Things You Should Do Before Becoming a SharePoint Developer

As the tech market is increasing on vast scale, it has opened unlimited development opportunities for designers and developers. But, when it comes to the development part, the developers are always  have a confusion on which language is to choose, is it good to learn hardcore coding or it is not so essential, and many other such questions.

Commonly, .Net developers switch to SharePoint development and start working on coding. Sometimes they get the success, but sometime they don't. Whether you should choose SharePoint development or not, has always been a topic of confusion. Here are some points that will help you to make a clear decision.

Start From the Beginning

Many of the .Net developers think that it is quite easy to leave Visual Studio and start writing code to make SharePoint. But, somehow it is not that good concept. Do you have any idea, what you need to do before you write a line of code in SharePoint? In the industry, many of the SharePoint developers not even know how to use SharePoint, properly.

For example, while creating or manipulating SharePoint lists & libraries in code, you need to understand how to create & manipulate them in the user interface first. There are number of resources, blogs and websites that offer tutorials, video training, white papers, etc. If you want to use SharePoint site, then just explore it and start using it.

Become a Power User

If you think that after learning the basics of SharePoint, you have become a SharePoint developer and start development work, then you are wrong. After learning the SharePoint, the another step you should take is to become a power user of SharePoint. When it comes to becoming a power user of SharePoint, you need to know all its pros and cons, as well as the more advanced features of SharePoint, including content types, page layouts, master pages, workflows, publishing, managed metadata, business connectivity services and many more. Also, you need to learn about its capabilities, peculiarity and limitations that helps in your development process.

Why Does This Matter?

Although, you need to learn SharePoint before coding, but why it is required? Instead of wasting the time on re-inventing the common functionality, and writing the business logic that can’t be achieved through the user interface, it's better to focus on the areas that cannot be customized, there you will write less code, and the testing and bug fixing cycle will also get reduced.

Other Factors to Consider

If you want to become one amongs the professional SharePoint developers, it is essential that you determine the usability of the solution. SharePoint is not the most instinctive web platform to start with. But once you have mastered it, you don’t require to introduce an interface. If you already understand that how to use the interface, you learning phase will be much smaller. As well as you would be able to focus on your training on the specific functionality and business logics that are written by you.

Top 4 Tips for Getting The Most From SharePoint Development Services

SharePoint has changed the entire aspect of organisations look at content management, from an approach based on per user costs to matching the requirements of a highly specialised document professionals. It is especially focused on critical document intensive processes, to meet the broad needs of expert professionals. 

Now-a-days, SharePoint is used everywhere. But initially, it is used as a point solution to solve the document collaboration problems of project teams. For resolving the problem of file sharing, the organisations are considering the SharePoint as a better solution. As a versatile business platform, SharePoint is adopted widely. It's regularly updated with the sole aim of feature improvements and user oriented purpose.

SharePoint is the first product which provides a genuine and reasonable enterprise content management services. If you are willing to make SharePoint work as an enterprise platform, here are four tips for getting the most from it.

1. Uniqueness of SharePoint: Platforms need unification with other enterprise systems and third party integration to fill out the gaps in functionality. Usually, developing an application is  quite costly upon any platform, but with the power of SharePoint, you will get the real value of your money.

2. Review SharePoint from a business point of view in place of IT perspective: If your SharePoint deployment is slow, or failing to enhance additional value, then look for the existing reasons, and how these issues can be resolved quickly. But consider this issue from a business perspective, in place of IT loopholes. It is a robust business tool and should be evaluated as such.

3. Think Outside the Box: Make your extensive approach towards your SharePoint development. It can be really more helpful and add more value to your business. Linking SharePoint with other enterprise systems available for business processes that include  both unstructured and transactional content. 

4. Build third party solutions to fill out gaps in functionality part of your business: 

While planning, just make sure that you include additional core ECM functionality, such as scanning and capture, workflow, governance and digital signatures. Also use data clean-up and migration tools. The data clean-up and migration tools can do their specific task using content analytics. With the passing of time SharePoint becomes more business-oriented and capable to update your existing system and process monitoring tools that has not only improved your business visibility, but also helpful to resolve various issues of your business. 

As SharePoint has its extensive range of features, many SharePoint development companies are offering their excellent services in this arena. If you are looking for the SharePoint development services, then you can connect with the top SharePoint development company India, and get the wide range of  world class  services. 

Top Reasons For Using SharePoint For Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Management

For building the positive image in the market, many industries are focused on a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Management system. Usually, people facing various issues in the implementing or improving their SOP management system, for this situation SharePoint is the best tool that solves your issues. Here, are some of the top reasons that ensure SharePoint is the best tool for Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Management system:

 Collaboration:

The strong Standard Operating Procedures require collaboration within various levels, from experts to end users, across the organization. SharePoint is the perfect tool for the collaboration, which easy to create specific sites for authoring or updating an SOP. It exclusive functions like discussion, tasks, wikis and calendars, provides a wide platform for the organization, to accumulate all the references and thinking points at one place, which really helps in achieving the best quality end result.

Great Document Control Within a Central SOP library:

Usually, for industrial policy or procedure, you have to search for the multiple contradicting versions, or have no idea where to look for the solutions. Considering the documentation problem, SharePoint provides controlled central SOP library, which make the documentation easier. Additionally, you can easily view the changes, and revert to previous versions, if required. Due to these features, it is really easy to correct SOP, as well as provides full trace ability of how and when an SOP changed and evolved.

Security and Accessibility

An SOP library is great in use, but it also needs to be some access control. With SharePoint, you can  simply control your employee or groups of employees and view, edit or delete documents. To provide the flexibility to the audiences of your SOP’s, SharePoint can easily configure, so that people outside your organization, or on the internet, can access it hassle free. 

SOP Distribution and Training:

SharePoint standard features supported in publishing and circulating of documents. The 3rd party SharePoint add-ons feature supports the SOP process through DocRead and DocSurvey.

• For Distribution - DocRead permits new or updated SOP’s to be circulated to any group of employees, and maintain a track record that they have read it or not.
• For Training – When DocRead is used in conjunction with DocSurvey, the employee comprehension of an SOP, is also considered with the addition of a test.

SharePoint, with its exclusive features can easily manage the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Management system, and enhance it working. If you are looking for the SharePoint for your organization, then you should hire the top SharePoint development company in India, and they will enhance your Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with SharePoint effectively.

Top Benefits of SharePoint Development in 2016

The new release of Microsoft, SharePoint 2016 brings a number of enhancements. If you are not sure, whether your organization needs to adopt SharePoint 2016 or not, then you should explore the benefits of the latest version of SharePoint development 2016. SharePoint development India Shares the benefits of the SharePoint 2016:

1. Scalability: It allows scaling, without compromising on the performance. The long list of items, and the large number of files can be indexed easily in SharePoint 2016. Additionally, allowing you to manage and store data on your system. These features are highly fruitful for large scale as well as  growing stage organizations.
2. Equipped with Easier and Reliable Patching Functionality: Patches are useful to fix bugs, and also helpful in enhancing the security features. Organizations having previous versions of SharePoint have endured a lengthy patching process and loss their precious working time. But, SharePoint 2016 is introduced with faster and easier patching functionality.
3. Robust links: One of the most weaken point introduced in the previous versions of SharePoint was that transferring a document to another location broke links that early pointed accurately to that document. But, the latest version of SharePoint, saves the precious time of users in dealing with broken links, and also enables easy searching process.
4. File Names: Previous versions of SharePoint didn't allow special characters, and file names were also very long. But, with the SharePoint 2016, you can make your file names simpler for users to better understand.
5. Hybrid Environments: The latest version of SharePoint comes with hybrid environments. The power of hybrid environment allows users to search content on-premises as well as save them on the cloud environment simultaneously. The latest version of SharePoint makes the process of finding content much easier and simpler.
6. Quicker and  Faster: The new release of Microsoft, SharePoint 2016 also offers fast and improved services for you. The search function works very quickly and there are latest methods & process for developing sites or site collections. Time is money, and quick services of the latest SharePoint version could empower the professionals to invest their maximum working hours in the favour of your organization.

Conclusion: The final conclusion is that, SharePoint development 2016 is launched with solid  performance and quick services than previous editions. SharePoint 2016 is not only different dramatically from previous one but is even more effective and valuable for your business.

Migrating File Shares to Microsoft SharePoint Made Easy

Professionals engaged in custom SharePoint development in India & abroad need to take care of a number of aspects. One of the most crucial of these is the migration of file shares to SharePoint that is not that easy and requires slight precaution. While setting up a new SharePoint site, migration of documents from file shares to SharePoint is essentially required at the first place. You just can’t blindly drag & drop all files & folders from one place to another. All files can’t be moved at the same time. Let’s know the right process to migrate files to SharePoint. Though it may seem easier, the real process may prove to be slightly more complicated.

Manage Proper Document Inventory - Just like before moving in a new house, one does leave the unnecessary stuff, same logic applies in case of moving files & documents to SharePoint. Prepare a document inventory after having a look at all your folders & sub-folders. Identify the documents that you want to migrate and leave remaining. Also, make sure that you don’t migrate the files that are not meant to be stored on SharePoint. These files include Software Code, various program/application files, executable and extra large files.

Assign Categories to All Files : Having decided on what to move to SharePoint, you need to categorize all selected documents carefully. All documents may be mixed together on one shared drive/folder; however, the case would be different when you move the same to SharePoint. Go for organizing files related to projects, policies and procedures, customer documents etc., based on their function. This is required because these files belong to different sites in SharePoint. Two major reasons why different categories of documents must be uploaded to different SharePoint sites are function & security.

Assign Metadata Properties : For each category, you also need to assign Metadata properties. Its necessary as SharePoint allows you easily manage documents via Metadata. So, you need to use Metadata rather than folders. Its better to have a better understanding of the documents you need to migrate before you actually go into the migration process.

5 Key Things Required for Developing SharePoint Applications

Microsoft’s Silverlight is hot favorite among all the tools available in the market for developing applications. Being powered by .NET framework it had came into existence in the initial phase of web industry from the house of Microsoft and has seen a long journey till date. Now, much has changed all these years, the process of development the platform for which the apps are developed, etc. Still how it has kept developers engaged to it is the question of man. Mobile being the talk of the hour is the podium for which maximum apps are being developed so a peek over it with some statistics related to Silverlight might clear this up. A fine fact is shared here; the numbers are based on usage statistics from Mobile Entrée 365 available in Office app store for SharePoint online. The data has been collected recently on May 12 to 19, 2014. According to them, 78% of deployments have done some sort of mobile customization. 12% of all the time users made use of ‘search’ instead of direct browsing. All these points that app are going to be here and so is the name SharePoint supporting its backbone be it mobile or web.

More about the app development using SharePoint

It sounds real good when someone tells you that SharePoint is the things which you must have for your app development. But, the fact is unless and until you are aware of the environments and extensiveness of it you will not e able to make most use of it for your benefit. Being in any projects where the client demands for following agile SharePoint application development process in India, being a developer in most of the cases it is seen that people take us the task. It is ok if you are in good relationship with it, but in case you have no idea then do collect some and then commit. A company which is known to offers services related to this orientation always has team members and professionals who are aware about the environment, syntax styles and deployment catches while working with it. Not to mention the additional years of experience comes really handy.

If you are working on a corporate website the making use of SharePoint for Web Content Management (WCM) or Customer Experience Management (CXM) is a great idea. While being in the project cycle certain things must be considered at all times for desired end-result.

Much needed ingredients for development

These set of ingredients are approach style, safety measures and coding pattern, etc. One must make sure to keep a note of all these for the success of the project.

1. One should always make sure to pack every update in a fresh wsp file on the prod. This is to make sure that a backup stays behind in case something goes wrong.

2. Do not change the schema for any of the list template features in case the list instances have been created by then. Any changes on demand must be done via Objective Model.

3. Always keep the original dll file in GAC. For the sake of workflow do not change it. If that is very essential make a new dll and pack the workflow modifications inside it.

4. Keep yourself away from making use of extra panels like Grid, etc. Once where they are needed use those.

5. Prefer using grid style as it is more complying with mobile platforms.

Above are some major areas of Sharepoint app development and the things which must be kept in mind while engaging in a SharePoint app development endeavor. 

SharePoint Saving the World of Small and Medium-Scale Business

It was the year 2001 when Microsoft launched one of its finest business solutions of the last decade. From SharePoint 2007 to 2010 and now 2013 the journey has been epic. Basically it was the 2007 version that initiated the real movement in the business domains globally. On an average Microsoft does get a handsome strength of 20,000 users per day for SharePoint. It has been recorded that 80% of the fortune 500 companies around the globe make use of SharePoint. Out of this 83% utilizes the application for document management primarily.  The cloud solutions are becoming much popular among small businesses and that is quite evident from the fact that the percentage of company deploying them has gone from 21% to 53% in just 1 year. By the end of 2014 it is expected to see a boost of additional 10-15% minimum.

                                   India connection in the story development

The land of opportunity as it is referred in the IT world has been very much in the scene of SharePoint development from the very initial phase.  A job trends shared by indeed tells that in comparison to collaboration and content management, SharePoint is much ahead in the run with promising career options and lucrative growth. SharePoint development company India is one of the cost-effective places to look for solutions without hampering the quality.

                                              SharePoint Saving SMB/SMEs

SBM comprises of the biggest part of the market share and for ultimate success of a solution or product one needs to gain their confidence. When one gets heavy registration from their end the sales goal is met. Microsoft’s SharePoint has been crafted to deliver for small and mid size businesses and this is what SharePoint development India offers as their prime service when it is relating SharePoint. How are they doing that? Well below are certain points that will put light on that.

1. Offers user-friendly UX: In any business venture which is SMB there has to be user-friendly UX as many might not be doing that much of technical business and might not be design wise complexity savvy. As SharePoint is totally integrated with desktop apps, browsers and mails, it offers a fine UX. This helps an organization’s member process intellectual business data in much more efficient manner. This adds up to the production and boosts up the sales.

2. Modifying business workflow: Every owner wishes that the operational way of his business should become lot easier to handle and monitor. This prompted SharePoint of come up with unique features like tracking and reporting system integrated in the application for business benefit. Nothing stays pending and review, checking, confirmation, data collection, signature sample collection, etc are done thoroughly. All these lessen the work load to much lower level and eases out the pressure out of system. It’s a much needed break for any SMB.

3. Strong security and confidentiality policy: Every SMB wants to keep their idea and intellectual property secured all the time as that is their prime asset. SharePoint has security settings along with policies meant for storage, auditing and expiration action of business information exclusively meant to offer ultimate security and confidentiality. Using SharePoint you are always at a no risk zone and you can manage the data as you wish keeping the seal of protective layer over it.

All these are many more are few basic points which makes it popular among small and mid size business owners.