Finding Balance, Moving forward to Sharepoint 2010

Unless you are currently living in a cave (in which case it is unlikely that you would be reading this blog…) you are aware that Microsoft is going to deliver several game-changing applications in 2010, namely Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010, and Project Server 2010.  I feel fortunate in that QuantumPM has been participating in the TAP Training for Project Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010 for over a year.  I have had a good bit of time to look at the exciting new feature sets as well as the challenges presented by upgrading infrastructures and custom applications to run with the 2010 versions of our favorite applications.

Make no mistake, the collective changes to Visual Studio, Project Server, and SharePoint will be overwhelmingly positive!  But since I am a realist, I have to acknowledge that not all organizations can – or should – upgrade to the latest and greatest versions of these applications immediately. 

Previous experience in assisting organizations to upgrade from SP2003 to MOSS 2007 tells me that although there will be a fair number of “early adopters” for the a new version, there may be a 2-3 year lag time in getting some larger organizations into production on the new platform(s) – and that was moving from a 32 BIT version to another 32 BIT version.  The requirement to host SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010 on 64 BIT servers will present challenges to organizations that have not yet invested in a 64 BIT infrastructure.

Developer training will inevitably be a part of the migration process.  While Microsoft has made more and better documentation available for SharePoint 2010 in the pre-beta and beta stages than was available for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007, the SharePoint API has simultaneously gained breadth and depth of complexity.  The full potential of ASP.NET 3.5 has been brought into the SharePoint 2010 API, including LINQ, Entity FrameWork, JQuery, WCF service layers, and full-fledged Windows Workflow 3.5 integration.  It is unlikely that most organizations currently have development teams with experience in all of these areas of .NET. 

The single most important thing any organization, or developer, can do right now to prepare for Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010, and Project Server 2010 is to make sure that current systems and practices are in good order.  Review business practices around current systems to find areas that should be improved and create a realistic timeframe for setting your house in order.  Assess skills and training resources for your development team, and take advantage of the resources available from Microsoft to get your team fully trained in ASP.NET 3.5.

Did I mention that QuantumPM provides training and best practices assessments?  We do!

Announcing QuantumPM MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 Developer Training

One neat thing about creating a ginormous open source codebase that covers examples of nearly everything a developer would want to do with WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007, is that we can use it as a resource for developer training. And that is exactly what we at QuantumPM have done.

The purpose of this developer-oriented review of MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 concepts is to demonstrate that SharePoint is a Business Application Platform built on top of ASP.NET that can – and should be – deployed to business users with the same level of attention to Application Lifecycle and Architecture as any other ASP.NET application. Although many interesting business use cases can be implemented using only the SharePoint UI, those manual modifications are not easily replicated across Development, Test/Integration, and Production installations of SharePoint. Additionally, the UI tools available even to SharePoint Administrators only expose a small portion of the powerful functionality available for business applications.
The training we offer is a practical approach that uses a huge existing codebase (IPM Codebase). Leveraging the existing codebase we can greatly increase the spin-up time of developers on MOSS by showing real life implementations and limitations. 3 four-hour training sessions with 2 hours of lab exercises to follow each session.
Day 1: Architecture Overview
Topics including: SharePoint Sites and Site Collections, SharePoint Lists, SharePoint Service Layer, Feature Scope, Context and Security
Day 2: Creating SharePoint Artifacts with Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Topics including: WSS Solutions and Features Framework, STSADM and Visual Studio 2008 Build Process, Visual Studio 2008 Project Structure, Content Types and .NET DataTypes, Using SharePoint Fields and Custom Fields, Creating Lists and Views Programmatically
Day 3: Deploying SharePoint Artifacts with Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Topics including: SharePoint Layouts Applications, ASP.NET 3.5 WebParts in SharePoint, Planning for Application Lifecycles, Testing and Debugging with SharePoint, SharePoint and Windows Workflow

Register for QuantumPM SharePoint Training for Developers

QuantumPM and the Idea Project Management Codebase

In December 2008 Microsoft presented QuantumPM with the opportunity to take a demonstration application called “Innovation Process Management” (IPM) Solution and transform it into an extensible codebase built on QuantumPM SharePoint Solutions and Features Framework.

Many months of work later, we were able to deliver an installable framework including the IPM v3 Proof of Concept Deployment Kit (IPM Kit) and the IPM CodeBase.  The IPM CodeBase contains sample code and an API framework demonstrating most of the available technologies in MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0, with integration to Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server.

The IPM Kit was developed in two  stages:

Stage 1:  capture the original demonstration environment in a base Visual Studio 2008 solution that could facilitate developer-centric learning and enable Microsoft Partners to extend and modify the demonstration application.

Stage 2:  incorporate a set of frequently requested architecture changes into the kit (custom themes, AJAX enabled webparts, better integration with PPS).

The IPM Kit creates a configured Project Server Instance, Portfolio Server Instance, and base site location for the Idea Home. The deployment application also makes the appropriate changes to integrate the applications for use and creates local users to match those in the demonstration databases. The final action of the deployment application is to execute a script that deploys the IPM V3 demonstration environment into a SharePoint farm.

The IPM CodeBase  is a Visual Studio Solution for modification, customization and extension of the IPM V3 demonstration environment and creation of subsequent installers.

Both the IPM v3 Proof of Concept Deployment Kit and the IPM CodeBase were updated in August 2009 for use with Microsoft EPMV4 virtual environment.  If ou don’t already have the EPMv4 VHD, follow the directions here  to download and get it running in your environment.

Introducing the QuantumPM SharePoint Lab

Welcome to the QuantumPM SharePoint Lab!  In this weblog we will be posting information about core techniques and best practices for using and deploying MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 in enterprise environments.  Some of our upcoming topics will include:

• Advice for Developers on creating Enterprise custom applications for MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0
• Integration between MOSS 2007 /WSS 3.0 and Microsoft Project Server 2007
• Preparing your organization for the transition to SharePoint 2010, including a brand new paradigm for Project Server hosted entirely in SharePoint 2010
• Information on SharePoint training available from QuantumPM for developers, project managers, and end users

We also welcome suggested topics from our readers about problems they have encountered in deploying MOSS 2007 and Project Server 2007.

Helpful links:

QuantumPM website:  http://www.qpmusa.com/QuantumPM.html

Training Courses and Schedule:  http://www.qpmusa.com/SharePoint-Training.html