Empowering Businesswith

Hybrid Code/No-Code SolutionsBob GermanSharePoint Practice DirectorBlueMetal Architects

@Bob1German

About the Speaker

Bob GermanSharePoint Practice Director and Principal Architect at BlueMetal Architects

Developer and architect on the SharePoint platform since it was called “Site Server 3.0”

Co-author of SharePoint 2010 Development with Silverlight for Addison-Wesley

http://blogs.msdn.com/BobGerman

BlueMetal Architects We are experts at building solutions that exactly meet

the needs of our customers by apply the right people, processes and platforms.

Our focus is on modernizing applications through expertise in Creative, Social, Development and Data.

We have offices in Boston, New York, and Chicago.

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SharePoint People

Business Users

Business Technical

Power Users / Analysts

Business Technical

Developers

Business Technical

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Empowering the Power Users

How can we develop SharePoint solutions which empower business users to:

Maintain and update the solution Change the solution to accommodate new business needs Innovate

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Degrees of Freedom

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Agenda

Forms WorkflowWeb Parts

How can we add degrees of freedomto these solutions?

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A Question of Agility

Business Agility Business processes Products and services Scale Markets

Organizational Agility Can other orgs use something similar? How would a reorg affect the solution?

Technical Agility How will this work in the next version of SharePoint? How will this work in the next generation of client technology?

Low-hanging Fruit Sometimes it’s just as easy to build something flexible…

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Web Parts

Web Parts empower business users to build their own pages and mash-ups but…

Sometimes there isn’t a web part to do something For more degrees of freedom:

Find ways to make the web part general Allow for flexible editing Build a connectable web part that can be configured in a flexible way

Approach 2007 2010 2013 Beyond

Configurable Web Part

Yes Yes Yes Almost Certainly

Connected Web Part

Yes Yes Yes Probably

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Client wanted a web part that shows users the weatherforecast for their location based on user profile

Client liked Accuweather widget but it isn’t integratedwith SharePoint

Wanted the user’s zip code to drive the display

Scenario 1 – Weather Web Partdemo

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Client wanted a user directory web part to put on adepartmental web page

Scenario 2 – User Directorydemo

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Client wanted a collaborative “dashboard” showingall aspects of a property undermanagement

Scenario 3 – Collaborative Dashboarddemo

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Best Practices

1. Allow editing of HTML and other visual settings2. Think of similar / related use cases3. For complex configurations, consider using the web

part itself as an editing surface4. Consider breaking up special-purpose web parts

into connected general-purpose web parts5. Consider developing on the client side!

It’s the wave of the future – one of the primary methods for building SharePoint 2013 apps

It can lead to very responsive user experiencesWeb

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InfoPath Form

InfoPath forms empower business users to create and manage the forms but…

Sometimes you hit a brick wall when InfoPath can’t do something

For more degrees of freedom: Create a sandboxed InfoPath solution – users can still edit and update the form Create a web service that InfoPath can call

Approach 2007 2010 2013 Beyond

Sandboxed InfoPath Solution

No Yes Yes Maybe

Admin Approved InfoPath Solution

Yes Yes Yes Maybe

Custom Web Service

Yes Yes Yes Probably

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Scenario 1 – Look up Group Members

Complex approval process Approvers are selected from

Active Directory groups in the form InfoPath does not have a way

to enumerate an AD group

SOLUTION: Custom Web Service Set up as a secondary data source in InfoPath Configure using InfoPath Rules Form can still be edited by power users; web service is reusable in other forms

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Scenario 2 – Repeating Field

Repeating field in InfoPath – need to use it in a workflow

OOB options are – first, last, comma-separated We needed maximum function

SOLUTION: Sandboxed Form Code Could have used a custom workflow action to extract, but wanted to

adapt the form as well Users can still edit other form detail; no need for admin to install in

Central Admin

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Scenario 3 – Wildcard Lookup

Form for use in a marketing request Needed to allow users to select documents based on

awildcard, such as M*.pptx

No support from IT – deploying a web service not possible

SOLUTION: Sandboxed Form Code Uses SharePoint object model to query the document library Business users can edit and install the solution

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FormsSandboxed InfoPath Form

demo@Bob1German

Decision Matrix

Desired Characteristic Sandboxed Code

Web Service Farm Code

Business User Installable

Business Users can Edit the Form

Reusable in multiple forms

Can access data beyond site collection

Most likely to be reusable beyond SharePoint 2013

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Workflows

Business users can edit workflows as needs change over time, but…

Sometimes you hit a brick wall when the built-in or SharePoint Designer workflows don’t do something

For more degrees of freedom: Create a custom action for SharePoint Designer Create an event receiver that acts on an “Approval”

Approach 2007 2010 2013 BeyondCustom Workflow Action (Sandboxed)

No Yes Yes Maybe

Custom Workflow Action (Farm)

Yes Yes Yes Maybe

Approval Event Handler

Yes Yes Yes Probably

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Scenario 1 – Custom Form Processing

Workflow needs to strip attachments out of a form

SOLUTION: Custom Workflow Action – Sandboxed Solution Reusable anywhere All other logic can be handled in SharePoint Designer

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Scenario 2 – Update LOB System

Workflow needs to update a line of business system following an approval

Authorized users should be able to reconfigure the approval process

Unauthorized users should not be able to bypass the approval

SOLUTION: Event Handler as a Farm Solution Use OOB Approval form – site collection admins can reconfigure easily Event handler checks to ensure it’s running on the correct form and

library

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Scenario 3 – Site Provisioning

Users fill in a form and to get a SharePoint site Uses specific site templates based on user input Custom approval logic for deciding if the site should

be created

SOLUTION: Custom Workflow Action – Sandboxed Solution Whole workflow, approval, template selection set up in SharePoint

Designer Flexible action creates the site

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WorkflowsSandboxed Workflow Steps

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Best Practices

1. In general, custom actions for SharePoint Designer (or a 3rd party workflow) is most flexible

2. To allow use of OOB Approval workflow without SharePoint Designer, add an event handler that checks for item approved

3. For farm-level solutions, deploy to the bin in selected web apps (to avoid use elsewhere on the farm)

4. Build business rule checks into sensitive workflow actions

5. Return error flag and message to allow the workflow to handle exceptionsEx

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Summary

Always consider degrees of freedom beforestarting a development project- What parts of the business process are likely to change?- What skills to users have?- What permissions do users have?

Choose your technologies wisely- To future-proof your solution, pretend you’re running in Office

365- Sandboxed solutions will probably go away- Farm solutions might or might not be restricted in the future

Business Power Users are the SharePoint Heroes!

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Resources

Remember – bit.ly links are case sensitive!Connecting Web Parts (end user) http://bit.ly/SPT-ConnectWP-UserConnectable Web Parts (developer) http://bit.ly/SPT-ConnectWP-Dev Client Side Connection Sample http://bit.ly/SPT-Book (Chapter 7)Sample InfoPath Solutions with Sandboxed Code

http://bit.ly/SPT-InfoPathSamples

Debug InfoPath Forms with Sandboxed Code

http://bit.ly/SPT-InfoPathDebug

Create custom workflow actions (sandboxed)

http://bit.ly/SPT-WorkflowSandboxed

Create custom workflow actions (farm)

http://bit.ly/SPT-WorkflowFarm

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Thank You!

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