Benefits of Sharepoint 2010 As a Product Platform

Benefits of SharePoint 2010 as a Product Platform

For Independent Software Vendors and Enterprises Date published: November 2010

Authors: Owen Allen – Principal, SharePoint Directions Eric Bowden – Senior Consultant, ThreeWill Kirk Liemohn – Principal Software Engineer, ThreeWill Danny Ryan – Principal, ThreeWill Tommy Ryan – Principal, ThreeWill Pete Skelly – Principal Consultant, ThreeWill John Underwood - Technical Evangelist, ThreeWill Contributors: Geoffrey Edge – Senior Technology Specialist, Microsoft Corporation Kirk Evans – Developer and Platform Evangelism for Communications Sector, Microsoft Corporation Chris Mitchell – Technology Architect for Microsoft Technology Center, Microsoft Corporation Reviewers: Bill Arconati – Product Marketing Manager, Atlassian Software Systems Tony Clark – Director, Enterprise Architecture, Cox Enterprises Geoffrey Edge – Senior Technology Specialist, Microsoft Corporation Bo George – Senior Application Developer, Aflac Murray Gordon – ISV Architect Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation Adam P. Morgan - Enterprise Sales, Digital Marketing Platform Group, Microsoft Corporation Aaron Rafus – Technology Evangelist, McKesson Corporation William Rogers – Chief Workplace Architect, CorasWorks Corporation Scott Schemmel - VP, Global Information Technology at PGi Brendon Schwartz – Senior Platform Engineer, JackBe Corporation Cole Shiflett – Solutions Architect, Equifax Dr. Todd Stephens – Senior Technical Architect, AT&T Matt Waltz – Chief Technology Officer, NextDocs Michael Wilson – Solution Specialist for Office and SharePoint, Microsoft Corporation Summary During the 2009 SharePoint Conference, Christian Finn, Director of SharePoint Products for Microsoft, commented that given current trends, building products on the SharePoint Platform is the “new black.” To make his case, he cited the momentum of the SharePoint platform along with significant announcements from companies building integration with SharePoint into their products and services. This white paper, designed for Independent Software Vendors, software architects, CIOs, and other enterprise technology leaders picks up this discussion by addressing the perceived limitations that may cause development companies to discount SharePoint as a development platform when drawing up a technology roadmap – and illustrating the value of leveraging SharePoint as a Web Application Development Platform for those organizations. Contents

Why This White Paper...... 3 Perceived Barrier 3 - Lack of Integration with External or Relational Data...... 21 SharePoint Background...... 4 Perceived Barrier 4 - Audience for this Paper...... 6 Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Code Isolation...... 21 Making the Case for SharePoint...... 7 Is Perception Reality?...... 22 Does SharePoint Fit...... 7 Misconceptions of SharePoint as an Making the Case...... 8 Application Platform...... 23 Leveraging the Platform...... 8 Misconception 1 - Understand Your Value Proposition...... 8 A SharePoint Dependency Means Closed Architecture...... 23 SharePoint Platform Strategies...... 9 Misconception 2 - Connect...... 9 SharePoint Applications Are Too Restrictive...... 23

Extend...... 11 Misconception 3 - SharePoint Is Only a Document Repository...... 24 Build On...... 12 Misconception 4 - Platform Capabilities...... 13 SharePoint Cannot Be Used to Run Line of Business Applications...... 25 Infrastructure...... 13 Community Support and Tooling...... 26 ASP.NET HTTP Pipeline...... 13 Community...... 26 Application Security...... 14 Visual Studio...... 26 Service Applications...... 14 Debugging...... 26 Packaging and Deployment...... 14 SharePoint Designer...... 27 Office 365 & SharePoint Online...... 14 Third Party Tools...... 27 Content Management...... 15 Office 365 & SharePoint Online Resources...... 27 External Data...... 15 Next Steps...... 28 Business Intelligence...... 16 Feature Mapping...... 28 Search...... 16 Market Analysis...... 28 Workflow...... 17 Bake Off...... 28 Data Model User Interface...... 17 Pilot Project...... 28 And More...... 17 Consult with Others...... 28 User Interface...... 18 ISV Ecosystem Map...... 29 Platform Capabilities Summary...... 19 Key Resources...... 30 Barriers to Adoption as a Development Platform...... 20 References...... 30 Perceived Barrier 1 - Unique Developer Skill Set...... 20 Glossary of Terms...... 31

Perceived Barrier 2 - Footnotes...... 34 Closed or Restrictive Platform Services...... 20

2 3 Why This White Paper

As with any evolving product, there are false ceilings set due to people’s experiences with previous versions. The initial core features/capabilities for SharePoint were targeted to provide out-of-the-box features that made the product easy to use and administer for team sites and portals. The product was extensible from the beginning, but it was not architected for the mainstream developer. This focus has changed over the years and there are very compelling reasons that product companies should consider SharePoint in their technology roadmaps. The ability to leverage the rich features of SharePoint technologies is reason enough to consider SharePoint as a web development platform. Another key reason to consider either building on top of SharePoint or having a connection strategy with SharePoint is market opportunities that come from being associated with this popular platform (over 100 million licenses of SharePoint have been sold). The purpose of this white paper is to address the perceived limitations that typically cause product companies to discount SharePoint when determining a technology roadmap for their products. This white paper will dive into some of the features of the platform, including how a company could build a better product faster and take advantage of the rapid adoption and increased market interest in SharePoint as a platform. Also described in this paper are the Connect, Extend, and Build On strategies and the advantages of each approach.

3 SharePoint Background

SharePoint is now in its fourth version. It has matured over the past decade since its first versions of SharePoint Team Services (STS) and SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 2001. It is amazing to see the vision that the early SharePoint team had and how they have come through to deliver on that vision1. SharePoint, in the early days of its product lifecycle, provided an application for team and portal implementations. True customization was limited. Unlike subsequent versions of SharePoint, the two collections of services in its first version, SharePoint Team Services (STS) and SharePoint Portal Server (SPS), did not completely share a common framework.

With the second version, Windows SharePoint Services With the release of WSS version 3 and Microsoft Office (WSS) 2.0 and SPS 2003, a third-party developer community SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, a developer community for began to form. This community was primarily focused on in-house developers and consultants started to form, while the gap between SharePoint features and the typical needs the third-party developer community continued to expand for team sites and portals. These products often took form rapidly. The extensibility story became richer and the viability as components (such as a web part) that would empower of SharePoint as a web application development platform end users to put together lightweight applications. Also, the emerged. The services available to build upon in SharePoint concept of mashing up data from sources inside and outside of allowed for enhanced custom solution scenarios that could SharePoint started to take shape. Outside of the development leverage Windows Workflow Foundation, web content of third-party products, the developer community shied away management (via the incorporation of the Microsoft Content from SharePoint customization because the techniques were Management Server product), a rich event model and search often fragile. For example, the ONET.XML had to be changed to capabilities, to name just a few areas. make branding changes; yet this SharePoint system file has also had the potential to be changed in subsequent service pack updates, overwriting the customizations. Also, the SharePoint technology stack was executing in parallel to ASP.NET runtime instead of being built directly on top of it: SharePoint had a separate ISAPI filter and did not run through the ASP.NET ISAPI filter. As a result, SharePoint could not take advantage of the extensive features offered by ASP.NET.

SharePoint History To get a good glimpse of the product history read Jeff Teper’s post on SharePoint History. Jeff is the Corporate VP of SharePoint and provides a good perspective on how an early vision of SharePoint has prevailed over the years. As stated in the blog post, the strategy from the beginning has been: Great Integrated Solution Out-of-Box Web Workspace Compelling Office Integration Easy & Flexible Deployment

4 5 OOTB Content Extension Point Management Highlights

• Content Versioning • Event Receivers • Check-in/Check-out • Custom Field Types • Content Approval • Rendered Columns • Records Routing • Custom View Types • Information • External Data Management Policies • Custom Actions • CRUD UI • Custom Information • Social Content Management Policies • Workflow • Custom Workflows • Content Types • Custom Workflow Actions • Field Types • Custom Content Types • Office Integration • Custom User Defined • Offline Data Functions • Web Services • Custom Web Services • Search • Custom CRUD UI • Custom Search Content Sources

Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) Site Pages Customized Ribbon Custom Action Web Part Server Control

User Control

Server Control

Silverlight JavaScript Windows App AJAX AJAX SvcProxy Client OM Client OM Client OM

SharePoint Web Services Server-Side UI

SharePoint SharePoint API

Request Membership Authorization Provisioning Pipeline Provider

ASP.NET Authentication Content & Configuration Databases Scalability Deployment IIS SQL Server Architecture

Windows Server Service Application

Connect Extend Build On Integrate an existing Create integrated solutions Create solutions on top product with SharePoint to that extend SharePoint of the SharePoint enable the two products to feature offerings - or that infrastructure that leverage work together. leverage or include the breadth of SharePoint capabilities. capabilities provided by the SharePoint platform. SharePoint Background

With SharePoint 2010, the names of the component products have changed. The successor to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is named Microsoft SharePoint 2001 Foundation 2010 and the next version of Microsoft Office • SharePoint Team Services SharePoint Server 2007 is named Microsoft SharePoint • SharePoint Portal Server Server 2010. The term “SharePoint 2010” is often used as an umbrella term to refer to SharePoint services generically, without being specific to SharePoint Foundation or 2003 SharePoint Server. The developer story has also greatly • Windows SharePoint Services v2 improved in SharePoint 2010. Whether building composite • SharePoint Portal Server2003 applications without code or getting into Visual Studio and building a packaged solution, there are many tools and features available. In addition, the platform story has only 2007 gotten better in 2010 and is becoming a key strategy for the SharePoint product. This paper will dive into a few key • Windows SharePoint Services v3 platform capabilities and reveal why they could be important • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to your product development technology roadmap.

The SharePoint Team has done an excellent job of 2010 establishing SharePoint as an “Application” and has made • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 major strides toward SharePoint being a “Platform”. • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 From developer tools to open-source communities to development APIs, it is clear that the SharePoint Product Team does not intend SharePoint to be a “sealed” application. To the contrary, SharePoint has evolved into a web application development and integration framework for Microsoft Developers to connect, extend, and build on.

Terminology Sites Throughout this white paper we will use the terms SharePoint 2003, SharePoint 2007, etc. when we need to differentiate between releases of SharePoint. If necessary, we will use the license names/abbreviations (e.g., WSS v3, MOSS 2007), will be used.

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5 Audience for this Paper

The audience for this white paper is software product Note that Enterprises also have internal development efforts that companies, which we will refer to as ISVs (Independent are very similar to product development that is performed with ISVs. Software Vendors), as well as software architects, CIOs, and Enterprises will connect, extend, or build on SharePoint to provide other enterprise technology leaders. The information in this solutions such as: paper is technical in nature so technical decision makers will best connect with the content. • Connect SharePoint to proprietary or legacy systems to share data among systems or to provide an improved usability or For SharePoint, Microsoft groups ISVs (see “Appendix A: accessibility experience to employees or client/customers SharePoint ISV Partner Ecosystem Map” for examples) into: • Extend SharePoint's team site and collaboration templates and • Technology Solutions – ISVs that extend the functional capabilities to include standard features that are specific to the areas of SharePoint companies’ collaboration disciplines • Horizontal Business Solutions – ISVs that create broad • Build On SharePoint through the development of custom line- solutions that can apply to most companies’ needs of-business applications that automate processes based on the regardless of their industry; this paper refers to them as companies’ intellectual properties and business requirements Horizontal ISVs That being said, Enterprises should also consider in their • Vertical Business Solutions – ISVs that create industry- technology roadmaps and architects, CIOs, and other technology specific solutions; this paper refers to them as Vertical ISVs leaders can benefit from reading this white paper.

6 7 OOTB Content Extension Point Management Highlights

Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) Site Pages Customized Ribbon Custom Action Web Part Server Control

User Control

Server Control

Silverlight JavaScript Windows App AJAX AJAX SvcProxy Client OM Client OM Client OM

SharePoint Web Services Server-Side UI

SharePoint SharePoint API

Request Membership Authorization Provisioning Pipeline Provider

ASP.NET Authentication Content & Configuration Databases Scalability Deployment IIS SQL Server Architecture

Windows Server Service Application

2001 • SharePoint Team Services • SharePoint Portal Server

2003 • Windows SharePoint Services v2 • SharePoint Portal Server2003

2007 • Windows SharePoint Services v3 • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Making the2010 Case for SharePoint • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Does SharePoint Fit SharePoint can fit many product scenarios. Understanding if there is any alignment of SharePoint product features to your product’s features is key to determining a fit. A good place to start is exploring the six high-level product capabilities of SharePoint 2010 found in the diagram below (these descriptions can also be found on the SharePoint 2010 Capabilities2 page). Sites - SharePoint Sites deliver a single infrastructure to provide portal and collaboration capabilities across intranet, extranet, Sites and internet sites. SharePoint Sites bring users together to share information, data, and expertise across organizations. Communities - SharePoint Communities empower people to Composites Communities work together in ways that are most effective for them. SharePoint Communities make it possible for people to collaborate in groups, share knowledge and ideas, connect with colleagues, and find information and experts easily. Insights Content Content - SharePoint Content enables all users to participate in a governed, compliant content management lifecycle. SharePoint Content makes it possible to expertly balance user experience with Search policy and process. Search - SharePoint Search gives users the ability to find the content, information, and people they need by combining an integrated, easy-to-manage platform with best-of-breed enterprise search technology. Insights - SharePoint Insights enables users to access and interact with information across unstructured and structured data sources. SharePoint Insights empower users to discover the right people and expertise to make better and more agile business decisions. Composites - SharePoint Composites empower users to rapidly respond to business needs by creating their own no-code solutions, on premises or in the cloud, through a rich set of building blocks, tools, and self-service capabilities.

These product capabilities have considerable depth. This paper • Provisioning – The ability to allow users to easily provision will not cover each one in detail, but will provide descriptions new sites and lists as their business needs dictate. that could be helpful to those considering whether to build • Security – A comprehensive authentication and granular similar capabilities into their product(s) from the ground up. authorization system are built in and govern access to all For more detail, please read this post from the SharePoint aspects of SharePoint. Product Team Blog3 . It provides 40 examples of investments in the six functional categories of SharePoint 2010 mentioned • User Interface – “Web Parts,” wiki style editing, a “Fluent” above along with Administration and Development areas of ribbon-based menu system, AJAX- style dialog boxes the platform. and more are all provided. These features not only save development effort, they provide a strong level of In addition to these high-level solution areas, SharePoint consistency that aids in usability and adoption. provides a number of built-in features required by many web solutions. Thus by adopting SharePoint, an ISV can reuse rather • Forms and Workflows – Tools such as InfoPath and than reinvent them. These capabilities include: SharePoint Designer allow business analysts and power users to construct workflow-oriented business applications. • List and Library Management – The ability to store ISV’s can easily add to the capabilities available in such information in lists which can be created by users or solutions, and can also provide pre-built forms and programmatically, and which have rich built-in capabilities workflows oriented to specific horizontal or vertical such as check-in and check-out, versioning, approvals, business scenarios. folder hierarchies, data validation, user-configurable views, calculated fields and more. Input forms, item and list level The reuse of these capabilities allows ISV’s to focus on their views, grid-based editing, RSS rendering and more are also core values rather than reinventing yet another security system built into all lists. Libraries build on lists by including binary or UI. They also allow business users to combine SharePoint objects such as documents, images, and digital media. and ISV features to build solutions that uniquely address their business needs.

7 Making the Case for SharePoint

Making the Case Getting the most out SharePoint as a basis for ISV offerings comes from understanding the platform and the value of having a product associated with SharePoint in the marketplace. Let’s explore this idea further.

Leveraging the Platform Understand Your Value Proposition To get the most from leveraging SharePoint as a platform, When building a roadmap, it is important to understand begin by considering its built-in features and which of SharePoint’s strengths and weaknesses along with those of its capabilities are relevant to your solution space. Most other SharePoint ISVs. A significant part of the product value organizations typically deploy one to two key workloads or is usually based on the feature gap between SharePoint and capabilities at a time. For the best ROI (return on investment) what the current users and administrators need from their and TCO (total cost of ownership), incorporate as many of the SharePoint environment. SharePoint built-in features as possible and follow common With Vertical ISVs, it is easier to determine the value SharePoint best practices. This will allow faster time to market proposition. The vertical markets have their own ecosystem and lead to a product that will benefit from new releases of of products that have established pricing and licensing SharePoint. models. If determining what features are needed in a vertical One simple example of leveraging the SharePoint platform market, perform a gap analysis of what features exist in the is document management. For instance, with the check in products of a vertical market. Based on that gap analysis, it and check out of documents, you can embrace the built-in can be determined how SharePoint can help penetrate that document management features of SharePoint that provides market with built-in features (including what is configurable this capability. Taking this approach will save money by within SharePoint). Understanding what it takes to connect, not having to build the feature from scratch, and will avoid extend, and build on SharePoint will help you understand confusing users by providing a consistent way to perform this the incremental investment to turn SharePoint into a vertical task. In addition, the product will benefit from future upgrades solution that fills a market need. to the SharePoint feature. Thinking of SharePoint as a web application development platform? Explore the rest of this paper to get some further Because SharePoint is a platform built on top of ASP.NET, many insight on the value of the platform. development skills are readily transferable. Understanding how to build ASP.NET applications with .NET framework languages is an extremely sound foundation for leveraging SharePoint as a development platform. The SharePoint tooling in Visual Studio Keep in mind that some horizontal ISVs are creating solutions that 2010 is quite mature, and there is a well-established SharePoint fit in vertical markets. They are typically not fully featured, but with community to help in the learning process of your team. customizations they can compete in certain verticals.

8 9 OOTB Content Extension Point Management Highlights

Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) Site Pages Customized Ribbon Custom Action Web Part Server Control

User Control

Server Control

Silverlight JavaScript Windows App AJAX AJAX SvcProxy Client OM Client OM Client OM

SharePoint Web Services Server-Side UI

SharePoint SharePoint API

Request Membership Authorization Provisioning Pipeline Provider

ASP.NET Authentication Content & Configuration Databases Scalability Deployment IIS SQL Server Architecture

Windows Server Service Application SharePoint Platform Strategies

There are three primary strategies for using SharePoint as your product platform. These strategies were described by Owen Allen, Senior Product Manager for SharePoint ISV Partners at Microsoft, during the SharePoint Conference in October 2009.

These strategies, for the most part, progress in the order of Connect, Extend, and Build On; advancing through them increases a dependency on either SharePoint Foundation or SharePoint Server. Most product companies that accept a dependency on SharePoint will provide the option to run on SharePoint Foundation or Server, sometimes with a more comprehensive feature set enabled if a customer’s environment includes SharePoint Server. For example, many medium to large enterprises have SharePoint Server deployed. A product that builds on that that dependency can save development costs by leveraging Server features that otherwise need to be created (i.e., Form Services or Web Content Management). 2001 Let’s explore• theseSharePoint strategies of Connect,Team Extend, Services and Build On in more depth. Connect• SharePoint Portal Server Existing products can be connected to SharePoint by providing integration points such as content embedding, cross-product search, and single sign-on. The goal is to give users a seamless experience and allow them to work in their product of choice without having to spend time switching2003 contexts between various products. This connection/integration can be unidirectional or bidirectional. Here are more• Windows details on some SharePoint of these integration Services points. v2 • SharePoint Portal Server2003 • Content Embedding - Content embedding may Connect strategies are common when a product does not share involve SharePoint content being viewed or used within the same platform or technologies as SharePoint (e.g., Java-based your product and vice-versa. This approach allows the instead of .Net-based). SharePoint and the connected product product’s data to be used in new ways. Maybe the can also execute on separate servers in the same network or in a data could be seen via a custom web2007 part, referenced completely different network (e.g., one could be in the cloud). through some SharePoint list data, be part of a SharePoint workflow,• Windows and/or simply SharePointbe easier to collaborate Services on using v3 a SharePoint• Microsoft team site. Think Office of this SharePointtype of connection Server 2007 when the product is sharing data from SharePoint or sharing data to SharePoint. • Search - Cross-product search allows users to work in the product most pertinent to their task, but to also find relevant data from the connected product. This approach can be integrated using a federated query search or a common search index with either a common search results UI 2010or simply a shared search query API. • Single• Sign-On Microsoft - This approach SharePoint simply ensures Foundation that users can easily 2010 move from a product to SharePoint and vice-versa without having to enter credentials more than once. In addition, any content embedding and search results should be relevant• forMicrosoft the current user SharePoint (e.g, security trimmed Server appropriately). 2010 This may involve delegation (e.g., Kerberos), custom services that do impersonation, or utilization of claims-based authentication.

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Search SharePoint Platform Strategies

Products can be connected to SharePoint using existing or A clear example of a connect scenario for an ISV is the custom web services regardless of whether they are built SharePoint Connector for Confluence4. You can read about in .NET, Java, or another technology. The integration points the technologies involved in a How We Did It Article on are more compelling in SharePoint 2010 with its richer web SharePoint Product Team Blog5. You can also read more about services infrastructure (WCF), richer UI capabilities (AJAX, an enterprise example that involved unique requirement to Silverlight, and Client OM), improved search architecture, and connect SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SharePoint new claims based authentication capability (including SAML). beyond what was provided by SharePoint out of the box - Allowing Connections to Multiple SSRS Servers with Report Viewer and Explorer Web Parts6

“From a strategic standpoint, connecting to SharePoint provides a number of benefits to both ISVs and customers: 1. Bridging teams – When it comes to collaboration software, teams within an organization tend to select the tools that suit their style of work. For example, the marketing team may use SharePoint for collaborating on documents while the engineering team may use a wiki for this. Connecting your applications to SharePoint allows individuals to collaborate across team boundaries while giving teams the flexibility to choose the tool best suited for them. 2. Eliminating content silos – the “Holy Grail” of knowledge management for any organization is to attain a unified, organized and searchable knowledge repository for all employees to access. Connecting your applications to SharePoint through content embedding, search and single sign-on brings you closer to achieving a “shared brain” within your organization. 3. SharePoint as a corporate standard – For many large organizations, SharePoint is becoming the corporate standard for collaboration, document management and content management. Any ISV’s looking to sell into these organizations should consider a “plays well with SharePoint” strategy in order to satisfy your customers’ requirements. ISV’s without this strategy may find themselves eliminated from sales opportunities they’re otherwise qualified to win.” Bill Arconati, Product Marketing Manager at Atlassian

10 11 SharePoint Platform Strategies

Extend There are many products that take SharePoint to the next level. Some provide services that extend existing SharePoint capabilities. Others incorporate SharePoint services and capabilities in such a way as to extend the product value proposition. This Extend strategy, in many cases, creates a dependency among such products on particular SharePoint features. In some cases, the product could still function without SharePoint, but its features would be limited without the presence of SharePoint. With most Extend solutions, the SharePoint interface is not abstracted from the user and the focus is enabling the customer to speed up the process of building business value-added solutions that involve SharePoint. Many Technology Solution ISVs are examples of product companies taking the Extend strategy (i.e., Nintex Workflow and Colligo). They are providing solutions for the SharePoint community that have incremental value above those that are included as standard with SharePoint. For example, Nintex provides WYSIWYG workflow editors in the browser and Colligo provides a rich, Extend strategies are common for products that provide integrated offline synchronization experience with SharePoint Lists and building blocks from which others can build a final solution. Libraries. Note that enterprises often take an Extend strategy with their SharePoint application development. A good example of this strategy is the extension of InfoPath and Forms Services to provide a canned service request template/ site definition with custom InfoPath consumable web services particular to the enterprise. With this type of solution, individual departments can implement custom service-request sites yet still have access to common services within the enterprise. Read about this enterprise example in the following article- Automating Service Requests using InfoPath Forms Services7. The list of ways to extend SharePoint is large, but some include: • Custom web parts that can be used for mash-ups and composite applications • Custom workflow actions for use in SharePoint Designer • Custom out-of-the-box list or site workflows that can be used as part of an overall solution • Custom field types for use in any SharePoint list or library • Custom event receivers for programmatic action upon item submission • Custom content types specific to a particular need • Custom information-management policies for placing custom policies around content • Custom search indexing pipeline stages for us in FAST Search for SharePoint • Custom user-defined functions for use in Excel Services

11 SharePoint Platform Strategies

Build On Products designed and built from the ground up for SharePoint can take advantage of its broad feature set. Out-of-the-box SharePoint provides the plumbing for authentication, authorization, provisioning, data viewing and editing, workflows, events, versioning, scaling to multiple servers, deployment, administration, auditing, Office integration, and more. This Build On strategy creates SharePoint dependencies and would not exist without having SharePoint installed. With these dependencies, the product- development effort can focus primarily on business functions and leverage SharePoint for common framework services. Note that products using the Build On strategy might abstract the user from the SharePoint interface (leveraging the SharePoint Services but creating a totally different user experience than what is provided by the SharePoint interface).

Using the Build On strategy does not preclude some external Build On strategies are common when a product uses the same component from existing: call it a hybrid Build On/Connect platform and technologies as SharePoint. Products built on ASP.NET strategy. For example, a back-end component from a product and SQL Server should consider the Build strategy and would use all such as a processing server or database may be completely or most of the SharePoint infrastructure (front end servers, application external from SharePoint. Alternatively, a custom UI such as a servers, content databases, IIS web sites, list infrastructure, web ClickOnce WPF application may be part of the solution as well. services architecture, etc.). Before deciding how certain components may live completely within or outside of the SharePoint infrastructure, invest in understanding the new Services Architecture, vastly improved As an example, CorasWorks and its application publishers Business Connectivity Services (BCS), the new SharePoint provide a broad line of off-the-shelf departmental business Workspace features, and the benefits that SharePoint’s applications through a Build On SharePoint strategy. For deployment model can provide (e.g., managing web.config reference see the CorasWorks App Store8. changes across multiple web front ends).

“Over the last 3 cycles of SharePoint CorasWorks has been transitioning its products from technology solutions to horizontal and vertical business solutions. Using a strategy of Building On SharePoint 2010, CorasWorks and our application publishers are able to focus on the business solution vs. technology extensions – thereby addressing the critical last mile to unleash business value” William Rogers, Chief Workplace Architect at CorasWorks

12 13 OOTB Content Extension Point Management Highlights

Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) Site Pages Customized Ribbon Custom Action Web Part Server Control

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Platform Capabilities

Silverlight JavaScript Windows App SharePoint provides a great foundation for application development at all levels of the software development stack. The capabilities extend outward to include search, workflow, scalable and extensible services architecture, and administrative features. Being built upon ASP.NET and Windows Server platforms allows SharePoint to expose infrastructure features and inherent points of extensibility to application developers. ISVs who choose to build upon SharePoint will find that they inherit a rich set

of platform capabilities, letting them put more timeAJAX and effort into developingAJAX unique product features vs. generic features. SvcProxy Applications that connect to SharePoint canClient OM reveal application dataClient OM and features eitherClient OM in the SharePoint UI, Business Connectivity Services (BCS), or via one of the many options for extensibility provided by SharePoint. Let’s explore the platform capabilities using more developer-centricSharePoint Web categories Services of Infrastructure, Content Management, and User Interface similar to n-tier architecture models. This is a departure from the SharePoint wheel shown earlier.Server-Side This SharePoint UI wheel works well from an end-user point of view, but the below diagram is more useful when looking to understand SharePoint as a developer platform. SharePoint SharePoint API

Infrastructure SharePoint is now at version 4 and has become a well- Request Membership tested and trusted platform Authorization Provisioning Pipeline Provider for securing content and allowing ISVs to move forward ASP.NET into adding application value. Its infrastructure starts with Authentication Content & Configuration Databases

Windows Server and the Scalability Deployment IIS SQL Server Architecture .NET Framework and heavily relies on IIS, ASP.NET and Windows Server Service Application SQL Server. Out-of-the-box authentication includes Windows NTLM or Kerberos while SharePoint and ASP.NET extensibility allow for developers to provide custom forms and web single sign-on options. SharePoint resource authorization can be managed at site collection, site, page, item, and custom action levels; security permissions can also be applied in custom code. Role membership can be defined individually or by using SharePoint or Active Directory groups.

Connect Extend Build On ASP.NET HTTP PipelineIntegrate an existing Create integrated solutions Create solutions on top that extend SharePoint of the SharePoint ASP.NET extensibility goes further by allowingproduct withdevelopers SharePoint to addto in HttpHandlers and HttpModules for custom request enable the two products to feature offerings - or that infrastructure that leverage handling. Developers can use this handling towork support together. features such as globalleverage changes or include to the SharePoint interface,the breadth custom of file-type processing, custom authentication, and more. For example, an SharePointHttpHandler capabilities. could be created to capabilitiesprevent cross-site provided scripting errors when processing requests for file types stored in an external system. The HttpHandler bycould the SharePointaccept a request platform. for the custom file type, forward the request to the external system, and then return the results to the requesting browser (note: credentials delegation may be required). This would allow the file that resides on an external server to be requested directly from SharePoint. The SharePoint API, including site and user context, are available from within the handler. Because SharePoint is built upon ASP.NET, application developers have available both the ASP.NET customization options as well as SharePoint context and configuration.

2001 • SharePoint Team Services • SharePoint Portal Server

2003 • Windows SharePoint Services v2 • SharePoint Portal Server2003

13 2007 • Windows SharePoint Services v3 • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

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it is crucial in a multi-tenant environment. Awareness of Application Security feature availability is important because of potential code Another example of extensibility provided by ASP.NET includes dependencies on features that may not be available at all creating custom membership providers that enable login in SharePoint Online, or may not be available in a particular credentials to be retrieved from a custom store. Membership edition of SharePoint Online (i.e. Standard vs. Dedicated). providers supplied by SharePoint allow connecting to For an early glimpse of feature availability please review membership stores created using SQL, LDAP, or Active “Appendix B: SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server Feature Directory. The base MembershipProvider, like many ASP.NET Comparison” in Microsoft_SharePoint_Online_Standard_Beta_ and SharePoint classes, can be extended, allowing developers Service_Description_Final.docx (see “References” section of this to create custom implementations. The membership provider document for download details). is configured in the site web.config file allowing, among other things, a custom login page to be supplied. Claims-based authentication is a significant infrastructure Packaging and Deployment feature new to SharePoint 2010. With claims, user authentication is provided by an “identity system” that The deployment capabilities of SharePoint cannot be may include corporate credential providers such as Active overstated either. Custom functions are packaged into a Directory, LDAP, or credentials stored in databases. Credentials solution package file (WSP) and may contain one or more authentication may also be provided by web sign-on providers features scoped to the farm, a web application, site collection, such as LiveID and OpenID. Claims-based authentication will or site. SharePoint handles the deployment of files to the make it easier for additional identity systems to integrate with GAC, bin, and virtual directories within the web site on SharePoint, thus opening up another point of extensibility. the front end web servers. It also handles deployment of content to the content databases. After files are deployed to the web front ends (WFEs), additional WFEs can be added and SharePoint handles updating the new WFEs, including Service Applications web.config file updates. SharePoint 2010 adds additional deployment capabilities with its versioning support and The service application architecture, new in SharePoint Sandboxed Solutions. With Sandboxed Solutions, WSPs are 2010, provides another point of extensibility and enterprise deployed to a content database and farm administrators are scalability. Services developed on the new platform can given more control by isolating the execution environment of be scaled across one or more servers and can cross the the features within the package. This enables administrators farm boundary to provide services for multiple SharePoint to upload solutions only once that are automatically deployed installations. SharePoint services support additional scalability to all web front ends, increasing predictability and reducing by providing “services in the cloud,” delivering new ways that maintenance cost. ISVs can extend SharePoint. The services architecture includes a configuration store for application settings, a common SQL database provisioning infrastructure, support for storing custom data in databases that are managed by SharePoint, OOTB Content Extension Point a location to host middle-tier web services, a provisioning Management Highlights mechanism for web services, and a service-scoped timer job infrastructure to support scheduled operations. This is • Content Versioning • Event Receivers probably the largest investment Microsoft has made • Check-in/Check-out • Custom Field Types toward using SharePoint as a platform in 2010. • Content Approval • Rendered Columns • Records Routing • Custom View Types • Information • External Data Management Policies • Custom Actions Office 365 & SharePoint Online • CRUD UI • Custom Information As more companies move to a cloud-based computing • Social Content Management Policies model, it is important for developers and ISVs to consider the • Workflow • Custom Workflows implications of their custom SharePoint solutions running in • Content Types • Custom Workflow Actions the cloud via Office 365 and SharePoint Online. Two points • Field Types • Custom Content Types of particular interest: Sandboxed Solutions and feature • Office Integration • Custom User Defined • Offline Data Functions availability. Sandboxed Solutions (referenced elsewhere in • Web Services • Custom Web Services this document) provide an environment where developers • Search • Custom CRUD UI can upload code in a partially-trusted environment in such a • Custom Search way that the administrator can control the impact of errant Content Sources or non-performant code through isolation and quotas. While this is obviously important in an on-premise environment,

14 Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) 15 Site Pages Customized Ribbon Custom Action Web Part Server Control

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2001 • SharePoint Team Services • SharePoint Portal Server

2003 • Windows SharePoint Services v2 • SharePoint Portal Server2003

2007 • Windows SharePoint Services v3 • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

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Content Management SharePoint 2010 provides plenty of out-of-the-box capabilities to meet many ECM requirements. This is an advantage for ISVs. Content- management features provided by SharePoint include content versioning, check-in/check-out, content approval and disposition, records routing, and information-management policies such as content expiration. In addition, there is opportunity to extend the SharePoint ECM capabilities at all levels. To cover all of them would take several books, so just a few will be highlighted.

Enterprise Perspective SharePoint can also be used as an underlying CMS to feed into other portal technologies. At McKesson, we use Vignette as our portal today and SharePoint as our collaboration platform. RSS and other technologies have allowed us to start taking advantage of the easy SharePoint CMS capabilities but the content is available in the company wide portal. Our SharePoint CMS strategy in the initial phase was to use out of the box capabilities. Now that users understand the product and the needs of their Team/Department/Business Units they are taking SharePoint to the next level with data integration, creative redesigns and heavy process automation projects. Aaron Rafus, Technology Evangelist, McKesson Corporation

External Data Application developers can choose to use SharePoint as a Another key advantage for using BCS is that SharePoint data store or use a separate, external data store such as one automatically provides a customizable UI that supports read/ provided by a relational database, abstracted by web services, write as well as view/sort/filter capabilities. Standard ASP.NET or provided by custom code. Using the SharePoint data store, forms are created for external data connected to SharePoint. in the form of SharePoint lists, allows for the full utilization Using SharePoint Designer or InfoPath Designer, developers of SharePoint content-management features, including the can create a richer interface for external data by generating ability of users to configure and extend the schema. However, InfoPath forms. InfoPath forms also allow for a richer SharePoint lists are not fully relational data stores. Application experience, including a deep set of form rules that can, among developers in need of a more relational or custom data store other things, connect to external data sources to fill user choice can instead choose to connect to an external data source by fields and perform field-level validation. using external content types provided by Business Connectivity There are also external-data innovations outside of BCS Services (BCS). A hybrid approach involves connecting within Microsoft and the ISV community. For example, there SharePoint list data to external data by using external data are several ISV products that expose external data within columns. An external data column is a field in a SharePoint list SharePoint. The Data Integration Toolset9 from CorasWorks and which is a look-up to an external data source. The external data MashPoint10 from Bamboo, for example, provide external data column can select one or more fields from an external record connections to easily surface data into their web part suites. to be included in a SharePoint list item. Furthermore, standards such as OData (Open Data Protocol) BCS allows external data to participate in SharePoint content- are emerging. Similar to Microsoft ODBC efforts, OData is an management features such as enterprise search, offline data open protocol for sharing data across various data consumers access, and integration into Office client applications including and data providers. OData is based on web standard such as Outlook, Word, and Access. External data can also participate HTTP and AtomPub (Atom Publishing Protocol) using JSON in content-management features such as tagging, workflow, notation. To learn more about this emerging data protocol, check-in/check-out, versioning, information management see Mike Flasko’s “Breaking Down ‘Data Silos’ – The Open Data policies, and permissions by using proxy records in SharePoint. Protocol (OData)”11 on the WCF Data Services Team Blog. External data columns in SharePoint allow SharePoint list items to relate directly to external data (e.g., proxy record). Custom code in workflows, event receivers, and custom information rights management policies can then propagate activities that occur on the proxy records such as the application of tags or check-in/check-out to the external data records.

15 Platform Capabilities

Business Intelligence Search Data analysis is becoming a more frequent demand of any Search is a key capability for applications. Enterprise search application, and this demand is rapidly expanding beyond supports searching data stored in SharePoint lists as well the need for basic operational reporting. SharePoint 2010 external data. In SharePoint 2010, the BCS indexes external provides a rich suite of offerings that application developers content and can involve no-code solutions for simple models can leverage to accomplish this goal. They include native or custom-managed code for more complex scenarios (e.g., Charts and Data Indicator web parts, Performance Point nested/hierarchical data). Developers can customize the search Services, Excel Services, Visio Services, and Reporting Services, experience by creating search scopes that limit a user’s search, and more. Each is designed for a unique business case. For for example, to application records or by generating a set of example, Performance Point Services supports business search refiners, allowing the search to be filtered and explored scorecards, charts, and analytic dashboards. Using this feature by metadata at query time. Additionally, the search UI includes of SharePoint 2010, an ISV could provide a dashboard that points of extensibility such as the ability to configure the search leverages Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to give users results page and extending out-of-the-box search web parts. a quick view of operational health. The real purpose of a This is a very simple way to surface your existing solution’s dashboard is to direct users to highlighted areas that need data into SharePoint search through configuration rather than attention. through programming. ISVs who choose the Connect strategy may want to use query Business Intelligence federation to enable SharePoint and an external application Note that business intelligence features are extremely powerful in to maintain their own search indexes. Or they may choose to SharePoint 2010 and are a big part of exposing external data inside use SharePoint’s enterprise search Connector Framework12 to SharePoint. Since business intelligence features are in such high maintain a single index across applications. In SharePoint 2010, demand for enterprises today, this is an area of SharePoint that federated search is a core component in the search API and is should not be ignored. even used by the Core Search Results web part. In SharePoint 2010, the Connector Framework no longer One of the most exciting new features in Performance Point requires writing unmanaged protocol handlers for crawling Services is the Decomposition Tree visualization. Visualizing custom content. The Connector Framework, and even BCS data has many challenges, and each visualization strategy search, provides security descriptors (ACLs) at index time has pros and cons. Grids show numbers but don’t highlight if the information is available. This allows for trimming the relative values, charts highlight relative values but don’t do a search results to only those items available to the individual good job of showing actual values, and neither charts nor grids performing the search. do a great job of visualizing hierarchical relationships in data. The Connector Framework is common across SharePoint Server The decomposition tree highlights hierarchical relationships, 2010 Search as well as FAST Search for SharePoint 2010, so shows raw numbers, and includes a graphing component that ISVs who build upon it will find their solution works with both provides the best of each of these worlds. This visualization can enterprise search options. On the other hand, ISVs who need be selected by users on demand and offers a great alternative more search capabilities can build upon FAST and have even for users to perform ad-hoc analysis. more flexibility with its indexing and query pipelines as well as its ISVs looking to add analytics to their applications can leverage entity-extraction capabilities. The ability of FAST to automatically Performance Point Services in both the Connect to and Build create and categorize metadata introduces options for On scenarios as it provides a rich set of database connectors for developers looking to create search-driven applications or querying application data, and can leverage existing reporting to aggregate structured and/or unstructured content from investments in its dashboard technology. Using this approach, disparate repositories while pivoting off common fields. Performance Point dashboards and scorecards can be built to consume data from an existing application database and Strategy: Connect or Extend leverage existing custom reports. By using these features, users ISV’s looking to Connect or Extend SharePoint may find ample can perform ad-hoc analysis of application data, and correlate opportunity within the SharePoint search infrastructure to provide that information with other business data. Furthermore, as custom indexing or federated search connectors to third-party data with any good reporting solution, users are shielded from the sources. One can even imagine a federated search web part that underlying complexities of source system data models and aggregates similar data sources such as news feeds and organizes the query languages. data in a meaningful way.

16 17 Platform Capabilities

Workflow And More... Developers can further use content-management features Application developers can also dive deep into the SharePoint through out-of-the-box SharePoint workflows such as data-management structure by adding event receivers. Event the “Approval Workflow” or by writing custom SharePoint receivers allow custom code to be executed when a change workflows to control features such as content approval or occurs to a site collection, site, feature, workflow, list, or list records routing. SharePoint provides the workflow execution item. Typical events that are handled include when a list or environment and Windows Workflow Foundation provides library item is added, updated, or deleted. the building blocks. In addition to custom workflows, ISVs SharePoint provides out-of-the-box information- can provide their own extension points by creating reusable management policies that govern the data life cycle within it. workflow activities for power users with SharePoint Designer or Examples include expiration, bar code, and auditing policies. for developers with Visual Studio. ISVs can create custom information-management policies so In SharePoint 2007, workflows are associated with a list/library that SharePoint can manage their data but have it governed and workflow instances are tied to a list item. SharePoint by their specific rules. 2010 provides for this association and also adds the ability for SharePoint’s latest social features around content workflows to be independent of lists so they can be reused management are also available to applications that store data across lists and content types. This capability opens up a whole in SharePoint lists or connect external data using external new world of possibilities for Workflow and SharePoint. data columns. Users can choose to tag application data using either a managed, hierarchical term store (taxonomy) or community-generated tags (folksonomy), with both types of Data Model User Interface metadata residing in a unified, centrally-managed location. Users can also rate “favorites” and bookmark data records Using SharePoint content management features also provides to share and re-retrieve content they deem interesting. a functional UI around the data model. By default, SharePoint Additionally, items in document libraries can appear in the will create the CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) forms SharePoint Documents web part of a user’s My Site (their around application data. The forms may be replaced and personal web site) to display documents which the user has developed as ASP.NET application pages, or may optionally be recently modified. Documents can also appear in the Relevant developed as InfoPath forms. InfoPath forms then bring in a Documents web part which displays recent changes for the large set of customization capabilities such as a form designer current user on the site. and a rich set of built-in form rules. SharePoint Workspace, formerly Groove, allows users to easily Users can customize the presentation of data in SharePoint by take the application data offline. SharePoint Workspace is a creating custom views. Custom views in SharePoint allow users windows desktop collaboration environment allowing users to customize which columns are viewed, as well as add sorting, to interact with content and other team members. Users filtering, paging, sub-totals, and more. ISVs can further extend can work with application data offline and then synchronize the behaviors of data in SharePoint views through custom with the SharePoint server when a connection is available. actions that can appear in the Actions menu of the view or on Offline mode is available for applications that store data in the list item drop-down menu (e.g., Edit Control Block). ISVs SharePoint lists as well as to those that connect to SharePoint can also extend SharePoint out-of-the-box views by creating using Business Connectivity Services. rendered columns, custom view types, and custom field types. Custom field types provide custom storage and presentation of data types that are not native to SharePoint. Custom field types can also be used to connect external data to native SharePoint lists through custom controls for editing and rendering data.

17 OOTB Content Extension Point Management Highlights

User Interface Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) Being built upon ASP.NET also allows for points of extensibility in the SharePoint UI. The Site Pages interface uses master pages, web parts, server Customized Ribbon controls, and user controls developed using Custom ASP.NET. This means that ASP.NET application Action developers can use familiar skills to build custom UI components and then integrate those Web Part solutions into the SharePoint UI. Server Control Custom Actions provide additional options for UI enhancement. Custom actions include User Control content drop downs, “Site Actions” menu items, and links placed on administrative pages. As a result, it is very easy to create custom administrative pages and provide links to these Server Control pages such that they look completely integrated with the rest of the SharePoint administration pages. SharePoint 2010 goes a step further with the introduction of the SharePoint “Ribbon”. The new ribbon can be customized and extended by SharePoint developers to include content-sensitive menu options alongside the standard menu options that are provided.

Silverlight JavaScript Windows App Web parts are a key UI component for ISVs, regardless of whether they use the Connect, Extend, or Build On strategy. Strategy: Connect Web parts are an ASP.NET concept (and base class) and are Connecting at the user interface layer allows users to view and interact hosted by SharePoint. SharePoint also manages the storage with external data from within SharePoint while keeping the data and of web part properties, including shared property values and dataAJAX access code externalAJAX to SharePoint. This is typically achieved by SvcProxy per-user property values. Web parts give users the ability toClient OM developing customClient OM web parts or applicationClient OM pages which use custom design and configure site pages. They can configure custom code libraries to directly access external data. Developing custom UI components is a lightweight strategy for connecting to SharePoint; web parts to connect to one another such as in a master/detail SharePoint Web Services this approach from the consistent SharePoint user interface arrangement. Standard web part connection interfaces, such as Server-Side UI those provided by SharePoint filter web parts, allow out-of-the- paradigm and the ability to be used in SharePoint configuration and deployment scenarios. box web parts to connect with custom web parts. For example, SharePoint SharePoint API the Choice Filter web part can be connected with web parts which implement the IFilterValues connection interface. There are nine filter web parts available from SharePoint Server, providing several options for connecting to a custom web part that implements IFilterValues.

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Connect Extend Build On

Integrate18 an existing Create integrated solutions Create solutions on top 19 product with SharePoint to that extend SharePoint of the SharePoint enable the two products to feature offerings - or that infrastructure that leverage work together. leverage or include the breadth of SharePoint capabilities. capabilities provided by the SharePoint platform.

2001 • SharePoint Team Services • SharePoint Portal Server

2003 • Windows SharePoint Services v2 • SharePoint Portal Server2003

2007 • Windows SharePoint Services v3 • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

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Master Page Web Pages (ASPX) Site Pages Customized Ribbon Custom Action Web Part Server Control PlatformUser Control Capabilities

SharePoint 2010 provides forServer even broader Control UI customization with the new client object model. This model allows for easy access to SharePoint data from client side JavaScript enabled browsers, windows desktop, and Silverlight applications. This point of extensibility makes it much easier for developers to provide rich client- side features and usability when a web based interface is not desirable.

Silverlight JavaScript Windows App AJAX AJAX SvcProxy Client OM Client OM Client OM

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Platform Capabilities Summary Request Membership Authorization Provisioning The robust and extensible infrastructure, content management,Pipeline and ProviderUI capabilities position SharePoint as a solid choice for application development. The flexibility built into SharePoint 2010 allows ISV developers to envision ways in which the platform can be extended to provide even greaterASP.NET value. For more details from a developer perspective, see Introduction to SharePoint Products and Technologies for the Professional .NET Developer13. Authentication Content & Configuration Databases Scalability Deployment IIS SQL Server Architecture

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2001 • SharePoint Team Services • SharePoint Portal Server 19

2003 • Windows SharePoint Services v2 • SharePoint Portal Server2003

2007 • Windows SharePoint Services v3 • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

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Search Barriers to Adoption as a Development Platform

We have described some of the ways SharePoint has matured just within the last two product cycles. But are there real impediments to using SharePoint as an application platform? Let’s address four common perceived barriers: a unique developer skill set, a closed or restrictive set of horizontal services, the inability to integrate with external or relational data sources, and ALM and code isolation. Perceived Barrier 1 - Unique Developer Skill Set Early in SharePoint’s history, ISV integration and extension of the platform was slow to take hold due to product immaturity and the complexity of platform integration or extension. For example, the lack of a tight integration into the ASP.NET technology stack in SharePoint 2003 required investments in specific skill sets or making risky implementation decisions (e.g., ASP.NET developers could either decide to not leverage their existing knowledge or make unsupported changes to ONET.XML). Although the skills needed were still based on .NET, the ability to have utility players jump in and code different product features would have been difficult. This presented some decision points about investment in education, skill sets, and more. While some decision points persist, the investments can now be amortized across core .NET technologies with less investment in SharePoint specifics (see Chappell’s Developer Whitepaper14 for a compelling discussion of the technical aspects of the platform). While it is still imperative for architects and senior developers to have a deeper understanding and specific expertise on the APIs and architecture of SharePoint, all good .NET developers have a core .NET framework services expertise that will benefit their work on SharePoint applications – and SharePoint will continue to embrace the new .NET framework capabilities that benefit its solutions, giving them additional and transferrable skills. Making the investment in understanding the SharePoint Framework streamlines solution creation because developers can focus on solving business problem and build fewer framework services from scratch. For larger development teams, the SharePoint expertise investment can be weighted more toward those involved with architecture and design, resulting in a shorter investment time for other developers (e.g., they don’t need to understand the entire feature set; they can just focus on the SharePoint API they need to use).

Perceived Barrier 2 - Closed or Restrictive Platform Services Any platform, including hardware, operating systems, gaming, and others, has inherent features and constraints based on decisions and assumptions made in its development. The test of a platform’s value is the extent to which it: 1. Provides rich, standard features and functionality; and 2. Enables extensibility and configuration One could argue that early in SharePoint’s history there were barriers due to preconditions for several of the horizontal services, chief among them the reliance on Active Directory for authentication. The evolution of SharePoint’s platform services has matured to provide a rich, extensible set of base functions that address most cross-cutting concerns of modern business applications. An initial set of services that suited small- to medium-sized teams has been supplanted by one that offer flexibility and extensibility while providing a standards-based approach to large scale implementations. Current core features including authentication, navigation, provisioning, and others support a provider model to enable extension or replacement of base services. The use of common standards such as XHTML, WCAG, REST, SOAP, JSON, RSS, and XSLT along with standard OS platform services such as WCF, WF, LINQ, and PowerShell enables the use of standard, proven development processes and practices. Our first criteria of a platforms value (rich features) is certainly met by SharePoint 2007, and is vastly improved with SharePoint 2010. Access to content and data through a variety of standards and channels provides an infrastructure upon which valuable applications can be developed. The new Client Object Model and PowerShell support are prime examples of the extensibility and configuration capabilities of the platform that meet our second criteria of a platforms value. The Client Object Model provides the ability to extend the use of SharePoint objects in a consistent manner across multiple technologies (including .NET, JavaScript, and Silverlight) in a whole new class of applications that can span web, Office client applications, and fat and thin clients – and even provide online/offline synchronization. PowerShell integration comes standard with SharePoint 2010; this integration enables installation, configuration and management through standard cmdlets and extension through custom scripts and modules. There is even the option of creating new PowerShell Snap-In’s to provide additional capabilities for administration and maintenance, opening up yet another avenue for ISV’s to provide value.

20 21 Barriers to Adoption as a Development Platform

Perceived Barrier 3 - Lack of Integration with External or Relational Data Another common argument against the use of SharePoint as a development platform has been the inability to integrate with external data sources. The most common vertical or business application requirement is to integrate with external data – for example, to combine data from one or more authoritative sources to enable form completion, order and request management, service provisioning, and other actions. Without the ability to easily and tightly integrate with external data sources, vertical product solutions don’t provide a compelling value proposition and viable profit margin for ISV’s to build these solutions. In the initial releases of SharePoint, vertical product solutions required too much development effort, redundant data and processing to be viable products. However, integration with external data improved significantly from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2007 through the use of SharePoint Designer 2007 and the Business Data Catalog (BDC). SharePoint Designer could integrate easily enough with external sources using data web parts, but the integration was often shallow, or not fully integrated. For example, read access to SQL or web services data was included, but write access required moderate effort. As well, the BDC required MOSS and considerable modification and configuration for bidirectional integration. In summary, surfacing data has been possible, but truly developing and deploying applications that integrate with external data sources require significant knowledge and effort. With the advent of the Business Connectivity Services (BCS), external content types, and other core features within SharePoint 2010 these barriers are removed. BCS is a very compelling improvement in this area. BCS continues to provide read access to external data, and now provides streamlined capabilities to enable write access to external data sources and a client side runtime and synchronization of data that now promote offline scenarios. This approach is all part of the base Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 platform services. These features combine to provide the ability to develop solutions using familiar Office applications as the facade, deploy them using proven ClickOnce technology, and enable users to access, update, and synchronize and analyze external data. While BCS may be the most compelling feature that addresses external data integration, new WCF, REST, RSS and JSON features also provide integration with external data sources to be surfaced inside SharePoint or exposed from SharePoint to other applications.

Perceived Barrier 4 - Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Code Isolation. For users of SharePoint, simplicity and consistency make the platform an instant success. SharePoint can become an integral part of a business quickly and easily. It often provides an instant boost to collaboration and productivity for many organizations with only out–of-the-box features. However, as with many things in life, there is another side to that coin. Development organizations and IT professionals in many organizations are tasked with managing and maintaining environments and must ensure product quality or site availability and function. To support these requirements, IT operations often enforce Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) policies to ensure stability for the now business- critical SharePoint sites. Product or IT Operations organizations can require procedures ranging from simple source code control, to Code Access Security (CAS) for custom SharePoint solutions, to dedicated server instances for a specific custom solution (yes, this does exist!). The first two approaches minimally impact cost and deployment and are relatively easy to implement. But dedicated instances (a radical approach to providing stability), increase development, testing, hardware, and operating expenses – and can doom a product or solution before it ever gets out of the design stage. All along the spectrum of ALM are varying requirements for Source Code Control (SCC), versioning, automated builds, unit, integration, regression and acceptance testing, deployment and release policies, and many, many more. These requirements are imposed to ensure that the business, now relying on SharePoint as a business critical tool, can continue to count on that tool being up and running. But are these really barriers to ISVs and enterprises using SharePoint as a development platform? Let’s discuss just three of the requirements listed above: SCC, deployment policies, and development debugging cycle time. There are some excellent SharePoint ALM resources and blogs that provide guidance for the use of SCC with SharePoint. Microsoft provides guidance for team-based SharePoint development and for developing custom SharePoint products and applications, but other SCC products can be used as well and provide all of the advantages any modern SCC tool. The bottom line is this is not a barrier, but when developing products or solutions for SharePoint, artifacts must be identified and managed appropriately to enable repeatable deployments. The Solution and Authored Artifact Development Models for SharePoint Products and Technologies15 provides an excellent discussion on defining and reconciling the differences between “solution” and “authored artifact” development and source control.

21 Barriers to Adoption as a Development Platform

Strict IT operations deployment policies exist to ensure a stable production SharePoint environment. Deployment policies can range from simple sign off for “one throat to choke” for a failed deployment to rigorous quality metrics and test iterations before a deployment is allowed. Tools such as SharePoint Designer 2007 and SharePoint Solution Generator 2008 (from VSeWSS 1.3) can assist in easing the identification of solution components and features so they are deployable in repeatable and maintainable ways in SharePoint 2007. These tools are good, but what about those times when all the processes were followed, but a poorly written or poorly performing web part or custom solution was deployed anyway (besides bringing SharePoint to its knees and the IT Pro developer to blows)? Now, IT operations will never deploy anything again, right? With the new features of SharePoint 2010, IT professionals can now throttle requests and even isolate custom solutions, and developers can develop more “operations friendly” solutions by using viable production logging and troubleshooting techniques. HTTP request throttling will enable IT professionals to manage heavily used read operations without sacrificing critical update operations. Sandboxed Solutions let developers create useful solutions and deploy them in a more controlled and isolated environment – which should make IT professionals and developers friends again. Developers can now easily log operations and provide detailed execution information via monitored scopes. Other deployment improvements include “round trip” workflow development and deployment. Workflows can now be created using Visio, or exported from SharePoint Designer 2010, and modified using Visual Studio to extend and ease their deployment as components of packaged solutions. The development and debug cycle time of SharePoint solutions and products was a serious issue in previous versions. The ability to press F5 to debug in Visual Studio has spoiled many and was sadly missing from the development experience. The development and debugging cycle time shortcomings for SharePoint 2007 were painful, but the community shared many utilities and best practices including macros for attaching to IIS processes as well as utilities that provided better build and deployment capabilities. The community responded to the cycle time issue in a big way with CodePlex projects ranging from WSP Builder, to STSDEV, to SharePoint Solution Installer and even PowerShell scripts to facilitate quicker development and debugging round trips. SharePoint 2010 addresses the missing tooling and development gaps with a wide variety of SharePoint Project Items (SPI’s) in Visual Studio 2010 and deeper IDE integration, including SharePoint Explorer, visual designers, and customizable deployment sequences. Not only are the basic issues of the F5 dev and debug cycle time addressed with Sandboxed Solutions (not even requiring a recycle for deployment), but now the out-of-the-box experience is improved by having a customize process that occurs when deploying and debugging. Finally, if the default SPI templates are lacking in some way, additional templates can be created and made readily available to developers through the Visual Studio Gallery, providing an easy way to market a solution via the massive Visual Studio developer ecosystem.

Is Perception Reality? While there may have been barriers to adoption as a development platform in earlier versions of SharePoint, the base services coupled with the vertical integration capabilities of SharePoint 2010 eliminate most of those barriers. With a set of services that have matured to support standard application requirements and that enable the extension or integration with custom infrastructure services, it seems inevitable that the next wave of SharePoint value will come in the form of vertical solutions that build upon the new platform services. Business Continuity Services (BCS), a Client Object Model, SharePoint Workspaces, Sandboxed Solutions, and Service Applications – among others – are areas to watch for burgeoning vertical value.

22 23 Misconceptions of SharePoint as an Application Platform

There have been, and continue to be, many misconceptions about SharePoint application platform capabilities. Most of the misconceptions come in the form of either a misunderstanding, or lack of understanding of the scalability, performance, deployment, administration, or standard features of the platform. For example, so many customers are under the false impression that SharePoint has a list limit of 2,000 items that it seems some bloggers have made a reputation on dispelling this myth. For a definitive answer, see the Working with Large Lists in Office SharePoint 200716 whitepaper. In addition, there are several common misconceptions that specifically relate to development of solutions that provide business-specific value on the platform. Let’s review four of the more prevalent ones: 1. A SharePoint dependency means closed Architecture 2. SharePoint applications are too restrictive 3. SharePoint is only a document repository 4. SharePoint Cannot Be Used to Run Line of Business Applications Misconception 1 - Misconception 2 - SharePoint A SharePoint Dependency Applications Are Too Restrictive Means Closed Architecture Another common misconception about delivering valuable applications on SharePoint is that the platform has too many Some potential vertical application ISVs misinterpret taking a restrictions to development and deployment. Often heard is dependency on the services and capabilities of the platform as that “SharePoint is too restrictive - I need complete control a limiting decision from an architecture perspective. The use over the environment in order to build my application.” of, and integration with, SharePoint platform services does not One could argue that domain-specific applications providing imply a tight coupling of your application to SharePoint (see vertical solutions similar to Excel Services or the Business Data Cohesion and Coupling17 for a definition and discussion). The Catalog had architectural and scalability limits (each web ability to create and extend loosely coupled solutions through application could only be associated with one SSP). Specifically, Service Oriented Architecture principles, specifically SOAP providing scalable, centrally managed and configured services and REST based web services, is available within SharePoint across a SharePoint farm or farms, simply was not possible. today. Nothing precludes the use of ASP.NET features such as For example, try to imagine creating an “Insurance Claims HttpHandlers and HttpModules or custom REST or SOAP based Processing Service” that provides processing services for Web Services to enable an application built on SharePoint 2007 all web applications in a SharePoint Farm using SharePoint to be more SOA compliant. The approach is simply one that 2007. An ISV would have to deal with issues of deployment, requires a bit more than simplistic knowledge of the SharePoint configuration, scalability, database, and many more concerns as API. Integrating the creation of SharePoint “compliant” web custom implementations. services into a Visual Studio build process and deployment package, for example, is possible and can enable appropriate The “Service Application model” is now part of Microsoft separation of business logic from SharePoint, but leverages all SharePoint Foundation 2010 and provides the next generation of the features of SharePoint’s deployment and accessibility. As for hosting services. The limitation of web applications being a second example, the use of an HttpHandler to manage and associated with one Shared Service Provider is eliminated. provide AJAX REST services is a common approach to enabling Service Applications can be consumed by multiple web solutions to exploit the power of SharePoint while maintaining applications on an individual basis, across farms, and can open access to common business data. This allows for WCF-like even be deployed in multiple (named) instances for specific capability directly within SharePoint (see Developing Service- purposes. The architecture now enables dedicated service Oriented AJAX Applications on the Microsoft Platform18 for databases, deployment via PowerShell, configuration and more detail). process isolation, and large loads and scalability – and can also provide services in multi-tenant and cloud scenarios. SharePoint 2010 creates an even clearer response to this The Service Application model enables ISV’s to build that misconception. The ability to provide access via a new client API, vertical “processing service” that is now available to an entire native REST services, out-of-the-box support for WCF services, enterprise, or potentially as a value-added service in a hosted, and Service Applications enable the development of solutions multi-tenant or cloud-based model. The future here looks that adhere to SOA principles and allow for business value to be incredibly interesting with great opportunities to create built in a reusable and highly accessible, scalable manner. valuable solutions.

23 Misconceptions of SharePoint as an Application Platform

Finally, there are valid arguments from ISVs and enterprises system provide to an ISV writing a traditional application? that the deployment, management, and upgrade stories Don’t continue yet; write down some ideas. Before reading on, for applications built on SharePoint 2007 are a bit lacking. here is one definition from Dictionary.com: “the collection of Specifically, the inability to version features or solution software that directs a computer’s operations, controlling and packages and upgrade a solution package is a frequent scheduling the execution of other programs, and managing concern in settings that require deployment in development, storage, input/output, and communication resources.” test/staging, and production environments. In SharePoint 2010, Review the preceding definition and some of your answers. there are now updates that provide a smoother transition Well, that certainly sounds like what SharePoint is providing, for upgrading features and assemblies that are part of doesn’t it? Isn’t SharePoint really a collection of services, custom applications. Full-trust, farm solutions provide typical features and operations that enable the creation and execution deployment to web front ends providing similar deployment of other applications, while managing storage, input/output, options to SharePoint 2007 with some notable updates. New and communication resources (see also Is SharePoint a Business support for ID’s, binding redirects, and a FeatureUpgrading Operating System?19)? Traditional software applications require event give ISV’s the opportunity to provide a richer and more an operating system to provide services to interact with a UI, robust deployment path for upgrading components. These storage, and other layers or systems to enable innovations to changes address most, if not all, of the common deployment occur rapidly. This role is exactly what SharePoint provides to scenarios in a permissive environment. application developers who take the time to understand the For less permissive, even locked-down environments, services (and they are considerable) that SharePoint offers. Sandboxed Solutions provide a very rich set of deployment, Application development today requires a pragmatic mix management and maintenance features. Developers can of innovation and leverage. In the same way that modern develop specifically for constrained environments and build operating systems and 3GL languages strive to remove the solutions that provide value while adhering to rules by default need to interact with memory management, scheduling, and – and can even call full-trust proxies in the event that specific low-level hardware access, SharePoint provides the ability trusted operations are known and approved of in advance. If to quickly add value by connecting to basic SharePoint Sandboxed Solutions adhere to the strictest scenarios, they infrastructure (web parts, site definitions, custom lists), can even be deployed by users who have been granted ‘Full building upon the infrastructure of SharePoint (deployment, Control’ permissions to a site collection. Administrators can provisioning, scheduling, communication, UI, etc.), or by manage Sandboxed Solutions, even with custom validation creating innovative solutions by extending the capabilities of that provides detailed information about why a solution was SharePoint in unique and valuable ways. The three strategies not validated. Finally, site collection administrators can activate described (Connect, Extend, Build On) all exploit the services and install solutions in a secured, monitored environment and and extensibility provided by SharePoint at different entry farm administrators can provide a wide variety of hard limits on points. the execution of Sandboxed Solutions, even blocking specific solutions completely, to ensure environment stability. It should For concrete examples, just look at the host of third-party be obvious that these features were designed to support an ISV web parts that provide different data visualization capabilities, ecosystem. custom site definitions that provide solutions with standard lists, and custom views and reporting that leverage the configuration, deployment, and scalability of SharePoint. Microsoft has shown how to implement the Extend strategy Misconception 3 - SharePoint Is with the updated Excel Services, BCS, and Search Services among others. Doesn’t each one of these build on the Only a Document Repository services, features, operations, storage, I/O, and communication One of the most challenging aspects of SharePoint consulting resources that SharePoint provides? Absolutely. In fact, they and development engagements is to educate others that are possible specifically because of the services and capabilities SharePoint is much more than a simple portal and document provided by Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. In repository. Individuals tend to recognize the inherent value of addition, Microsoft has created some great new “applications” lists and document libraries, but in general only advanced users to whet our appetite and spur additional innovation. The 20 21 see immediate value from the web parts, workflow and other Managed Metadata Service , Access Services , Secure Store 22 features. SharePoint is much more. Eight categories and forty Service , and Web Analytics Service are excellent examples features were already mentioned, but what do these high- of combining all three strategies (Connect, Extend, and Build level categories and features mean to potential application On) to provide valuable applications on top of SharePoint’s developers? “operating system” and services. This is probably the most challenging misconception of all, and the answer provided depends on the audience. Let’s pose the following question before proceeding. What does an operating

24 25 Misconceptions of SharePoint as an Application Platform Misconceptions of SharePoint as an Application Platform

Misconception 4 - SharePoint Cannot Be Used to Run Line of Business Applications For many years the reputation of SharePoint has been that it’s great for collaboration, but the platform is not capable of supporting true line-of-business applications. With Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and even more so with SharePoint Server 2010, this is not the case at all. Not only is the platform capable from an infrastructure standpoint in terms of performance and scalability, but the features and functionality of SharePoint itself are ideal for building such high-value business applications. As can be seen in the body of this paper, there is a solid foundational architecture and numerous inherent features (that are either out of the box or available via Technology Solution ISVs, tooling, and community support) to enable a combination of buying and/or building viable SharePoint line-of-business applications.

Examples of Line of Business SharePoint Applications There are already ISV’s building line-of-business applications on SharePoint. For example, NextDocs Corporation and TranSenda are two Vertical ISV’s that build such applications for the life sciences market. For Technology ISV’s, you can look at companies such as KnowledgeLake that provide transactional content mangagement expertise for line-of-business applications that require image capture processing.

25 Community Support and Tooling

SharePoint has a large (and growing!) community following and is well supported by Microsoft as well as third-party tools. Developer tools such as Visual Studio 2010 help build deep integration with SharePoint, while power user tools such SharePoint Designer (along with third-party web parts and components) provide a means for adding value with less effort. Microsoft provides an excellent launch point for developers with the SharePoint Developer Center23. It includes how-to content and videos, SDK documentation, downloads, training resources, and links to community sites.

can also be easily added using Visual Studio. Visual Studio also Community includes support for creating SharePoint “Sandboxed Solutions” Rich community support includes more than 180 Microsoft which are projects that utilize a limited set of the SharePoint MVPs worldwide that have proficiency in SharePoint Services API for deployments in low-trust environments. Visual Studio and SharePoint Server. MVPs are active members of the can then build the solution and create a SharePoint Solution SharePoint community who make significant contributions Package (WSP) that can be deployed to a separate SharePoint by publishing original content and tools, monitoring and instance. answering questions in online forums, presenting at major Microsoft conferences, and/or leading or actively participating in SharePoint user groups or code camps. The SharePoint Developer Center is a great place to monitor community Debugging content. Several tools and techniques are available for debugging There are a large number of forums available for discussions SharePoint solutions. Starting from the lowest level, on various SharePoint topics such as general design or applications built upon the Microsoft Server Operating development or specific areas like Workflow or Excel Services. Systems and ASP.NET enables OS event logs to be used for Many ISVs have forums as well. Some popular community logging of errors, warnings, and information. At the next level, forums include: the Unified Logging Service (ULS) logs include SharePoint specific error and warning information. The level of detail 24 • MSDN - SharePoint Products and Technologies Forums (e.g., warning or information) included in the ULS logs can be • TechNet - SharePoint 2010 Forums25 controlled via settings in SharePoint Central Administration. ASP.NET tracing can be captured to the Visual Studio output 26 • Stack Overflow - SharePoint window or can be viewed using the DebugView application. • Server Fault - SharePoint27 A higher level is the SharePoint Developer Dashboard, which includes execution times for page load and database queries. 28 Microsoft’s open source project hosting site, CodePlex , Problematic database queries can be further investigated by has become the de facto source for community-supported clicking the hyperlink for the query to see the call stack which SharePoint projects. SharePoint projects include those that led up to the query. Developers can also add monitoring for support developer activities as well as those that add to and custom code wrapping it with a SPMonitoredScope section. customize SharePoint usability and features. A quick search of CodePlex yields over 1000 projects containing the keyword Visual Studio is a rich environment for debugging. Visual “SharePoint”! Studio can attach to the SharePoint worker process to allow stepping through server-side code such as for web pages, web parts, and user controls. Attaching to the SharePoint Services Timer process allows for debugging custom timer Visual Studio jobs or resumed workflow processes. Further, Visual Studio is Visual Studio is Microsoft’s flagship development environment. a great script debugging environment, attaching to Internet It provides support for developing applications and Explorer for stepping into client-side code. components across the spectrum of Microsoft technologies. The environment supports deep customization into the underlying ASP.NET infrastructure such as HttpHandlers, HttpModules, or membership providers for custom authentication – as well as SharePoint specific development. Using a wizard-based interface, developers can create web parts, list definitions, list instances, content types, workflows, event receivers, application pages, and Business Data Connectivity Models. Additionally, resources such as JavaScript or solutions images that must be deployed to the file system

26 27 Community Support and Tooling Community Support and Tooling

SharePoint Designer Third Party Tools SharePoint Designer is a very versatile tool which is used by Third-party developers have created myriad components developers and power users alike. SharePoint Designer includes that developers and power users can use to add value to (to name a few) support for customizing and designing web SharePoint. Technology Solution ISVs such as CorasWorks, pages and master pages, creating and designing workflows, Bamboo Solutions, Nintex, and Quest are examples of tool connecting Business Connectivity Services to external data, and providers that have extended the capabilities of SharePoint for customizing item-input forms for SharePoint lists. SharePoint power users, developers and administrators. Their offerings Designer can also be used to create content types, lists, and include data mash-up and presentation features, roll-up web site columns. SharePoint Designer can import workflows which parts, and even external data connectivity tools. These tools are have been designed using Microsoft Visio for implementation typically well supported by their respective companies and by in SharePoint. Administrative tasks such as application of the user community and are available as trial downloads. permissions or site settings can also be accomplished using SharePoint Designer. Though SharePoint Designer is often a power user tool, it Office 365 & SharePoint Online includes the ability to export components such as workflows (reusable workflows only), lists, and sites into SharePoint As mentioned earlier in this document, developers and ISVs Solution Packages (WSPs). WSPs are the deployable unit for must have an awareness of Office 365 & SharePoint Online in SharePoint components. Once exported, a WSP can be opened order to reach the broadest audience possible while achieving and more deeply customized using Visual Studio 2010. the desired functionality in a hosted, cloud-based environment. The tooling story for SharePoint Online mirrors the experience SharePoint Designer can connect directly to a production for on-premise environments: SharePoint Designer for SharePoint site. This capability may lead SharePoint advanced users and basic developer chores, and Visual Studio administrators to fret, but SharePoint gives administrators the for more advanced developer customizations. ability to specify SharePoint designer permissions for a web application using the following settings: • Allow SharePoint Designer to be used in this web application • Allow site collection administrators to customize site pages • Allow site collection administrators to customize master pages and layout pages • Allow site collection administrators to customize the URL structure of their web site When editing a web page, SharePoint Designer by default restricts users to editing web parts on a page. This feature prevents developers from detaching the page from the site definition, which can increase maintenance costs. An Advanced Edit Mode is available for full editing of the page. Often users will create solutions that grow over time to require a professional developer’s assistance. Solutions can be exported from SharePoint Designer 2010 and imported into Visual Studio 2010 to enable the developer to enhance the user’s solution without recreating it from scratch.

27 Next Steps

The decision to use SharePoint as a web application development platform can be approached in different ways. Below are some strategies to consider.

Feature Mapping Pilot Project Map a product roadmap to SharePoint features. After Most companies when evaluating a new technical roadmap will this mapping, determine what areas of SharePoint can approach building their product incrementally by starting with accelerate your product development. This is a low-cost-of- a Beta of the product first. They typically build a Beta of their entry approach to determine the benefit of leveraging the SharePoint based product in a 1-3 month cycle. Getting a quick SharePoint platform. It may be beneficial to consult with cycle of the product is a key to understand the true value of a someone that has a deep understanding of the breadth Connect, Extend, or Build On strategy. It can be surprising what of capabilities that SharePoint can enable. Hopefully, this features can be built in 1-2 week iterations. By 3-6 iterations, paper has given insight to the key capabilities and benefits typically enough features are in the product to release to a Beta of SharePoint that indicate if a feature-mapping exercise Community. After this 1-3 month time frame, development could have the potential to identify areas of overlap between cycles are understood and an organization is prepared to have SharePoint and intended product features. Also, during a tighter estimate on what it will take to get a product to a this analysis it is important to understand the components version 1.0. provided by the different product SKUs of SharePoint. Consult with Others Market Analysis Discuss this with other ISVs, enterprises, and/or consulting Get an understanding of the use of SharePoint among current companies that have done this before. There is nothing like and prospective customers. Based on this understanding, getting feedback from people that have been through the you can make a more informed decision about the potential process. There are plenty of Horizontal and Vertical ISVs (and benefits of having a product built on or connected to enterprises) that have made a choice to Connect, Extend, or SharePoint. In the situation of Horizontal ISVs, it can be a Build On the SharePoint platform. Finding a company that is show stopper or a delay in the sales cycle if your product does building similar products and asking about their experience will not have a SharePoint connection strategy. For Vertical ISVs, be very enlightening. Of course, the competition might not be building on SharePoint may result in a positive outcome based willing to discuss their experience, but it is easy to find other on the comfort level a customer’s IT group has with SharePoint. ISVs that are building software that has equivalent features or a Having a product that leverages SharePoint (a familiar platform similar level of complexity. It is surprising how many companies service that IT groups use today) will be seen as a simpler are willing to share their experiences. solution and one that is more maintainable. For example, most Microsoft based IT shops know how SharePoint security works, so there will be a comfort level of leveraging an existing authentication and authorization mechanism that is integral to SharePoint.

Bake Off An interesting exercise is to build two similar products; one leveraging SharePoint and one that is built from the ground up. This is not a common exercise, but can be a very eye- opening experience. With the SharePoint development, there is more of a focus around the business problem and less of a focus on the framework. Because of this focus, many common business problems can be solved with a large reduction of custom code and a greatly reduced development cycle.

28 29 Next Steps Next Steps © Copyright 2010. Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. rights All Corporation. Microsoft 2010. © Copyright This is a representative sample of partners and is not designed to be a comprehensive list. list. comprehensive a be to 2010. 12, March designed not date is Rev. and partners of sample representative a is This This is a draft version. Please send feedback to [email protected]. to feedback send Please version. draft a is This WorkLight Techtra SharePartXXL Solutions Senova MindJet KwizCom CorasWorks SolutionsBamboo User Components Telerik Tec-IT NetUnity InterKnowlogy Infusion Infragistics IDV Solutions ESRI ComponentOne Atalasoft Developer Components Ultimus Skelta ShareVis SharePointBoost Solutions SharePoint Nintex Metastorm Kaldeera K2 AG ITSystems InRule Global360 Datapolis AgilePoint Management Business Process KWizCom BlueBridge SolutionsBamboo Atlassian Wiki Tools Telligent RealCom Nintex NewsGator Lightning Tools Software Leverage KWizCom Networks INgage ConnectBeam Awareness Social Computing Circles Content Colligo Aditi Collaboration

SharePoint ISV Communities Composites Partner Ecosystem Texcel Tec-IT ShareVis Qdabra Kayentis Adapx Forms SAP Oracle Text Open IBM Hyland EMC ECM Interop OneDoc HyLighter Associates Blade Black Document Multi-Authoring Xinnovation Software Thirtysix Microsystems Intelledox ld DITA-Exchange Integrity Business ActiveDocs Document Assembly Telestream (Artesia) Text Open Equilibrium Adam Digital Asset Management Labs Titus Software Foxit DITA-Exchange Coextant Software AnyDoc Software Adlib Content Transformation Path Vital Vamosa Partners Valiance Tzunami SeeUnity Software Quest Proventeq MetaVis MetaPlus Metalogix Casahl AvePoint Content Migration Labs Titus Prodiance Nintex NextPage NextDocs Machines Liquid Indorse HP HiSoftware GigaTrust ClusterSeven CA Systems Bentley Compliance Symantec Seagate Software Quest Neverfail NetApp Systems Mimosa Metalogix Iron Mountain Systems Data Hitachi EMC CommVault CA BlueThread AvePoint Systems Allen Archiving/Backups Technology Solutions Technology Content SharePoint Telerik pTools Metalogix Hit IT Coextant Web Content Management Idiom IceFire Translation Support Xerox SpringCM Nuance Laserfiche Kofax Kodak KnowledgeLake IRIS ImageSource Software Hyland Fujitsu eCopy Duck Blue Dark Clearview BlueThread BancTec Management Transactional Content Seagate-i365 Text Open NetApp Iron Mountain HDS EMC CommVault Storage Services UniqueWorld Productiv Text Open HP EMC CA IS Applied Records Management Productiv OmniRIM Iron Mountain FileTrail DataStore Management Physical Records Infonic Dosensio Digi-Link Colligo Offline Replication Text Open Kofax IRIS EMC ABBYY OCR Synaptica SmartLogic SharePartXXL SchemaLogic ScanJour Planet Networked MetaVis KwizCom AG ITSystems System Expert Searching Concept Metadata Management Documill Visual Search xmLaw Vorsite Path Vital SeeUnity iFilterShop Software Handshake Coveo Comperio Citeknet BA-Insight Protocol Handlers/iFilters Connectors/ Repository SurfRay ScanJour System Expert BA-Insight Enhancements Query Q-Go Natural Language Search Sinequa System Expert Searching Concept Sound Semantics Linguistic and Infonic Text Analytics Sophos Omada NextPage Machines Liquid GigaTrust bHold Security Information MetaCarta Acxiom Data Enhancement Nixdorf Wincor Transpara Tagetik Solgenia RadWare Quilogy PushBI Panorama Technologies MaxQ deFacto Clarity Advantive.NL Business Intelligence Varicent Bridge Topaz StoneBond (SAP) Sitrion Simplement Lightning Tools Intellimaker ERP-Link BCS-LOB Integration The Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise and WebThe Business Collaboration Platform Insights Search ® ISV Partner Ecosystem ISV Partner RadWare HP F5 Citrix Cisco Certeon Brocade BlueCoat Aptimize WAN Optimization Solutions SharePoint Technology Echo Alcero Site Management Trend Micro Symantec Rohati Software Quest Omada McAfee Lightning Tools GigaTrust Courion Cisco CA bHold Security/Permissions Mgmt WebTrends IntLock Reporting WICKSoft TrueContext Transpara RealCommerce PushBI Entree) (Mobile H3-Inc Formotus Mobile App Support Ping Novell Identity/User Directory Workshare speakTECH Securent Software Quest Omada NextPage Navantis Systems Mimosa ClusterSeven CA AvePoint Governance Syntergy RepliWeb Neverfail Infonic Technologies Echo DoubleTake Geo-Replication Software Quest iDevFactory Idera Technologies Echo Assist Data Axceler AvePoint Administration HiSoftware Accessibility Sites Horizontal Business Solutions Business Horizontal Learning Evolution Learning IntraLearn Competentum WorkProducts Digital Reef Discovery Applied Commerce Cactus Aivea HP CA IS Applied TotalSoft Relavis Portrait Software Software LookOut CDC Corporation Solutions BPA Systems AccTech Text Open Software Dolphin Consulting Corridor C-Lutions Integrity Business Verint Varicent e-Solutions TXT SharePartXXL Kronos CorasWorks CDC Corporation Solutions BPA Software Bamboo Contract Management Business Solutions Business DoD Certification DoD E-Learning/LMS E-Commerce E-Discovery CRM (Comments will be accepted, but will not be responded to.) about the ISV Ecosystem Map can be submitted to [email protected] . and flexibility of SharePoint as an Application Development Platform. Comments and Vertical solutions is significant. This growth indicates the strength, openness, growth in ISV solutions for SharePoint is illustrated here, and growth in Horizontal The ISV Ecosystem Map is representative only, and is not a comprehensive list. The SharePoint Cloud Offering Cloud SharePoint Knowledge Management Bluespring Software Bluespring Azaleos Reuters Thomson MicroStrategy LexisNexis Kronos (IT) Consult it (AG) Software Easy Bloomberg Systems Bentley Press Associated Winnov SoftwareFX FinlandTieto Oy Communications Telus Zealand New Telecom S.P.A. Italia Telecom Rackspace AG Hosting Netrics S.A.E. Development LINK GoDaddy FPWeb WORLDLINE ATOS SpringCM nGenera Solutions LMR BrightWork Software Bamboo Topaz Bridge Topaz Nakisa Kronos ADP SharePoint FIS Hosting FIS SharePoint Project Management Project Managed SharePointManaged Video Interfacing Video HR Applications Services Vertafore Temenos SunGard R Square Profitbase Prodiance Corporation Portrait Software MiSys Memento Henry Jack FundTech Fiserv CSC ARGO Data Travelport Technologies Aristocrat Hospitality Technologies Vendor Managed TXT Quofore Invensys Commerce Cactus Granite Blue Consumer Goods WebTrends Radiant ProfitBase AssociatesManhattan LexisNexis Tech Gerber Escalate Accellos Quark MSA MetraTech Corp Marketron CA White Cloud White Solver Philips McKesson Software Hyland Greenway CitiusTech Fusion Care CA Allscripts NewsGator E-Sponder Comm Dialogic CorasWorks CA Systems Bentley AvePoint Education Higher SunGard Worx IT iStrategy Harcourt Mifflin Houghton Force E-Learning Datatel CSI Agilix Distribution & Services Distribution Vertical Business Solutions Business Vertical Federal Government Federal Financial Services Financial Communications HealthCare Education State & Local Government & Local State SAP-Duet RedPrairie OSIsoft Logility Invensys Infosys ICONICS Epicor AspenTech Adexa Nixdorf Wincor Varicent eSolutions TXT Car RPM Prairie Red Commerce Cactus Systems Acorn xmLaw Workshare WorkProducts Sonata Software NextPage Software Handshake Aderant Accruent OSISoft Navantis Software McLaren IHS Inc. Flexnova Solutions Enspiria Group Areva Wipro PLM Siemens Schlumberger Rockwell PTC OSIsoft Intergraph ICONICS Honeywell Dassault Cincom Systems Bentley Autodesk Tech Aspen Imex Systems Imex CA Systems Bentley TranSenda SchemaLogic PointCross OSIsoft NextDocs Products Good DITA-Exchange CSC Software Adlib Accelrys Professional Services Professional Manufacturing & Manufacturing Power & Utilities Power Process Visibility Process Supply Chain & Chain Supply Life Sciences Life Resources Retail

29 Next Steps

Key Resources References Microsoft - SharePoint 2010: Microsoft - SharePoint 2010 Capabilities: http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/ http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/product/capabilities/ default.aspx Pages/default.aspx

Microsoft - Office SharePoint Server 2007: Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog - SharePoint History: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/05/ sharepoint-history.aspx Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog - SharePoint 2010: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/ Microsoft - SharePoint Developer Introduction for .NET sharepoint-2010.aspx Developers: http://www.microsoft.com/click/sharepointdeveloper/ TechNet - SharePoint 2010 Forum: html/Default.html http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ category/sharepoint2010 MSDN - What’s New in SharePoint Server 2010: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ TechNet - Managed Metadata Service Application Overview ee557323(office.14).aspx (SharePoint Server 2010): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ MSDN - What’s New in SharePoint Foundation 2010: ee424403(office.14).aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ ee539826(office.14).aspx TechNet - Introduction to Access Services (SharePoint Server 2010): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ MSDN - Introduction to SharePoint Products and Technologies ee748634(office.14).aspx for the Professional .NET Developer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc537498.aspx TechNet – Configure the Secure Store Service (SharePoint Server 2010): MSDN - Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee806866.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb931739.aspx Microsoft Learning - Developing Service-Oriented AJAX Applications on the Microsoft Platform: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/book. aspx?ID=12793

MSDN - SharePoint Developer Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx

MSDN - SharePoint Products and Technologies Forums: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/ category/sharepoint

MSDN - Application Lifecycle Management Resource Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cc990283.aspx

MSDN - Team-Based Development in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb428899.aspx

MSDN - Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc948982.aspx

MSDN - Solution and Authored Artifact Development Models for SharePoint Products and Technologies: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179854.aspx

30 31 Next Steps Next Steps

References (continued) Glossary of Terms MSDN - Walkthrough: Creating a Basic SharePoint Web Part: If you are new to ASP.NET or SharePoint concepts, we have provided http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms452873.aspx the below glossary of terms for your reference.

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog - Scaling to Extremely Large ACL – Access Control List – a set of permissions tied to an object. Lists and Performant Access Methods: For search indexing this involves storing the ACL with an item that is http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/07/25/ indexed so the query engine can easily determine if the current user scaling-large-lists.aspx has read access to the search result. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Access_control_list. MSDN - Cohesion and Coupling: AJAX – Asynchronous JavaScript and XML – refers to web requests http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc947917.aspx from browser clients (JavaScript) that tend to return XML from the CodePlex: server without having to refresh the entire page. See also http:// http://www.codeplex.com en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming). ALM - Application Lifecycle Management – refers to managing the CodePlex - WSPBuilder: entire software lifecycle of an application through the use of tools. See http://www.codeplex.com/wspbuilder also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_lifecycle_management. CodePlex - STSDEV: ASP.NET – Active Server Pages .NET – Microsoft web application http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev framework built upon the .NET framework. See also http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asp.net. CodePlex - SharePoint Solution Installer: http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointinstaller BCS - Business Connectivity Services – SharePoint 2010’s new service for connecting SharePoint to business data that lives outside StackOverflow - SharePoint: of SharePoint and can be accessed through database protocols, web http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/sharepoint services, or custom .NET code. The data is exposed within SharePoint as external content types. ServerFault - SharePoint: http://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/sharepoint BDC - Business Data Catalog – the original name for the BCS in SharePoint 2007 and now replaced by the BCS in SharePoint 2010. SharePoint Reviews – Reviews of Third Party SharePoint products - CAS – Code Access Security – allows a set of code to demand certain http://www.sharepointreviews.com/ security rights at runtime. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_ access_security. David Chappell - The SharePoint 2010 Developer Platform: Claims Based Authentication – an approach to identity http://www.davidchappell.com/blog/2009/10/sharepoint- management where a secure token service (STS) is used to make 2010-developer-platform.html a “claim” on an identity. The STS can be used in a heterogeneous Kollabria - Is SharePoint a Business Operating System?: environment allowing disparate systems to trust the identity as long as http://www.kollabria.com/pages/Is-SharePoint-a-Business- they can share the same STS. Operating-System%3F.html ClickOnce – Microsoft technology for deploying client applications over the Internet. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClickOnce. Office 365 & SharePoint Online Capabilities Microsoft_SharePoint_Online_Standard_Beta_Service_ Client OM - Client Object Model – the new object model available Description_Final.docx to browsers running JavaScript or Silverlight as well as Windows applications. This makes it easier for programmers to communicate to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details. SharePoint through a client API. aspx?FamilyID=6c6ecc6c-64f5-490a-bca3-8835c9a4a2ea Content Types – these define the schema and behavior of a particular Developing for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Online: type of content. In SharePoint this includes the fields for the content Understanding the Boundaries (list/library columns) and can also define workflow settings as well http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica/OSP204 as information management policy settings. See also http://msdn. microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms472236.aspx. ECB - Edit Control Block – the drop-down menu associated with an item in a SharePoint list/library. Excel Services – allows the sharing of Excel content to others through SharePoint web user interface. See also http://office.microsoft.com/ en-us/sharepointserver/HA101054761033.aspx.

31 Next Steps

External Content Types – a Content Type that is external to SharePoint Ribbon – SharePoint 2010 provides a ribbon interface just SharePoint and is available through the BCS. like the ribbon introduced in most Office 2007 products. This ribbon is context sensitive to provide most common actions behind an icon Federated Search / Query Federation – the act of delegating a at the top portion of the page. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ query to another service, such as the owner of the content. The other Ribbon_(computing). service would be in charge of indexing the content as well. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_search. Silverlight – A web application framework for rich web user interface that can be used across browsers and operating systems. See also Folksonomy – simple tagging or classification of content http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight. that emerges from users of content vs. being mandated to a predetermined structured taxonomy. Folksonomies are considered to Site Actions Menu – A user interface component common on be a bottoms-up approach to tagging content. Taxonomies are usually SharePoint pages that allow users with the appropriate permissions to considered a top-down approach to tagging content. See also http:// perform common site actions such as creating a new list for a site. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy. also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb418728.aspx. HTTP Handler – code within ASP.NET that can be configured to SharePoint Workspace – Formally Groove in Office 2007, this is handle particular type of request (e.g., a GET for a URL). See also the offline client for SharePoint 2010. This is also a secure and rich http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb398986.aspx. peer collaboration environment that allows for data synchronization between users in a workspace without being connected to HTTP Module – code within ASP.NET that can be configured to as SharePoint. See also http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ part of the pipeline for all requests for a particular site or sub-site. See ee649102%28office.14%29.aspx also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb398986.aspx. SPI - SharePoint Project Item – SharePoint Project Item Templates Information Management Policies – a set of rules that can be are used in Visual Studio 2010 to add project items to an existing applied to content in SharePoint. See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/ SharePoint project, such as adding an event receiver to a list en-us/library/ms499244.aspx. definition project. See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ InfoPath Forms – Form-design tool used for electronic form data ee231554(VS.100).aspx. collection. SharePoint has a server feature for InfoPath Forms to SPS - SharePoint Portal Services – The name used for the server allow viewing InfoPath Form within the browser on a SharePoint product for first and second generation (version) of SharePoint. site. See also http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/ HA101672841033.aspx. SSO - Single Sign-On – Attributed to heterogeneous systems where a user can authenticate once and have access to multiple systems ISAPI - Internet Server Application Programming Interface – The API without having to log in again. used for building the ASP.NET framework. See also http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Internet_Server_Application_Programming_Interface. STS - SharePoint Team Services – The name used for the free add- on to Windows Server for the first generation (version) of SharePoint. Master Pages – This ASP.NET capability is used for common/ consistent layout and web pages across sites in SharePoint. See also VSeWSS - Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wtxbf3hh.aspx Services – A set of extensions to Visual Studio to help developers of SharePoint 2007 based applications. Monitored Scope – A technique used to instrument code to show up in the SharePoint Developer Dashboard. See also http://www. WCF – Windows Communication Foundation – As part of the .NET wictorwilen.se/Post/Improve-your-SharePoint-2010-applications-with- framework, this foundation provides a unified model for building monitoring-using-SPMonitoredScope.aspx and http://blogs.technet. service-oriented applications. See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- com/speschka/archive/2009/10/28/using-the-developer-dashboard- us/netframework/aa663324.aspx in-sharepoint-2010.aspx Web Part – Modular user interface components that are nested in MOSS - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server - the name of the Web Part Pages. Web Parts in SharePoint can be configured by a user, licensed version of SharePoint in 2007. including determining in whichWeb Part Zone a Web Part is placed. This is a key part of packaging elements of a SharePoint solution. See also MSF - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation - the new name of the http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd583154(office.11).aspx. core/foundation of SharePoint in 2010. Web Part Pages – The main container for the SharePoint user MSS – Microsoft SharePoint Server – the new name of the licensed interface. Web Part Pages contain Web Part Zones, which can contain version of SharePoint in 2010. zero to many Web Parts. See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ OData – Open Data Protocol - Web protocol for querying and library/dd583147(office.11).aspx updating data that provides a way to unlock your data and free it from silos that exist in applications today. See also http://www.odata.org SAML – Security Assertion Markup Language – XML-based standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Security_Assertion_Markup_Language.

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Glossary of Terms (continued) Web Part Zones – Web Part Zones allow a user or developer to place Web Parts in relative positions within a Web Part Page. For example, you could have top, left, and right Web Part Zones to organize where Web Parts would be rendered on a Web Part Page. WF - Windows Workflow Foundation – Microsoft workflow framework that can be hosted within SharePoint to provide workflow capabilities. This engine is used for custom workflows and is leveraged by most products that provide workflow in SharePoint. See also http:// msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663328.aspx. WSP - Solution Package – A CAB file with the extension of “.wsp” used to deploy code to a SharePoint Server. See also http://msdn. microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466225.aspx. WSS - Windows SharePoint Services - the name of the core of SharePoint from v1 through v3. In 2010 this has been replaced with the moniker Microsoft SharePoint Foundation (MSF).

33 Appendix

Footnotes

1 SharePoint History Blog Post - 14 David Chappell’s Blog (The SharePoint 2010 Developer http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/05/ Platform) - sharepoint-history.aspx http://www.davidchappell.com/blog/2009/10/sharepoint-2010- developer-platform.html 2 SharePoint Capabilities - http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/product/capabilities/ 15 Solution and Authored Artifact Development Models for Pages/default.aspx SharePoint Products and Technologies - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd179854(office.12). 3 Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog (SharePoint 2010) - aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/ sharepoint-2010.aspx 16 Working with Large Lists in Office SharePoint 2007

4 Whitepaper - SharePoint Connector for Confluence (Atlassian Product Page) - http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/07/25/ http://www.atlassian.com/sharepoint/ scaling-large-lists.aspx

5 SharePoint Connector for Confluence (How We Did It Article 17 MSDN Pattern in Practice (Cohesion And Coupling) - on SharePoint Product Team Blog) - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc947917.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/01/10/ sharepoint-connector-for-confluence-how-we-did-it.aspx 18 Developing Service-Oriented AJAX Applications on the

6 Microsoft Platform - Allowing Connections to Multiple SSRS Servers with Report http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/book.aspx?ID=12793 Viewer and Explorer Web Parts (How We Did It Article on SharePoint Product Team Blog) - 19 Article on “Is SharePoint a Business Operating System?” - http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/11/03/how- http://www.kollabria.com/pages/Is-SharePoint-a-Business- we-did-it-allowing-connections-to-multiple-ssrs-servers-with- Operating-System%3F.html report-viewer-and-explorer-web-parts.aspx 20 Managed Metadata Service Application Overview - 7 Automating Service Requests using InfoPath Forms Services http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ (How We Did It Article on SharePoint Product Team Blog) - ee424403(office.14).aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/11/14/how- we-did-it-automating-service-requests-using-infopath-forms- 21 Introduction to Access Services - services.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ ee748634(office.14).aspx 8 CorasWorks App Store - http://www.cwappstore.com/ 22 Configure the Secure Store Service (SharePoint Server 2010) - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee806866.aspx 9 Data Integration Toolset from CorasWorks - http://www.corasworks.net/dataintegrationtoolset/ 23 SharePoint Developer Center - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx 10 MashPoint from Bamboo Solutions - http://store.bamboosolutions.com/ps-118-5-mashpoint.aspx 24 MSDN - SharePoint Products and Technologies Forums - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/category/ 11 Mike Flasko’s “Breaking Down ‘Data Silos’ - The Open Data sharepoint Protocol (OData)” - http://blogs.msdn.com/astoriateam/archive/2009/11/17/ 25 TechNet - SharePoint 2010 Forums - breaking-down-data-silos-the-open-data-protocol-odata.aspx http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/ sharepoint2010 12 SharePoint Search Connector Framework Overview - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee556429 26 Stack Overflow - SharePoint - (office.14).aspx http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/sharepoint

13 Introduction to SharePoint Products and Technologies for 27 Server Fault - SharePoint - the Professional .NET Developer - http://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/sharepoint http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc537498.aspx 28 CodePlex (Open Source Project Community) - http://www.codeplex.com/

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