This presentation was given by Alexander Meijers as part of the Sparked Toolkit Session: SharePoint Nightmares.
It discusses the boundaries of SharePoint when it comes to customizations.
2. Do you recognize yourself?
Yes, we are building everything our selves!
We are deviating from the standards
We say too often “SharePoint? Yes it can!”
We have complicated the design
3. Reality check!
Not delivering what the customer asked
Too complicated system
Performance issues
Over budget
SharePoint gets a bad name
Know the product its limits!
5. First step to disaster
Communication
Lack of it
Assumptions
No documentation
• Lesson learned
Communicate!! It is not that hard!
Document everything
Say NO to your customer
Customer sessions
6. Second step to disaster
The data model
Over designed the system
Based on relational databases
Mapped to Content Types and Lists
Multi-tier solution implementation
• Lessons learned
Do not threat Lists as a database table
Check if you need to store the data in SharePoint or
another location
Do I really need all those tiers?
Keep it stupid simple
7. Third step to disaster
Implementation
Only focus on the presentation and not on maintaining
the content
Not using out-of-the box functionality
Developers only know their piece
No code documentation
• Lessons learned
Try to use as much as possible out-of-the box
Think of Content management, Security and
Search from the beginning
Document your code
8. Fourth step to disaster
Everything else
Migration? No, lets wait till we finish the Portal
Not cooperation with the other parties
• Lessons learned
Do NOT under estimate migration
Be a team for the customer! We are one! There is
no you!