intranets: the successes and the failures by michael doyle

INTRANETS: THE SUCCESSES AND THE FAILURES

By Michael Doyle

MICHAEL DOYLESharePoint Architect

Worked for EPA, Intel, Propoint, HCA, Deloitte, US Navy, CA State Lottery, Air Resources Board, Waggener Edstrom, etc.

Website: www.SharePointNinja.com

Twitter: @sharepointninja

Email: sharepointninja@outlook.com

Exam Ref: 70-332

Customizing My Site (2010)

Other BooksSharePoint 2010 Inside Out

Tale of Two Stones

WHAT IS AN INTRANET?

A single stop to deliver information to your organization

A collaboration tool

A publishing platform for departments to deliver information

WHY WOULDN’T I USE SHAREPOINT?

Total cost of ownership Ability to support implementation Large investment in other

technology that you can leverage Animosity toward previous

implementations may make success improbable

CHOOSING THE RIGHT OR WRONG PLATFORM

What version of SharePoint Foundation (gone in SP2016) Standard Enterprise Office 365

Should I even use SharePoint?

OFFICE 365 BENEFITS

A whole lot cheaper Can bundle with other Office 365

products No server maintenance Much lower skill requirements

OFFICE 365 CONCERNS

No control over search crawls No server side code No access to database Additional branding concerns Issues of slowness (especially random

unexplained slowness) Have to go to Microsoft with any server

issues

INTRANET FAILURE:PROGRAMMER EXCLUSION

Even if the goal is to minimize the amount of programming necessary it is important to include your programming staff in the development of your intranet Invite them to meetings Adapt to their talents Get some specific training on SharePoint

INTRANET FAILURE:ASSUMING FEATURES WON’T BE MISSED

Don’t assume you know what features that users find useful

Roll out upgrades to small groups of “friendly users”

Survey end users and walk through functions with them

INTRANET SUCCESS:REPLACING EMAIL LINK IN SHAREPOINT 2013

Format as a number.

INTRANET FAILURE:INCONSISTENT NAVIGATION

Inconsistent navigation confuses end users

It wastes time and time=money

People are creatures of habit so use that to your advantage

CONSISTENT NAVIGATION

Can use custom providers such as XML Files, Web Services, or Databases

SharePoint interface to manage navigation is easy to use but limited (per site collection and two levels)

Writing your own is pretty straight forward with lots of examples online

INTRANET FAILURE:7 CLICKS TO FIND A COMMON FILE

PDFs were not indexed (could not use search to find document)

The common forms and regulations were all in PDF form

Manual navigation took up to 7 clicks to locate a needed form or regulation

• ONE click is still the goal for important items.

• Popular items (my sites, search, tagging) need to be easy to get to and in familiar places

• Easy access to the home page from anywhere onthe intranet

Navigation

INTRANET SUCCESS:MEGA MENUS

INTRANET EXAMPLES

INTRANET EXAMPLE 1

INTRANET EXAMPLE 2

INTRANET EXAMPLE 3

INTRANET FAIL:TRYING TO SUPPORT TOO MANY BROWSERS

Firefox

Safari

IE9IE10

+O

PER

A

Chrome

INTRANET FAIL:CLUTTERED UP INTRANET

Remove items that don’t add value in an intranet setting Check boxes Headers Unused space (i.e. Office 365

header)

INTRANET ON THE CHEAP

Using the Standard version (or even the free version)

Going with the Team site template Cleaning up the landing page Client Side Scripting

HIDE THE CHROME IN O365

<style>

.ms-core-navigation { DISPLAY: none }

#contentBox { margin-left: 0px }

</style>

<script>

_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("HideBrandingsuite");

function HideBrandingsuite()

{

document.getElementById('suiteBarLeft').style.visibility = 'hidden';

document.getElementById('suiteBarRight').style.visibility = 'hidden';

document.getElementById('s4-ribbonrow').style.visibility = 'hidden';}

</script>

CHROME REMOVED EXAMPLE

INTRANET SUCCESS AND FAILURE:ENABLING SHAREPOINT DESIGNER

• Powerful tool for editing pages and creating workflows.

• Free to download• Dangerous in the wrong hands• Can make the intranet unusable• Can slow down the intranet for all

users• Need governance to control users

TURNING OFF SHAREPOINT DESIGNER

• At the Site Collection Level (can be done at the web application level too)

• Must be site collection admin to change settings

INTRANET FAILURE:STALE CONTENT

An intranet is only successful if people know to go to it

Fresh content means not only adding but updating and deleting

Updating content has to be part of a person’s responsibilities and not an ad hoc task (People need to be required to update the content)

INTRANET SUCCESS:FEATURE STORIES KEEP PEOPLE COMING BACK

INTRANET SUCCESS:PERSONALIZED CONTENT

• Links to commonly used items such as Timesheets and Paychecks

• Personalized information such as vacation available

• Picture links to person’s My Site

SECURITY GUIDELINES

Security Groups in SharePoint Groups Minimize the number of groups Security is a means to an end. Don’t

over do it. Third party products can definitely

help to manage security.

INTRANET FAILURE:TWO MANY SECURITY GROUPS

Company intranet (of 400 people) had over 120 groups that were not being used at all and growing almost daily. This made figuring out security very difficult and at some point would cause slowness in the system

OFFICE WEB APPS

• Provides thumbnails

• On SP2010 and SP2013

• Allows multiple users to edit file at the same time

• Office Web Apps for SharePoint 2013 requires a separate server

INFOPATH FORMS

Best bang for the buck of any service InfoPath Web forms saves time and

money Client not required Worth the cost of the Enterprise edition Don’t program if you don’t have to

InfoPath is supported until 2023

INTRANET SUCCESS:MY SITE CUSTOMIZATIONS

MY SITE CUSTOMIZATION CAVEATS

Lots of work Politically charged Powerful momentum from social

networking Less is definitely more 2010, 2013 and even O365 are

all vastly different in their look and feel

CONTENT DATABASE SUCCESS GUIDELINES

Size should be guided by disaster recovery guidelines

General rule of thumb is still below 200 gig New technology can make content

databases in the terabyte size BLOB storage. Really make sure you can

recover these files.

Questions

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