Myth Piper - SharePoint Myths

A short Story...

When we first ventured into our first Sharepoint project, we hired a consultant.
The guy was aged around 30-35. He was armed with the latest gizmos and always gave a blank look followed by a wicked smile. His chest was so full with ego, so much so that it could bust out any moment.

Midnight oil kept burning and the application’s architecture plan gave way to queries.

They were just dumb queries that any naïve Sharepoint developer would have asked.

Now this consultant started playing a Pipe…Sharepoint Pipe…and here instead of mice…myths followed the queries and eventfully him.
So this article is titled as “Myth Piper”.

The First Myth:

In any Sharepoint application site collection administrators are the only one who will create new site collections.

Real Scenario:

SharePoint Server 2007 was designed to allow users to manage their own destiny in regard to workspaces.

Your goal should be to train users and allow them to create their own site collections.

If you choose to do otherwise, you should seriously consider training a set of site collection administrators to perform the creation and management.

Otherwise, the IT department will end up with more work than they can do, and delay site collection creation for users.

I'm not saying all users should have the ability to create Site Collections, but train folks outside of your SharePoint administration staff to do this.

The Second Myth:

If its Sharepoint application…the search has to be overdone & a true rocket science.

Real Scenario:

Don’t go by what all others are doing. First analyze what you need in a search?
Yes I totally agree that search is a part and parcel of all application today, but why overcomplicate this in the beginning?

You needn’t have a robust search topology (Some consultants even suggest to get a server seperately for this small creepy search) and plan before implementing SharePoint Server 2007. Search will benefit you greatly, but don’t let the fear of planning search stymie your plans for SharePoint Server 2007.

In the beginning, just use the native search functionality, and expand as your knowledge and requirements increase.

One very important thing to note is that because your users have been trained by Internet search engines to find what they need via search. For them search means quick,precise and accurate.

So you do need a reliable search center in the very beginning. You want your users to trust SharePoint Server 2007 search early, because otherwise it is very hard to gain back their trust.

The bottom line is that if you are new to SharePoint Server just get search working with SharePoint content first.

The Third Myth:

Backup and restore is done automatically and we need not worry about it. There is no need to plan of the same.

Real Scenario

A common bad practice is trying to get maximum from a poorly installed sharepoint. Unless you have a very simple installation, your data protection and recovery plan will require some preparation.

Often, it isn’t a planning process that you can do alone. It will require discussions with the data owners and stakeholders to understand the criticality of the data, and what the expected availability is.

If you also got to crack out a myth…Feel free to give in your stories.
Have a great day ahead.