Custom development with "out of the box" Sharepoint

Question

I'm currently working on moving a legacy Visual FoxPro app to the web. Our plans included purchasing an application framework such as Strataframe or MM .NET, both VFP friendly, and also some third-party controls to speed up development.

Well, we recently heard that we're probably going to have to host this app using "out of the box" Sharepoint and I'm not entirely sure what that means. I know that you can use Visual Studio to extend the out of the box features but I'm assuming that's out of the question.

Has anyone had to deal with something like this?

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "I'm assuming that 's out of the question"? SharePoint is designed to extended/developed upon, as you've pointed out.

If you mean that you doubt that Out of the Box SharePoint probably won't do what you want it too... yes, I agree. SharePoint should be treated as a platform, not a turnkey solution. I've not heard of a project that didn't require some sort of customisation/development.

As for dealing with something like that... depends exactly what you're trying to do!

Answer 2

Strataframe or MM .NET are winforms solutions.

Sharepoint is web-based so I think there is a mismatch here. It's not possible to integrate/host solutions created with these tools in sharepoint. You could make it downloadable from sharepoint but I doubt this is what the customer meant..

Answer 3

I would assume that "out of the box" SharePoint means you can't use Visual Studio to extend it. I'm not sure whether using SharePoint Designer would count or not.

Out-of-the-box SharePoint can be pretty powerful for something that requires no development. However, if you're trying to solve a complex problem, the OOTB SharePoint application will likely have some very rough edges. You may also run into a wall where OOTB functionality simply won't allow you to mimic a particular data structure or process in a useful way.

Should you ever have to get into customizing and extending SharePoint, the learning curve gets steep. SharePoint development takes some dedication to be proficient--that is, it'll likely become a primary focus of you or other programmers on your team. The book Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is a good introduction to the development side of things.

Before you commit to SharePoint, I'd make sure to get a fairly clear roadmap of where the application will be going. Then, I'd take some time to get familiar with the basic OOTB features of WSS3 (Microsoft has an evaluation Virtual PC image) to make sure it will handle it. You want to clearly set up expectations for what you can and can't do out of the box, and how it will affect your team of programmers if you have to go beyond that.

Answer 4

I've just recently been on a 4 month program to create a Sharepoint solution for document management. I'm not sure what your team will need this site for, but there are many easy and quick developmental solutions you can do to extend Sharepoint. Additionally there are many easy install plug-ins out there that would help for specific projects.

For out-of-the-box SharePoint, are you referring to SharePoint Server 2007, or the free Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0? Also, would you be able to use SharePoint Designer (a great tool to customize the look/feel and minor structure changes of SharePoint, as well as create custom workflows). SharePoint Designer has a very small footprint and requires no server tinkering.

Also note that while SharePoint is useful for all basic cases, it really needs to be extended a bit if you have any kind of complex requirements you want to achieve. The best solution I could give you if you need to make any kind of minor development changes to SharePoint or even just to learn what would be possible would be PilotHouse Consulting's Development DVD or Lynda.com for the basics.

Ultimately I would try to have your employer not completely limit the possibility of Visual Studio extensions to SharePoint.

Also DylanW's Virtual PC evaluation link is very helpful for attempting to learn to use an create a SharePoint solution.

Answer 5

I would approach any custom development project on "OOTB SharePoint" carefully - especially if you do not have any experience with the platform. There are many pecularities to how the API works and it takes time to recognize and anticipate them; there are also some techniques that are vital for keeping the solution stable and scalable (eg. wrapping SharePoint object instantiation inside using{} blocks), not to mention understanding how a business/web application is structured.

You first need to understand the platform and how it works before getting too far ahead of yourself and I would strongly caution against seeing it as a development platform - it's more of a framework with some extensibility options.

Following on this, you really need to have a solid idea of how your project will be managed, from development through rollout, training and support. Far too many SharePoint projects fail due to inadequate planning and management.

For more info, see Paul Culmsee's series, Why Do SharePoint Projects Fail?