Griffon Solutions Introduction To Share Point Administration And Governance

INTRODUCTION TO SHAREPOINT

World Class Web Solutions

MARCH 9, 2009GRIFFON SOLUTIONS | WWW.GRIFFONSOLUTIONS.COM | [email protected]

THIS CONTENT IS LICENSED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS 3.0 ATTRIBUTION-SHAREALIKE


Agenda

SharePoint Administration Overview

Membership and Role Providers

Logical Administration Levels

Farm Administration

Site Collection Administration

Site Administration

List and Library Administration

Workflows

The Importance of Best Practices

Governance




SharePoint Administration Overview

SharePoint is designed to be flexible and allow multiple ways of authenticating and authorizing users

Authentication and Authorization uses the new standard .NET Provider model = increases flexibility

It is also intended to offload the burden from the IT Team onto end users – therefore it has to allow delegation of administration

The logical concepts in SharePoint – site collections, sites, lists, libraries, and pages – can all be individually managed by non-technical people

OOTB Workflows even allow basic content approval for publishing

SharePoint manages its own groups, allowing staff to self-provision user permissions

Information Management policies can be enforced to handle auditing and usage, and there is full logging




Membership and Role Providers

Authentication and Authorization uses the new standard .NET Provider model – Membership and Role Providers

OOTB SharePoint uses the Active Directory providers. SharePoint can also use Kerberos and Windows NT accounts, SQL Server database, and Web Single SignOn (SSO).

Other Forms Based Authentication (FBA), ADAM, and LDAP integration are possible

Configurations are done in the web.config of each application = a little manual

In Central Administration you can set up different authentication “zones” for a web application to support multiple authentication types (example for an Extranet or Internet)

Shared Service Provider can import user profiles via these providers

These profiles can be added to SharePoint Groups




Logical Administration Levels

The following are the major administration levels in SharePoint:

Central Administration – manage the whole farm

Shared Service Provider(s) – groups related settings like search

Site Collection – Settings for toplevel site and all subsites

Site – Manage settings for an individual site and its elements

Page – Each page can be customized

Lists and Libraries – Permissions, metadata, and content approval

Workspace – Documents can have workspaces (= a site)




Farm Administration

A SharePoint Farm is a collection of servers connected to each other

Farm Administration manages the settings for all of these in 2 logical levels:

Central Administration – manage the whole farm

Shared Service Provider(s) – groups related settings like search settings or profile imports

In Central Administration you can specify the Farm Administrators

Service Accounts are used to run SharePoint services

Automatic Jobs are run on a schedule set by an administrator

Farm Admins can backup and restore entire content databases

IM Policies, Auditing, and Logging settings are specified here




Site Collection Administration

Each Site Collection can have its own unique settings

Each Site Collection has its own gallery for web parts, master pages, and site and list templates

Features can be turned on or off individually for an entire site collection

Metadata (Site Columns and Content Types) can be managed at the root

Site Collections have a recycle bin for administrators to restore accidentally deleted content

When setting up a new site collection, you have to specify a primary and secondary administrator

Several groups are created OOTB including Viewers, Contributors, and Owners.

Unused site collections can be set to automatically be deleted to free up space




Site Administration

Each Site can have its own unique settings but will usually inherit the parent site collection’s settings by default

Each Site has its own pages and lists

Features can be turned on or off individually for a site

Metadata (Site Columns and Content Types) can be managed at the site level too

When setting up a new site, you have to specify a site owner

A site is created using a Site Definition (OOTB) OR a Site Template (OOTB Site Def + customizations)




List and Library Administration

Lists and libraries are created automatically if the site definition or template includes them. You can always manually add a new list or library

Security is inherited from the site level but can be customized. Per item security is available

Users can have permission to read content in a list, contribute to it (modify content), or manage the list settings

Views can be created or customized to show or hide list columns

Settings on a list can include available workflows, searchability, alerts, and RSS Feeds




Workflows

OOTB Workflows can be used to handle approval and delegation tasks

Available workflows include content publishing approval (including for web page content) and translation

Many people use workflow created in Visual Studio, SharePoint Designer, or a 3rd party workflow solution to enhance the administration of SharePoint




The Importance of Best Practices

“Best Practices” refers to the fact that in SharePoint there are many ways to do something, but some ways are better than others

Best Practices are encouraged because they avoid common technical impediments and increase the chance of future modifications being successful

Best Practices tend to be created by the SharePoint community through trial and error, and require discipline to research and apply them

Each year there is a dedicated Best Practices Conference and many blogs speak about these and share their learning




Governance

“Governance” is a Best Practice. It is considered critical to the best use of a portal

It refers to the process of establishing and following a set of Best Practice policies for managing a SharePoint Farm

Examples of Governance topics include: End user training and support, establishing portal disaster recovery procedures, and content approval and archiving guidelines

Governance is usually managed by a top-level team who help decide what policies will be applied, and how

Governance varies for each organization as it is very Business-focused rather than technical

Governance Lifecycle - ongoing process often predating the creation of the SharePoint Portal and ending after the Portal’s end of life




Summary

SharePoint Administration occurs at different levels

Farm, Site Collection, Site, Page, List / Library, Workspace

Authentication and Authorization model is very flexible and relies on native .NET Provider Model

Administrators have lots of control over permissions, look and feel, and functionality of a portal

Workflows can be used to manage content

Best Practices are important for best results with a portal

Governance is a Best Practice that is critical to a portal’s success



Technology

Griffon Solutions Introduction To Share Point Administration And Governance