Some of the key topics in Sharepoint 2007 & 2010 are discussed here.
Inputs from
Wiki and
Microsoft portals on Sharepoint.
Sharepoint as a tool helps using power of Microsoft's web application platform, including document and content management
It is wise to have a have a .NET developer background.
Sharepoint is a tool to
centralize an organizations digital resources for
centralized collaboration or
working together in a centralized way.
The best explanation of What Microsoft Sharepoint is and does
from the WROX book "Beginning Sharepoint 2010 - Building Business Solutions"
"Because computers play such an integral part in any business, not surprisingly, more and more
of the information that is created, consumed, and shared in an organization is digital. The more
business that you conduct and the more successful your business becomes, the more information you
have to manage. Usually, you have some form of document for just about every process and transaction
that plays out during the day-to-day operations of your company. From proposals to legal
documents, from sales receipts to human resources policies, the amount of information required for
a company to function is staggering.
To manage your information overload, SharePoint offers tools with which you can build business
applications to better store, share, and manage digital information. With it, you can create lists,
libraries, and websites for your various company teams to help run your business processes more
efficiently. By locating your organization’s important business data in a single location, it becomes
much easier and intuitive for users to find the right information when they need it rather than
searching through disparate locations such as email, computer hard drives, or file shares.
WHAT IS SHAREPOINT 2010?
SharePoint 2010 is an extensible and scalable
web-based platform consisting of tools and technologies
that support the collaboration and sharing of information within teams, throughout the enterprise and
on the web. The total package is a platform on which you can build business applications to help you
better store, share, and manage digital information within your organization. Because you can build
with or without code, the package empowers the average business user to create, deploy, and manage
team websites, without depending on skilled resources, such as systems administrators or developers.
Using lists, libraries, and web parts, you can transform team
websites into business applications built specifically around making
your organization’s business processes more efficient."
Creating a schema for an organizations Sharepoint deployment is not
rocket science.
1. Determine the structure of the organization
2.
Determine what Sharepoint can do as far as centralizing the
organizations digital resources.
3. Create a Sharepoint construction
plan.
4. Build it, test it, refine it.
5. Maintain it, test it, refine
it, add onto it.
There! Not so tough.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Which SharePoint development tool works best to create custom workflows?
Directly using SharePoint Designer may
not be well-suited for building complex workflows.
Using Visual Studio, which allows the
workflow to be installed at multiple locations and can include more than
20 steps in the workflow process. Additionally, only Visual Studio
allows for workflow to move back and forth between status changes. Using
SharePoint Designer, work only moves forward through states, never
backward. This can be problematic when you need to send something
backward in the process.
How to handle Databases?
It is not wise to upload directly to SharePoint databases, however - the use of libraries and lists for data management. Uploading directly
to SharePoint databases is very much like doing your own oil changes on a
brand new car. It might be faster and more convenient in the
short-term, but in the long-term it voids your warranty. Microsoft gives no support when you directly modify a SharePoint
database.
Main differences between SharePoint 2007 and 2010?
Any of the new tools introduced in 2010. For example:
- Service Applications
- Business Connectivity Services
- Claims Based Authentication
- Sandboxed Solutions
- Developer Dashboard
- Throttling and List Controls
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here are more areas that a SharePoint architect can help with:
- Capacity planning - running multiple servers in a farm. Scalability and other magic words.
- Knowing the capabilities and business scenarios of using SharePoint - this is a very common one.
The manager asks: what can SharePoint do for me?
The developer asks: well, what do you want it to do.
The manager then asks: well, I don't know what it can do for me so how do I know what do I want it to do?
- Closely related to SharePoint capabilities are the various licensing costs related to each component.
- As well as familiarity with development and customization costs.
Take the same project time that would have taken in ASP.NET, then
multiply it by a large coefficient, and then add an additional constant.
- And closely related to what-can-it-do, and how-much-does-it-cost, is the all important question of Return-Of-Investment.
- SharePoint deployment can be a massive issue and a lot of pain.
- SharePoint upgrade from v2 (MOSS 2003) to v3 (MOSS 2007). We
should be seeing a new version of SharePoint in 2010(?). Well soon
after the next version of Office goes out the door. So past upgrade
experiences may be useful.
- Knowledge of 3rd party webparts. I believe a SharePoint
architect should be able to give you at least 5 webparts that they've
tried from CodePlex and tell you what they think about them. These are
free and easy to grab and play at your own leisure.
- Some knowledge of commercial webparts. Because they are still cheaper than writing your own.
- Experiences with SharePoint Integration - this comes in two
equally important flavours - both from SharePoint accessing existing
systems (business catalogs, webparts, etc), as well as other systems
accessing SharePoint content via webservice or API.
- In addition, SharePoint works with (or works well) with Office, OCS, reporting services, performance point, project server.
- SharePoint hosting arrangements - Microsoft SharePoint online
services can be a popular and cheaper option to start using SharePoint.
It can be hosted inhouse, or with a 3rd party company. Knowing the
options is always useful.