Looking for Easy Document Management? Switch to SharePoint

Each organization has to include customized document management controls as part of its key strategies. In addition to deciding how to create, review and publish documents, it also needs to decide the most appropriate way to retain or dispose these after certain period of time. Therefore, most enterprises look for innovative a document management system that allows them to store, update, share, find, archive, restore and trace all types of documents. Microsoft has released SharePoint 2013 with a set of features to help users in managing all types of documents efficiently, while complying with the relevance governance or compliance policies. If you are looking for effective and flexible tools to control a document's life cycle, it is a great idea to switch to SharePoint 2013.

What Makes SharePoint 2013 a Powerful Document Management System?

Hassle-Free Sharing of Information and Resources

Similar to other innovative document management systems, SharePoint also enable people to access the required resources and information. But it also allows users to organize documents and coordinate calendars effectively, along with creating team workspaces. At the same time, the user also has option to create blogs and wikis simply by using templates. The users on the do can further avail the offline synchronization capabilities to access the documents regardless of his current location.

Tight Control over Document Life Cycle

SharePoint Server 2013 comes with all the capabilities required to control a document’s life cycle efficiently. At the same time, it also enables users to implement the policies applicable to each document. Along with auditing the document-related actions, the system further ensures that the documents are disposed or retained in the most appropriate way. These features further make it easier for an organization to manage documents as corporate records, while adhering to both corporate guidelines and legal requirements.

Maintain Integrity of Content

The latest version of SharePoint comes with document management capabilities. Before editing a particular document, the reviewer has option to activate document checkout. Thus, he can see the revisions made to the document and restore the document to the previous version. Also, the feature can be used to set security at both document and content level. These capabilities make it easier to maintain the integrity of content store on team sites or shared with a distributed team.

Easy to Build a Collaborative Environment

The IT department of an organization can deploy a collaborative environment through Windows SharePoint Services without putting any additional time and effort. Despite being easy to manage and scale the environment is still simple and flexible. The single-server setting and flexible deployment settings further make it easier to reconfigure the document management system according to the latest governance or compliance policies. Thus, all documents can be created, reviews and shared quickly to facilitate decision making.

Effectuate Document Security Management

While allowing teammates to access the resources and information from diverse locations, each enterprise has to put some amount of effort. But the security features provided by SharePoint enable them to effectuate document security management without putting any extra effort. The system allows users to nominate individual users or group, and set permission simply with two clicks. Also, the traceable access of requests to a site makes it easier to find out who has accessed the resources or information.

Smoothly Change the Location of a Document

Often users have to move or copy documents from one library or site to another. SharePoint allows them to move or copy the document at various stages of its lifestyle without any hassle. They can simply create a custom workflow to guide the document through a business process. Once the document life cycle is activates, tasks can be further assigned to the participants according to their individual roles and responsibilities. The authors with required authoring permission can further copy a particular document, while maintaining the relationship between the source and the destination document intact.

While switching to the updated version of SharePoint, an organization is not required to discard the tools that are already being used for day-to-day operations. Some of the most popular tools and applications in Microsoft Office system like Word and Outlook can still be used seamlessly with SharePoint 2013 to optimize the control over a document's life cycle. Custom Sharepoint development teams can help build sharepoint applications for you within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to speak to one of our expert SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Movin’ On Up – A SharePoint 2013 Migration Case Study Collections

More and more companies are migrating to SharePoint 2013 to avail a set of advanced features. Microsoft has also made it easier for enterprises to migrate to the latest version of the content management system without putting any extra effort. It also offers several strategies to make it easier for companies to migrate to SharePoint 2013, including in-place upgrade, database attach, and hybrid approaches. However, many companies are still skeptical about the effectiveness of the new technology. If you are still not sure about migrating to the latest version of SharePoint, it is time to know about some of the companies who availed many benefits by migrating to the new platform.

Case Study I: Most enterprises find it a daunting challenge to access and manage content and information stores in many databases. Further, the amount of data will vary according to the size and nature of business. Similar problem was being faced by a Paris-based company managing popular civil air ports. The organization was struggling to optimize its existing content management system by aggregating and optimizing 2 TB of data stores in over 70 databases.

At the same time, the company was also looking for efficient options to make the data searchable for all its employees and clients. As the organization was already using SharePoint 2010, it decided to migrate to the latest version of the platform to avail advanced search features. The tech lead of the migration project mentioned that the migration process was fast and smooth due to the SharePoint 2013 Community Site.

Case Study II: Most companies also look for more cost-efficient ways to store, manage and access the data stored across different databases. Further, an organization uses several databases to store information based on their category. An UK based company recently evaluated the advanced content management system to consolidate its data stored on over 80 databases into a single repository.

The single repository will make the information accessible to employees, vendors and clients without increasing operational expenses. The management opts for SharePoint 2013 to consolidate data along with sharing the data collaboratively. The organization has to still invest some additional funds to migrate to SharePoint 2013. But the investment made it easier for the organizations to deploy a series of SharePoint portals to make the data accessible to all concerned parties.

Case Study III: A constant increase is noted in the number of organizations adopting Cloud computing. The innovative and new way to store, manage and access data is also popular due to its effectiveness in making the content accessible to users on the go. But most companies find it difficult to transfer the huge volume of data available for public consumption into Cloud environment.

Recently, a popular car manufacturer migrated to SharePoint 2013 to make the huge volume of information and content available in Cloud environment. In addition to making the data accessible to concerned parties, SharePoint 2013 further made it easier for the company to administer and maintain the data without deploying dedicated IT staff. Further, the migration enabled it to customize its portal by targeting all types of users without putting any extra effort and funds.

Case Study IV: The rapid expansion of a business also makes it essential for it to migrate to an advanced content management system. A large financial corporation based in Virginia realized the problem when it started providing services to clients located in other regions. As the company was formed with the intention of providing local banking services to the Virginia community, initially it did not feel the need for an advanced content management system.

But consistent growth made it a daunting task for the organization to choose an information system that complements its extended operations and needs. The financial organization opted for SharePoint 2013 after evaluating several technologies and solutions. The latest version of SharePoint made it easier for the company to build a social intranet solution to meet its diverse needs. Also, the SharePoint training provided to its employees ensured that its core business is carried out more efficiently.

As SharePoint 2013 can be used for a number of purposes, a business can always customize the platform according to its specific needs. Microsoft further allows enterprises to pick from a number of SharePoint site migration options according to its specific needs and budget.

We provide SharePoint development services. If you would like to speak to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

3 business problems solved with SharePoint

With rapid globalization, businesses are required to cope up with the trend to operate from locations outside the office; hence the need for efficient communication becomes all the more evident. Dynamism and agility are the ultimate necessities for businesses to have a competitive edge, but paper-based processes or poorly structured documentation storage are becoming a hindrance, given the time as well as the effort needed in searching for information.

So far as paper documents are concerned, it is inconvenient to track them. Very often, there is the probability to lose them and moreover, manual processes can result in errors. Since the process state is not visible, considerable time has to be spent in completion of actions or monitoring the process. Poor visibility may also be caused by storage of documents in inadequately structured shared drives, wherein manifold versions often lead to duplication and loss of visibility for the most recent version. All these issues combined together lead to lower productivity and higher cost, with dire consequences such as litigation in case processes fail.

Across the years, SharePoint has emerged successful in solving these common business problems. With the passage of time, this product by Microsoft has become the standardized means for storage as well as sharing within an organization. Every client has a different manner of SP utilization for solving problems. Let us discuss three common business problems that SharePoint has solved.

Document Management : It is a fact that a number of businesses make use of sub-folder structure for storage of documents and emails are being used to distribute them. In this case, locating documents within a deep set of sub-folders or going through loads of emails might be a great hassle. Being a central location for the complete set of documents, SP is able to solve these problems to a great extent, enabling rapid access of documents.

A powerful feature of SharePoint document management is that the storage of “meta-data” or information is possible against the documents within columns. A much more robust solution is provided by SP, which brings together the data as well as documents. Moreover, document control features such as the capability of viewing track changes or version history have great potential especially in cases where using the latest version is extremely essential. Again, a document's major and minor versions enable a department or an individual to make alterations to a document without publishing the alterations before they are entirely ready. Version conflicts are prevented by the check-in and check-out features, and documents are also made available for out-of-office use.

Workflow Issues : Since SP empowers non-technical users with the capability of fixing efficiency issues, it is indeed a great tool for solving business issues as well as making room for rapid development. So, now employees who are well-versed with the issues can leverage SP to solve them without involving the IT department. This is where the beneficial uses of SharePoint workflows come in, which help in accelerating the process, reducing errors, doing away with unnecessary steps, providing better documentation along with enhancing communication.

SharePoint solutions also enable convenient document movement through approval process, updating information from other databases or software programs, and so on.

Collaboration : SharePoint goes a long way in doing away with the problems of disparate systems, unstructured data and decisions, thereby resulting in increased collaboration. Considering the collaborative aspect, the major areas wherein SharePoint comes in handy are HR Management, Compliance and Business Intelligence. As an efficient collaboration portal, SharePoint empowers investors, clients, partners, coworkers, stakeholders to share ideas and information on dedicated SP pages which store information pertaining to that particular project. Moreover, with the help of SP, a team environment can even be promoted amongst employees who work remotely, irrespective of the frequency at which employees meet each other.

Thus, it is clear that SharePoint, with its powerful features have been able to solve critical business problems thereby leading to immense benefits. Proper implementation and management can indeed lead to great business improvements. Sharepoint 2013 mobile development teams can help you build products within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint portal development services. If you would like to hire sharepoint developer from our certified team of SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Introducing Nintex Workflow for Office 365

Nintex workflow for office 365 allows organizations as well as enterprises to extend the automation of business process to more and more people along with devices and places delivering workflow catering to the interest of every individual. It integrates a drag-and-drop workflow designer, rich features, as well as advanced connectivity to provide the customers with more flexibility along with power.

Wondering what it can do for you (the users)?

Well, here is a quick look at the at what Nintex workflow can do for you

Develop Workflows for a superior cloud platform

By extracting complete benefit of the new model of cloud app, Nintex has paved the road to effortless integration with office 365. This has indeed enabled the users to scale as well as develop advanced workflows on a strong as well as steady platform.

Automate the Process of Business

IT professionals and business users likewise will be empowered towards taking up a quick alongside an easy path to automate the process of business. The range is quite extensive, which includes everything from simple reviews as well as approvals to complicated integration across cloud services, external applications, data sources as well as social media. You can now leverage a range of actions offering a support to everyday processes across diverse industrial sectors as well as company departments like help desk, provisioning, travel requests, maintenance forms, expense claims, and leave requests, etc.

Strike a connection with an extensive cloud service range

This particular aspect allows the users to be at their productive best anywhere by connecting as well as integrating to a range of cloud services. This real-time service includes Twitter, Yammer, Box, as well as virtual machines along with several other applications. Users can also go ahead and quickly integrate web services with workflows without the hassle of writing codes. It also allows you to publish forms for collaborating with external partners, vendors along with the customers.

Add Enterprise Activities to Out-of-Box Actions

With the service introduction of the workflow for office 365, a one-stop has also been introduced catering to the diverse workflow needs of the users. This particular store comes loaded with multiple actions, which allow the users to develop document-centric alongside integrated workflows that are strictly SharePoint centric that further enables them to drive business. All you need to do is effortlessly integrate the workflow with external systems like web services, Microsft Dynamics CRM, as well as applications that are very much business relevant.

Get started in no time

If you have been wondering about its usability then, you will be delighted to know that Nintex workflow for Office 365 is not only easy to use, but also to install and manage. Additionally, you can also activate the application in reduced time possible and start working immediately. The new application model implies improved flexibility, productivity as well as scalability for a range of documents along with applications integrated within Office 365.

The Advantages

Let us have a look at the advantages it can bring for the users along with the enterprises:

• Its quick and easy – Empowers as well as allows the users to go for business process automation in no time through innovative browser based work flow designer that is easy to use.

• Smart investment - with this particular application, you can get to work in office 365 in real-time. You can also defend your investment through simple and easy deployment management thereby, avoiding the risks of additional costs of client software or infrastructure development.

• Easy Connection – you can easily connect Nintex workflow to Office 365, Lync server, Exchange server, web services, external systems as well as databases along with a range of other cloud services effortlessly.

What makes this particular application integration more delightful is the fact that its completely done in the application model that wonderfully syncs with SharePoint. Custom SharePoint development teams can leverage Nintex workflow and help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

How Can You Integrate DotNetNuke 6 & 7 with SharePoint?

DotNetNuke has already established itself as one of the most popular as well as preferred web content management systems, based on Microsoft. Net. DotNetNuke websites are known to offer excellent user experience while also letting the brands enhance their identity. The recent trend is that of integrating this content management system with that of Microsoft SharePoint, of which the latest version has recently come out in the form of SharePoint 2013.

The integration is quite helpful for the businesses in a number of ways. Here is a brief overview of how the integration of DotNetNuke with SharePoint can be executed with success.

Effective Document Management with SharePoint

SharePoint is undoubtedly the most preferred as well as even sought- after system for document management, helpful for businesses of varying size or nature. Now, this platform is built into cloud, which allows maximum storage and accessibility. Consequently, the professionals in a team have an opportunity to share as well as collaborate on apparently large amounts of data and documents. Additionally, the platform integrates effectively with Outlook and this enables enhancement of the significance of the social tools. All this leads to a carefully organized atmosphere. The team members can also convert the raw data into important interactive reports.

Integration of DotNetNuke with SharePoint

The best thing about integrating the web content management system with the web application development platform is that the two of them integrates quite seamlessly. An automatic integration implies that no further efforts are required when it comes to operating the system. The DNN Community can merge with the platform in a rather hassle- free manner by means of using the custom modules. The primary idea, here, is to design a system that allows the platform to communicate from behind a firewall with the people facing the website. Now, all this means that the documents can be pushed into the portal on the DotNetNuke website with higher level of safety and efficiency. At the same time, the filter rules can be designed to track down the individual documents to find out as to where they go.

DNN Enterprise and SharePoint Connector

In instances where the platform is used as the document management system, integration of the same with DotNetNuke Enterprise Edition is actually of real benefits. The custom integration saves a lot of money of the enterprise while investment that is made is actually worthy.

The DNN Enterprise SharePoint connector comes up as a powerful and significant feature, supporting both 2007 and 2010 versions of the platform. The firewall issues can be avoided at the same time. Content, on the other hand, stays fresh and is published directly from the SharePoint Document Library. It is the DotNetNuke role- based security network that performs the essential function of protecting the published documents.

Making Use of the SharePoint Folder Provider

The SharePoint Folder is particularly useful in integration with DotNetNuke 6. It enables the DNN users to store as well as synchronize the files contained in the document libraries, located in 2010 version of this platform.

Here is an overview of the features of this Folder and the way it helps:

The communication between the web application development platform and the DotNetNuke 6 becomes faster and more direct by virtue of the folder. It paves the way for multiple providers to indicate to different document libraries from either the similar platform based sites or from the different ones.

The SharePoint Folder facilitates a number of functionalities such as addition cum deleting of folders, uploading, downloading, renaming of files along with synchronization of the files and folders. Above all, this Folder actually acts as a strong base for several DNN modules, which make use of the DotNetNuke file system. Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our SharePoint developers or would like to take a look at the work they have done, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

SharePoint - Most secure platform for Collaboration & Information Sharing

SharePoint was launched by Microsoft in 2001 as a web application platform that can be used to manage intranet content and documents. But the latest version of SharePoint comes will a set of advanced features that complement the information sharing need of all enterprises. Regardless of the size and business model of the business, it can migrate to SharePoint 2013 to avail several advantages. Along with manipulating websites, pages, lists and libraries, a business can also use the platform to view history of different versions of a page or document, and manage user permissions. Also, a user can easily create, copy, delete or rename the pages, sites, libraries and list to meet his specific requirements.

Most companies, nowadays, develop projects through distributed teams. As the members of a distributed team can work from various regions, it becomes essential for each business to empower and connect its employees. With Microsoft SharePoint 2013, an organization can easily edit, access and publish a variety of content and document to optimize the user experience. Further, businesses can leverage custom sharepoint application development to meet the frequent changes without changing its existing policies and work process. The updated version also comes with a set of enterprise-class management tools that allow organizations to seamlessly share information over the internet along with their intranet and extranet.

Why Use SharePoint 2013 for Enterprise-Level Information Sharing?

Enhanced Business Connectivity Services: The improved business connectivity services make it easier for you to enable SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 clients to access the information stored on other platforms. Along with supporting a variety of apps and OData Business Data Connectivity (BDC) connections, the latest version also comes with improved external lists that can work seamlessly with other SharePoint lists. Also, you can use the event listener and subscriber to get notifications, whenever any changes occur to the external data.

Build Customized Websites: Each business wants to design an internal-facing intranet site or public-facing website that is flawless. Along with choosing the best features for the site, developers also have to customize the website to meet the client’s information sharing needs. The latest version of the platform further makes it easier for programmers to design, publish and brand a SharePoint site without investing any extra time and effort. A web designer with knowledge in HTML, JavaScript and CSS can easily develop a customized SharePoint site. The easy-to-use feature further allows businesses to develop customized sites to suit their work process and data access system.

Protect Your Business Information: In addition to making data available over external and internal firewalls, a business frequently explores options to protect the information, data and content. SharePoint 2013 comes with the eDiscovery functionality that is designed to protect business. You can use the functionality to run eDiscovery queries across different Exchange servers and SharePoint farms. Further, the discovered data can be preserved and exported easily from the Exchange mailboxes and SharePoint sites. So the users can keep accessing and searching for the documents without compromising the security of your site and information sharing system.

Claims-Based Authentication: While choosing an information sharing technique, it becomes essential for an organization to concentrate on authentication and identity management. The updated version of SharePoint development services comes with enhanced authentication that makes it easier for businesses to use claims-based authentication. Also, the latest version uses the Open Authorization 2.0 (OAuth 2.0) web authorization protocol to support authentication for a variety of apps, and server-to-server communication. The authentication features are also available for Lync Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, and the apps listed in the App Catalog or SharePoint Store.

Provide More Relevant Information: While initiating a search, each user wants to obtain the latest and most updated information. So an enterprise level information sharing system must be effective in providing the most relevant information to the users in a much easier and quicker way. The SharePoint Server 2013 comes with enterprise search feature that includes the capabilities of SharePoint Server 2010 including query processing and targeting search results. The feature will make it easier for data administrators to provide users with the most relevant information without causing any delay.

Dynamic Web Content Management: Along with making the enterprise data accessible to authorized employees, a business also needs to explore options to make his website more engaging and interactive. SharePoint 2013 comes with a set of enhanced features that make web content management easier for an organization. The features further make it easier and simpler for developer to design publishing sites. Also, the features can be used to optimizing the process of developing and processing web content. The enterprise search option makes it further easier for a business to share dynamic web content to the users accessing these publishing sites.

Microsoft has further designed SharePoint 2013 by keeping in mind the growing popularity of mobile devices. This updated version offers optimized viewing experience to users, regardless of their choice of mobile platforms. Some of these features further enhance usability of the mobile device along with the productivity of the user.

We provide sharepoint webparts development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

3 Major deployment challenges in SharePoint

In the recent times, there has been a tremendous rise in the Enterprise adoption of SharePoint. A survey conducted by Global 360, an organization dealing in document management, has found out that among the 886 respondents, 90% make use of SharePoint, wherein, SharePoint 2010 is being used by 8%. Strikingly, 67% of the SharePoint users extend it across the enterprise, implying that SharePoint is not limited to the IT department but can render support to the other departments too. Study also reveals that SharePoint webparts development is on the rise.

The survey also brings to light the manner in which SharePoint is used by organizations. It mainly gets started in the form of a content repository and then transforms into a more dynamic component. It is seen that 67% of SharePoint users have extended it for document workflow management while 66% have used SharePoint for web content and portal management. Again, 56% of the respondents have leveraged SharePoint for rendering support to business processes. 27% of the organizations which were surveyed are of the opinion that more than fifty percent of the documents that are stored within SharePoint are utilized for supporting vital aspects of business.

In spite of the widespread adoption of SharePoint coupled with enhancements in workflow, search and social networking within the platform, there are certain deployment challenges, as the survey highlights. Let us discuss three of the major challenges here.

User-experience is not so out-of-the-box

Out of the survey respondents only 17.6% are of the opinion that SharePoint renders an exceptional out-of-the-box user experience while at the same time sufficiently catering to their requirements. On the other hand, 78% respondents have described SharePoint as more or less adequate to inadequate, stating that the platform calls for additional in-house development and design.

The biggest challenge in case of implementing SharePoint, as opined by 21% of the respondents, is the absence of conveniently usable, intuitive interface suitable for business users. Undoubtedly, an insufficient user interface generally points at trouble. As stated by the Global 360 report, general user experiences frequently give rise to slow user acceptance, lesser productivity by users looking for workarounds to applications which fail to cater to their needs and soaring costs to customize and rollback applications.

Creating business applications takes effort and time

So far as SharePoint is concerned, there have been advances in the domains of offline access, social media, ERP integration and better CRM. However, going by the Global 360 report, there is still a huge difference between the delivered output and what is possible to be achieved.

Out of the 60% of survey respondents who have found SharePoint user experience insufficient, 47% are into creation of custom applications across the SharePoint environment. This involves lots of time. 30% of the respondents stated that the foremost challenge in SharePoint implementation is the time and effort involved in development of the business applications.

As per the report, a number of organizations who intend to reduce time, expertise and resources required for integration of custom apps within SharePoint are going for third-party applications in order to add content management, business intelligent and process management features to SharePoint.

Getting IT as well as business users over the same page

Outside of work, employees are exposed to increasingly interactive Web apps like the different apps of Google and Facebook. This has led to increased expectation with respect to the enterprise applications. Owing to this, IT is required to involve users within SharePoint deployment planning, as the Global 360 report states.

This may not be always convenient, as there is every possibility of disconnect between the business and IT users of an enterprise. However, user feedback obtained early will in due course speed adoption as well as cut the costs of deploying SharePoint, as stated by the Global 360 report. It notes that while customizing, purchasing or planning SharePoint business applications, there should be a concerted effort by the IT organizations to connect with the business users who have been targeted with respect to the application.

The survey majorly based in North America and Europe brings out the manner in which SharePoint users have adopted the platform as well as the deployment challenges that they regularly face. If these challenges are overcome, SharePoint will become a more efficient platform for businesses.

We provide sharepoint bespoke development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

SharePoint - Ultimate Enterprise Apps creation Platform

SharePoint, a very important candidate to be the Apps platform for hybrid on-premise and cloud deployments. Several booming apps developed by SharePoint have a cross-platform implementation with higher user experiences and can run any device with ease. App vendors seem willing to require the price of maintaining multiple versions to secure better stability, performance and practicality utilizing the chances within the platform. Modern Apps with an HTML5 interface are more demanding in the web world. It is both a platform and an application. We need to understand where to use it best in each area.

SharePoint comprised of web technologies and standards-based APIs, launched in 2001 by Microsoft. It was version 2007 that first staked SharePoint’s claim as an application development platform. Then an updated version of SharePoint 2010 was released. As application usage grew, customers wanted to customize their site based on their own unique needs. Organizations seeking to involve the business users and analysts in all aspects of development, not just during the requirements gathering process. One of the reasons for the success of SharePoint has been its ability to empower end users. From creating custom views on lists, customizing web parts and building workflows, SharePoint has allowed the end-users to create much of the functionality they need without relying on IT each step of the way. It helps an enterprise to manage its data, applications and information more easily.

The recent trend of social networking makes unstructured content even more difficult. The Content Management Services provided by SharePoint makes it easier, where users find it difficult in terms of flexibility to tag a document, rate it, find and act with the topic matter consultants associated with the document, tired close to period. HTML5-based mobile browser experience, ability to associate multiple master pages to a single site, support for push notification and the addition of geolocation list datatype to make it easier to implement location awareness etc. With so many other worthy enhancements to choose from (enhanced API, performance improvements, BI enhancements), SharePoint database that stores the data, view, queries and macros.

SharePoint helps users to create customized applications in a cost-effective way. There are two main categories of SharePoint solutions are: those executing code on the server (Trusted Solutions) and those who doesn't (NoCode solutions).

NoCode Solutions
 

SharePoint in many ways resemble the integration architectures we see in the public web space, with light-weight interaction between distributed services. This means that a solution can be developed without any in-depth knowledge about the SharePoint platform, which is a great opportunity for novice users who are new to developing their business online by setting up a potential App. 

 

The skill set for NoCode solution development relies heavily on client-side technologies, such as JavaScript, jQuery, HTML and some basic ASP.NET. 

 

NoCode solutions have the great advantage of very low server footprint and thus there is very low risk of deploying these solutions, as they cannot interfere with the operations of the platform. They do not deploy or execute any compiled code to the SharePoint infrastructure, typically consume the SharePoint APIs and data over distributed interfaces such as Web Services or REST via the browser. This advantage is especially important in large-scale multitenancy hosting scenarios such as Office365, where operational stability and tenant isolation is extremely important. 

 

The drawbacks of NoCode solutions are mainly focused around the inability to utilize the raw processing power and services of the native server environment. This means that if you need to do stuff like running scheduled operations, or execute some demanding processing task, you'll need to externalize that task to an external service. Enterprises might also worry about the potential security and compliance risks of using NoCode solutions, as they commonly include mashups, which in turn takes advantage of external services. One example is the use of Google Charts. It provides a very simple, client side Java-script only solution, but the data you are populating your charts with are inherently shared with Google. 

 

Trusted Solutions 

 

SharePoint supports different kinds of trusted solutions, running on the SharePoint server infrastructure and on multiple browser. These types of solutions are established using WSP packages and execute compiled code on the infrastructure itself. The platform carries varying degrees of isolation to permit for different security and operational contexts. Microsoft has managed to set up a comprehensive structure with support for characteristic administration, provisioning and governance over the past two foremost versions of the merchandise.

With evolving trusted answers normally requires .NET programming skills, and furthermore in-depth information about the SharePoint programming APIs and deployment form. Developing the front-end is much the identical as for NoCode solutions, apart from the possibility of leveraging the full power of the ASP.NET web framework. This represents a cost for vendors making an primary entry to SharePoint, but it furthermore represents a important opening to utilize the centre capabilities of the stage.

Trusted solutions make it likely to exploit the full promise of the native stage services, making it possible to construct exceedingly powerful, integrated solutions that hold all facts and figures inside the enterprise at all times. This becomes an progressively significant asset as the breadth of platform services offered by SharePoint continues to grow, with things like the very quick seek and move supplement, presentation point, the secure shop service, visio services, word automation services and more.

Apps in the Cloud

Microsoft is focused on ensuring that all features, capabilities, development models built in SharePoint are 'service ready' - built with both on-premises and SharePoint Online in mind. NoCode solutions are more or less cloud-ready in nature but Trusted Solutions are complex.

 

Microsoft supports all types of Trusted Solutions in the cloud and thus increase their scalability level. Office365 will require establishing process isolation for code running on their servers and with the current SharePoint Architecture, this can only be done at the Web Application level, thus Office365 have to be able to serve these "units" in the scalable way in which they are serving Site Collections today. We expect this to arrive with Office365 in pace with the increasing demand for virtual private clouds which is in demand by upper SMBs. 

 

Once Microsoft has solved this little technical barrier they have in essence unleashed the full power of the SharePoint platform to allow it to be a potential host for Apps of all types, both on-premise and in the cloud. 

 

A complex but complete platform

 

SharePoint, 4 major versions 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2013 support a broad kind of solution kinds with distinct complexity, possibilities, development approaches and governance considerations. The models cater to distinct needs of customization ranging from the least significant of purposes, to the most comprehensive business systems running on the platform. Microsoft has effectively supplied tools to permit explain problems at all grades and they have done it at a stride that has permitted a large community to pursue, invest and apply precious business solutions. 

 
In the future, all of these solution types can run on-premise or in the cloud, served from a single App Marketplace for SharePoint. With sharepoint CMS customization services on the rise, it is nothing but clear that the world is getting ready to harness the benefits CMS has to offer.



We provide sharepoint migration services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

SharePoint Development Services

SharePoint development services enable SharePoint users to customize and extend SharePoint’s core capabilities to suit their unique business needs better. SharePoint was launched by Microsoft in 2001. Ever since its first release, SharePoint has significantly evolved adding much new functionality over the last decade. It is credited to be Microsoft’s “fasted growing product in the company’s history” with significant adoption amongst enterprises and Fortune 500 companies around the world.

SharePoint: Both an Application & an Application Platform

SharePoint derives its massive popularity from its power, flexibility, and extensibility. A part of SharePoint is the pre-built, off-the-shelf application for quickly deploying collaboration and productivity sites. The other part of SharePoint is the platform itself on top of which to develop any web-based functionality imaginable to suit your business needs. SharePoint development services come in handy to customize the SharePoint experience for your users and to build and deploy custom applications and business solutions.

SharePoint: Endless Possibilities

SharePoint is compared by many to the versatile Swiss Army Knife – the one which contains many. SharePoint is multi-faceted in its capabilities and different organizations can use it very differently. Depending on their business needs, organizations might use SharePoint for intranet portals, extranets, document management, collaboration, social networks, websites, enterprise search, and business intelligence. Expert SharePoint development services can not only expedite the process of SharePoint customization, they can also bring to the table years of experience in extending SharePoint’s intrinsic capabilities and developing optimized business solutions to realize its true power. Depending on your business needs, you might be interested in SharePoint integration, SharePoint custom solutions development, SharePoint migration, SharePoint branding, etc.

SharePoint Integration

Recognizing the progressively important role SharePoint plays in organizational collaboration and productivity, many Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application software packages offer SharePoint integration capabilities. SharePoint also has a complete development stack based on web standards to facilitate integration with other organizational software suites. SharePoint development service providers immensely facilitate, through their cross-product expertise, SharePoint integration with SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, Siebel, MS Dynamics, MS Office, MS Commerce Server, Exchange Server, etc. products.

SharePoint Migration

SharePoint development services in the area of SharePoint migration may include migrating from ASP.NET or earlier versions of SharePoint (SharePoint 2001/2003/2007) to newer SharePoint versions (SharePoint 2007/2010). SharePoint migration may also entail migration of external databases (Oracle, Excel, Access, SQL, etc.) into SharePoint Lists / Libraries.

SharePoint Custom Solutions Development

The possibilities are enormous here, including but not limited to customizing SharePoint Workloads / Capabilities such as Sites, Communities, Content, Search, Insights, Composites; developing Custom Web Parts, Application pages, Content Types, Search (simple and advanced), Workflow (using Visual Studio), Event Receivers, Features (custom Actions, custom Ribbon controls, etc.), Timer Jobs, HttpModules, Delegate controls, Web Services, Reports, Utility apps using SharePoint object model, Utility apps using SharePoint web services, etc.

Companies like Mindfire Solutions provide expert SharePoint development services backed by years of experience of providing SharePoint services for a variety of industries and customer needs. We have served over 50+ clients in this technology domain.