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713

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9

I'm trying to wrap my head around SharePoint. Why is it good? Why is it bad?

At a glance it appears to offer some incredible collaboration tools. However, the cost looks astronomical and it seems to be rigid & difficult to customize.

To those who've worked with SharePoint; please describe something good and something bad about it.

+3  A: 

It has pretty good Office 2007 integration. As an example, Excel understands when you have a file checked out and will let you check it in (with comments) when you close it. The document management features simplistic version control (although it's not required; you can go with a single version for each file).

In SharePoint, everything is essentially a list internally and it's very easy to create a custom one. On a related note, I haven't used either yet, but it supposedly works well with workflows and InfoPath.

On the downside, it's pretty much a resource beast. It requires multiple machines with powerful specs, particularly if you want to "really" use it for document management and to be the backbone of your intranet/internet site. It scales to an extent, but it's not pretty from my vantage point.

Customizing it presents it's own challenges. You really need people focused on it full time, as both administration and customization require their own impressive learning curves.

Lastly, some of the out of the box parts are poorly implemented. The wiki is a prime example; it's basically useless in my opinion. So one thing to keep in mind is that some may consider SharePoint as a whole package as "best in class" (not saying I do!), its individual features often are not.

pdwetz
+1  A: 

Good thing: Great communication tool. Instead of sending out a company wide email you can post an announcement to your SharePoint site. Users can subscribe to an RSS feed of the announcements or have a email alert sent to them when the list is updated.

Bad thing: Error messages displayed on a SharePoint site are generic and the link to help resolve the issue rarely is of any help.

Kwirk
You can configure the error messages in the web.config the same way you do any other ASP.NET application.
spoon16
A: 

A lot of the cool things in Sharepoint are avaialable in Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0, which is free with windows server 2003/2008. All you need extra is a license for SQL Server 2000 and later, which most mirosoft shops have. In WSS you can do document management, workflows, custom sites, blogs, wiki's, etc.

If you need Excel Services, Forms Server, CMS, or some of the other MOSS features, then that's another thing. And yes, it does cost a lot of money, but it' cheaper than doing it from scratch in most cases.

Pluses:
- Great object model. - A lot of good features just come out of the box.

Minuses: - Steap learning curve to do things the right way. - It's very easy to hang yourself by doing things the wrong way. - Debugging and deployment is about as pleasurable as root canal.

Charles Graham
+7  A: 

Pros:

  • Document management is its most well-known function and integrates extremely well with Office 2007.
  • Create group calendars that can be overlayed onto your personal Outlook and managed on the web.
  • Notifications in response to certain actions on the group website
  • Wiki-type functionality with full integration into the Office stack.
  • Full database backend which gives you the reliability and safety of a true RDBMS.
  • Extremely customizable if you choose to develop custom websites using ASP.NET (not the built-in wizard/gui editor).
  • Form-data collection

Cons:

  • Freebie version is somewhat limited on customization.
  • How to handle multiple editors to a single file is not obvious.
  • Workflow for offline editing of documents is non-obvious.
  • Very steep learning curve to use it the right way.
  • Getting people to use it is like getting people to go to the dentist.
  • Out-of-the-box templates don't do a lot.
  • Customizing without writing code really limits your options.
  • Integration with older versions of office is ugly
  • Mac integration is non-existant (has this changed recently?)
James Schek
+1  A: 

Good:

It can be a great collaboration tool. Beginning developing for sharepoint is simple, assuming you are familar with ASP.NET webparts.

Bad:

The development lifecycle isn't fully implemented. There are no built-in facilities for testing, among other things.

Kyle Trauberman
A: 

good :

A lot of things can be done. Wokflowks, InfoPath forms, Excel Services, Business Data Catalogs and etc.

Bad :

You won't be able to do these described easily. Must have sharepoint administrative and development skills for good solutions that don't improve quickly.

emremp
A: 

If you have a license for Microsoft Server 2003 then you can install the standalone version of Sharepoint for FREE! Download Sharepoint

The install is very simple when using the internal database.

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Designer 2007 is a must have for any customization.

I have created a couple Company Intranets using Sharepoint and have been very pleased with its features. Microsoft Office 2007 interfaces nicely with sharepoint.

I have found Sharepoint to be very powerful and easy to learn. There are lots of people developing sites using sharepoint. The level of customization is awesome. The simplest customization is done in your browser, the next level is using Microsoft Sharepoint Designer 2007, and finally using Visual Studio to create new apps(webparts).

+1  A: 

SharePoint is evolving and becoming a better collaboration tool for Microsoft Office environments. It plays well in a small to medium sized business setting. It is critical to implement “best practices” on setup; otherwise it will quickly become a nightmare to maintain and to use.

For “best practices” here are two books that I recommend for SharePoint 2007:

erik9000
+2  A: 

Good Out of the box, it offers a ton of functionality and power, even for the stock web parts. Just creating a library of documents that anyone can open/edit/upload to is simple...even for those non-web-savvy amongst us.

Bad Pretty much everything else.

  • The "Discussion Board" is a glorified Outlook email chain.
  • The disconnect between achieving similar results in SharePoint Designer 2007 and using the web interface are jarring and annoying
  • Attempting to customize the look and feel of a SharePoint site usually ends in complete disaster. Especially with WSS 3.0.
  • The nickel & diming scheme between the WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 tiers is absolutely painful; WSS 3.0 is just barely functional enough to be extremely frustrating to use
  • Changing MS styles is almost impossible due to their horribly-laid-out and obnoxiously large CSS file.
  • IT IS 2009...GET RID OF THE TABLES FOR NON-TABULAR DATA ALREADY!

It's a beast to use. And handing two complete rebranding projects for two totally different areas of the company is driving me to the point of a nervous breakdown. Especially when opening the core.css file occasionally results in all the styles I've redefined getting reset to the defaults. Without anything done by me other than just OPENING the file. And there is no ability to undo these changes.