Survival Skills for the Site Collection Administrator and Site Owner

1. Survival Skills for the Site Collection Administrator and Site Owner Scott Shearer SharePoint Evangelist/Developer FlexPoint Technology sshearer@flexpointtech.com

2. Who is Scott? • SharePoint Evangelist and Consultant for FlexPoint Technology • Based in Reston, VA • Done everything from System Administration to C# development to helpdesk • CPA • Former Stock Broker • Former Certified Financial Planner (CFP) • Past Certifications Held: MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MCT, CNE • Conference Speaker

3. How to Find Me • @ScottJShearer on Twitter • http://spconcierge.wordpress.com • sshearer@flexpointtech.com

4. FlexPoint Technology(They paid for me to be here) • IT Consulting firm based in Reston, VA • Cloud Technologies • SharePoint consulting, “development”, training • US Government and commercial customers

5. Disclaimer • My presentation today is based on my experience and research • It’s just my opinion….

6. Todays Agenda • Discuss as much as we can about • Dealing with SharePoint Security • Content Types • Dealing with end users • Promoting user adoption • Tips, tricks, etc… • Focus is on team sites and other internal collaborative sites

7. SharePoint Security • The top priority of the SCA is to secure the site collection • Its all about inheritance • “Trickle Down Theory” of permissions • By default, all objects inherit permissions from their parent • It doesn’t have to be complicated • Manage SharePoint Groups – not people • Leverage Active Directory Groups • Use Members, Owners and Visitors groups • Don’t assign permissions directly to users • Keep the top level site open to members of subsites, if possible • SharePoint doesn’t offer column level security

8. SharePoint Security Structure

9. SharePoint Security • Don’t make decisions on who should have site access • It’s not your data (usually) – data owner should make that decision • Have an access request and approval process with a “paper trail” (CYA) • Avoid the issue by using Active Directory groups • Plan and document your security structure • Keep it as simple as possible • If it starts getting complicated, think about another site collection • It’s OK to break inheritance, but think it through • The more you break inheritance, the harder it is to maintain your site • Permission Levels vs Custom Permission Levels • Site Owners group should own any group that you create • Don’t give users full control unless they know what they are doing • You’ll have to fix what they mess-up • SCA vs Site Owner

10. Governance • Have a written policy approved by management for creating site collections and subsites • Archive and/or delete site collections that are inactive for a specified period of time • Don’t keep project oriented sites around when the project is through • Never create a site when a list, library or page will meet the requirement • When a user asks for a new site, ask some questions • Keep the site structure wide rather than deep

11. Site Customization • Keep your sites as “Out of the Box” as possible • Time to deployment is accelerated • Much easier to maintain • Avoid upgrade issues • Don’t use Designer until you have exhausted what you can do through the browser • Don’t make changes to your master page for Team Sites unless you really really need to • The audience for your Team Site is your team • It doesn’t need to have “rounded corners” • Avoid upgrade issues

12. Understand Content Types and Site Columns • What is a Content Type • Template for collecting data in a list or library • Made up of site columns • All Content types inherit from another content type • Demo • Custom Content Types • Demo – create leave calendar

13. Why Use Custom Content Types? • Allows for a standard way to record a given type of data • Allows for slightly different types of data to be stored in a single list • Allows for reuse • Allows for easy updates • Allows for standard policies • Allows for standard workflows

14. Understand Content Types and Site Columns • NEVER NEVERNEVER ALTER OUT OF THE BOX CONTENT TYPES OR SITE COLUMNS

15. End User Adoption • Users don’t care about SharePoint • They care about solutions that help them get their job done • “What’s in it for me?” • Give users a reason to care • Save them time • Save them hassles • Streamline processes • Get Management Buy-in • Big Bang Theory • Not what they needed delivered too late • Roll-out SharePoint one app at a time

16. End User Training • Identify the power users in each office and spend your time with them • Show users what they need to know when they need to know it • “Just in Time Training” • If you use “out of the box” solutions, need for training is minimized • Make use of online resources

17. Learn to Love jQuery and SPServices • Easy customizations to your site • Selectively show/hide columns • Easy to find lots of examples • SPServices is your friend • jQuery library • Cascading dropdowns • Filter lookup columns • Retrieve list data • http://spservices.codeplex.com/ • Mark Rackley has some great blog posts that will help get you started • http://www.sharepointhillbilly.com

18. MS Access as a SharePoint “Swiss Army Knife” • Import data into SharePoint • Clean-up data prior to import • Export data from SharePoint • Combine SharePoint data with data from other data sources • Bulk updates of SharePoint data • Reporting

19. Miscellaneous Thoughts • Not all data belongs in SharePoint • Why move data out of Excel? • Relational data belongs in a relational database • DON’T CLOSE Web Parts • Slows down page load time • ?Contents=1 (Web Part Page Maintenance) • Don’t enable any feature unless you know what it does and you need it • Not all features “roll-back” cleanly when deactivated • Use Choice instead of Lookup Columns whenever possible

20. More Miscellaneous Thoughts • Never put spaces in the names of SharePoint objects when creating them • Create with no spaces • Add spaces to create “friendly names” after creation • Keeps URLs much shorter • Makes working with jQuery and JavaScript easier • Don’t replicate a share drive folder structure in a document library • Minimize the use of folders • Use managed metadata