Takeaways on SharePoint 2013
By Eric Riz
Earlier this month, the SharePoint world converged on Las Vegas, with more than 10,000 registrants discussing the latest and greatest in SharePoint 2013. As widely publicized, the show was all about the latest version of the product, and it didn’t disappoint. There is no question that SharePoint 2013 will change the landscape for collaboration platforms while raising the bar against its competition through the new app model.One question in my mind is where and how organizations will adopt the new version and model. Companies will need to know what their SharePoint maturity is and measure their potential effectiveness under the changed model. If you are trying to find your way through this discussion, take a look at my series on the State of the SharePoint Union. While I can see small and mid-size companies moving up to 2013 quickly, the jury is out on the speed at which large organizations will do the same.With the show now a distant memory (save for Twitter), here are some takeaways that stuck with me:Microsoft has thrown out the sandbox concept and introduced the new cloud app model for designing apps. This is a concept that Windows 8 users will easily adopt and understand through mobile devices available today. Developers and users now have the ability to design an application “app” that can be built with consistent Web standards and technologies, which offer the desired flexibility, with consistency across Office and SharePoint products. Fundamentally, these will be individual mini-programs that can be executed through and from the SharePoint interface. Think of this as now being able to create that specific app for your HR timesheet needs that you have been looking to deploy.One of the long-standing value statements that I have preached to clients is the concept of single-source data: creating information once and using it multiple times within your SharePoint environment. SharePoint 2013 will now offer managed navigation and cross-site publishing to facilitate reusing content across multiple site collections. Through cross-site publishing, you will now be able to share a specific item list or page library as a publishing catalog, consume a catalog from search, and enable authoring multilingual sites from a common authoring site collection.Personally, my favorite takeaway from the show was the announcement that the Internet will now be included in the Enterprise License. This means the US$50,000 license previously required to take your SharePoint environment to the public is no longer.With Microsoft’s push to attract more clients using their 365 model, and to move them away from on-premise servers, SharePoint’s Senior Director Jared Spataro announced 90-day release cycles in his conference keynote. "We're at the end of three-year release cycles, and the beginning of cloud release cycles, every 90 days," he said. There was no immediate word on the details of the release cycle or how it will impact on-premise environments, but this announcement was one that many attendees were talking about all week.Those who previously used SharePoint Workspace to synchronize online and offline documents will be looking to SkyDrive Pro to now facilitate this task. As someone who relied on Workspace to always have the right version of a document, I’m looking forward to now using SkyDrive Pro to store, share and synchronize documents. If you haven’t started using SkyDrive yet, it is a simple signup and a great way to get introduced to the process. Just make sure you have your business-critical documents on your desktop before a long flight. With the momentum coming off the show, and the amount of vendor e-mail in my inbox, there is no question this will be an interesting year for SharePoint and the marketplace in general. Though there has been no formal announcement from Microsoft on a 2013 conference, rumors are rampant that it will be a November show in a familiar place.Eric is the EVP of Systems Integration for Concatenate, a software firm focused on maximizing SharePoint through product innovation and systems integration based in Toronto. You can reach Eric by e-mail at or on Twitter at . Read his other SharePoint thoughts on his blog at www.ericriz.com.
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What’s new with document libraries in SharePoint 2013?
By Jeff Taylor
It’s that time again! A new version of SharePoint has rolled out, and with it came new features. Document libraries are essential for SharePoint users to collaborate. SharePoint 2010 introduced many new features to make working with document libraries easier and more efficient, such as the ability to select multiple documents. How could SharePoint 2013 top this feature? How about giving users the ability to simply drag and drop documents straight from their desktop into a document library? With a simple click of the mouse, you can drag an item from your desktop to a SharePoint 2013 document library. This is an extremely powerful and useful feature that all SharePoint users will love.Let’s take a quick look at the steps it takes to get a document from your desktop to a SharePoint 2010 document library.Single Document1. Open a SharePoint 2010 Document Library. 2. Click Add Document.3. On the Upload Document pop-up, click Browse. 4. Locate your document.5. Click Open. 6. On the Upload Document pop-up, click OK. 7. You will now see your document is in the library. Multiple Documents1. With the same SharePoint 2010 document library, click Add Document.2. On the Upload Document pop-up, click Upload Multiple Files...3. On the Upload Multiple Documents pop-up, you are now able to drag files and folders here. 4. You can also browse for your files.5. Drag a few documents from your desktop to the highlighted window.6. Click OK.7. Once the files have uploaded, click Done.8. Now all three documents are in the library. #!Now let’s take a look at the steps it takes to get a document from your desktop to a SharePoint 2013 document library.Single and Multiple Documents1. Open a SharePoint 2013 Document Library.2. Drag your document from your desktop to right below “drag files here.”3. Notice the box will now be highlighted say “drop here.” Drop the document.4. An uploading bar will appear as the document is added to your library. Your document is uploaded when the bar is filled.5. Go back to the desktop and drag a couple more documents to see how easy and fast it is! 6. Let’s get crazy and try 50 documents.7. Yup, it is really as simple as that!Notice the amount of steps it took in SharePoint 2010 versus SharePoint 2013. Before you get too excited, though, there are a few limitations when it comes to this drag-and-drop feature.Browsers supported:• Firefox latest released version• Chrome latest released version• Internet Explorer 8 and 9 with Microsoft Office 2013 installedThese are some of the supported browsers for this feature. The latest version of Safari and Internet Explorer 10 should work as well, but I was unable to test those. If you do not have one of these browsers when you attempt to drag an item into the SharePoint 2013 document library, the “drop here” box will not appear. It can be very frustrating not understanding why this feature seems to be broken, when really you just need the right browser.Now you know about this awesome feature, go show it off to the world!Jeff Taylor is a consultant with SharePoint911, a Rackspace company.
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How many is too many?
By Peter Serzo
Remember these brands: Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Mercury and Saturn.These car companies no longer exist. The operations were shut down by GM and Ford only a few years ago when facing an economic meltdown. These obsolete car companies provide a great history lesson for SharePoint Administrators who are responsible for their organizations’ logical and physical infrastructure. The question to ask as a SharePoint Administrator is why and what does this have in common with SharePoint 2013?Think Web Applications and Host-Named Site Collections (HNSCs). Customers are always asking about guidance in this area: How many Web applications? When do I create another? When should I create a site collection? How can I use vanity URLs? What are the best practices and how can I do what makes sense?We can start by evaluating why Ford and GM removed these brands. Each brand was at one point popular in its own right. Car companies cater to different segments of the population through brands. For example, Pontiac was known for cars for the sports enthusiast. Who can forget a 1976 black Trans Am with the gold Firebird emblazoned on the hood? However, more brands meant more organizations and infrastructures. In 2009, as the companies evaluated their lineups they realized they had too much duplicate infrastructure and, worse, cars that were too similar across brands. As a result, they evaluated, streamlined and reorganized their business. In the process, they became a leaner and more focused company. This seems like a no-brainer.Apply this thinking to how you structure your Web Applications. A friend was telling me about one of his customers who has 25-plus Web Applications in their farm. The reason given for this configuration was because the client wanted a different URL per Web Application.Your Web Applications are the brands. Every time you spin up a new Web Application, there is a certain amount of overhead being duplicated in the farm: Application Pools, authentication, quotas and resource throttling, to name but a few. This is being done on a hardware infrastructure that provides limits in terms or RAM, processor speed and space.The way to address the hardware limitations is to consolidate Web Applications. SharePoint 2013 has the perfect mechanism mentioned earlier: Host-Named Site Collections. Web Applications individually can become single site collections and maintain their identity (their URLs). It would be the same as GM getting rid of Pontiac but letting the Trans Am become part of Chevrolet. This is what you can do with HNSCs.HNSCs have existed in their current form since 2007. So what has been improved in SharePoint 2013?• Multiple URLs in one zone• Use any zone to define URLs• All settings of a zone apply to a particular URL• Multiple URLs on every HNSC• Three new commands in PowerShell: Get-SPSiteUrl, Set-SPSiteUrl and Remove-SPSiteUrlThis sounds great, but what should you do right now if you are a SharePoint administrator? The answer is simple: Create a matrix of your Web Applications and the appropriate settings. Take a look at the overlap and redundancy. Look at how many site collections have been created and where. Determine what can be streamlined and what makes sense to be in a separate Web Application. Look at what and how many application pools are being utilized as well as their associated identity.It is reasonable to have different policies per Web Application. There may be a difference in authentication method. There could be quota differences due to the nature of the Web Application’s purpose. Maybe the Web Applications run on different application pools due to isolation concerns.When the matrix is filled out, strategize a plan to streamline the Web Applications via HNSCs.The end result is that a streamlined infrastructure will yield the same benefits as cutting brands by car companies. A leaner, more organized infrastructure will produce returns on investment in regards to simplicity (a.k.a. maintenance), reduced hardware, and increased performance.Peter Serzo is a published author of the “SharePoint 2010 Administration Cookbook,” a founder of the SouthEastern SharePoint group, a speaker, and SharePoint Architect for High Monkey Consulting. Peter has been in the IT industry for 20 years. He has extensive experience with SharePoint implementing business solutions for several enterprise organizations over the past seven years.
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SharePoint State of the Union, Part 3: Staying the course
By Eric Riz
It’s October, the SharePoint conference is less than a month away, and Microsoft has just announced that SharePoint 2013 has gone to manufacturing. What an amazing vibe the SharePoint space has going right now. As the blogs are being feverishly written, companies are continuing the internal conversations about their existing SharePoint environment, and hopefully asking the right questions to make the decisions necessary about their potential upgrade path and next steps.Microsoft has done a great job providing initial information on TechNet, but it’s up to each company to make a knowledgeable decision that is right for their organization on the next steps of their SharePoint deployment. In the first two articles of this series, I suggested various strategies and steps to convening a SharePoint State of the Union exercise in your organization. In this final piece of the series, I will touch on some additional strategies to consider, and some tips on how to maintain the information collected during this process.The one point I did not address in the first two articles is the scenario and options for companies that choose not to move from their current SharePoint environment. These are the organizations that choose to stay on the current version and simply sit tight. The previous points are all fine and well if the State of the Union conversations result in a plan to upgrade your environment, but what if your assessment results in a decision to stay the course and continue using your current version?There are many reasons why this may be the result, including financial, technical or resource limitations. In some cases, companies may not have a solid business case for SharePoint 2013, while others may be waiting to see the market reaction to the product, and consider themselves to have no reason to be on the bleeding edge of SharePoint.Regardless of the reason, no one should be discouraged by the decision. In fact, the contrary should be touted internally, as people will be able to continue with the platform and interface that they know and recognize. Information can still be found and tracked as it was, and projects can be created to enhance the existing system. These reasons will silently increase user adoption and governance as employees are “at ease” about the decision. These organizations can still work together to improve governance or adoption of SharePoint. If your company chooses not to upgrade, work together to communicate a consistent message internally. Explain the decision, its anticipated impact on the organization, and what your upgrade path may be in the future—if there is one at all. You don’t need to have all the answers on your future plans, but communicating something is always better than nothing.The core business tasks at hand remain, so look to make enhancements to your SharePoint environment that will build satisfaction with the product. As you discuss changes, remember that business processes adapt to changing business conditions, so you should make any changes you want to SharePoint knowing that you will again modify things. Do not feel that you have to hold back on your plans for internal growth.One of my primary concerns (and main reasons for starting this series) is that businesses stop developing on their current SharePoint environment until they have upgraded to a newer version. This is a poor decision to make. I have seen this happen before, and it results in the proverbial wheels coming off the business. People will resort to their “old ways” and create information silos, which will be harmful to the process and to the evolution of your SharePoint implementation. Companies cannot stop the development life cycle and risk negatively affecting their overall deployment if they do. This is particularly so in the case of staff buy-in, where stopping future development can alienate staff who are dependent on the pending changes.For example, let’s say your team has been working on some changes to the portal, presumably as enhancements to make everyday life easier. How will users interpret the cancellation of these changes? Negatively, I’m sure, which will result in adoption and governance issues as they become turned off from SharePoint. The compounded risk occurs if and when you upgrade, as your expectations will be that users will suddenly embrace the new version, and it won’t happen.Regardless of your final decision, remember to document and archive the process as you go through the State of the Union exercise. Be sure that any documentation on the evaluation of your current state, and potential future state, are archived well. Easily locating these lessons learned and documents will allow you to continue the conversation, instead of starting a new one when the time comes. I recommend creating a team site for the entire State of the Union exercise, with the appropriate documents online and available to current and future team members. With SharePoint 2013 waiting in the wings, I hope that these articles have assisted you in your initial planning steps. Best of luck to each of you as you begin to make the tough decisions about aligning SharePoint to your corporate goals and strategic plan. I look forward to working with you and hearing your successes as you align SharePoint to your long-term business needs and objectives. Eric is the EVP of Systems Integration for Concatenate, a software firm focused on maximizing SharePoint through product innovation and systems integration based in Toronto. You can reach Eric by e-mail at or on Twitter at . Read his other SharePoint thoughts on his blog at www.ericriz.com.
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Avoid the pitfalls of moving SharePoint to the cloud
By Javier Barrera
Moving SharePoint to the cloud is an attractive option for companies looking to offload work or reduce costs. If we closely examine what it means to move SharePoint into the cloud, then we can avoid the many pitfalls.The first stage to any successful migration is the discovery process. This is where many migrations are set up for failure. You should first write out a detailed governance plan by taking stock of the current environment. As you might expect, we are not only looking at such basic things as SharePoint aggregate storage size or authentication mechanisms, we also want to focus on the often-overlooked technical details, which could ground a migration to a halt. Focus on any details that could potentially derail your migration.For example, if your current farm is heavily dependent on a custom calendar for team scheduling that is provided by a Web component, this might signal a red flag for your migration process. Moving to a hosted SharePoint solution like Office 365 does not provide any ability to use non-sandboxed solutions that are common to the existing SharePoint marketplace.The overall migration plan should take into consideration the current state of the SharePoint farm. If your farm is a labyrinth of confusing architecture, then consider a migration strategy that incorporates a heavy structural rewrite to take advantage of the migration phase. You will also want to consider the business and IT requirements for your SharePoint farm. How much downtime can you suffer during the actual migration? Does your SharePoint farm need to have single sign-on capabilities? How will the migration of this type of infrastructure change the dynamics of how your company uses SharePoint?Other common pitfalls for any would-be migrations are unrealistic planning timelines and expectations. Take into consideration the time and complexity of moving any Web-based technology, and then throw SharePoint into the mix. While SharePoint is a great product, it was not designed to be portable or easily moved.Moving SharePoint into the cloud can be a great step forward for usability and cost savings. But be careful that the actual cost of the migration, in money and manpower, doesn’t eat into the savings gained by such a move.Javier Barrera is a SharePoint engineer at open cloud hosting provider Rackspace.
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