I am very pleased to say that Sean P. McDonough the Chief SharePoint Evangelist at Idera will be presenting 2 webinars with me during June. These webinars will be around the SharePoint backup subject details and registration links are below.

June 6^th 2pm EDT 7pm BST

The Essentials of SharePoint Disaster Recovery Planning

SharePoint Version(s):  SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010

Abstract “Are my nightly SQL Server backups good enough?” “Do I need an off-site disaster recovery facility?” “How do I even start the process of disaster recovery planning?”  These are just a few of the more common questions that arise when the topic of SharePoint disaster recovery comes up. As with most things SharePoint, the real answer to each question is oftentimes “it depends.” In this business and process-centric session, we will be taking a look at the topic of SharePoint disaster recovery from multiple perspectives: business continuity planner, technical architect, platform owner, and others. Critical concepts and terms will be explained and defined, and an effective process for analyzing and formulating a disaster recovery plan will be discussed. We’ll also highlight some common mistakes that take place when working to build a disaster recovery strategy and how you can avoid them. By the end of this session, you will be armed with the knowledge needed to plan or review a disaster recovery strategy for your SharePoint environment.

Highlights

1.            A “big picture” understanding of business continuity and disaster recovery for technical systems

2.            Explanation of key terms and concepts that are needed for effective disaster recovery planning

3.            Identification of specific disaster recovery watch-out areas for SharePoint

Registration link http://www.metavistech.com/Webinars/SharePoint-Disaster-Recovery-Planning

June 20^th 2pm EDT 7pm BST

Selecting and Protecting the Right SharePoint Backup Targets

SharePoint Version(s): SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010

Abstract: SharePoint is a complex platform with many moving parts and dependencies, and most administrators know that they need some form of backup protection to safeguard their environments. When it comes to actually protecting a SharePoint environment, though, what should an administrator focus on? What’s important? In this session, we’ll take a look at SharePoint disaster recovery with an eye towards identifying farm protection targets. We’ll examine all of the common (and many of the not-so-common) elements that need to be protected, discuss why those elements may or may not be important for any given environment, and talk about tools and technologies that are available for protection. We’ll also cover some special circumstances and watch-outs that may help or hinder efforts to protect targets that are selected within a farm. By the end of the session, you will be able to prioritize backup targets in your SharePoint environment and select appropriate strategies for protection.

Highlights

1.            Identify key targets in a SharePoint environment that can (and should) be protected

2.            Discuss effective and ineffective protection mechanisms associated with each target

3.            Highlight if/when a target should be protected and challenges associated with protection

Registration Link http://www.metavistech.com/Webinars/Protecting-The-Right-SharePoint-Backup-Targets

Bio: Sean is the Chief SharePoint Evangelist for Idera, a Microsoft managed partner and creator of tools for SharePoint, SQL Server, and PowerShell.  As a consultant, Sean has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies to architect, implement, troubleshoot, tune, and customize their SharePoint environments. Sean is an MCPD, an MCTS, and the co-author of both the “SharePoint 2007 Disaster Recovery Guide” (http://tinyurl.com/SPDRGuide2007) and the “SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery Guide” (http://tinyurl.com/SPDRGuide2010). He can easily be reached through his blog (http://SharePointInterface.com) or Twitter

Technorati Tags: Backup, Webinar

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On Wednesday I gave a webinar on the subject of administering your Office 365 stand-up I was very ably assisted by Chris Kolodziejski from MetaVis. So check out the webinar recording below and if you wish to try the MetaVis Office 365 tools you can download a trial version from http://metavistech.com/try

Technorati Tags: MetaVis, recording, Webinar

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When SharePoint became a huge product back in 2007 there was a wide variety of debates about moving file server content to SharePoint and the benefits this would bring. This is a topic which perhaps affects educational establishments more than any other. Do any other institutions undergo a 100% turnover in users over 5-7 years as schools and colleges do with students? In almost all schools these users will have access to their own personal ‘Home Drive’ and perhaps a number of file shares which contain resources shared by teachers. The question is when SharePoint comes along in a school should you get rid of Home Drives and file shares?

The argument for getting rid of file shares

File shares are typically areas where resources are either made available to a large number of users to consume or are full of documents which users collaborate on. In other words they are made for SharePoint! In an ideal world when rolling out a SharePoint deployment you will create a timeline to decommission file shares and replace them when SharePoint sites. File shares are often heavily cluttered and can be impossible to navigate.  At Twynham when we rolled out SharePoint we made all our file shares ‘read-only’ for a year after before we switched them off. This was an important decision as it avoided the panic of users being under the threat of losing file shares and simply dumping the content (which in some cases is old, out of date and unused) into SharePoint without thought. When people have time to decommission parts of their file shares they can carefully look through and identify what they want to keep and resources which can be removed.

The argument for keeping Home Drives

If it makes sense to get rid of our file shares does it not also make sense to get rid of your Home Drives which are on a file server? At Twynham we considered decommissioning our file server with all the Home Drives on and putting the content on staff and student My Sites. Fortunately the technical guys in the team pointed out that this would be unwise. The amount of storage we were using in terms of a file server for Home Drives was 2TB. This storage was relatively cheap but moving it over to SharePoint would immediately put it on SQL and have a considerable impact on performance. The main question is therefore why would you put your Home Drives on SharePoint? All of these resources are used by individuals and are not shared by other users. Given the relative costs of file servers compared to SAN storage it makes sense to leave Home Drives on the file server and save a lot of money on your deployment.

The challenge with keeping Home Drives

Having made the decision to move file shares over to SharePoint but keep Home Drives on a dedicated file server what problems were we still faced with? As schools adopt SharePoint users increasingly want access to resources anytime and anywhere. This can create a problem with Home Drives which are often not easily or conveniently exposed outside of schools so that users can access them from home. Even where schools make their Home Drives available the fact that they do not connect with SharePoint means that you lose that ‘one stop shop’ which is a big advantage of SharePoint. At Twynham we quickly realised that there would be an ideal scenario where file shares were decommissioned with resources moved to SharePoint and Home Drives would be maintained on a dedicated file server but we needed to make these available through SharePoint.

SharePoint File Explorer and Home Drives

SharePoint File Explorer was built with the challenges outlined above in mind. It is a web part which identifies the logged in user and surfaces their Home Drive so that they can add and remove resources and edit documents on the fly. The video below is a walk through which most effectively shows how File Explorer works.

For more information on this product or any other service we offer please contact info@sharepointedutech.com

Technorati Tags: File Server, File Xplorer, SharePoint

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Consider this. Microsoft has sold over 125 million licenses of SharePoint. It is a multi-billion dollar business. SharePoint is a platform that everyone seems to have, many actually use and most don’t understand how to implement and manage properly. There is no platform more in need of a proper information architecture than SharePoint. But what exactly does that mean?

What is an Information Architecture?

Before we dive into the ins and outs of information architecture for SharePoint specifically, it might be a good idea to define what an information architecture is. One of the simplest definitions I’ve read is:

“Information architecture is the term used to describe the structure of a system, i.e the way information is grouped, the navigation methods and terminology used within the system.” (source – http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_whatisinfoarch/index.html)

To paint a better picture, think about starting a new job. You get assigned a desk and before you even get to drink your coffee, someone from IT pops by to get your computer set up. He makes sure you have access to the Intranet, to SharePoint for working on projects and to all the file shares your department has access to. You’re all set.

So when your new boss gives you your first assignment to create a new project site and pull together a list of documents as well as create several new ones, you think you’ll be fine, all the information you need is at your fingertips. Unfortunately, there’s no rhyme or reason to the file share, you have no idea how to set up your project site because every project you have access to has done something completely different and all your searches are coming up empty.

Think of an information architecture as a blueprint, a way to organize your information so that it’s easy to find. The example above? That is what happens when an organization falls to properly plan and implement an information architecture. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to do.

3 Elements of an Effective of Information Architecture

According to Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, there are three key tasks that need to be completed when you are defining an information architecture: understand the business/context, the content and the users.

1. Business/Context — You need to understand the business objectives and the organizational structure. Any constraints on time and budget will also have to be considered.
2. Content – You must have a clear understanding of all the content that is to be stored in the system. Think of this like a content audit where you document where all the information is now, who has access to it, who needs to have access to it, what it’s used for, etc..
3. Users – Understand the users of the content, their behaviors, tasks and their expectations.

All three things, clearly defined and understood will help you identify the most appropriate information architecture for your system.

Information Architecture & SharePoint

Maybe you are thinking at this point that having a great information architecture is critical for any content management system you implement, this is not a problem unique to SharePoint. And you are correct. No matter what system you choose to implement, it is critical to get your IA right or your information is simply taking up space and your users will be frustrated.

The fact is though, that every day we hear one more horror story about a SharePoint implementation gone wrong. SharePoint is a platform that offers so much capability and is so easy to get started with, that many organizations have allowed their departments and/or employees to simply jump in and get things started. They haven’t taken the time to consider what they really need to do to get their information managed right and available to the right people.

What many have ended up with is simply another file share to match the confusing, disorganized one they already had. They have so many people administrating their own little SharePoint sites, managing their own content (content that is often similar across groups/departments/divisions), and no one understanding how it all works.

And it gets worse. For those who adopted SharePoint 2007 and found themselves in this situation, the idea of moving to SharePoint 2010 is scary. They don’t want another series of mini-silos of information, another giant file share and a potential compliance and archiving nightmare.

Which is why a well-defined information architecture for SharePoint is necessary.

The Basic Elements of a SharePoint Information Architecture

To get started down the right path, you need to understand some of the elements that make up your SharePoint information architecture:

Sites and Site Collection Structures

Your SharePoint implementation is made up of one or Site Collections within which you can have one or more Sites. A Site Collection allows you to group together a number of sites to manage. Sites within a collection share common features such as shared permissions, content types, and in some cases, a common navigation. These are the places where your employees spend their time.

Content Modeling and Content Type Definitions

Content Modeling is the process of organizing your content into logical groups, called Content Types. Content Types have a number of attributes, called metadata, information management policies (who can view/edit the content, auditing levels, retention requirements, etc..) and usually one or more workflow processes that define how the content type should be managed.

Metadata Schemas and Taxonomy Development

Metadata schemas and taxonomies allow you to control how information is defined in your system. This ensures consistent tagging of information using predefined terms as much as possible. It also ensures that information is more easily found within search queries.

In SharePoint 2010 you can create what’s called Managed Metadata. This is a centralized approach to defining a hierarchical set terms and enterprise keywords that can be used with the content types in your SharePoint environment.

Terms and term sets are basically a word or phrase (or group of words/phrases) that can be associated with a content type column (property), enabling you to restrict the values entered into that column. You can create terms and terms sets within the boundaries of a Site Collection or globally across your SharePoint environment.

Enterprise keywords are basically words or phrases (or tags) you can add to a content type in a single column. Unlike Terms, they are not hierarchical, and although they can be predefined, you can allow users to enter their own keywords — creating a folksonomy of sorts.

Integration with Search

Making information findable by the people who need it is critical and search is a common tool that users go to to find things quickly. Which means you have to really think about how your information is managed to make it more findable via SharePoint search.

In SharePoint, you have your standard search that works against all crawled attributes (or properties) defined for your content. But if you want to offer users a more advanced, refined search capability, you have to define ‘managed properties’ which are essentially crawled properties you define as key search properties.

To understand what properties you want to make available as managed properties, it’s critical to have a solid information architecture defined.

Managed Administration

Another important element of defining your Information Architecture focuses on who has access to your information and what that access is. Many users will not work in a single SharePoint site, but will instead need access to a number of different sites and site collections. It’s important to outline the roles and responsibilities of the users of your information, so that you can best define the security schema for your SharePoint environment.

And people don’t stay forever, or at least not always in the same part of the organization. So you need to define the policies that will support changes like hires, moves and fires across your SharePoint environment.

Information Architecture is Not a One Time Activity

Probably one of the most concerning aspects of defining an information architecture is the belief that it’s a one-time deal. It isn’t. Yes there is a lot of work to be done up front to get the IA defined and in place, but IA is not static. Because business is not static.

At a time when innovation is critical to success, organizations constantly adapt and try new things. People come and go, companies are bought and sold. That means your information architecture is a living, breathing plan that needs to be constantly monitored and adapted as necessary. Now that’s not as scary as it may seem, because in most cases you aren’t starting from scratch to develop a new IA, but simply evolving the existing one. But it’s not always simple either.

Final Thoughts

The role of a SharePoint Information Architect can be a tough one, especially if you are moving from out of control file shares or a poorly managed SharePoint 2007 implementation. But the rewards if you do it right are happy users. The truth is most people don’t notice a good IA, but they sure notice a bad one, because it means they can’t find what they are looking for. Wouldn’t you prefer to be anonymous than the one who gets the evil eye when you approach the water cooler?

Now that you understand what an information architecture is, what elements it is comprised of in a SharePoint implementation and why it’s so important to monitor and adapt on an on-going basis. Next time, I’ll walk you through the steps required to define your own SharePoint IA.

This Article was originally posted on CMSwire

Technorati Tags: IA, Information Architecture, SharePoint

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Hey, corporate America, ever feel like you are too connected? Well, hate to break it you, but harmon.ie is about to fuel your iPad addiction.

Today, harmon.ie is going mobile and unveiling the first-ever product to bring SharePoint document collaboration and social interactions to the iPad – “harmon.ie for iPad.” In plain English, that means the mobile business community can easily join 1 million harmon.ie social email users to securely share documents, get real-time document and colleague status update, and connect with colleagues anywhere, anytime.

To date, more than 67 million iPads have been sold. According to Apple, 94 percent and 74 percent of Fortune 500 and global 500 companies are respectively testing or deploying iPads. For the iPad to become a full-fledged enterprise platform, it must enable roaming business users to edit and share documents securely and easily as well as provide a user experience that is consistent across all devices and platforms. harmon.ie is the only solution that delivers this consistent collaborative and social experience everywhere.

For the first time, business users can work on a presentation from their desktop, drag-and-drop it to SharePoint, and send a link to colleagues using harmon.ie in Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes. Then, as they rush to catch a [insert flight, train, bus, or happy hour here], they can see document updates from colleagues while on-the-go using the iPad. They can access the latest version of the document, edit it from the [insert plane, hotel room, restaurant table, or crowded crosswalk here], and share it with the team when they are back online. The team will receive a real-time update once the revised document is uploaded.

In fact, harmon.ie for iPad makes SharePoint so accessible that a movement has formed to alert the public to the dangers of using SharePoint while walking. Check out the mania at www.DontSharePointWhileWalking.com.

Download harmon.ie from the Apple iStore and see for yourself what’s driving the mass hysteria.  harmon.ie for iPad costs $19.99 and is now available via iTunes. A harmon.ie Lite app is available for free. An enterprise version that provides MDM support for download and provisioning will be available later in Q2 this year.

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It is now just over a week since I got back from the international SharePoint conference in London organised by Steve Smith and the team from combined knowledge a truly great event which I would strongly recommend you attend next year if you can.

Below you will find my presentation from the event, this year it was a customer based case study on moving from Blackboard to SharePoint this was with Arts University College Bournemouth were we have assisted their move to a SharePoint environment we are now starting on the business processes in the university to give a one stop shop not only for students and lecturers but also the administration staff.

If you are considering this move we would love to hear from you I did meet one person from a Welsh university at the event that was considering the same approach and since have heard from others in the process of evaluating SharePoint as their central portal for learning resources and also business processes.

To discuss the options drop me an email at info@sharepointedutech.com

Technorati Tags: AUCB, Blackboard, SharePoint

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This Article was originally posted on CMSwire

If you want to successfully implement SharePoint in your organization, then you need to clearly define and manage your information architecture (IA). There are a number of things you need to do to define your SharePoint IA and here are five critical steps to ensure you are on the right track.

Information Architecture in SharePoint

The best way to think about information architecture is that it’s a blueprint, a way to organize your information so it’s easy to find by the right people. And while SharePoint isn’t the only platform that is in need of a well-defined IA, it is one, that if badly defined, can cause more information silos and frustrated employees than you can even imagine.

The key to getting it right, is to plan it right, from the start. Now we hear some of you smirking because you know that what you have now is in such a state that it seems impossible to fix. Rest assured, it can be done.

Planning your IA

Information architecture is a key element of your governance strategy. Governance is a huge topic for SharePoint, everyone talks about it, everyone has their own ideas on how to implement and manage a SharePoint governance strategy and the associated IA, and you know what? It’s all really good advice. But there’s just so much of it out there, how do you get focused and started?

We told you that there are a number of elements that make up your SharePoint IA (link back to first article), including:

• Sites and Site Collection Structures
• Content Modeling and Content Type Definitions
• Metadata Schemas and Taxonomy Management
• Search Integration
• Managed Administration

You say, that’s great. I get it, but now what? Where do I start? There are five critical steps that you need to do/ask yourself and your organization to get you on the right track.

Step 1: Understand where you are coming from

A clean slate is great place to start, But it’s typically unrealistic. Maybe you are a new company and have the opportunity to plan your information architecture from scratch. Or maybe you have a pretty well defined IA with your current system, it’s just lacking some functionality that SharePoint can provide, so you’ve decided it’s time to move on. You are probably one of the lucky few.

Others come from a range of crazy fileshares, desktop folders, outdated intranets and multiple business apps. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, unless you are the knowledge worker who has been with the company for many years and have developed your own little system of playing “where’s Waldo?”

For many, SharePoint 2007 was implemented in their organization in an ad hoc, sometimes grassroots manner. Which means that no one had central management of the platform. Divisions/departments and often groups within those divisions/departments were going along doing their own thing, building SharePoint sites, defining their own metadata, assigning their own permissions. Multiple copies of documents scattered across folders and sites, search severely lacking, but oddly enough, many people happy in their little worlds, because they could do what they wanted, and they could usually do it quickly.

What’s the point here? Know what you have now. Have it well documented and have a clear understanding of how the users of that current system(s) feel about it. Don’t assume everyone wants a change, regardless of how good it would be for the organization overall. If you don’t really understand where you are coming from, you won’t be able to properly figure out how to get where you need to be.

Step 2: Know what players need to be involved

Is it obvious to you who should be involved in defining your new SharePoint information architecture?

• The business users/information workers who use the current system(s) and will use the new SharePoint implementation. These are your advocates (including your devil’s advocates). If you don’t have some naysayers on your team, you’re missing the opportunity to convert a potentially large group of unhappy users — these people can become your strongest advocates.
• Compliance / record managers who know the rules and regulations that your content must adhere to.
• Your current information architect, assuming you have one. Maybe this person hasn’t managed a central IA yet, but it’s likely they have been involved in one or more projects that involved knowing what content is out there, how the business works and what the business objectives are.
• Your SharePoint 2010 Information Architect. You are going to need someone on your team that understands how SharePoint 2010 works. This is the platform you have chosen to work with, that means you need someone who knows how your information can be best implemented within it. You can define your IA without considering how SharePoint works, but we wouldn’t want to be the IT team trying to implement it.

Those are the key roles, there are others, including other members of IT and business leaders. The key is that you need to find all the right players that will help bring everything out into the open, get it all laid out on the table and help define the best approach to move forward.

Step 3: Understand how content flows across the organization

As we indicated earlier, in many situations content is created and managed at the department level, and sometimes lower. But that doesn’t mean that something developed within one department isn’t useful to another. It’s quite the opposite actually (http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-collaboration/enterprise-collaboration-requires-critical-new-skills-010436.php)

“We solve problems by bringing the right people to them at the right time. …The idea that a team is not defined by a specific organizational structure is finally so accepted a truth that it hardly stands mentioning now. We know that differing perspectives, give and take, mutual analysis and common understanding leads to better, faster learning — which means better, faster outcomes.”

Today’s successful organizations are not tied down by a top down hierarchy, each department living in its own little world. Instead we are seeing many more cross functional teams and the need to share information across the organization.

So what does that mean for you? Understand how content is used across the organization — who owns what, who should have access to it, who can change it. SharePoint 2010 is vastly different from its predecessor in how you can manage content types and metadata. It has also improved how you can organize your information across sites and collections (and even SharePoint farms) and still make it available to all the right people regardless of where they are in the organization.

Step 4: Your Plan to get started

So now you know what you have, who should be involved and how your content is shared across the organization. What’s next? Think about the best way to proceed.

If you are small organization, going into full strategy, design and implementation is probably a good choice. If you are starting from a clean slate, same thing. Get your IA implemented and up and running, so you can move on to the maintenance aspects.

But, if it’s a mess you are coming from, and/or your organization is large and complex, going into a full implementation and migration is a scary prospect, one that even your toughest business executive would likely shudder at doing. In this situation, consider piloting your new information architecture. Get your practices in place and then incrementally move people over. Note that we aren’t saying migrate by department necessarily, because if you have a number of those cross-functional groups we just talked about, then you are defeating the purpose of a well-defined IA.

Be prepared to adjust both your IA and your practices as you test them out. Having the right tools to help make changes quickly will be important at this stage.

Step 5: Plan for change

A new SharePoint 2010 implementation is not going to happen overnight. You have to build awareness of what you are attempting to do and show the importance of this new information architecture (a pilot is a great way to this). People are also going to have to be trained — out of the old ways and into the new ones.

All the while this is happening, the business continues on. It won’t stand still while you define and  implement your new IA and migrate to SharePoint 2010. Which means you need a plan to deal with the changes that will arise. A plan that will continue to evolve as your implementation matures.

Benefits of a Proper Information Architecture

We said that the three key tasks that need to be completed when you define an information architecture were to understand:

1. the Business/Context
2. the Content
3. the Users

This is why the five steps discussed above are so important to do before you even sit down and start wrapping your head around SharePoint sites/collections, content types/metadata, permissions, etc…

Doing these five steps will:

• Ensure you provide central access to your information
• Reduce the duplicate content in your organization and ensure there is “one version of the truth”
• Allow you to develop content standards that support cross-organizational sharing.
• Foster an environment of sharing and collaboration.

Final Thoughts

Often the hardest part of defining a SharePoint information architecture is really understanding what you have now and how to change that. That understanding is a mix of knowing what and where the information is, along with who needs access to it, but also understanding the everyday knowledge worker who is using that information and will be using your new environment. Making management happy should be a by-product of making your key workforce more efficient and productive. A well-defined SharePoint Information Architecture will get you on your way.

Technorati Tags: IA, Information Architecture

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Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar with Chris McNulty from Quest software the session proved to be very successful and lots of great information and tips. Below you can find the recording of the session and don’t forget the next webinar is on the 9^th May titled “Okay, I have my office 365 setup.  Now how do I administer it?” full details can be found here

Technorati Tags: recording, Webinar

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Earlier this week I posted and article by Steve Pogrebivsky from MetaVis called SharePoint Backup: It Ain’t What It Used to Be, It’s Better  this got me thinking about backup and the way people do it or even if they do a backup!

So I have put together a simple poll below which I hope you can spare a moment to fill out your option and I would love to hear from you via comments about how you backup your SharePoint environment and if anyone is interested in writing up your thoughts around the subject I would welcome a guest post on the subject.

Technorati Tags: Backup, SharePoint

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This Article was originally posted on CMSwire

Consider this: Microsoft has sold over 125 million licenses of SharePoint. It is a multi-billion dollar business. SharePoint is a platform that everyone seems to have, many actually use and most don’t understand how to implement and manage properly. There is no platform more in need of a proper information architecture than SharePoint. But what exactly does that mean?

What Is an Information Architecture?

Before we dive into the ins and outs of information architecture for SharePoint specifically, it might be a good idea to define what an information architecture is. One of the simplest definitions I’ve read is:

Information architecture is the term used to describe the structure of a system, i.e the way information is grouped, the navigation methods and terminology used within the system.”

To paint a better picture, think about starting a new job. You get assigned a desk and before you even get to drink your coffee, someone from IT pops by to get your computer set up. He makes sure you have access to the Intranet, to SharePoint for working on projects and to all the file shares your department has access to. You’re all set.

So when your new boss gives you your first assignment to create a new project site and pull together a list of documents as well as create several new ones, you think you’ll be fine, all the information you need is at your fingertips. Unfortunately, there’s no rhyme or reason to the file share, you have no idea how to set up your project site because every project you have access to has done something completely different and all your searches are coming up empty.

Think of an information architecture as a blueprint, a way to organize your information so that it’s easy to find. The example above? That is what happens when an organization falls to properly plan and implement an information architecture. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to do.

 3 Elements of an Effective Information Architecture

According to Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, there are three key tasks that need to be completed when you are defining an information architecture: understand the business/context, the content and the users.

1.Business/Context — You need to understand the business objectives and the organizational structure. Any constraints on time and budget will also have to be considered.

2.Content — You must have a clear understanding of all the content that is to be stored in the system. Think of this like a content audit where you document where all the information is now, who has access to it, who needs to have access to it, what it’s used for, etc..

3.Users — Understand the users of the content, their behaviors, tasks and their expectations.

All three things, clearly defined and understood will help you identify the most appropriate information architecture for your system.

 Information Architecture & SharePoint

Maybe you are thinking at this point that having a great information architecture is critical for any content management system you implement, that this is not a problem unique to SharePoint. And you are correct. No matter what system you choose to implement, it is critical to get your IA right or your information is simply taking up space and your users will be frustrated.

The fact is though, that every day we hear one more horror story about a SharePoint implementation gone wrong. SharePoint is a platform that offers so much capability and is so easy to get started with, that many organizations have allowed their departments and/or employees to simply jump in and get things started. They haven’t taken the time to consider what they really need to do to get their information managed right and available to the right people.

What many have ended up with is simply another file share to match the confusing, disorganized one they already had. They have so many people administrating their own little SharePoint sites, managing their own content (content that is often similar across groups/departments/divisions), and no one understanding how it all works.

And it gets worse. For those who adopted SharePoint 2007 and found themselves in this situation, the idea of moving to SharePoint 2010 is scary. They don’t want another series of mini-silos of information, another giant file share and a potential compliance and archiving nightmare.

Which is why a well-defined information architecture for SharePoint is necessary.

The Basic Elements of a SharePoint Information Architecture

To get started down the right path, you need to understand some of the elements that make up your SharePoint information architecture:

Sites and Site Collection Structures

Your SharePoint implementation is made up of one or more Site Collections within which you can have one or more Sites. A Site Collection allows you to group together a number of sites to manage. Sites within a collection share common features such as shared permissions, content types and in some cases, a common navigation. These are the places where your employees spend their time.

Content Modeling and Content Type Definitions

Content Modeling is the process of organizing your content into logical groups, called Content Types. Content Types have a number of attributes, called metadata, information management policies (who can view/edit the content, auditing levels, retention requirements, etc.) and usually one or more workflow processes that define how the content type should be managed.

Metadata Schemas and Taxonomy Development

Metadata schemas and taxonomies allow you to control how information is defined in your system. This ensures consistent tagging of information using predefined terms as much as possible. It also ensures that information is more easily found within search queries.

In SharePoint 2010 you can create what’s called Managed Metadata. This is a centralized approach to defining a hierarchical set of terms and enterprise keywords that can be used with the content types in your SharePoint environment.

Terms and term sets are basically a word or phrase (or group of words/phrases) that can be associated with a content type column (property), enabling you to restrict the values entered into that column. You can create terms and terms sets within the boundaries of a Site Collection or globally across your SharePoint environment.

Enterprise keywords are basically words or phrases (or tags) you can add to a content type in a single column. Unlike Terms, they are not hierarchical, and although they can be predefined, you can allow users to enter their own keywords — creating a folksonomy of sorts.

Integration with Search

Making information findable by the people who need it is critical and search is a common tool that users go to to find things quickly. Which means you have to really think about how your information is managed to make it more findable via SharePoint search.

In SharePoint, you have your standard search that works against all crawled attributes (or properties) defined for your content. But if you want to offer users a more advanced, refined search capability, you have to define “managed properties,” which are essentially crawled properties you define as key search properties.

To understand what properties you want to make available as managed properties, it’s critical to have a solid information architecture defined.

Managed Administration

Another important element of defining your Information Architecture focuses on who has access to your information and what that access is. Many users will not work in a single SharePoint site, but will instead need access to a number of different sites and site collections. It’s important to outline the roles and responsibilities of the users of your information, so that you can best define the security schema for your SharePoint environment.

And people don’t stay forever, or at least not always in the same part of the organization. So you need to define the policies that will support changes like hires, moves and fires across your SharePoint environment.

Information Architecture is Not a One Time Activity

Probably one of the most concerning aspects of defining an information architecture is the belief that it’s a one-time deal. It isn’t. Yes, there is a lot of work to be done up front to get the IA defined and in place, but IA is not static. Because business is not static.

At a time when innovation is critical to success, organizations constantly adapt and try new things. People come and go, companies are bought and sold. That means your information architecture is a living, breathing plan that needs to be constantly monitored and adapted as necessary. Now that’s not as scary as it may seem, because in most cases you aren’t starting from scratch to develop a new IA, but simply evolving the existing one. But it’s not always simple either.

Final Thoughts

The role of a SharePoint Information Architect can be a tough one, especially if you are moving from out of control file shares or a poorly managed SharePoint 2007 implementation. But the rewards if you do it right are happy users. The truth is most people don’t notice a good IA, but they sure notice a bad one, because it means they can’t find what they are looking for. Wouldn’t you prefer to be anonymous than the one who gets the evil eye when you approach the water cooler?

Now that you understand what an information architecture is, what elements it is comprised of in a SharePoint implementation and why it’s so important to monitor and adapt on an ongoing basis. Next time, I’ll walk you through the steps required to define your own SharePoint IA.

Technorati Tags: IA, Information Architecture, SharePoint

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