INTRANET DESIGNBy Michael Doyle

SharePoint Friday Honolulu

MICHAEL DOYLESharePoint Architect

Worked for EPA, Intel, Propoint, HCA, Deloitte, US Navy, CA State Lottery, Air Resources Board, Waggener Edstrom, etc.

Website: www.SharePointNinja.com

Twitter: @sharepointninja

Email: sharepointninja@outlook.com

Exam Ref: 70-332

Customizing My Site (2010)

Other BooksSharePoint 2010 Inside Out

Tale of Two Stones

WHAT IS AN INTRANET?

Define the business solution without consideration of the technology

Remove the word SharePoint from your discussions

Become technology agnostic

EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE 2

WHAT PLATFORM DO I USE?

Office 365 SharePoint Enterprise Edition SharePoint Standard Edition SharePoint Foundation

OFFICE 365 CONCERNS

No control over search crawls No server side code No access to database Additionally branding concerns Issues of slowness Have to go to Microsoft with any server

issues

OFFICE 365 BENEFITS

A whole lot cheaper Can bundle with other Office 365

products No server maintenance Much lower skill requirements

CHOOSING A LAYOUT PARADIGM

To be or not to be! Fixed Width

Fixed width allows much greater control on how the content is displayed but is much harder to design initially.

FIXED WIDTH SAMPLES

For 2010

http://fixedwidthsp10.codeplex.com

For 2013

http://www.n8d.at/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FixedWidthMasterPage.zip

Much easier to start with an example than from scratch.

MOCKUPS

• Mockups save time and money in the long run

• Enable end users and management to get a feel for the end product

• Start with at least three

• Take input from lots of people but leave decision making on final to just a few

11

BROWSERS

Firefox

Safari

IE8IE9+

OPER

ALots of issues with IE 11! But most have been resolved with updated

DEVICES

PCs and Macs

Smart Phones

Tablets

BRANDING A little goes a long way The last twenty percent will take

much, much longer than you expect

Try themes (2010) or Design Manager (2013) to get you started

Do not underestimate the power of pretty!

DESIGN MANGER

INTRANET ON THE CHEAP

Using the Standard version (or even the free version)

Going with the Team site template Cleaning up the landing page Client Side Scripting

USING CSS TO KEEP YOUR SITE CLEAN

Makes your site less cluttered Saves time and money on help desk

calls Shortens the learning curve Allows phased rollout of features to

end user

GETTING RID OF CHECK BOXES

Use some CSS to get rid of the check boxes via a content editor web part or the master page.

<style>.s4-itm-cbx{DISPLAY: none}</style>

Or on individual lists by editing the web part and unchecking “allow individual item checkboxes” in the tabular view section.

REMOVE HEADERS

<style>.ms-viewheadertr {DISPLAY: none}</style>

REMOVE RECYCLE BIN ANDVIEW ALL SITE CONTENT

<style>.s4-specialNavLinkList {  display:none;}</style>

TURNING OFF SOCIAL FEATURES IN SHAREPOINT 2013

Social Features Turned Off

Social Features Turned On

Farm level Social Feature

USING CSS TO HIDE SOCIAL FEATURES

<style>.ms-core-suiteLink{display:none !important;}.ms-siteactions-root{display:none !important;}</style>

HIDE THE CHROME IN O365

<style>

.ms-core-navigation { DISPLAY: none }

#contentBox { margin-left: 0px }

</style>

<script>

_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("HideBrandingsuite");

function HideBrandingsuite()

{

document.getElementById('suiteBarLeft').style.visibility = 'hidden';

document.getElementById('suiteBarRight').style.visibility = 'hidden';

document.getElementById('s4-ribbonrow').style.visibility = 'hidden';}

</script>

CHROME REMOVED EXAMPLE

TURNING OFF SHAREPOINT DESIGNER

• At the Site Collection Level (can be done at the web application level too)

• Must be site collection admin to change settings

EMAIL LINK IN SHAREPOINT 2013

Format as a number.

FEATURE STORIES

Keep it Fresh. Keep it Interesting.

PERSONALIZE CONTENT

• Links to commonly used items such as Timesheets and Paychecks

• Personalized information such as vacation available

• Picture links to person’s My Site

• ONE click is still the goal for important items.

• Popular items (my sites, search, tagging) need to be easy to get to and in familiar places

• Easy access to the home page from anywhere onthe intranet

Navigation

CONSISTENT NAVIGATION ISSUES

Each Site Collection has its own navigation Can use custom providers such as XML Files,

Web Services, or Databases SharePoint interface to manage navigation is

easy to use but limited (per site collection and two levels)

Writing your own is pretty straight forward with lots of examples online

MEGA MENUS

SECURITY GUIDELINES

Security Groups in SharePoint Groups Minimize the number of groups Security is a means to an end. Don’t

over do it. Third party products can definitely

help to manage security.

SEARCH INTEGRATION

Except for rare cases, search should be part of every page.

All encompassing search at top, specific search in main content area.

Extend search to other parts of network and use facets to refine

SEARCH BOX EXAMPLES

BEST BETS/PROMOTED RESULTS

Use promoted Results in SharePoint 2013

OFFICE WEB APPS

• Provides thumbnails

• On SP2010 and SP2013

• Allows multiple users to edit file at the same time

• Office Web Apps for SharePoint 2013 requires a separate server

MONITOR YOUR SEARCH

- Monitor crawl times- Tag, tag, tag- Delete unwanted content (weed it

out)- Adjust results based on what people

are searching on. (Search Service Application: Search Administration -> Web Analytics Reports

MANAGED METADATA

Open vs Closed Some is better than none Pick a central hub location and

consume the metadata from other locations

Managing metadata requires resources

Greatly increases find ability

MANAGING METADATA

Limited number of items that can be seen

Hard to navigate Use CSV files to

maintain large amounts of data

Same in 2010 as in 2013

INFOPATH FORMS

Best bang for the buck of any service InfoPath Web forms saves time and

money Client not required Worth the cost of the Enterprise edition Don’t program if you don’t have to

InfoPath is supported until 2023

MY SITE CUSTOMIZATION

Lots of work Politically charged Powerful momentum from social

networking Less is definitely more 2010, 2013 and even O365 are all vastly

different in their look and feel

MY SITE EXAMPLE

PROFILE REPLICATION

US

EuropeAsia

REPLICATION INFORMATION

Part of SharePoint Administration kit Overview at http://

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc663011.aspx

PowerShell interface Remember the DoSocialReplication

option Based on audiences and trusted My

Sites

CONSUMING THE USER PROFILE SERVICE

Can be a little tricky to set up Issues with creating My Site

Hosts Connect to Metadata service

as well Not recommended in

SharePoint 2013 due to bandwidth concerns

CONTENT DATABASES

Size should be guided by disaster recovery guidelines

General rule of thumb is still below 200 gig New technology can make content

databases in the terabyte size BLOB storage. Really make sure you can

recover these files.

LANGUAGE PACKS

For SharePoint 2010 Download at

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=3411

Service Pack 1 http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26629

For SharePoint 2013 Download at http://www.microsoft.com/en-

us/download/details.aspx?id=35492

SIMPLIFIED CHINESE EXAMPLE

Questions

49

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