SharePoint Rebooted A Cybage perspective

Transcription

1 SharePoint Rebooted A Cybage perspective 1

2 Abstract The world around us is changing fast, specially the technology. The dependency on the Mobile and other portable devices as well as the use This whitepaper titled SharePoint Rebooted focuses on visiting the key important feature and aspects of SharePoint 2013 and its growing signifi cance for an Enterprise implementation. of Social platform is much more than what it was 3-4 years back. Cloud which was just a new buzzword some time ago is now a serious contender during the evaluation for any new application/platform that an Enterprise engages into. To keep up with the changing needs, SharePoint also has changed gears with its 2013 release and introduced some key, effective, and easy features and enhancements. This whitepaper titled SharePoint Rebooted focuses on visiting the key important feature and aspects of SharePoint 2013 and its growing significance for an Enterprise implementation. The aim is to show how SharePoint 2013 can be adopted as an enabler towards reaching your business goals. Challenges with new age enterprises As the world changes, organizations also have to evolve and adapt to the changing needs to become more productive and cost-effective, eventually contributing to profits. The new age enterprise has to empower every department to connect more closely with other departments and become nimble, efficient, and connected like never before. They need to have the right tool and platforms which will enable them to collaborate and establish business workflows between various departments and functions. Hence, many enterprises are now recognizing the need and the power of enterprise platform implementations such as SharePoint. In addition to this, the evolution and adoption of smartphones and tablets has added another dimension to this changing dynamic in the form of mobile access. Social strategies have become a prime charter for the HR functions and the goal is to design and tune the social offerings to the best advantage of the organization for achieving key goals such as employee engagement, employee contribution/involvement, quick collaboration, and easy access to information and people. The so-called static Intranet sites, where all the features and information are tightly controlled by a small team are outdated and now the employees expect a lot more dynamic and employee-driven sites with the Enterprise Social as their driving tools. 2

3 Cloud technology is not new anymore. It offers a lot of flexibility and scalability, and is quite cost effective. Not only start-ups but bigger enterprises are also moving towards the cloud and hybrid model in which the confidential information is kept on-premises and the rest on cloud. Cloud is no longer just a deployment infrastructure but widely adopted for scalable and fast operations. Enterprises usually have various systems or platforms such as HRMS, ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence platforms and legacy systems. Many a time, these are maintained in silos. To become more productive and provide more informed decisions, all these system have to be integrated and provide the stakeholders with a single window portal with a Single sign-on strategy. For an enterprise, search earlier meant merely typing text into a box and clicking a button; the search can then index a set of information and provide filtered results. However, for new age enterprises, it has to be the core component that can help the information worker to find information from many different external systems, documents, videos, people, conversations, and other channels. Now, the line between unstructured and structured data is fading and search is becoming the firsthand BI to provide the insight. Enter SharePoint 2013 MSPS 2003 MOSS 2007 SharePoint 2013, the latest release of SharePoint, has a lot of new and enhanced features to offer to an enterprise. Since the first launch of SharePoint, almost every three year, Microsoft releases a new version with some good, solid new features which adds more value to the already vast feature list. However, this time it s not about only the features but a paradigm shift in the direction for SharePoint. Since 2003, SharePoint started gaining popularity in the Intranet space. With MOSS 2007, it emerged with many good features to make the SharePoint an internet solution as well as to become an application platform with search, record management, and BDC (business data catalog to connect to the external applications). With SharePoint 2010 release it became truly enterprise collaboration platform with so many good features such as Managed Metadata, BI tools, and FAST search. If we look at SharePoint history, it was predominantly used as an on-premises tool with enterprises taking care of its installation, maintenance, scalability, and security aspects. Although Microsoft launched SharePoint online as a cloud service in 2011, the features were not cloud-friendly enough to evoke response from the customers. The biggest buzz around the SharePoint 2013 new features is about its app model. This is an important milestone in terms of moving towards cloud for SharePoint. Microsoft suggests that we think about apps first in case of any customization that is needed in SharePoint. Social is another most talked 3

4 about feature in SharePoint Social was part of SharePoint (partially) since 2007, however, this is the first time that it provides full-fledged features such as microblogging, news feeds, following, and tagging. Also Yammer, one of the best enterprise social platforms, acquired by Microsoft couple of years ago, is now being touted as the preferred platform for Social feature. The App Model App is not a new word and people are familiar with mobile and tablet apps. Also, apps are not just limited to devices. They are available on social networking sites such as Facebook. SharePoint also had its own reasons to provide the app model in the 2013 release. Office Store and app catalog: Microsoft hosts and regulates its own Office Store where developers can publish their apps. Corporates can acquire these apps for their use. Avoids the custom code in the SharePoint farm: It is known to every SharePoint developer to use the OOTB features as far as possible but in reality most of the enterprises have a lot of custom code which many times degrades the performance of the SharePoint farm. However, the app model discourages the developer from doing any server-side coding, and even if the code is written, the Farm admin can rest assured that it will not have any impact on the SharePoint Farm. Microsoft has significantly improved the Client Object Model and REST APIs to support apps. Migration Scenarios: It has been observed that most of the enterprises do not migrate to the newer versions of SharePoint because of the legacy custom code. These solutions are often tightly bound to a particular feature set, which means that they might not move gracefully to the next version of SharePoint. If the enterprise develops the apps to fulfill their most customization needs, the migration to the next version can become a lot simpler. App Permissions: A major disadvantage of using the Farm solution is that it just works with user permissions or app pool permissions. In some scenarios, user permissions become inadequate to achieve certain tasks, and if app pool permission applies here, it exposes the entire web application or farm to a lot of risk. An app fills this gap by having its own permissions. This helps to provide a robust solution without risking the farm. App Life Cycle: In the farm solution, it was very difficult and error prone to update the deployed solution and developers used to have a lot of issues to fix to update the solution. App code programs as against SharePoint sites use web service entry points to minimize version-specific dependencies. Furthermore, apps life cycle is a simple install, update, uninstall. 4

5 SharePoint 2013 introduced two types of App Models: SharePoint hosted and Cloud hosted. The Cloud hosted model can again be broken down to Provider hosted and Auto hosted. These models are basically how you would host your app for SharePoint. SharePoint hosted will host the app on your farm. Provider hosted will host the app to any other server/ platform which is maintained by your organization. Auto hosted will host the app as a website on Microsoft Azure. [Tip] For any customization, think about App as the first option. Few things like Branding or any kind of customization for Admin would not go with App. Extensive search capabilities Search has been one of the most important features since last couple of versions of SharePoint. In SharePoint 2010, Microsoft introduced the FAST search, which it had acquired a year earlier. Though FAST was a major boost to SharePoint as a search platform, it still was a different product and required significant amount of configuration and licensing costs. It was also confusing for the enterprises to decide between the two search options and their licensing models. With SharePoint 2013, Microsoft merged the FAST search with SharePoint and gave a unified, powerful search in-built. Most of FAST features are completely out of the box and require very little configuration. SharePoint 2013 Search platform is rearchitected which includes Analytics and Content Processing components with crawl, query and index component. Content Processing component allows you to extend the custom processing functionality to enrich the managed properties of crawled items. Analytical component analyzes both the content and also the way how user interacts with it. This helps search to identify and surface the content that user consider to be most useful and relevant. Search Analytics provides Click Distance, Search Clicks, Social Distance, Search Reports, Deep Links, Usage Counts, Recommendations, and other features. Search in SharePoint 2013 is a first-class citizen and should be considered seriously for anything that an enterprise implements. The search center provides you an excellent search experience with Refiners, Graphical Refiners, Query Suggestions, Quick Preview, and Search Conversation/ People/Videos. SharePoint now provides REST APIs for search which opens many doors to use Search in many custom client-side scenarios including apps. 5

6 SharePoint 2013 has introduced a new publishing concept called cross-site (collection) publishing - XSP. XSP allows you to publish the content across site-collections, hence provide mechanism where the authoring site is completely isolated from the rendering site or sites. XSP has Search at its core to fetch the information from the authoring site. [Tip] With SharePoint 2013, for any implementation approach, first think if it can be achieved with Search? Search is the fastest and now gives near real-time freshness. The social aspect Social is no longer a taboo for enterprises. On the contrary, Enterprise Social is getting more and more acceptance in the work culture of many bigger and smaller organizations due to the benefits that it offers. A report by McKinsey Global Institute suggests wide adoption of social media technologies by businesses could cut down time in ing and improve worker productivity by 20 to 25 per cent. It also says enterprise social could reduce communication costs, improve employee access to knowledge and to internal experts, lower travel costs, increase employee satisfaction, reduce operational costs and, even increase revenue by 10 percent on average. With the Yammer acquisition, Microsoft offers two social As per Microsoft, 85 platforms for SharePoint One is much improved percent of Fortune 500 Social feature within SharePoint platform which provides companies use Yammer as all the major features such as microblogging, news feeds, their social platform, which follow, rating, tagging, trending tags, and communities; whereas, the other is an independent, cloud-based and is an impressive number. already proven platform called Yammer. As per Microsoft, 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Yammer as their social platform, which is an impressive number. Due to these two options, enterprises often get confused while chalking out their social roadmap. The easiest way to decide between the two is to see if your organization is fine to go on cloud. If cloud is not a problem, Yammer should be a good choice. However, if the organization policies do not allow its intellectual property (contents, discussion, knowledge in any form) to go beyond its tightly managed systems, then SharePoint 2013 Social is the way to go. Now, the social strategy is not always in black and white and sometimes one has to consider other aspects as well. The following is a high-level guideline on Yammer and SharePoint 2013 Social. 6

7 Go for Yammer if: Having your data on cloud is not a problem. Social on phone or device is the agenda (because it has app for ios, Android, and Windows). Aim is to promote more open culture and provide employee visibility across organization. There is a need is to collaborate with external partners, vendors, customers. Go for SharePoint 2013 Social if: Putting your data on cloud is disallowed. Your contents and collaboration are managed within secure sites. Your content has workflows, tightly coupled to enterprise taxonomy, or you have to comply with strict auditing and compliance governance rules. You want to have stronger community features with badging and rating [Tip] As per the latest indications from Microsoft, Yammer is the future platform for Enterprise Social and it s going to be integrated tightly with the entire Office Suite! The mobility factor Smartphones and Tablets are replacing the laptops in many areas and enterprises have started considering them as a productive tool for their business. Many enterprises provide tablets to their sales and marketing people to make them productive on the go as they are convenient and complementary devices. In such scenarios, the internal systems should also be exposed in mobile-friendly way to broaden their reach to mobility. SharePoint started its mobile support since 2007 which was in its nascent state but got a little better in SP However, since mobile market and tablet use have increased manifold. Microsoft invested in its mobile capacity for SharePoint 2013 by adding the following important features. 7

8 Optimized browser experience SharePoint 2013 has full support for HTML 5. For smartphones, SharePoint 2013 provides a lightweight and contemporary browsing experience enabling users to navigate and access document libraries, lists, wikis, and other resources. Device Channel Through Device Channel, SharePoint provides the ability to render different designs (master page, page layout, and style sheets) to target different devices without duplicating the content. This was quite a difficult task till SharePoint 2010, but with SharePoint 2013, you just need to define the device channel for a device (say iphone) and create appropriate master page and page layouts. Push notification A push notification service on a SharePoint site sends updates to connected devices/mobiles as a notification. However, these notifications are for Windows devices only. Location SharePoint Server 2013 supports a new geo-location field type that can be used for mobile application development. Business Intelligence Content Some devices are now able to access intelligence content such as PerformancePoint Web Parts, Excel Services reports, and SQL Reporting Services reports. Office Web Apps You can view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in mobile browsers with additional functionality in SharePoint Server [Tip] The take away point here is that SharePoint 2013 supports HTML 5, CSS 3. So at the very least enterprise can easily make a responsive site which can be rendered well on any device of any form factor. 8

9 Microsoft kept the previous SharePoint Workfl ow as is and also added new Workfl ow framework. So, both can run in parallel. Modelling effective workfl ows Workflow is the sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion. Every business requires a workflow, irrespective of whether the business uses any tool to implement one or does it all manually. A number of companies make workflow automation products that allow a company to create a workflow model and components such as online forms and then to use this product as a way to manage and enforce the consistent handling of work. SharePoint provided Workflows from 2007 which was based on Windows Workflow Foundation (3.5). There were few issues with 2007 workflows where designer workflow was non-portable and the Visual Studio solution was not so easy. SharePoint 2010 fixed many of those issues but performance and scalability were the main issues with Workflow, which were not addressed well. SharePoint 2013 came-up with a complete overhaul as far as Workflow was concerned. Microsoft changed the underlying Workflow Foundation (4.5 also called Windows Azure Workflows) completely and made it as a separate service (from SharePoint) that can be hosted on-premises or on the cloud. The new workflow has many enterprise features such as fully declarative authoring, REST and service bus messaging, elastic scalability, and managed service reliability. The workflow itself runs in a product called Workflow Manager 1.0, and the SharePoint web front-end has a product called the Workflow Client. The communication between them happens via REST API and is secured using OAuth. It is worth noting here that SharePoint 2010 workflows are not completely obsolete and there s definitely full support for the previous workflow developments. How they did it? Well, Microsoft kept the previous SharePoint Workflow as is and also added new Workflow framework. So, both can run in parallel. However, you cannot move or migrate the SharePoint 2010 workflows to SharePoint 2013 unless you re-write the workflows for the new model. The best possible option could be to use Workflow Interop Bridge and call the 2010 workflows from 2013 workflows. [Tip] Those starting afresh should think about SharePoint 2013 workflows rather than going back to 2010 style workflows. 9

10 The new kid - SharePoint Online: Offi ce 365 Enterprises are now realizing the benefits of the cloud technology and started moving slowly toward moving their applications to cloud. Microsoft is also moving more and more desktop/enterprise applications and servers products on cloud through Software as a Service. SharePoint Online is a cloud version of SharePoint 2013 and offered as SaaS by Microsoft. SharePoint Online delivers the latest and the greatest features of SharePoint 2013 without bearing the overhead of maintaining the infrastructure on your own. It also provides the management options to maintain the compliance requirement of organizations. When we look at the resources required to keep an on-premises environment active, it s massive. This results in a high cost in hardware, software, and licenses before even you make it operational. Maintenance and scalability (and elasticity) are very difficult to maintain and costs a lot for an on-premises environment. An enterprise can purchase SharePoint Online as a standalone offering or as part of an Office 365 suite where it could also get access to offerings like Lync, Exchange, the Office clients and web apps. SharePoint Online offers two plans which are similar to Standard and Enterprise Editions, where Enterprise plan offers some cool enterprise features such as Business Intelligence(Excel Service, PowerView, PowerPivot), Business Solutions(Visio and Business Connectivity Services), and Enterprise Search in addition to the Standard plan features. SharePoint Online is best suited for small and medium businesses (SMBs) who can enjoy the best features of an Enterprise platform with very minimal cost and without any overhead of maintenance. SMBs can take the advantage of features such as Publishing, Collaboration, Search, Social and BI for their business. Also, it is not just SMBs, but the larger Enterprises are also moving towards cloud to reduce maintenance overhead. It also offers a really powerful hybrid model where enterprises can keep their critical application/information on-premises to have complete control and integrate with SharePoint online. The following are some benefits of opting SharePoint Online. 1. Worry free installation and deployments 2. Automatic backups 3. Monthly subscription(pay as you use) 4. Cross device availability 5. Enterprise grade reliability and standard 6. Collaboration and Social tools 7. Integration with external systems 10

11 [Tip] Thinking about SharePoint 2013? Don t forget to evaluate Office 365. There are compelling packages for all sorts of needs. Also Microsoft keeps adding many new features which are only available to the cloud version until the next on-prem release. ROI of SharePoint implementations Especially when it comes to business, ROI is an important consideration whenever there is any question of investment. Obviously, SharePoint also has to go through the test. In case of SharePoint, an enterprise can get some tangible (quantifiable) and some intangible (unquantifiable) returns. Quantifiable benefits Reduced IT cost Reduced training cost Reduced cost from self-service Faster deployments Quick and informed decisions Quick access to information through search Improved efficiency and productivity Process automation Fewer errors and rework Paperless work Unquantifiable benefits Collaborative team work Motivation Work satisfaction Cybage ECM CoE The ECM CoE at Cybage enables customers to capitalize on their organizational data and transform it into meaningful information for making effective business decisions and strategies for optimizing operations. Cybage has been working on SharePoint since its inception and has very good experience in all its versions and editions. Cybage has vast experience in implementing SharePoint based solutions. Cybage has achieved Microsoft Gold Competency for Collaboration and Portals. 11

12 The CoE offers: Consulting, reviewing, and strategy development Comprehensive implementations and maintenance services Enterprise integrations with HRMS, CRM, ERP, and BI platforms Specialized technical support A few quick facts about the CoE: 164 specialized resources Microsoft Gold competency in collaborations and portals Skills in three large enterprise platforms and 26 WCM systems Executed 96 projects, 55 case-studies, and 50 live reference links For more information on SharePoint implementations and how your business can adopt SharePoint solutions to optimize productivity, efficiency, and increase cost savings, please contact Cybage Enterprise Content Management, Center of Excellence. Offers If you are thinking about SharePoint implementation, get in touch with Cybage Business team. Provide the reference of this whitepaper and get 2 full days of SharePoint consultancy absolutely free of cost! 12

13 About Cybage Software Pvt. Ltd. Founded in 1995, Cybage Software is a leading offshore software services company offering solutions that accelerate, simplify, and enrich business processes to give its customers an edge over competition. We are a CMMI- DEV v1.3, Maturity Level 5 and ISO company based in Pune, India. Our success is built on a pool of 4,800 software professionals. Based on a remarkable record of quality, consistency, and outstanding technological prowess, we have partnered with more than 200 global software houses of fine repute. Our array of services includes Product Engineering (OPD), Enterprise Business Solutions, and Value Added Services. Cybage specializes in the implementation of the Offshore Development model. The Cybage domain expertise spans across several business verticals such as Media and Entertainment, Travel and Hospitality, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Retail and Distribution, and Hi-Tech. Cybage has eight technology focused Centers of Excellence (CoEs) E-commerce, Enterprise Mobility, Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Content Management, Cloud Computing, Education & Learning, and Supply Chain Management. Our unique model of operational efficiency, ExcelShore, helps de-risk our approach and provide the best value per unit cost. To know more about us, visit us at or write to us at biz@cybage.com 13