SharePoint Site Architecture Flat, Deep or somewhere in the middle?

Office 365 Vancouver 2018

David Drevero Digital Workplace Services Leado Office Servers & Services MVPo Saskatchewan SharePoint/O365 User Group

Where I am:o Twitter: @DavidMDrevero Email: david.drever@solvera.cao Blog: http://prairiedeveloper.como User Group: https://www.meetup.com/SKSPOUG/

Hi! I’m Joanne!

@JoanneCKleinjoannecklein@nexnovus.comjoannecklein.com

SharePoint & Office 365 consultant | Speaker | Trainer | Mentor | Saskatchewan SharePoint & Office 365 UG

Our Goal for Today

Dan Holme (@danholme)-Director of Product Marketing at Microsoft-SharePoint and Office 365 evangelist

“A decade of governance work with clients has *rarely* shown a subsite-based IA to sustain and serve well over time. Moving

forward, sites & hub sites, and graph/search are the way to go!"

Site Collection

• Top level site container

• 1 root site

• Can contain many subsites

• Many things are scoped at this level

Terminology

What’s scoped to a Site Collection?

Navigation Search PermissionsInformation Architecture

Features Branding StorageRetention & Disposition

Site Collection

• Top level site container

• 1 root site

• Can contain many subsites

• Many things are scoped at this level

Subsite

• Many subsites per site collection

• Subsite can itself be a subsite

• Few things are scoped at this level

Terminology

What’s Flat?

Site Collection A Site Collection B Site Collection C Site Collection n

…

250,000 site collections per farm 500,000 site collections per tenant

What’s Deep?

Site Collection A Site Collection B Site Collection C

…

2000 subsites per site collection

Provisioning

• Who can do it?

SharePoint Server

‘Farm Administrators’ SharePoint groupSharePoint Shell Access

‘Create subsites’ permission level

Who can do it?

Classic Site Collections

Global AdministratorSharePoint Online Administrator

SharePoint Online

Modern Site Collections

Everyone! Or…A security group you decide on!

Outlook SharePoint YammerMicrosoft

TeamsStaffHub Planner PowerBI

The SharePoint sites provisioned with each of these are Site Collections, not sub-sites!

SharePoint Online

Outlook SharePoint YammerMicrosoft

TeamsStaffHub Planner PowerBI

Provisioning

• “Control the sprawl” with a site-provisioning process

• Governance• Controlling what type of site is being

created

• What type of content is going in it?

• Site ownership

Navigation

Navigation Considerations

• Sub-Sites can inherit navigation from the parent site collection

• Site Collections require metadata navigation configured in order to have pre-set navigation• Each Site Collection requires its own term

set (copy term sets to make it happen)

• Also have the option of Structured Navigation

Navigation

Navigation (Classic site)

Navigation (Modern site)

Permissions

• Site Collections start clean

• Customized Security = Heavy Administration

• Even worse for modern site administration (self governance concepts)

• Different than Shared Drives

A

B

C

Inherits Permissions

Inherits Permissions

A

B

C

Inherits Permissions

A

B

C

Inherits Permissions

Inherits Permissions

Inherits Permissions

A

B

C

Inherits Permissions

A

B

C

A

B

C

Inherits Permissions

Branding

Branding Considerations

• Very similar to the “Permission Model”

Information Architecture

• How much and where is it required?

• Does deep vs flat affect Information Architecture?

Information Architecture Hierarchy

• Corporate Portal1• Division Areas2

• Project Sites/Workspaces3• Team/Community Sites4

• Personal Sites5

Structure and Governance

Communication Sites

** SharePoint Hubs to organize

Office 365 Group sites

** SharePoint Hubs to organize

OneDrive for Business

How much and where is it required?Modern Sites

Information Architecture

• How much and where is it required?

Type of site Information Architecture required?

Corporate/divisional sites Yes

Custom solution sites (PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, etc.) Yes

Team collaboration sites It depends

Personal sites (OneDrive for Business) No

Information Architecture in Deep structure

• Content Types/site columns defined for each site collection

Site Collection A Site Collection B Site Collection C

…

Information Architecture in Flat structure • Do you need to share across site collections?

• Content Type Hub…a “Special” site collection

• Scripts

Site Collection A Site Collection B Site Collection C Site Collection n

…

Content Type Hub

Information Architecture Tips

• Define Managed terms at a global level and share across site collections

• Always Site Columns over List columns

• Use Content Type Hub or scripts

• Aim to hit the “sweet spot” of IA on collaboration sites

Think Reusability. Think Usability.

• Even in deep structure, top level still controls some features

• Some features when enabled affect entire site collection.

Features

Search

How do you find content across a flat site architecture?

• Search and Office Graph

• Delve:• ‘Popular documents’• ‘What people are working on’

• OneDrive ‘Trending around me’

• Configured search web parts• Explicitly searching for something

Search is contextual

- Uses search scopes to do this

Out-of-the-box Search scopes: library/list, site, site collection, farm/tenant

Search in a library/list?

Results are from the

library/list

Search in a subsite?

Results are from

subsite

Search in site collection?

Results are from site collection

Search in a farm/tenant?

Results are from

farm/tenant

Storage

• SharePoint has “soft” storage limits

• Site Collections can allow for more space

• Sub-Sites may need to become site collections anyways because of storage

URLs

URLs

• URL limitations exist just like File Explorer

• Deeper the architecture -> longer the base URL

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing

What happens if you throw a lot of folders into the mix?

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing

What happens if you throw a lot of folders into the mix?

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing/active

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing/active/year

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing/active/year/2018

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing/active/year/2018/full_vendor_nam_cause_thats_what_people_do

URLs

Consider:

https://contosointranet.com/sites/divisions/finance/accounting/accountspayble/externalvendorinvoicing/active/year/2018/full_vendor_name_cause_thats_what_people_do/some_really_long_title_version_1-5_final_final_I_really_mean_it_this_time_final.docx

I mean seriously!! I can’t even…

Retention • Retention Labels• Publish Locations

SharePoint Retention

Microsoft Teams SP siteModern Team SP siteYammer SP siteModern Communication

SP site Classic SP site

Retention Policies

Over-arching

Retention Policies

Over-arching

Retention Policies

Over-arching

Retention Labels

Targeted Scenarios

Retention Plan, plan, plan

Archival

• Stale sites

Site Collection A

• Automated cleanup processes

• “Group Expiration for Office 365”

• Site Policies

External Sharing

• Only Two Places to Control External Sharing

• Sub-Site isn’t one of them

Flexibility

• Architecture Affects Effort for Org Changes

Momma?

Flexibility

• Architecture affects effort for org changes

• Backup\Restore strategies affected by architecture

• Architecture even affects ability to test or troubleshoot solutions

SharePoint Hub**Targeted Release

SharePoint Hub sites

Site Collection A Site Collection B Site Collection C Site Collection D Site Collection E

SharePoint Hub

SharePoint Hub sites

Site Collection A

Site Collection B

Site Collection C Site Collection D Site Collection E

SharePoint Hub

• Shared navigation• Look and Feel• News and activity roll up• Scoped search

SharePoint Hub sites

Site Collection A

Site Collection B

Site Collection C Site Collection D

SharePoint Hub

Site Collection E Site Collection W

Site Collection Z

Site Collection X Site Collection Y

SharePoint Hub

SharePoint Hub sites

Site Collection A

Site Collection B

Site Collection C Site Collection D

SharePoint Hub

Site Collection E Site Collection W

Site Collection Z

Site Collection X Site Collection Y

SharePoint Hub

Limit 50 Hubs per tenantHub can’t be part of another Hub

Key Points to Consider

• Provisioning

• Navigation

• Permissions

• Information Architecture

• Features

• Search

• Flexibility

• Storage

• URLs

• Retention

• Archival

• External Sharing

• Branding

• SharePoint Hub

Think long-term!

What We Think

Do you have a Site Collection / Subsite dilemma? Let’s talk!

Thank you!