1. SharePoint Development Overview
Welcome to the
Minnesota SharePoint
User Group
February 13th, 2008
SharePoint Development Overview
Neil Iversen

2. Agenda Introductions Part 1 Break Part 2 Q & A

3. User Group Goal / Objectives
Develop and support a local community focused on Microsoft SharePoint Technologies
Educate user group members about SharePoint Technologies
Transfer knowledge within the community
Communicate best practices
Introduce new products / solutions

4. Introductions – MNSPUG Sponsors
Inetium (
Technology consulting company
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Practice area focused on SharePoint
New Horizons – Minnesota (
Training on many technologies
Microsoft (

5. www.sharepointmn.com Website for user group
SharePoint resource documents
SharePoint resource links
RSS Feeds
Meeting Schedule
Past User Group Presentations

6. Upcoming Schedule Next Meeting
March 12th 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Microsoft’s Bloomington Office
Topic: TBD – Check for updates!
Ongoing Schedule
2nd Wednesday of every month
9:00 to 11:30 am

7. Other Events
Minneapolis Office Developer Interest Group *New Thursday, February 21st 5:30 PM Microsoft Bloomington Office
SharePoint Server 2007: ECM (Enterprise Content Management) Thursday, March 13th 8:30 AM to Noon At New Horizons - Edina (see their site for more details)
SharePoint Server 2007: Branding Wednesday, March 19th 8:30 AM to Noon At New Horizons - Edina (see their site for more details)
SharePoint Server 2007: BI Deep Dive (Business Intelligence) Wednesday, March 26th 8:30 AM to Noon At New Horizons - Edina (see their site for more details)

8. Other Events
Twin Cities MPA Free Lunch ‘n’ Learn February 29th 12:00 – 2:00 PM – Microsoft Bloomington Office Managing Resource Utilization using Microsoft Project Leveling RSVP at
The Official Industry Association for Microsoft Office Project
High Monkey Consulting - Virgil

9. Conferences
Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference 2008 – March 2-6, 2008 SOLD OUT Seattle, WA
Tech Ed – Developers – June 3-6, 2008 Tech Ed – IT Professionals – June 10-13, Orlando, Fl

10. Blog Posts / News: SharePoint Team Blog:
New Visual Studio Extensions for WSS
DoD Resource Kit for MOSS
A bunch of new tools and best practices….

11. Overview Introduction SharePoint Tools Common Scenarios
When not to use SharePoint
Q&A

12. Introduction Why Develop? Who Can Develop? Add new functionality
Tailor existing features to specific needs
Use Line of Business Data in SharePoint
Create tighter integration between different systems
Who Can Develop?
Different levels of ‘development’:
Administrators - Configuration
Super (Duper?) Power Users - Customization
Developers - Development
Develop – Extending beyond the simple customizations.

13. Introduction Why present on Development to a Non-Developer Audience?
Half the battle: Knowing what is possible
Identify new uses for current technology
Identity bad uses for current technology
Many corporate decisions aren’t made by technical people
What Can I use to Develop?
It’s a big platform
Bad uses: ‘Do this in SharePoint’ when it doesn’t fit

14. What Can I use to Develop?
Core Toolset
Office Suite
SharePoint Designer
InfoPath
Excel
Visual Studio
I’m glad you asked
- There isn’t just one answer
- Pick the right tool for the job

15. Core Technologies
Core technologies common across SharePoint Customization/Development
Office Applications
Easiest way to alter SharePoint, Power User friendly
Limited in size of potential change, deployment concerns, potential brittleness
Examples: InfoPath, Excel, SharePoint Designer
HTML/XML/XSLT/Javascript
Can create powerful customizations, without deploying code
Some specialized knowledge is usually required
Examples: Master Pages, Content By Query, Search Results
.NET
Extremely powerful, offers most functionality
Also requires the most knowledge and infrastructure
Examples: Web Parts, Workflows
Difficulty

16. Getting Started With SharePoint Development
Understanding the environment
How to interact with SharePoint
Knowing SharePoint’s capabilities and limitations

17. (Programatically) Reach out and Touch SharePoint
3 Main Developer Access Methods (APIs)
SharePoint Object Model
SharePoint Web Services
Remote Procedure Calls (RPC)

18. SharePoint Object Model
Nearly Complete Access
Can hit almost everything in SharePoint
Simple to Use
Much easier than other methods
Comfortable development paradigm
Widely Used
Support: Newsgroups, books, presentations…
Used internally to support various actions
Not Remoteable

19. SharePoint Web Services
Provide a standardized way to access
Language Independant
Doesn’t support all operations
Different versions have different abilities
Needs some XML parsing

20. Remote Procedure Calls
Most capable of the Remote Options (for Document Scenarios)
Most dangerous as well
Powers some Office Suite SharePoint integrations
Difficult to use
Poorly documented

21. SharePoint is an ASP.NET Application
A really big, slightly scary, extremely complicated ASP.NET application
Core skillset from traditional development is still valid
Can actually run an ASP.NET app under SharePoint
ASP 2.0
SharePoint
ASP App
Just like any ASP .net app you would write…except…
SharePoint
SP Site 1 SP
Site 2
ASP App

22. SharePoint as a Development Platform
Now we know a little ‘how’, what about ‘when’?
How do I know my project is a good fit for SharePoint?

23. Key SharePoint Development Platform Scenarios
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Hey! What happened to my wheel?

24. Personalization General MySites The Ubiquitous Web Part
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Personalization
General
SharePoint knows who you are, except on the internet
Creates an immediate context for the user
Security first, tailor the view later
Requirement for display based on individual or role
Profile can provide role information
MySites
Personal Location for users
Customize look and feel
Real value is in the user’s context
The Ubiquitous Web Part
Most common development activity…in V2
Supports ‘targeting’ to groups of users
Easily store preferences: For all users, or a specific one
Mix and Match with Web Part Connections
No UI Editor for developers: SmartPart eases the pain

25. Demo – Using WebParts Note - System Dropdown knows who I am
- Display Product List
- Filter via URL (Class)
- Content Editor Web Part
- Context Site Example

26. Personalization – What’d I see?
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Personalization – What’d I see?
Web Parts
Out of the Box
Content Editor Web Part – HTML Development
URL Filter - Configuration
Custom
SPWeb Property Setter - .NET WebPart or Code
Product Class Provider - .NET WebPart

27. Document Centric General Capturing Data Documents as Business Objects
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Document Centric
General
Dealing with Documents
Capturing data both in and associated with Documents
Capturing Data
Office Suite Uploads (files and Document Information Panel)
InfoPath Forms (and Forms Services) – Allows .NET Code
Custom Fields
Integrate with the Office Suite directly
Documents as Business Objects
Policies: Routing and Expiration
Event Handlers: Fire on events and set metadata, permissions or run other code
External Applications: Interface with the documents in SharePoint

28. Demo – Document Centric
Note
- Power of the Custom Field
- External Program interfacing with SP
c:\temp\SharePointFormApp\SPCodeCamp.exe

29. Document Centric – What’d I See?
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Document Centric – What’d I See?
Custom Field
.NET Code
Uses Object Model
Deployed to the Hive – XML/HTML
Uses JavaScript for on the fly rendering
Standard Windows Application
Standard WinForm Code
Uses SharePoint Web Services
Uses RPC for MetaData

30. Break

31. Collaboration General Workflow Other Options
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Collaboration
General
Multiple people need to work with the same files
Versioning and application integration make it easy
Routing becomes the biggest concern
Workflow
Out of the Box offers limited modifications
SharePoint Designer Workflows – Configuration and Custom Activities
Visual Studio Workflows – Harness the full power of .NET and the Object Model
Other Options
Mobile Views – Allow collaboration from anywhere
Extranet
ASP Forms Authentication
SharePoint Designer UI Changes
ASP Master Page
Content Pages
Direct Page Editing

32. Demo – Collaboration Note - Custom SharePoint Designer Action
- Custom Conditions: “If bike is in stock, then”
- Mobile is next slide

33. Customizing the Mobile Display
Customizations stored
\12\TEMPLATE\CONROLTEMPLATE\
Pages can be customized by the template and section
Title
Mobile_STS_HomePage_Title.ascx
Traditional ASP.net Mobile Development
- twist of templates, like a layout page
Mobile_STS_HomePage_Contents.ascx
Contents
Mobile_STS_HomePage_Navigation.ascx
Navigation

34. Collaboration – What’d I See?
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Collaboration – What’d I See?
SharePoint Designer Custom Action
Windows Workflow Activity
.NET
ACTIONS File
XML
Authorized Types
Configuration
Subset of full Visual Studio functionality
Can also create Custom Conditions
“Is the Bike associated with this item in stock?”

35. Multiple LOB Systems General Customization Development
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Multiple LOB Systems
General
Data comes from multiple Line of Business (LOB) sources
But who wants to go to multiple places to view it?
Options needed for visualization of data
Single source for Dashboard/Analytics
Customization
Business Data Catalog – XML Configuration
SQL Stored Procedures or Web Services can be used for advanced scenarios
DataViews – SharePoint Designer
Excel Services – Spreadsheets and limited logic available for consumption
3rd Party WebParts (Dundas, …)
Development
Web Parts - .NET to access any ‘inaccessible’ data or do advanced updates/UI
SQL Server Reporting Services
PerformancePoint/Business Scorecard Manager

36. Demo – LOB Data Note - BDC Filtering Demo - - Note XSLT
- BDC Item Lookup
- Dashboard Demo

37. CRM
AS/400
Deep Internal Links

38. LOB Systems – What’d I See?
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
LOB Systems – What’d I See?
Dashboard
Many different sources of information
Many different backends
Many different frontends
BDC
BDC itself is XML configurable
Configurable Pages for Database Records

39. Search General Customization/Configuration In Deep
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Search
General
Finding Data can be hard!
Customization/Configuration
Search Center – XSLT Configuration
Sources of Data: Extra file shares, databases through BDC
Indexing Enhancements – Best Bets, Thesaurus, Word Stemming
3rd Party (Ontolica, …)
In Deep
Programmatic Access – Object Model (3 ways), Web Services
Use ASP.NET to simulate BDC Pages to ‘crawl’ a database
IFilter – Add parsing support for a new filetype (like PDF)
Custom Security Trimmer – Enhance ACL for files on Non-Supported sources

40. Demo – Search Note - BDC Filtering Demo - Dashboard Demo

41. Search – What’d I see? SearchCenter Search Application
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Search – What’d I see?
SearchCenter
Search Tab – Configuration
Search Results – XSLT Customization
Search Application
.NET Application
Object Model or Web Services
Can perform SharePoint searches and retrieve resulting data

42. Administrator’s Development
Administrator’s didn’t get left out!
STSADM
New actions can be added (stsadm –o myaction)
Several community created actions
PowerShell
Not really built for SharePoint administrators in mind
Full .NET access to SharePoint Object Model
Custom applications and webparts can be deployed to Central Admin

43. Demo – Administrator Tools
Note
- BDC Filtering Demo
- Dashboard Demo

44. Wow, these all sound so wonderful
I bet deployment is a breeze!
Not Exactly
2007 Projects are more complicated than ever
Depth of changes to core functionality
Number of servers touched by a project
SharePoint 2007 Improves Deployment Experience
Solutions
Features
Want More?
Minneapolis Office Developer Interest Group (MODIG)
Next Thursday
Feature Development in SharePoint (for Developers)

45. When shouldn’t I use SharePoint?
Scaling/Sizing Concerns
Not a good place for CAD or large movies
SharePoint isn’t a high performance database
Don’t store all the transactions for your company
When a rewrite isn’t necessary
Hosting an ASP app under SharePoint might be all you need

46. Review SharePoint Toolset SharePoint as a Development Platform
Common Scenarios
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search
Administrators
When not to use SharePoint
SharePoint
Personalization
Document Centric
Collaboration
Multiple LOB Systems
Search

47. Q & A

48. References
SharePoint Search Bench
SmartPart
Andrew Connell’s Custom STSADM Commands
Inetium Blogs

49. Thanks for coming!