Things you shouldn't do with SharePoint

2016-09-22 Perttu Tolvanen (@perttutolvanen) / Congres SharePoint 2016 (Utrecht, Netherlands)

Things you shouldn’t do with SharePoint

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Advisor in buying intranet and web projects Intranet concepts, technology evaluations, implementation partner negotiations

Microsoft is building a new platform to replace Windows and Office (as their #1 cash cow). They want everyone to sign in through Office 365 – that is their main game. Intranets are not their focus right now,

especially not intranets for large enterprises.

Microsoft fights two battles at the moment: 1) Office365 to replace Office package as a “must-have”

product for organizations.2) Challenge Amazon with Azure as the platform to host

custom software solutions.</endoflist>

Business portals? Intranets? Web content management? Demanding document management? Answer: “Not interested.

Too busy with other stuff.” -Microsoft

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1) Strongly role-based intranet concepts• You shouldn’t build role-based

services/views with SharePoint since the audience targeting system is very limited and does not respect user access rights.

• If you are planning something like this, you should use a portal platform such as Liferay, IBM WebSphere Portal or other Java-based portal choices.


Tähän wireframe jostain, vaikka tampereen kaupunki?

1) Strongly role-based intranet concepts• You shouldn’t build role-based

services/views with SharePoint since the audience targeting system is very limited and does not respect user access rights.

• If you are planning something like this, you should use a portal platform such as Liferay, IBM WebSphere Portal or other Java-based portal choices.


Intranet elements for

group x



group y


group z


group f

1) Strongly role-based intranet concepts

• Especially if you are building an intranet+extranet concept where some partners or suppliers or part-time workers need to be able to access some parts of the service, you will be better off with a true portal system.


Intranet


Extranet


• However, if your plans are only for the frontpage, and you are not going to change the frontpage concept often, then building a custom “frontpage application” in Azure might do the trick!



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Somewhat limited/simple user access and rights management also applies to social channels. Yammer is not very easy to manage with a

large number of very different user groups, which is one key area where, for example, IBM Connections is much more capable (though

lacking in other areas, and user adoption is not very high).

2) Multi-country/language intranet concepts• If you have strong operations in

different countries, and you need strong language version management capabilities, you shouldn’t use SharePoint.

• Also, if you need powerful content re-use and/or content inheritance features, don’t use SharePoint.

• There is a large market of very capable web content management systems, use one of them!


Group intranet

Country intranet x

Country intranet y

Country intranet d

3) Documents as multipurpose business assets


Intranet

One document repository, but accessible through different systems, channels and services – and with strong metadata-based user access model.

CRM/ERP other

systems

Mobile apps for field workers

Intranet

3) Documents as multipurpose business assets


If you want to store your documents in a repository that holds all your documents and serves other business systems

through APIs, then you shouldn’t use SharePoint. Instead, you should use dedicated document management systems, such as Box, M-Files, IBM Filenet, Alfresco, Documentum,

even Dropbox.

vs.

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4) Intranets for thousands of “field workers”


For organizations with hundreds or a few thousand employees, Office 365 costs are typically

reasonable (especially when you look at it as a bundle that

includes email, calendar, Office app licencees).

For organizations with thousands or tens of thousands of employees , the costs can be very high – especially if a large share of employees doesn’t use Office applications in their work.

Server-based licencing still has

benefits, especially for large

enterprises.

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Summary: Things you shouldn’t do with SharePoint

1. Very role-based intranets/extranets

2. Multilanguage/multi-country intranets

3. Use SharePoint as a document repository

4. Pay Microsoft’s licence prices if you have thousands of employees who don’t need Office tools

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Perttu Tolvanen

Web & CMS Expert, Partner

Perttu Tolvanen is a CMS expert who helps clients choose partners and technologies for their Web, intranet and eCommerce projects. His daily work involves writing RFPs, analyzing proposals, meeting vendors and facilitating workshops.

[email protected]+358 50 685199

@perttutolvanenhttp://www.perttutolvanen.com linkedin.com/in/perttutolvanen

http://www.perttutolvanen.com/

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Things you shouldn't do with SharePoint