A practical guide to planning SharePoint for the first time

Business Track

Mark Stokes

Mark Stokes, MVP Red Plane Ltd http://www.redplane.co.uk Mark.stokes@redplane.co.uk @MarkStokes SharePoint User Group North West Leader

Agenda

Phase 1 - Requirements Phase 2 - Technology Selection Phase 3 – Environment / Data Suitability Phase 4 – Design Services / Platform Phase 5 – Design your infrastructure Phase 6 – Implement and test Phase 7 – Launch / Support / Refine Phase 8 – Business As Usual

Phase 1

High Level Requirements User Requirements

High Level Requirements

Start by forgetting all about technology. What is your business "problem" or "investment"?

More productive staff new / better intranet for internal communication enable remote / mobile / virtual teams connect with external partners / suppliers / clients improve business intelligence implement better records managements connect disparate systems into a single dashboard view better document / content / records management

User Requirements Engage users early to avoid resistance to changing

the way they work Ask their opinions on what you are aiming to achieve Find out their current pain points Understand the way they "really" work

Path of least resistance Build user requirements

What you think they want / need What they think they want What they don't know they want (Apple / Henry Ford)

Phase 2

Technology Selection

Technology Selection

When you know what you want to achieve, you can check that SharePoint is the right tool..... Or part of the right solution Know what SharePoint IS and more importantly what it

ISN'T Run your ideas by an experienced consultant to see if

there are known "foibles" with what you want to do Make sure you compare alternatives to prove you

made the right judgement should someone come asking Huddle, Google Apps, Documentum, Lotus Notes,

Umbraco, etc

Technology Selection

Based on your expected number of servers / users and Standard or Enterprise, get an early indicative estimate of license costs. SharePoint can be expensive. Make sure you can afford it.

Engage yourself in the technologies ASAP SharePoint User Group (http://www.suguk.org) Training Courses Prototype environment(s)

Phase 3

Environment suitability Data suitability

Environment Suitability Think about external systems that you might want to "integrate"

What are they? What APIs do they expose? How do they relate to other external systems? Can they handle / cope with the extra demand of being integrated

within SharePoint? Who are and where are your user objects hosted?

Active Directory? Non-MS directory? LDAP query to filter out unwanted objects (such as disabled accounts)

Where is User Profile information stored? AD? ADAM? HR application? SQL server?

Environment Suitability Who are your users and where are they located?

Central / single office? Multiple offices in the same country? International? On-the-road mobile sales force? Home workers? Locations with limited network access

– Building / construction sites?– Remote areas?– Underwater in sub-marines for 6 months?

Environment Suitability What does your network / internetwork infrastructure look like?

Can it will handle the load? Does it need some investment? Desktop and devices

What OS / browsers / office are your users using? Do they need upgrading?

Smartphone and tablet access? Support capability

Do you have the technical capability to implement / manage a SharePoint Environment?

Experience is needed, not just training courses Love and attention compared to most IT Services

Data suitability Where is your data currently stored?

Computer desktops File shares Exchange public folders Spreadsheets External systems

Can you "Tidy up" your data early on? Junk in, Junk out Collate content and categorise in folders Identify latest versions and remove duplicates Archive old data

Phase 4

Design your services Design your platform

Design your services Don't design a bunch of SharePoint Servers that the

business can use to host stuff on Do design the services that you want to deliver and

then build the infrastructure to support that MySites Intranet Publishing Site Search Portal etc

Understand the information flow around and between these services Information management lifecycle

Design your platform We are still not thinking about servers at this point…

Design your Platform with a long term strategy in mind You can make your life very difficult if you don't consider the long term

governance of the platform, e.g. How are managed metadata service applications going to be governed and used by the business?

Limit your scope and build a roadmap Ease it on to the business

– Limit requirements on the infrastructure to ensure it can cope– Less to go wrong, less to support– Less "change" for the users to learn– Less to deliver in each phase

Learn as you go Accept that you will never be "done"

Phase 5

Design your infrastructure

Design your infrastructure Where will SharePoint be hosted?

On-premises Azure Hosted Office365 Hybrid

Farm Structure Centralised farm Multiple farms (connected or not?) Services farm(s) (such as search) and content farms? Regional farms with / without a central core farm

Design your infrastructure

SharePoint Landscape Pre-Production farms (dev, test, QA) Production farm Disaster Recovery farm

Backup / Restore plan and SLAs

Phase 6

Implement and Test – Infrastructure Implement and Test - Services

Implement and Test - Infrastructure

Build the platform Test the platform Stress test the platform Test the Backup AND Restore processes Test the DR plan

Implement and Test - Services

Services implementation can start in parallel to your infrastructure Agree service pack and patch levels and

build developer environments

Phase 7

Launch Support Refine

Phase 8

Business As Usual Governance SharePoint CoE Constant Communication

Governance

Change Control process Deployment processes Governance plans

SharePoint CoE

Steering Committee SharePoint management Business / IT Contacts Projects Management Office Training / Communications Support Implementation (SMEs, Developers, Ias)

Constant Communication

Keep users updated on the roadmap Highlight new features Promote user self- support communities

Allow them to share tips and tricks Lunch and learns

Thank you for attending!