But, did you know you also have the ability to access the URL address of the document located in SharePoint from the Office application? This gives you the ability to send a link to the document in SharePoint to others without having to go into SharePoint to get the address.
There are 3 more real world lessons learned that should be mentioned here. These problems are not limited simply to web parts and related files. Items as simple as images and as complex site definitions (the blueprints that detail the creation of SharePoint sites) are all effected by improper non-WSP deployment. Site definitions, field types, event receivers, workflow, features all must be deployed via WSP. In addition CSS files, ASPX pages, and Master Pages will need to be deployed via WSP if they are to be used farm wide. As a general rule, if the item in question will affect the entire farm it will likely need to be deployed via WSP.
So, I’m going straight to the bad practice #2 because of conversations with some peers yesterday here in the UK. We see lots of blogs and articles about SharePoint Governance, and they are all very lengthy and probably applicable to most organizations. But, what I’ve seen is the average SharePoint administrator is the Exchange Admin, firewall admin, and sometimes the accountant! The point is – many folks don’t have time to go through a lengthy governance process. But, we know what kind of trouble they’ll get in without it! So, what’s the answer? I call it ‘Bare Metal Governance”
After we held several, very successful workshops in March, then Microsoft announced that SharePoint Designer was going to be a free download. In my work environment, users having access to download SharePoint Designer for free is a potential administrative nightmare. No issues so far
Planning your SharePoint environment is very much the same way, there can be multiple out comes, with lots of twists and turns along the way, and depending on the choices you made earlier, could force the outcome later.
I was recently involved in facilitating discussions and debate on the topic of governance for the leadership team of a public/private/community sector consortium. It was absolutely light years away from SharePoint governance, yet they struggled with it just as much as we do – and they get paid lots more than us!
To recap, we have spent the last two posts delving into the deep structure of problems by using an issue based mapping method. This post will continue in that same vein, but I am going to move a little faster this time and cover more argumentation with a little less explanation. I’ll also finish off with some other interesting aspects to IBIS and dialogue mapping that we haven’t covered so far.
That is because SharePoint’s technical complexity gives rise to social complexity. At the end of the day, we all have vastly varying behavioral and learning styles, we all come from varying organizational cultures, have different skills in varying disciplines and have different value sets and life skills. A collaborative platform almost by definition forces us to confront and work through this social complexity
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