When creating SharePoint team site, a home page is created which can be modified so that it meets the needs of the team better as well as looks great. The looking good aspect is also related to usability as a site must not compromise on user-friendly aspect when it is modified. The website can display announcements, calender items, tasks, etc or may be added with images or texts. To make any kind of changes to the site you have to be logged as a user with the necessary permissions for editing or modification of the pages. This means that the person must belong to the Members group of the site.
Some tips for better site
While designing new websites the top navigation should be consistent as well as concise. The navigation which is also known as global navigation should include something around top 5 elements which will be most essential for your needs along with usage. Some good examples are links to subsites or pages. In fact, navigation inheritance should be used from parent site unless it is a private site and it must be totally isolated. The links should not exceed nine as it will appear to be too confusing as well as cluttered.
Right or left scrolling should be avoided anyhow. Consistently scrolling back and forth for viewing or reading the website's contents can prove to be very frustrating for users. Extra wide parts can be moved into footer or header zones. While designing the website the varying screen resolutions should be kept in mind. Mostly in offices, the resolutions are set at 1280 x 1024 pixels while some laptops are wider so it should be tested in narrow windows to check if its working correctly or not.
The navigation at left could and must be changed according to your position at the website. The position is relative and top level sites can have links to calenders, discussion boards, custom lists, etc. The hyperlinks must be configured properly. You can force the links to open in new windows which will keep the main site open in background; users can easily return there simply by minimizing or closing the window.
The home page should be such that it catches attention as well as conveys meaning or purpose of the site. It is difficult but not impossible. For that you have to keep the content uncluttered and succinct. Important information should be placed “above the fold” or in the space of content which can be seen on screen before having to scroll down. Since screen resolutions of different browsers are different the placement can be tricky. Colors or effects and images should be effectively used so that attention is drawn to main content. Do not be too gaudy and use too many colors, text sizes and fonts.
How to edit
To edit or modify the home page you have to browse home page; click Page tab located in Ribbon which will display editing options. Click Edit and do all the changes that you want. Now the cursor needs to be placed anywhere inside the page body's rectangular boxes and the content can be edited and applied. Even styles can be applied. After that save the changes by clicking “Stop Editing”.
If you want to add links, web parts, images or tables to the home page then you have to follow these instructions:
- Click Edit button as mentioned previously to start the editing process.
- The Ribbon has an Insert tab which should be clicked. Place the cursor where the item needs to be inserted from Ribbon. The cursor should be inside the rectangular box in the body of the page.
- Click on the item that you want to add- whether it be table, web part, hyperlinks or image and select their variety accordingly.
- Click Edit; choose Stop Editing and your changes will be saved.
Remember that when a visitor enters the site it should be able to answer questions like what, why, what the site has and what can it give to the user. When you do custom sharepoint development, you get exactly the right thing which you precisely need.
We provide SharePoint 2010 development services. We have expert SharePoint team with 100% certification ratio. To hire SharePoint developer from us, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.
Microsoft has launched SharePoint 2013 with a set of innovative features to complement the requirements of all types of enterprises. Along with developing a variety of solutions, organizations now have option to build customized SharePoint apps according to their specific needs. However, an organization must consider some key factors while migrating to the new technology. In addition to providing adequate training to its employees, an enterprise also needs to identify the important challenges associated with SharePoint development. The understanding of these challenges will further make it easier for the business to migrate to the latest version of the content management system.
Most Challenging Aspects of SharePoint Development
1. Adequate Product Knowledge and Planning: Often SharePoint development projects are affected negatively due to lack of adequate product knowledge and planning. Along with being too large and bulky, the technology is also complex. Microsoft has further included features to make it usable for a number of purposes like a rapid web application development framework or content management system. So the developers must understand all aspects of the product deeply to become experts. So an organization must be ready to allow adequate time to the developers and SharePoint site administrators to gain in depth knowledge of the technology.
2. Enhanced and Specialized Skill: Unlike other application development, SharePoint development requires specialized and extended skills. Along with understanding various aspects of the distinct platform, the developers also need to be proficient in C#, Visual Basic or similar standard managed-code languages. At the same time, the programmers must understand HTML, CSS and XML, along with ASP.NET and other web languages ad frameworks. When the developer understand a wide variety of web technologies, it will be easier for him to write the exact code or assemble the features to achieve predefined objectives of the organization.
3. Extended Development Time: Most developers consider SharePoint 2013 to be innovative and out of box. But the outcome of several surveys have also highlighted that additional development time is required to develop the ideas. In addition to implementing exact ideas, additional time is also required for customizing the solution according to the specific requirements of the enterprise. However, an organization can overcome this challenge by active planning and encouraging collaboration among IT and other departments. An active plan will further help enterprises in reducing the amount of time and funds required to build a tailor-made SharePoint solution or application.
4. Performance of Customized Solutions: The complex and highly customizable nature of the platform further makes it difficult for programmers to debug custom SharePoint solutions. Along with deciding the performance problems, a project leader also needs to identify the interactions and components responsible for such problems. The reason behind the poor performance of the SharePoint solution can be tracked down by checking application, web server traffic, SQL Server and similar logs. At the same time, the developers also need to consider the indexing time and performance counters to track down the issue. So there are chances that the Unified Logging System (ULS) provided by the framework may not track down the performance issues due to the large number of moving parts and components.
5. Post-Development Requirements: Most organizations ignore the post-development task associated with SharePoint development. In addition to building a robust and customized solution, an enterprise also needs to ensure that the system is managed and administered effectively. The custom solution needs to be supported with adequate documentation. At the same time, it is also essential for the organization to implement a strategy to maintain hardware and databases, and restore or backup procedure. An organization can also consider setting application deployment guidelines and infrastructure policy. The rules will make it easier for the staff to understand the support and maintenance required to optimize the performance of the SharePoint solution.
An enterprise also has several options to address the issues associated with SharePoint development. It can always adopt some widely used SharePoint development best practices, along with considering outsourcing the project to a competent development company. Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
With increasing business opportunities, newer challenges surface. One of the biggest challenge faced by organizations across the globe is managing information effectively. Every large and small enterprise, an independent professional, manages information effectively which is one of the keys to successful operations and survival in tough times.
People are adopting to electronic data than paper work. Organizations that adopt electronic document management systems are showing greater signs of having a better grip over business processes in tough times. And with SharePoint getting regarded as the “Information Operating System” for organizations, it seems organizations of all sizes using Microsoft products will start implementing SharePoint because of the tremendous value they see in the platform. However, not all sharepoint deployments run smoothly. Here are solid 8 ways you can avoid and mitigate risks associated with the deployment process.
8 ways to mitigate risks in SharePoint deployment:
1. Loss of data content in the event of a disaster: Content or Data is King. It is very important for a company to deal with their customer data well without messing it up. Else answering customer calls and having to tell them that all their data is gone because the archive room just caught fire is like putting business to fire. The best way to protect business documents against any disaster is to implement a document management system that not only helps to manage paper based documents, but also digital files. Documents will outlive wear and tear which is caused by manual handling and adverse weather conditions. Digital files are easy to back up -and retrieve within minutes than searching from a pile of files physically.
2. Time and cost overruns: Paper archives are simply too time-taking to handle as a source of information in the long run. It is very difficult to fetch information from a physical document library that causes a whole range of tasks connected to a business process to queue up, which will lead to project delay and cost escalations. Physical labor and staff to manage all of this can be avoided thus saving. And other things being constant which might be lowering costs and translating into a neater bottom-line.
3. Communication gaps: Most business processes involve stages of conception, iteration, research, decision and execution and then a follow up review. Multiple departments are involved in the entire exercise. When the source documents are not at the fingertips of every stakeholder in this business process, it can hamper smooth communication of ideas and relevant data. This in turn leads to another serious risk.
4. Poor or wrong decisions: Communication gaps imply that employees may not be armed with complete data for them to carry out their task as expected. This is true especially when some members of the team have the requisite documents in their possession while others do not. Decision makers are faced with time bound goals that they must achieve. If a business decision is made in a hurry and with incomplete data or without the required inputs from the entire team, it could lead to a loss in terms of revenue, market share or other such performance indicators.
5. Lost opportunity to delight customers: When customer-facing staff have all the documents they need on a single application, But if the source documents have to be retrieved from a box file in another corner of the office building, don't expect the customer to stay on hold or wait patiently for long - you have just lost an opportunity to create a "Wow!" customer experience. Electronic document management can come to rescue. Having all information the customer needs means a 'First Contact Resolution' and no repeat calls for the same issue - something every business wants to achieve 100 per cent of the time.
6. Losing the competitive edge: Businesses that have an EDMS in place are far better placed to succeed in today's digital age. Lower costs, better communication, quick turnaround times (TAT), improved productivity and quality levels - all these make an organization highly competitive and give their rivals a run for their money. Not having a sound EDMS means one could lose out on these performance indicators and consequently competitive edge over a period of time.
7. Employees Are More Mobile and Loss of reputation: When a company's document management policy lack leads to a serious strategic or tactical error, it could result in the company's reputation being seriously damaged. This can jeopardize the organization's position in the market in the long term and have a cascading effect on other areas of operation. In the past, SharePoint users were often perceived to be safe within a secure perimeter working inside a corporate network, protected by layers of security such as email and endpoint security.
Employees now are increasingly mobile or remote. In the past, SharePoint users were often perceived to be safe within a secure perimeter, working inside a corporate network, protected by layers of security such as email and endpoint security. Organizations realize their business is at risk as employees are often outside the corporate network, protected by only one layer of protection their endpoint security. This is unreliable since endpoint security may become outdated when the mobile user is outside of the network.
8. Failing to comply with legal requirements: Laws such as a HIPAA require the maintenance of records in an organized way so as to be secure and accessible. Managing files and documents without scanning them is undoubtedly tougher than managing documents in electronic formats like the electronic documents are easily created, managed, stored, modified, shared, maintained and transfered than paper documents. Without a EDMS, an organization will have a tough time to organize its information repository so that it complies with applicable laws.
All the above 8 points can be easily controlled and risks can be avoided by switching to electronic document management. These discussed are just some of the situations that could happen to businesses who don’t adopt EDMS: delaying implementation of an EDMS can have a ripple effect in each of these areas. As with everything else, the hardest step is the first step toward change. Organizations worldwide who have taken this step have seen their operations transformed, getting a return on investment (ROI) that is worth the resources invested by them. Custom SharePoint development teams are can help you migrate from diverse technologies to latest versions of SharePoint including 2013 version while sticking to the allocated budget and time schedules.
We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
SharePoint is a rich tool and offers extensive features for a better, customized and organized work flow. It enables to make processes easier and swift that enables organizations to make the best out of their employees. It is the best CMS that enables to manage huge amount of content effectively.
We live in a competitive world and latest technologies emerge to enable to deliver the best results possible. SharePoint is Microsoft's tool that enables to build richer attractive websites. It is considered to be the most popular collaborative tool that provides all the necessary tools to manage people and content effectively. This platform makes it easy for employees of an organization to share ideas and engage smoothly in knowledge sharing activities.
Some of the free tools which helps admins while customizing their websites are as follows:
1. Microsoft's SharePoint Administration Toolkit 2.0 (for 2010 and 2007 versions)
Microsoft bakes a bunch of nice things into this little add-on, including a kit that generates test loads to check how well any SharePoint deployment runs. It includes another important addon for the Security Configuration Wizard so one can harden the profile of deployment through Windows Server 2008. The SPDiag 3.0 utility is most useful. It grabs a heap of statistics from all the servers in a SharePoint farm, interprets them and presents them in a very neat and customized report.
2. ManageEngine's Free SharePoint Health Monitor Tool
For smaller SharePoint deployment, this lightweight tool gives just an overall rollup of SharePoint farm's health status at a glance. The ManageEngine Free SharePoint Health Monitor fits this bill nicely, giving a conveniently efficient dashboard view where one can see the details about the memory, CPU and disk space usage for each server running SharePoint. It can be drilled down into the SharePoint workload itself to see the response time, service status, Web server (Internet Information Services) process details and even SQL Server details such as buffer cache hit ratio, cache memory and free pages.
3. IntLock's CardioLog Analytics Free Edition
If systems have a quarter of a million page views or fewer per month, one can use this free tool to help which finds out the sites employees are using, how long they are typically engrosed with those websites and what areas of those websites are most used. It installs quickly and is compatible with all kinds of versions of SharePoint, even the latest new SharePoint 2013. One can easily upgrade to the paid version where the free edition has all of the same features, with the only differences being the page view tracking limit and allowing for web-based support.
4. Microsoft's SharePoint Designer (for 2007, 2010 and 2013)
Designer is like the FrontPage web design tool of the SharePoint world. One can use it to customize the look and feel of SharePoint websites, create and modify simple workflows and personalize a SharePoint deployment at ease. If one have a large SharePoint deployment with multiple versions running at the same time, one must use the Designer version specific to the particular SharePoint edition.
5. Idera's Free SharePoint Admin Toolset
This is a combination of seven tools in one, a site monitor is present to check up on any SharePoint sites one manages, a space trends report to track using disk space on deployment for folders, libraries and websites, a handy accelerator that essentially rebuilds the database indexes on the SQL Server instance managing SharePoint deployment, a clean report to show how much SQL database space deployment is consuming, a permissions analyzer to show what users can access which specific websites and libraries, a smart tool to compare the configurations of site collections to see where they are different and a quick admin tool that brings together most frequently used links to SharePoint Central Administration. A very smart tool set to make tasks easier and smart way to deal with.
6. Idera's Free SharePoint Performance Monitor
To have a detailed information at what is happening under the hood of any SharePoint farm, this great tool Idera's Free SharePoint Performance Monitor is used. This tool gives a holistic overview of the performance statistics and metrics for SharePoint itself, the SQL Server instance on any given server and information about the host's operating system and memory configuration. The tool also can be configured to send simple e-mail alerts when one of the performance indicators does not work. One can also monitor multiple websites at a time for their deployments and one can generate nifty graphs and charts about connections, requests, response time, pages, disk usage and many more.
7. McAfee's Network Discovery for Microsoft SharePoint
It is a good SharePoint-specific inventory tool. If one has overall responsibility for a network, one might not even know if one of departments has deployed a SharePoint server. The McAfee Network Discovery Tool for Microsoft SharePoint will scan the network to find SharePoint 2003, 2007 and 2010 environments and then display the results of its scan in a nice neat HTML report that shows in detail which servers have been deployed and what version they're running.
8. Axceler's ViewPoint for SharePoint
This is a great tool for visualizing in a convenient table form exactly which users have what permissions on any given site. This could be very useful in an auditing scenario or any environment where permissions can tighten without granting full access to users needlessly. One can choose to work from the graphical dashboard, to run and print reports to provide to management or to work through with any administrative tools. It works with both SharePoint 2010 as well as SharePoint 2013 deployments. It even requires full SharePoint administrator permissions to do its job properly.
9. Quest's Server Administrator for SharePoint
This great tool is suitable on SharePoint 2007 and 2010. It lets to see which parts of farm configuration are affecting the security, performance and availability of deployment. It helps to build PowerShell scripts to maintain environment. It also helps with a migration to SharePoint 2010 from 2007, required to get to SharePoint 2013 as well, by showing which parts of deployment are ready for the upgrade and which are not. And it provides an intelligent rating to show what is most important to upgrade before one begin against what would simply be "nice to have."
10. SharePoint SUSHI
SharePoint SUSHI is an open source project hosted on CodePlex that essentially takes the most common administrative tasks and puts them in one convenient tool. SUSHI, which bills itself as a "Swiss army knife for SharePoint," stands for SharePoint Utilities with a smart and useful interface. One can view the lists and sites of any given user can access, which is really helpful for looking at effective permissions, upload user photos as profile images, back up and restore sites; apply a theme to a group of sites with one click and much more.
11. Clockwork Software
It is SharePoint Migration Tool, reliable migration of documents from old ECMS to SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013. From any SQL Server based ECMS (EDRMS, DMS, CMS) with files stored on a network drive or share. ECMSs such as Hummingbird DM6, DOCs Open, Worksite, FileNet etc. Migrate all versions and metadata (including managed metadata).
- Migrate to SharePoint libraries and folders
- Apply document level security if desired
- Currently in use on migration projects totalling about 2 million documents
- Good for small migrations with a cost effective pricing scheme.
12. Metalogix
It can migrate content into SharePoint from just about any source system. From one SharePoint version to another (2003, 2007, 2010, WSSv2 or WSSv3), from various Enterprise Content Management systems (eRoom, Stellent, Livelink) and from file systems, exchange public folders, blogs and websites.
13. PCVITA Express Migrator
It is SharePoint comprehensive too designed for enterprise to migrate content to SharePoint as part of SharePoint migration strategy that goes above and beyond other traditional SharePoint migration software, thereby allowing to have visually architected migration. It provides an effective and simple solution for enterprise to migrate their business-critical data from different repositories (Lotus Notes, File Share, File System, Public Folder and SharePoint etc) to Microsoft SharePoint Server. The SharePoint migration product granularly migrates content while keeping all the associated metadata & permission intact.
14. Vyapin
A powerful tool for developing SharePoint application for migrating documents, NTFS permissions, data and their associated metadata properties from network file shares, file servers and local hard drives to Microsoft SharePoint 2013, Office 365 (SharePoint Online), SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2007. Here are the list of functions it provides such as migrate folders and files into SharePoint libraries from various file servers and network shares. Carry forward default file properties, including custom Office document properties to the respective documents in SharePoint. Automate entire migration process, with the ability to correct and rectify migration errors using the pre-migration validation tool. Migrate content from file shares to on-premise SharePoint servers and SharePoint Online in Office 365 (Standard) environment using a single application.
15. Tzunami
This Deployer tool offers a cost-effective solution for migrating and consolidating multiple content sources into SharePoint. It supports almost all versions of SharePoint, from SPS 2001 to SharePoint 2013. Automating the entire process of migrating unstructured content. SharePoint offers multiple benefits for enterprises big and small. It is for this reason that enterprises are stressing on this particular technology for enabling them to function optimally. It enables to increase employee productivity and enables them to remain more focused with their work. It can function as an effective content management system, document management tool and collaborative platform. Businesses have profited much more with this awesome tool and it has enabled to enhance business initiatives. To get maximum benefits of Sharepoint, you may consider hiring services of a certified SharePoint development company to assist you in your development needs.
We provide SharePoint site migration services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Intranet is gradually turning out to be a prerequisite for organizations and this is mostly because it enables centralized and effective information sharing as well as management. However, an intranet is not sufficient when it comes to connecting the management, suppliers, customers as well as partners in the best- possible way. Creating a direct extranet SharePoint site comes up as a possible solution to this problem. While developing your company's extranet, you have a few options to choose from. These options are In-house, Hybrid and Private Cloud. Here is a brief discussion about these three modes along with the factors you have to consider in the process of implementation of the extranet.
In-House Deployment
SharePoint, the popular web application development platform, already poses certain challenges with respect to connecting with the external users. You need to consider as to which third party solution needs to be installed for the purpose of offering the end-users with the sign-in as well as password reset capabilities. Now, the forum-based authentication is usually more preferred over the claim-based authentication.
Deploying an in-house SP extranet for your business requires you to spend substantial amount of time and money. The assistance of the infrastructure experts is extremely essential in this regard. Taking this into consideration, organizations are found going for the other options with respect to the site hosting that help in quick accomplishment of projects apart from remaining within the stipulated budget.
Public Cloud Deployment
Public Cloud Deployment or signing up for the SP hosting services on a platform called SaaS is a cost- effective option for businesses as, it is considered a low cost model. As far as the basic collaborative features are concerned, the hosted SP foundation solution offers unlimited access for users, hence, facilitating addition of multiple external users. However, licensing is a better option if you are looking for the highly advanced SP server features.
On the flip side, connecting the on-premises intranet with the extranet located in the public cloud hosting platform is not a feasible option. Even with a recognized provider by your side, data security would come across as a major point of concern.
Hybrid or Private Cloud
It is obvious for anyone to prefer the private cloud hosting solution for the extranet because it comes up with excellent flexibility along with control of on-premises deployment. Again if you are looking for low cost and scalability, a public cloud solution such as Office 365 is preferred. Private Cloud hosting is indeed the best- suited option for the small to mid-sized organizations attempting at combining the intranet and the extranet. At the same time, a hybrid deployment including the process of having two sites on one farm is also facilitated.
Now, running a hybrid solution implies keeping the intranet in-house while hosting the extranet in the cloud. The challenge lies in allowing internal users to move from intranet to extranet and also the other way round. SharePoint's newest claims feature enables choosing the claim type characters while making the connection between farms actually more hassle- free than with SP 2010.
The good thing is that even though you start with two different environments, that is, the intranet and the extranet, connections can still be made and content published from the on-premises intranet to the extranet hosted somewhere else. In fact, it becomes simpler to move the complete intranet to a similar private cloud. Cross-site publishing enables two sites to connect easily while also making it easier to implement with least amount of involvement on part of the SP administrators.
All said and done, your company's extranet will certainly be of substantial benefits provided you make the right choice and take the right decision. This would help you leverage the benefits of SharePoint application development.
We provide custom SarePoint development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Every time a software company brings out a new technology or product in the market, the focus is directed towards the endeavor of catering to the demands of users/customers concerning a specific functionality. Owing to such a need, companies often take route to creating an all – inclusive administrative solutions with the aim of selling a complete package. However, it must be noted that all documents and data created within the system often holds onto an importance, which reaches beyond commercial lifetime of a particular application of creation.
The importance of documents and data often surpasses the actual scope of parent or main application. For instance, documents that have been created in a proprietary system of document management might require an access from a corporate intranet or data present within system of custom relationship management might serve as an input to process of business documents creation.
Now, introduction of SharePoint 2013 has brought into fore the prospect of an effortless integration between a particular application and other external systems that has been implemented within technologies that are not of Microsoft. Well, in such a scenario, the RESTfull web service of SharePoint API increases communication with web application of Java. The chrome control of SharePoint enables the web application of Java to feature a similar kind of styling to that of hosted website.
The Layer of Communication with SharePoint
The web application of Java communicates to a car list in the hosted web, which is referred to as the Interopl and the data list is named as the Cars. The list features columns referring to the model, bran, and price. This particular application is named the Cars App and here is a quick look at the dependencies of the same within Java implementation.
- json-lib 2.4 – helper classes influencing Json objects
- resteasy-jaxrs 2.2.1.GA – RESTEasy enabled an easy access of the RESTfull SharePoint API
- commons-httpclient 3.1- dependent on RESTEasy
- httpclient 4.1.1 - dependent on RESTEasy
- spring-web 2.5.6
- spring-core 2.5.6
- spring-webmvc 2.5.6
- commons-logging 1.1.1
The Car service has been defined in order to write and read into Cars list featuring declaration file CarService.java. The implementation of Cars service features a member variable, which define parameters of authentication along with web service URIs endpoints pertaining to SharePoint and Cars list field names.
The particular service also incorporates a number of helper methods. The callRestEasyService helper methods read the data by conducting a HTTP Get as against the RESTfull API of SharePoint. The URI that is given in the req parameter defines just what is being recovered and retrieved. It strictly follows the protocol syntax of OData. In this particular scenario, it would refer to the items of the Car list.
To go for object creation in SharePoint through the RESTfull API, which refers to the Cars list items, it is required to provide a Form Digest, which can easily accessible via a POST To the hosted web endpoint “/_api/contextinfo”. The addRestEasyRetrieveDigest helper conducts the posts and goes through Form Digest. The actual definition of URI is given in the urlDigest of the variable.
The addRestEasyPost helper enables object creation in SharePoint through POSTs as mentioned in the protocol of OData. This particular method helps adding cars to the particular list. The parameter req features the URI of object creation, which refers to the Cars list here. Another detail that is often regarded while creating objects is the need of stating the type. In the particular list, the items refer to the SP.Data.CarsListItem type, which follows the convention SP.Data.<ListName>ListItem.
The parseJsonDigestValue helper method integrates the JSON response from the “/_api/contextinfo” endpoint recovering the form digest.
The parseJson helper translates the response of the JSON to the payload class of Cars retrieving the list.The Cars service explains the method getCars to read the items; whereas, the technique insertCar is used to write the items.
Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide Java and SharePoint Integration services. If you would like to talk to one of our expert SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
DotNetNuke Corporation, a premier provider of adaptive web software which keeps the online presence of a business effective and relevant, came up with the availability of an improved SharePoint integration in the year 2012. This new SharePoint Connector is capable of rendering support to SharePoint 2007 as well as the 2010 version. It offers seamless integration between outstanding document management and web content management solution of DotNetNuke. Here we bring to you certain best practices which you must consider for proper integration.
1. Document Management: SharePoint is the finest document management system that is applicable for all businesses irrespective of the size. Utilizing this system, which is built within the cloud in order to make room for maximum accessibility and storage, group members are able to collaborate and share an apparently unlimited quantity of data and documents. It effectively integrates with Outlook and makes use of social tools for amplifying the organized, collaborative, atmosphere. It also facilitates transformation of raw data into interactive, beautiful reports by team members.
2. Integration with SharePoint: Automatic integration of DotNetNuke is possible, which implies that if the system is operated, no additional work is needed. But, when it comes to DNN Community, it can also integrate quite comfortably through custom modules. The goal is to develop a system which enables SharePoint to go for effective communication from behind firewalls with the public-facing website. This indicates that you will be capable of pushing documents towards a portal efficiently as well as safely on your DNN website. Filter rules can also be designed in order to find out where individual documents are going.
3. The DNN Enterprise: For those utilizing SharePoint as the document management system, and wishing to integrate the same into their website, the Nuke Enterprise edition is a good choice. With the help of this edition, custom integration is possible at a highly affordable cost. Through the connector, firewall issues can be bypassed and the content can be kept fresh, while publishing directly from the Document Library. Every document that is published is offered protection by the DNN role-oriented security network.
4. Avoidance of Firewall: Many companies make use of SharePoint as the document library and DNN as the public-facing website. In most cases this implies that the SharePoint server resides within the trusted zone while the DNN is made available to the public. All communications that take place between the two servers begin from the SharePoint server. This feature can be used without making any kind of modifications to the security policy.
5. Leveraging filtering views: The built-in views provided by document management system for filtering facilitate the use of the Create View UI. The views that have already been created can be used without the requirement for maintenance of two distinct filter sets. More time can be spent for development of core features as the time spent on development of filtering and associated UI features is reduced to a great extent.
6. Extended web application: When there is already a SharePoint web application making use of Active Directory for authentication, the same can be extended to support users from DotNetNuke. For this a DNS or hosts file entry needs to be created for the upcoming SharePoint site.
7. Modification of web.config files: A number of changes need to be considered within the web.config file in the SharePoint application. Before making any kind of modifications, it is advisable to create a backup.
8. Taking care of file size: With respect to the file size, DotNetNuke possesses an option beneath the host settings which limits the file size on the website. The files are compared against that number by the Connector. Files bigger than the stipulated limits of the website are not published.
9. Deletion from the document management system: In case “propagate deletions” is selected, the file that is deleted from the document management system also gets deleted from DNN. However, if the deleted file possesses references from a module, it will reveal broken links.
10. Handling permissions: Remember that permissions from a SharePoint to a DNN site are managed by DNN’s security model. It is not possible to manage permissions across SharePoint and DNN. This in because, in a number of cases, users and roles are different when it comes to the intranet and the public website.
Seamless integration, when effectively accomplished, empowers organizations to securely and effectively publish documents directly from SharePoint into their respective exterior-facing websites. Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our expert SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
While designing new websites the top navigation should be consistent as well as concise. The navigation which is also known as global navigation should include something around top 5 elements which will be most essential for your needs along with usage. Some good examples are links to subsites or pages. In fact, navigation inheritance should be used from parent site unless it is a private site and it must be totally isolated. The links should not exceed nine as it will appear to be too confusing as well as cluttered.
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