Important Points in SharePoint Project Management

SharePoint Popularity

According to Microsoft SharePoint is its most sale able product which has 100+ millions users for this technology until now.

A recent Gartner report calls SharePoint “the most widely used document- and collaboration-centered platform.” It  has won the battle for the enterprise.

SharePoint is a top-rated product that will be around for many years to come. If you’re thinking of adopting it then you are driving in right road.

SharePoint – Multiple skills

SharePoint is not one application it’s beyond that. It contains

Content Management

Search- Advanced and Fast
Collaboration

Social Networking- News feed, Discussions, Blog etc.
 Portals- Internal and External
 BI
 LOB Application Connectivity

Support from Other Technologies

SharePoint depends on some other technology and it includes

Windows Server OS

Active Directory

Internet Information Server (IIS)

SQL Server
Active Directory
Domain Name System (DNS)

All these software must need to work properly to work SharePoint in efficient way

Special Skill Required for SharePoint Support

No doubt that SharePoint is easy and implement with consideration of business users but still it require some SharePoint knowledge to manage and operate it. Any business user who have some web handling knowledge can work on SharePoint sites. When it comes to do some configuration settings, Implementation and creating some infrastructure then a SharePoint skilled resource is required

Planning SharePoint Projects

Before starting any SharePoint Project it make sense to do some initial home work. It should cover

Preparing the data dictionary (taxonomy)

Preparing the roles and permission matrix

Planning foe design and development approach (Categorizing the modules to developed using CSOM, SOM and OOB feature)

Share Point 2013 App Hosting Types

Hosting Types

 

Share point Hosted Architecture

Provide Hosted App

Auto Hosted App

Differences between a records archive and in-place records

The following table describes differences between what you can do with records in a record center and with records that are managed in-place in a collaboration site. The differences are presented from the point of view of both records managers and employees collaborating on a project team. 

Note:- This information is taken from MS tech-net site and published in this blog as part of social collaboration cause

Differences between a records archive and in-place records

Factor	Records archive	In-place records
Managing record retention	The content organizer automatically puts new records in the correct folder in the archive’s file plan, based on metadata.	There may be different policies for records and active documents based on the current content type or location.
Restrict which users can view records	Yes. The archive specifies the permissions for the record.	No. Permissions do not change when a document becomes a record. However, you can restrict which users can edit and delete records.
Ease of locating records (for records managers)	Easier. All records are in one location.	Harder. Records are spread across multiple collaboration sites.
Maintain all document versions as records	The user must explicitly send each version of a document to the archive.	Automatic, assuming versioning is turned on.
Ease of locating information (for team collaborators)	Harder, although a link to the document can be added to the collaboration site when the document becomes a record.	Easier.
Clutter of collaboration site	Collaboration site contains only active documents.	Collaboration site contains active and inactive documents (records), although you can create views to display only records.
Ability to audit records	Yes.	Dependent on audit policy of the collaboration site.
Administrative security	A records manager can manage the records archive.	Collaboration site administrators have permission to manage records and active documents.

The following table describes differences between the two records management approaches that might affect how you manage IT resources.

Resource differences between a records archive and in-place records

Factor	Records archive	In-place records
Number of sites to manage	More sites. That is,, there is a separate archive in addition to collaboration sites.	Fewer sites.
Scalability	Relieves database size pressure on collaboration sites.	Maximum site collection size reached sooner.
Ease of administration	Separate site or farm for records.	No additional site provisioning work beyond what is already needed for the sites that have active documents.
Storage	Can store records on different storage medium.	Active documents and records stored together.

Configuring the Subscription Proxy applicaton for SharePoint 2013 App

While working with share point 2013 app we need to configure the app URL for share point admin.There are lot of blogs which give you the information related to it. You need to configure the DNS for APP then need to start the App service and subscription service.


I did all these steps but when I tried configure the URL for app from App navigation section I got the following error

"SharePoint The Subscription Settings service and corresponding application and proxy needs to be running in order to make changes to these settings"

The issue with this is  expecting A new service application created on its dedicated App Pool is required to be created in SharePoint

This can be done using Power shell script running with administrator account

add-pssnapin "Microsoft.Sharepoint.Powershell"

$manaccount = Get-SPManagedAccount SP2013Server\Administrator

Remove-SPServiceApplicationPool -Identity SettingsServiceAppPool

$appPoolService = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name SettingsServiceAppPool -Account $manaccount

$appService = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication -ApplicationPool $appPoolService -Name SettingsServiceApp -DatabaseName SettingsServiceDB

$proxyService = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy -ServiceApplication $appService

After executing above script you are able to configure the url for app

 

Comparing SharePoint Designer work flows with Visual Studio work flow

The following table provides a side-by-side comparison of the features and requirements for using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio to create SharePoint workflows.

Feature / Requirement	SharePoint Designer	Visual Studio
Allows rapid workflow development	Yes	Yes
Enables reuse of workflows	A workflow can be used only by the list or library on which it was developed. However, SharePoint Designer provides reusable workflows that can be used multiple times within the same site.	A workflow can be written as a template so that after it is deployed, it can be reused and associated with any list or library.
Allows you to include a workflow as part of a SharePoint solution or app for SharePoint	No	Yes
Allows you to create custom actions	No. However, SharePoint Designer can consume and implement custom actions that are created and deployed by using Visual Studio.	Yes. However, be aware that in Visual Studio, the underlying activities, not their corresponding actions, are used.
Allows you to write custom code	No	No Note This is changed from previous versions. In SharePoint 2013, workflows are declarative only and Visual Studio relies on the visual design surface for workflow development.
Can use Visio Professional to create workflow logic	Yes	No
Deployment	Deployed automatically to list, library, or site on which they were created.	Create a SharePoint solution package (.wsp) file and deploy the solution package to the site (SPWeb).
One-click publishing available for workflows	Yes	Yes
Workflows can be packaged and deployed to a remote server	Yes	Yes
Debugging	Cannot be debugged.	Workflow can be debugged by using Visual Studio.
Can use only actions that are approved by site administrator	Yes	Yes

Announcing Office 365 API Tools for Visual Studio — Preview

Announcing Office 365 API Tools for Visual Studio — Preview

SharePoint Conference 2014 Recap - Doing Business with Office 365

SharePoint Conference 2014 Recap - Doing Business with Office 365

Active Directory and Share Point User List Sync Up

Share Point site collection only sync up the active user information in the user list.An active user is someone who has "contributed" to a site by doing more than just reading the content.  They have either uploaded a file or created a list item or changed some piece of metadata.  So if the user has only read information in a specific site collection then their updated information in their user profile will not be synced to that particular site collection.  The only way to fix it is to either remove them from the whole site collection and re-add them or have them change somethign on that site collection and then wait a couple hours

To sync the user profile information manually use below steps

Manually run the timer job - User Profile Service Application – User Profile to SharePoint Full Synchronization:
Open Central Administration
Click Monitoring
Under Timer Job, click Review job definitions
Click User Profile Service Application – User Profile to SharePoint Full Synchronization
Click Run Now

Share Point 2013 _layout folder location

In SharePoint 2013, there is new 15 hive

Physical Path: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Virtual Path: “/_layouts/15//”

SharePoint 2013 Device Channels and Branding for Handheld devices

SharePoint 2013 Branding and User Interface DesignSharePoint 2013 provides its own solution for displaying layouts for mobile devices, this feature is known as device channels. You can setup device channels to look for keywords in a browser’s user agent string (the mechanism web browsers use to identify themselves to a web server) and SharePoint can apply an entirely different master page for each device channel. You could create a device channel that looks for the keyword “iPad” and any browser that includes that string in the user agent would have your device channel master page applied to it. Not only can you use device channels to swap out an entire master page, but you can also use something known as Device Channel Panels inside master pages and page layouts to include or remove specific parts of the page.

The nice thing about SharePoint’s device channels is that you don’t have to decide between them and responsive web design. You could certainly use both techniques on your site, but you would have to manage them slightly different since device channels are configured in the SharePoint site settings and RWD uses media queries in CSS3 style sheets. If you wanted to use device channels by themselves without RWD for mobile UI, here are some things to consider:

    Device channels could require more assets to manage – If you are using device channels to swap out the entire master page, you would need to manage two or more master pages. Master pages can be complicated, unless you have a specific need, it would be better to use Device Channel Panels to just change parts of the UI rather than the whole master page.
    Device channels rely on user agent strings – This is great if you can target your devices specifically from their user agent strings but can at times be limiting. For instance there are many varieties of Android devices from cellphones to tablets and many times their user agent does not declare the screen size. In some cases media queries can be more useful for targeting browser features like this.
    Device channels require the publishing feature in SharePoint – This is a feature that is only available in the full SharePoint Server 2013 product, not SharePoint Foundation. Also, many SharePoint administrators prefer to only provide site owners with simple team sites; in these cases you wouldn’t have access to use device channels

Detecting installed SharePoint 2010 and 2013 version

I was looking for share point installed version on my VM and got the same questions from my developers. Here is the simple way to find the exact installed SharePoint version on your machine.
When Share Point is installed on your machine it marks the key in your registry. You can explore to the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\WSS\InstalledProducts folder by opening REGEDIT window and check which key is placed there.

Following is the list of the registry keys and the specified share point versions.

Share Point 2013

35466B1A-B17B-4DFB-A703-F74E2A1F5F5E", "Project Server 2013

BC7BAF08-4D97-462C-8411-341052402E71", "Project Server 2013 Preview

C5D855EE-F32B-4A1C-97A8-F0A28CE02F9C", "SharePoint Server 2013

CBF97833-C73A-4BAF-9ED3-D47B3CFF51BE", "SharePoint Server 2013 Preview

B7D84C2B-0754-49E4-B7BE-7EE321DCE0A9", "SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise

298A586A-E3C1-42F0-AFE0-4BCFDC2E7CD0", "SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Preview

D6B57A0D-AE69-4A3E-B031-1F993EE52EDC ", "Microsoft Office Web Apps Server 2013

9FF54EBC-8C12-47D7-854F-3865D4BE8118", "SharePoint Foundation 2013

Share Point 2010

BEED1F75-C398-4447-AEF1-E66E1F0DF91E: SharePoint Foundation 2010

1328E89E-7EC8-4F7E-809E-7E945796E511: Search Server Express 2010

B2C0B444-3914-4ACB-A0B8-7CF50A8F7AA0: SharePoint Server 2010 Standard Trial

3FDFBCC8-B3E4-4482-91FA-122C6432805C: SharePoint Server 2010 Standard

88BED06D-8C6B-4E62-AB01-546D6005FE97: SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Trial

D5595F62-449B-4061-B0B2-0CBAD410BB51: SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise

BC4C1C97-9013-4033-A0DD-9DC9E6D6C887: Search Server 2010 Trial

08460AA2-A176-442C-BDCA-26928704D80B: Search Server 2010

84902853-59F6-4B20-BC7C-DE4F419FEFAD: Project Server 2010 Trial

ED21638F-97FF-4A65-AD9B-6889B93065E2: Project Server 2010

926E4E17-087B-47D1-8BD7-91A394BC6196: Office Web Companions 2010