This is the variation that will syndicate content to all other variations.  For example, if the source variation is German (from Germany), your content will start in German; once a page is approved, it will be copied to the other language variations in your site collection (e.g. EN-UK, PT-PT).  From there, each non-source variation will be responsible for translating, approving and publishing a language specific version of the German content.
• You will have at least one RESX file per variation.  If you have lots of different cultures, you will have as many RESX files and they must all contain the same labels.  Because labels are not evaluated during compile-time in Visual Studio, you’ll only discover missing (or conflicted) labels in a resource file at run time.  This is not, obviously, a good user experience.  As a result, you should thoroughly test and control the modification of RESX files.  Take a look at this blog series from Carel Lotz regarding one approach to effective RESX management: http://fromthedevtrenches.blogspot.com/2011/04/managing-net-resx-duplication-part-1.html
• Think carefully about the taxonomy (aka organization) of variations and labels.  As much as the IA process should define navigation, the overall taxonomy will drive label names and how labels are used in the application.  For the project example in this post, we used labels tied to interfaces (interface name prepended on label name).  This is one approach.  However, this approach neglects opportunities to leverage labels across interfaces.  Conversely, label use across interfaces can make maintenance more challenging as label changes will necessarily have different impacts across the application.  Here, experimentation and testing are key.
• A SharePoint multilingual site is really a combination of SharePoint variations and .NET globalization.  You must necessarily implement both; end users will leverage the variations component and your developers will have to provide matching RESX files for application-specific labels and static text.

As you may have surmised, there are a lot of details to consider when developing a multilingual web application.  SharePoint does provide decent facilities to enable basic multilingual sites and the .NET framework provides loads of flexibility in implementation.   Just be sure to consider the whole picture – it’s a combination of SharePoint centric constructs (aka variations), good information architecture/design and the technical “infrastructure” to make the whole solution work for end users.

The [Tools are] too much with Us

As 2012 starts in earnest, I am reminded of the poem from which the title of this post has been taken “The World is too much with Us” by William Wordsworth.   In this poem, Wordsworth laments how out of tune with nature people had become during the first industrial revolution.  In much the same way, I see too much focus being placed on tools in the era of SharePoint.  Business users and Information Technology folks seem to be so enamored by the tools and technology, they forget that the focus should be on needs and solutions.  This is especially true when discussing SharePoint and, as I said many times, SharePoint is not the answer.  

Instead, SharePoint, like any technology, needs only to be included insofar as it provides the basis for creating a solution to a specific problem (or problems).  For example, if you needed to manage documents, SharePoint could provide you with a Document Library for storing the files.  Further, you could leverage Content Types and Information Management Policies to enable more precise management of a document’s lifecycle (if that were a need).  However, your specific use of these features should and must be governed by the solution – the overall set of features, functions and the specific solution implementation  in the context of your needs and goals.

When considering how to proceed with your SharePoint project, consider this one piece of advice: start with the problem or challenge first.  Ignore SharePoint and don’t speak of it again, unless you’re discussing how some feature in SharePoint can support a solution.  Even then, try focusing on the solution (give it a name if you have to) and not the tools or features involved.

SharePoint Conference 2011– Good Reminder, Few Surprises

Microsoft wrapped up their SharePoint Conference 2011 on Thursday this week.  In attendance were some 7,600 people, all seemingly enthusiastic for the phenomenon that is SharePoint.  While there were few surprises, Microsoft did remind everyone why the platform is so popular.

If you’re interested in a complete review of the conference, check out my posts on the Real Story Group blog:

• SharePoint Conference 2011 day one
• SharePoint Conference 2011 final wrap up

It’s fair to say that we haven’t seen the crest of SharePoint popularity or growth.  Microsoft even made an out of character announcement regarding another SharePoint conference in 2012 being held in Las Vegas.  Two conferences in two years – sounds like something new may be announced.  Stay tuned!

Migrating your Content to SharePoint

Many clients want to take advantage of the on-premise or cloud-based power of SharePoint. However, many struggle with creating the ideal process to migrate their content. Questions like what steps are involved and how can you ensure success can be a challenge to answer without proper guidance. To assist our clients in making good decisions and to help ensure migration success, we’ve created a formalized migration process. 

If you’re interested in better understanding how to manage a content migration, read our Migrating your Content to SharePoint white paper or simply give us a ring.

Does Microsoft need a SharePoint App Store

Yes and no.  You see, its just not as easy as a black and white response.  You could argue that SharePoint needs an app store because there are far too many specific use cases for which it’s out of the box experience is ill suited.  However, SharePoint does ship with a number of “apps” (Microsoft calls them “Site Definitions”) that can satisfy relatively simple needs with little or no work.  The challenge is whether the out of the box archetypes like “team sites” or “document workspaces” in Foundation or “publishing portal” or “search center” in the Standard/Enterprise versions are sufficient; could Microsoft or a 3rd party effectively create additional, purpose-built archetypes to improve end user adoption and overall usage?

To illustrate this point, let’s suppose you need to create a web-based collaboration space to work on a document with a small team of people inside your company.  It’s actually quite simple to use what SharePoint provides immediately. You’d likely start with a “document workspace” (shown in Figure 1).  The workspace can be provisioned while you’re reviewing the document from within Microsoft Word (or another Office product) or from SharePoint’s web-based interface. You can even invite your colleagues from the same interface (within Word) or, again, through the web interface, without any trouble. Once the workspace is provisioned, you’d automatically have a library to store the document (and the document would already be waiting there for you and your team members). In addition, the workspace would show who was participating in the workspace through the members list (with direct links to their individual profile by clicking on their names), a task list to assign & track responsibilities, an announcements function to communicate with your team and a discussion thread for working exploring topics relevant to the document. All of these features are packaged up and provisioned automatically. So what’s the problem?

Figure 1 – Typical Document Workspace in SharePoint 2010

What happens when you want to create a quick, web-based file sharing site and “invite” others inside or outside of your organization?  You’ll quickly find the standard SharePoint site definitions fall a bit short.  SharePoint does have features that support file sharing through sites and libraries; users could even access and edit those files through Office on your desktop or use Office web app through a browser.  There’s also the possibility to let non-employees access the site.  Unfortunately, the collection of features, along with the requisite security model are not available in a shipped SharePoint site definition.   As a result, an end user would have to start with an existing site definition, like a “blank site,” then add a combination of lists and libraries to create the environment they want.  Next, they would grant internal participants access to the site, applying library/list-specific or document-level permissions as necessary.  If the users aren’t in Active Directory (like the non-employees), SharePoint allows you to use SQL Membership to store those non-employee IDs in a SQL database.  However,the non-AD authentication configuration work requires you to manipulate machine-level settings in an XML configuration file, create databases on a SQL server and grant specific application pool identities access to the database.  Most of this effort is typically outside the expertise of an average end user; even if they weren’t, because of the changes necessary to the farm, most administrators wouldn’t want end users changing these settings.

Ultimately, there’s little evidence that SharePoint is wholly unsuited for collaboration needs inside the enterprise.  If fact, you could argue that SharePoint, given its breadth of functionality, has no equal in the collaboration space.  However, there are well-documented challenges in creating you own applications on SharePoint.  Remember that SharePoint, by Microsoft’s own admission, is a platform and not a product.  This means companies are either left developing their own applications or buying from a 3rd party.  This begs the question: should Microsoft devote some of their R&D budget to developing applications on top of SharePoint?  Further, wouldn’t building applications on SharePoint, in fact, be more useful to a greater number of people than adding new features to the platform?  This approach would certainly go a long way to blunt attempts by companies like Huddle, 37 Signals, Box.NET, HyperOffice and others to discredit SharePoint for purpose-build solutions.  Microsoft has demonstrated, historically, their willingness to drive down this path with new site definitions like the “Fab 40.”  Unfortunately, some of these applications were just silly (like the Baseball Team management portal) and they never followed-up with equivalents on SharePoint 2010.

If you’re searching for specific applications on SharePoint today, you’ll need to look to the myriad of 3rd party vendors like Bamboo Solutions, Coras Works, SharePoint Solutions or the app store concept from the larger SharePoint community called Sharevolution.  Unlike Apple and Google (or even Microsoft’s own online store for everything from Windows to XBox to non-Microsoft hardware), Microsoft has not created that one-stop-shop to find specific solutions built on SharePoint.  One can only hope that, in the future, Microsoft does something more creative than simply redirecting the domain sharepointapps.com back to the SharePoint product site on Microsoft.com. 

Technology Just Gets in the Way

The idea that most folks in IT, and even some  on the non-IT side, spend way too much time worrying, thinking and generally kvetching about technology is almost passé these days – everyone knows it true, but they still get wrapped up anyway.  Incredibly, most people tend to see the process of solving business challenges exclusively through the lens of what a specific tool can solve.  This condition is never more obvious than when firms start discussing SharePoint. 

Inevitably, there are discussions that start out well – focused on business needs and what users have to accomplish.  Then, for some strange reason, things go seriously awry.  In the words of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective – “Gee, Chuck, the date started out good. Just before we got to the party she seemed to tense up.”   Perfectly rational people start discussing if SharePoint’s wiki has sufficient functionality, can the firm really use the out of the box search, are the records management features robust enough for the entire enterprise?  All of these questions are very reasonable to ask if two conditions have already been met: 1) you know what problems you’re trying to solve and 2) you have well-defined goals and corresponding metrics to measure if you’ve successfully met those goals (notice I avoided using the word “requirements”).  Unfortunately, most organizations fail to satisfy either condition before pushing head long into a “how do we implement SharePoint” discussion.

If you regularly read this blog, you’ll know that I’ve already said SharePoint is not the answer.  However, this is true of any technology if you haven’t clearly defined what you want to accomplish.  No matter what tools you might be considering, you must be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish AND ensure that your goals are achievable.

Published on the Word of Pie blog, there’s a great post about taking a break from ECM that illustrates this point perfectly (though through the broader lens of ECM).  In the post, Laurence Hart (@piewords) describes all of the challenges with ECM implementations.  He does such a terrific job that I’ll end this post with only one bit of advice; read his post.

What to do with SharePoint when you’re not a Developer

Much of what is published and presented on SharePoint is aimed at a relatively technical audience.  If you review the myriad of SharePoint conferences, SharePoint Saturday sessions and blog content, you’ll find very little content for non-technical folks.  More importantly, much of the content that does exist, wants you to come to one conclusion – SharePoint is the right platform.

Unfortunately, if you’re a manager or an executive trying to understand the strategic choices related to SharePoint as a platform, or perhaps you’re trying to decide what to do with an existing implementation, it’s difficult to find good objective guidance.  Worse yet, if you’re evaluating whether SharePoint is even the right platform for certain requirements, how do you effectively compare your options?

Recently, the Real Story Group and Information Today developed a new conference, the SharePoint Strategy Summit.  This conference is specifically targeted at the non-technical manager or executive.  The program, just a brief two-day affair, focuses on providing you with the information necessary to help you make the strategic decisions necessary for a successful SharePoint implementation (including helping you understand when SharePoint isn’t good choice). 

During these two days, the conference covers topics including:

• SharePoint as an Enterprise 2.0 platform
  

  SharePoint might seem nearly ubiquitous as an enterprise collaboration platform, yet many organizations are still in the process of deciding whether or how to adopt it as part of a broader intranet platform. In the meantime, Microsoft is heavily touting new social and community services in the latest version, SharePoint 2010. Get an objective overview of what works well—and poorly—in SharePoint 2010.

• Strategic alternatives to SharePoint
  

  If you don't go with SharePoint, or chose to put boundaries around the platform, what other alternatives await you beyond Redmond? Learn the pros and cons of SharePoint alternatives.

• Compliance and Records Management
  

  Records management is not a SharePoint strong point. Large SharePoint deployments represent a particular challenge when it comes to the long-term retention, disposition, and discovery of information. This session explores the limitations of the platform and the alternatives you may want to consider. What sorts of steps do you need to take to batten down SharePoint so that it passes regulatory muster?

• The Real Cost of SharePoint
  

  The licensing structure for SharePoint has been a source of confusion for many customers.  However, once you buy the software, the real costs of a solution begin.  What should expect to spend?

• Governance Models and Lessons Learned
  

  Everyone agrees governance is critical—even essential—to long-term success with SharePoint. But how to do it and where to start? Join a panel of consultants and customers who will outline different ways that they’ve gotten SharePoint under control within their organizations. There’s no simple answer here—but you should come away with an approach that works for you.

Unlike other conferences that tend to be heavy on PowerPoint presentations, this conference has a pretty even mix of panel-style debates, moderated roundtable discussions and more traditional presented sessions.  The goal is to create a very interactive experience and enable attendees to get closer to experts, as well as more deeply engage with other attendees.

If this sounds like the right conference for you, visit the SharePoint Strategy Summit registration page.   The conference is just two weeks away and there are just a few remaining slots available.

Article: SharePoint 2010 and the Mobile Experience

Have you wanted to explore the mobile capabilities of SharePoint 2010?  I’ve just published an article on CMSWire that provides an overview of what you get “in the box” and your opportunities to extend the native functionality.

You can read “SharePoint 2010 and the Mobile Experience” on CMSWire’s web site.

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.

Creating a Multilingual Sites in SharePoint 2010

As we start 2011 and reflect on 2010, one of the major initiatives for many clients was creating globalized, multilingual sites.   The message was especially clear when we spoke to attendees at events like the Enterprise 2.0 conference, KMWorld and J. Boye.  In particular, I was surprised at the number of attendees  planning or that have implemented “localized” or multilingual SharePoint applications.  Unfortunately, as I learned directly, the information available from Microsoft on all multilingual scenarios is uneven.
To their credit, Microsoft has done a relatively good job of making multilingual interfaces within SharePoint available.  Microsoft has released 40 language packs for SharePoint.  These language packs allow organizations to create sites and site collections in any of the languages supported by the language packs.    If your work involves intranet or extranet scenarios (externally facing collaborative sites for trust non-employees), the language packs will serve you well.  If you want a French or Arabic collaboration site, just create a new site and stipulate the language.  Individual users are free to contribute list items in the site’s language and see localized SharePoint interfaces.

NOTE: Tony Byrne, Founder of the Real Story Group, pointed out recently that one of the advantages of using software from larger software companies like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM is that there will be far broader and better tested multilingual support.  Many smaller vendors either don’t provide multilingual support at all or provide a far smaller set of supported languages.  Both issues could be particularly problematic for SharePoint deployments as many rely on 3rd party add-ons from smaller vendors.  You should do your homework on potential solutions to ensure they support the languages you will deploy.

Where documentation for multilingual sites falls short is in the internet scenarios – specifically creating multilingual “publishing” sites (think about the typical corporate web site).  There is some limited content in blogs, technet and MSDN.  However, this content either discusses language packs and variations abstractly or, in the case of most blog content, applies to SharePoint 2007.  All of it falls short of the quick reference needed by many organizations deploying publishing SharePoint sites. 
In an effort to provide some small assistance to other folks implementing multilingual sites, here is a quick reference list of sorts that provide details on some of the basic setup.
Variations
Publishing sites (SharePoint sites created using the “Publishing” or “Publishing with Workflow” site definitions) use a concept called “Variations” to enable the presentation of site content in multiple languages.  This concept has little to do with language packs and more to do with a basic copy process.  When you setup a multilingual publishing site in SharePoint, you designate a root site, a “source variation” site and other “variation language” sites.  As you create content in the source language site, a SharePoint timer job copies content (e.g. pages) and site structures (e.g. sub sites) from the source variation site to each of the other variation sites. 
The root site is merely the default URL for your web site; when web users navigate to the root URL, they are automatically redirected to the variation site that matches their browsers language setting.  As a developer, you can even change the logic used to redirect users to a specific language site by modifying the variations landing page called VariationsRoot.ASPX.  In doing so, you can enable SharePoint to handle other redirection processes like redirecting based on a previously selected language preference stored in a cookie or redirecting based on profile data (e.g. you know the user is based in Belgium and prefers French over Dutch).
Finding the Variations Setting and Beginning the Setup
There are two settings that control variations at the site collection level.  Both settings are found in Site Settings under Site Collection Administration.  To begin the process, you click on the Variations menu option.

By clicking on Variations you begin setting up how variations will be configured for your site collection.  In the subsequent interface, the “Variation Home” is what is called “Root Site” in this post (and what Microsoft typically calls it as well).   The variations interface is shown below:

Variation Labels
Once you’ve setup the global variations feature, you need to setup each variation label.  Variation labels represent every variation site you want to include in your public web application, including the source site.  For example, if you want to have a French (France), German (Germany), English (UK) and Arabic (United Arab Emirates), you’d need a total of four variations.  Of those variations, you’d pick one to be your source variation; the rest would receive content created in the source. 
When you create the labels for the first time, you start by creating the source label.  In our example, we’ll call our UK English site the source.  There are a few fields to complete:

Field Name	Description	Example Value
Label and Description	This is essentially the portion of the URL that designates the site. If your web site URL was http://www.mywebsite.com/ the label portion would be inserted after the last slash like http://www.mywebsite.com/[variation label].  In most cases, the label is going to be the two-letter ISO code for the language, followed by the two-letter ISO code for the country.  Wikipedia has a complete list of the current ISO language codes  and ISO country codes.	en-gb
Display Name	This field is what will be used to not only describe the variation in the management interface, but it will also be the default name of the site when the variation site is created.  Typically the display name is the localized title of your web application.  If your web site was called “My Web Site” in English, you would enter that value for our UK English site.  For French, you might enter a display name like “Mon site Web”	My Web Site
Locale	Use this setting to specify the language represented by a specific variation.   There are numerous languages show in the drop down and potentially multiple versions of any given language (e.g. Spanish in Spain vs. Mexican Spanish).  You should choose the appropriate language that fits your needs.  This setting is used by SharePoint to match a user’s browser language setting to the appropriate variation.	English (United Kingdom)
Hierarchy Creation	This setting determines what portions of the source variation SharePoint will replicate to other variation sites.	Publishing Sites and All Pages
Source Variation	This sets whether the variation you’re currently defining is the source variation.  This setting is something that is set once on a specific variation and can’t be changed after you’ve created the hierarchy.  This option also sets the specific site definition used in creating all variations.  NOTE: only publishing site definitions (e.g. Publishing Site) are there by default.	Publishing Site with Workflow

Here’s a screen shot of the form in SharePoint:

Other Language Variants
After you’ve setup your source variant, you setup the other language variants you want to represent.  The setup process is similar to setting up the source variation, except that the check box indicating the variation is the “source” will be greyed out and disabled.
Once you’ve completed creating the other variants, click the Create Hierarchies button to begin the creation process.  NOTE: Creating the hierarchies is handled by the timer job.  As a result, you will either have to wait for the timer job to run or manually initiate the job to see the variations.  This is also true of other timer job-dependent activities like site structure and page propagation.   More information on timer jobs is provided below.
Timer Jobs
Technically there are multiple timer jobs that each handle a different aspect of the propagation process.  Each timer job runs on a different schedule.  Here is the list of variation timer jobs and the default interval:

Timer Job	Description	Default Execution Interval
Variations Create Hierarchies	This job creates the hierarchies defined in the variation labels section of the variations settings.  As you add new labels, this job takes care of creating the corresponding variation site	Every 24 hours
Variations Create Site	This job creates variation sites if the automatic creation setting is disabled in the Variations section of the site collection settings.	Every 5 minutes
Variations Propagate Site	This job creates variation sites if the automatic creation setting is enabled in the Variations section of the site collection settings.	Every 5 minutes
Variations Create Page	This job creates new pages in each of the variation sites once the page has been created in the source site.	Hourly
Variations Propagate Page	This job updates existing pages in the variation sites once an update has been made to a source page.	Hourly

Depending on your needs, you can modify the default interval to match your publishing schedule.  For example, if you publish pages frequently, you may want to increase the timing of your page propagation and creation to 30 minutes instead of an hour.
Keep in mind that there’s a version of these timer jobs for every SharePoint application (think URL).  This means that you’ll have 3x the number of application configured for variations to manage.  Thankfully, Microsoft provides a view of timer jobs per application.
A screen capture of the time job definitions for a sample site is shown below:

Additional Notes
Like much in SharePoint, the choices you make should be based on your specific requirements; there is usually more than one way to satisfy a need and multiple ways to develop a solution.  To that end, here are some notes about variations setup to help you make these decisions.

• Variations can be used for more than just language versions of content.  Microsoft documentation points out that the logic to redirect users to specific variations could be used just as effectively to redirect a client to a mobile device.  In this case your label could simply be “M” for a mobile version of your site.
• The timer jobs do not replicate other lists or libraries from one variation to another.  This means that you must create lists and libraries in each variation manually after the hierarchy is setup.  This is also true of content in those lists and libraries; the timer jobs focus on structure (e.g. sites and sub sites) and pages.  However, if secondary lists are important for your solution, consider creating a custom timer job.
• Variations are site collection bound.  This means that all variation sites are housed in the same site collection.  If, for some reason, you think you may need more than one site collection, you’ll have to recreate your variation setup for each site collection.  Each site collection would be managed independently.
• When possible, use features and feature stapling to modify the nature of any particular variation (if necessary).  For example, if you need a specific SharePoint list or library created in each variation, use a feature and staple it to each variation as it’s created to ensure the list exists.
• Content contribution is a bit trickier with variations, since each variation is essentially it’s own “web site.”  As such, you will need to spend more time training content contributors and more time supporting them.
• If you use the new managed metadata feature in SharePoint, you’ll need to provide translations for terms as well.  Since all variations are housed in a single site collection, you can even use managed metadata bound to a column vs. enterprise managed metadata to isolate terms that may be specific to your site.
• You are required to setup a root SharePoint site for the site collection.  However, once variations are setup, no one will likely see the root site (since the VariationsRoot.aspx page will be set to the home page of that site).  As such, you don’t have to do much with it.  However, you could use the site to store more global resources, like images and documents, for use across all variations.
• Especially during development, you should execute the timer jobs manually by going to Central Administration, go to the Monitoring section and click on Timer Job Definitions to find the right job.  When you click on a specific timer job, you’ll have the opportunity to run the job manually.  Manually running the timer jobs will allow you to see what’s actually happening within your sites without having to wait for the job to run automatically.

Please share your experiences with multilingual sites and what challenges you’ve had through comments on this post.  There is a lot more detail to setting up and managing variations, so the more feedback the better.

Continue to part 2 of this series

SharePoint Influencer50

Recently, Global360 and KnowledgeLake sponsored a study by Influencer50 to identify the 50 most influential folks in the SharePoint space.  If you follow SharePoint and the people who often blog, tweet or otherwise consult, you’ll know that trying to identify the 50 most “influential” individuals is no trivial task.   However, that’s exactly what the Influencer50 study aimed to accomplish.

When the study was released, I was slightly surprised to be see my name among the 50.  Though thrilled to be included with folks like Andrew Connell (Critical Path Training), Tony Byrne (Real Story Group), Tyson Hartman (Avanade) and Sue Hanley (Susan Hanley, LLC), the study got me thinking about what it means to be an influencer and how much weight to give to the study.

Rob Bogue was the first public critic of the SharePoint Influencer50 study that I’ve seen so far.  In his post, he makes his argument along a few dimensions:

1. It’s challenging to measure influence
2. Difficult to gauge how a potential buyer will react to any influence given the sheer number of variables involved
3. Influence changes depending on the situation and, to point #2, there may be influencers that are “hidden”
4. You can’t be an influencer if you aren’t directly involved in the space
5. [Implied] Vendors sponsored the study (credibility issue)
6. [Implied] The firm conducting the study is using a potentially unsubstantiated methodology

Some of Rob’s arguments are compelling.  I would wholeheartedly agree with items 1, 2 and 3.   As Rob points out, it’s difficult to “predict the weather,” due to the sheer number of variables involved.  The same is true of buying decisions; you just never know what factors are involved in getting someone to purchase software.  Further, the influencers for a given buying decision will change; in the SharePoint space, I’d rely on an infrastructure focused consultant for Farm configuration best practice more than I would someone like me who tends to be more focused on development.

That said, I’m not sure all criticisms he raises are valid.   I found the Amazon discussion regarding book sales a bit of a red herring; sales popularity does not imply fitness or validity.  I also disagree that someone like Jon Powell from Alfresco can’t be influential.  It doesn’t make sense that one would be influenced only by those folks who only support one position or another.  I think it’s reasonable that potential buyers listen to Mr. Powell as much as a SharePoint MVP; his criticisms are at least as telling as positive statements from SharePoint pundits.  Finally, while the study was sponsored by vendors, it shouldn’t be dismissed on that fact alone.  While Rob is critical of the Influencer50 list (and “top” lists in general), he is a part an “elite” list – the list of SharePoint MVPs; a fact he promotes on his blog.  Like the Influencer50, the SharePoint MVPs represent a group of individuals named by Microsoft and must fit a specific criteria.

Ultimately, any study or list should represent just a single data point in a collection of research.  SharePoint is a very broad product with lots of capabilities and it’s unlikely that any singular list, whitepaper or study could cover everything.  The SharePoint Influencer50 study is one way to discover potential sources of intelligence on SharePoint, but it’s not exclusive.  I’d recommend using a few sources of information and draw your own conclusions.

The Wisdom of letting Users “Figure it Out”

Back in July of this year, Computerworld, Networkworld and CIO all ran an the article “Telecom Giant Takes to Web 2.0.”  It was about Alcatel-Lucent’s use of social media tools.   The article opens with a quote from Greg Lowe, Social Media Strategist and Global Infrastructure Architect.  Lowe stated that the CEO told the organization to be more “collaborative.”  What immediately struck me was the response: go buy/implement a technology.

Based entirely on Lowe’s title, it appears that he is a member of Alcatel-Lucent’s Information Technology group.  Unsurprisingly, it appears as if the first reaction to the CEO’s statement was to find a tool to “fix” the problem; based on the content of the article, it wasn’t clear exactly what the CEO meant and whether another tool would be a solution foundation.  However, the approach described was a typical pattern:

1. Find a tool that seems to enable individuals to solve a problem
2. Make the tool available
3. Let the user community figure out how to make the organizational changes necessary to actually solve the problem

The trouble with this general approach is that it is often a recipe for disaster. 

Much to the credit of Alcatel-Lucent, they seem to be successful in at least getting folks to use the new tool.  What wasn’t immediately obvious, however, was whether the tool solved the problem the CEO identified.  To be blunt, does tool usage indicate the problem was solved or just that people were using the tool?  In using the tool, does it mean that quality collaboration, that fundamentally improved an individual’s ability to complete their job tasks, occurred regularly?

To CIO magazine’s credit, they did link to an article that presented a similar situation at Phillips, called “My Enterprise 2.0 Rollout: 4 Keys to Success.”  Fortunately, this article presented a far more thought out and methodical approach to using the “2.0” technologies.  The difference between the two approaches boiled down to the following (even identified as “keys to success”):

1. Develop a good strategy
   Phillips spent time trying to understand what they wanted to accomplish – not just “we need to collaborate better.”  Specifically, what will truly make a difference in our business?  If a business can’t improve productivity, reduce expenses or improve revenue, why implement technology solutions at all?
2. Lead by example
   At Phillips, the executives lead by example and leveraged the tools in their own work.  This approach provides a fantastic benchmark for the rest of the organization.  As the article points out, it’s not about an edict from above, but rather a way for the leaders in the firm to demonstrate usage and, in a way, also publicly learn from those lower in the organization.  Frankly, if an enterprise wants to make any initiative successful, employees need to understand that management supports their efforts and their work won’t be wasted.
3. Work with the user community
   Unlike the Alcatel-Lucent example, Phillips actively worked with the user community to ensure success.  The work involved in and the problems solved by the tool aligned directly to challenges within the organization; there were clear metrics for success. 
4. Allow a bit of “organic” evolution
   The article calls this concept “loosening the reins.”  Phillips didn’t explicitly create policies to govern the use of the tool.  While it’s generally a good idea to incorporate governance into the use of these kinds of tools, the idea of allowing a bit of usage flexibility is critical.  In many cases, there is insufficient data to truly understand what might or might not work in the enterprise.  Further, a certain trust needs to develop between the firm and employees – the firm needs to trust employees will use good judgment and employees need to trust the firm is making the tool available to improve productivity.  Ultimately, to be successful, there needs to be a good mix of established, general guidelines for appropriate use, as well as flexibility to enable “out of the box” usage scenarios.

When contemplating how to approach implementing these collaborative technologies in your organization, consider the four points above. The "build it and they will come" approach to technology doesn't work. However, it is a pattern that many in IT use to mostly their detriment. It's time to change the approach.

Oracle Internet Directory Membership Provider (LDAP) for SharePoint

A while back, I posted an article on how to create a SharePoint membership provider for Oracle’s Internet Directory (LDAP).   The post continues to be a relatively popular post and more than a few folks have asked for the source directly.

While I’ve generally tried to e-mail the membership class directly to anyone who requests it, simply posting it to the Consejo blog is probably easier on everyone.

Here’s a TXT version of the C# class.  While I’ve refactored subsequent versions of this class a few times, this version is still pretty raw, but functional (read: it’s a good start if you have nothing).  In this version, I used Kellerman’s Encryption Library to handle the MD4/MD5 hash format used by my client’s directory; interestingly they used one method for their test environment and one for their production environment.   While the Kellerman library is quite affordable (and easy to use), there is an open source alternative on CodePlex called .NET Crypto (Devv.Core.Crypto) as well as Microsoft’s Enterprise library, which include cryptography functions.

Other notes on the code:

• If you have a MOSS implementation, you don’t need this class.  Microsoft provides an generic LDAP provider with the full server product.  This was written for those who only have WSS and need something custom.
• The original requirements for this class were for creating a single sign-on environment between an Oracle Portal and SharePoint (sign on to the Oracle portal and get straight in to SharePoint without authentication).  As such, I didn’t write any code to handle password changes, resets or other management functions, since those would all be handled by Oracle’s product interfaces.
• I’ve only overloaded the bare minimum necessary for the membership provider to work with SharePoint (see above bullet).
• The lookup function for users requires exact matches.  In hindsight, I could have implemented the query a bit better to improve operation with the People Picker component in SharePoint; I didn’t, but hopefully you will and share it with the rest of us…
• This was originally written for WSS v3.0, but there’s no reason, with potentially minor changes, it couldn’t work for SharePoint Foundation (2010).  If you get it to work in a 2010 environment, I’d love to see the implementation and hear your experiences.

 

Click HERE to get a copy of the provider class.

Mastering Workflow Reports in SharePoint 2010

One of the challenges for SharePoint administrators is getting insight into what’s actually happening within the farm.  One element of management is workflow.  It’s not easy to discover what workflow processes are running, are there exceptions for a given process and how often is a process being used.

In the August edition of the SharePoint eZine, I discuss how to leverage workflow reports in the new 2010 version.  The various reporting and management interfaces make it relatively easy for administrators to better understand what’s happening.  While there are shortcomings in the available data (e.g. no whole farm reporting), what Microsoft provides does immediately provide value.