Governance guide for
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Microsoft Corporation

Published: April 2011

Author: Microsoft Office System and Servers Team (itspdocs@microsoft.com)

Abstract

This book provides guidance to help you determine the aspects of a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 deployment to govern and the governance techniques to use. Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that you establish in your enterprise to guide, direct, and control how it uses technologies to accomplish business goals. To strike the right balance between the needs of the users of your SharePoint Server 2010 deployment and the IT professionals who deploy and operate SharePoint Server 2010, we recommend that you form a governance body that includes representatives of all stakeholders in the SharePoint Server 2010 deployment. This body can then create and enforce rules that govern the use of SharePoint Server 2010.

The content in this book is a copy of selected content in the SharePoint Server 2010 technical library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=181463) as of the publication date. For the most current content, see the technical library on the Web.

This document is provided “as-is”. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it.

Some examples depicted herein are provided for illustration only and are fictitious.  No real association or connection is intended or should be inferred.

This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes.

© 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Access, Active Directory, Backstage, Excel, Groove, Hotmail, InfoPath, Internet Explorer, Outlook, PerformancePoint, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Silverlight, Windows, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, Windows PowerShell, Windows Server, and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

Contents

Getting help. v

Site and solution governance (SharePoint Server 2010) 1

Governance overview (SharePoint Server 2010) 3

About governance. 3

What should be governed?. 3

Who should determine governance policies?. 6

How should governance be implemented?. 7

Other Resources. 8

Governance features (SharePoint Server 2010) 9

Managing SharePoint installation in an enterprise. 9

IT service features. 10

Information management 14

Information architecture features. 16

Concepts. 19

Establishing and governing a SharePoint service (SharePoint Server 2010) 20

What is a SharePoint service?. 20

Elements of a successful service. 20

What to govern in a SharePoint service. 21

Creating multiple services. 24

Service-level agreements. 25

Concepts. 26

Other Resources. 26

Implementing and governing information architecture (SharePoint Server 2010) 27

What is information architecture?. 27

Governing information architecture. 28

Resources for planning information architecture. 32

Case study: Governing information architecture to eliminate content chaos. 33

Concepts. 38

Other Resources. 39

SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning (white paper) 40

Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010 (white paper) 41

Track or block SharePoint Server 2010 installations. 42

Block installations. 42

Track installations. 42

Getting help

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this book. This content is also available online in the Office System TechNet Library, so if you run into problems you can check for updates at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/office

If you do not find your answer in our online content, you can send an e-mail message to the Microsoft Office System and Servers content team at:

itspdocs@microsoft.com

If your question is about Microsoft Office products, and not about the content of this book, please search the Microsoft Help and Support Center or the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:

http://support.microsoft.com

Site and solution governance (SharePoint Server 2010)

Published: May 12, 2010

This section provides information about governing sites and solutions for both production and sandboxed Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 environments.

Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct, and control how an organization's business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals.

Sandboxed solutions restrict access to network and local resources to provide greater security and stability. You can use sandboxed solutions for load balancing solutions, for solutions that have not been fully tested, and for deploying user solutions in a hosted environment. Sandboxed solutions run in a separate worker thread so that they cannot access resources that belong to other solutions, and they have limited access to local and network resources.

In this section:

·         Governance overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article introduces governance as an essential part of a successful SharePoint Server 2010 deployment and explains the various components of an enterprise governance plan.

·         Governance features (SharePoint Server 2010)

This article reviews a set of SharePoint Server 2010 features that an organization can use to help govern an IT service, information management, and information architecture.

·         Establishing and governing a SharePoint service (SharePoint Server 2010)

Learn about key factors in governing a SharePoint service and what to include in a service-level agreement.

·         Implementing and governing information architecture (SharePoint Server 2010)

Learn how to plan an effective information architecture to ensure that your solution meets your business needs.

·         Plan for sandboxed solutions (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/9a96fa5e-2361-4b81-a0ca-fc4d0513cbf4(Office.14).aspx)

This article explains how to plan to use sandboxed solutions in a SharePoint environment.

·         SharePoint Development and Governance Using COBIT 4.1: A Practical Approach (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/89402301-0725-4dcb-8490-ff3e6d7d6716(Office.14).aspx)

These book excerpts are from "SharePoint Deployment and Governance Using COBIT® 4.1: A Practical Approach."

·         SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning (white paper)

This white paper focuses on the “front end” of the SharePoint environment – the business aspect of governance - the areas that effect business users. It uses a fictitious company to provide guidance for the necessary governance planning and implementation of SharePoint Server 2010.

·         Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010 (white paper)

This white paper focuses on the “back end” of SharePoint governance – the technical implementation. It provides high-level guidance on the many configuration options that SharePoint Server 2010 provides to enable you to manage the environment for the benefit of all.

Governance overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

Published: May 12, 2010

This article introduces governance as an essential part of a successful Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 deployment and explains why both information architecture and IT services are key components of a governance plan.

The articles in this section emphasize the need for governance of SharePoint Server 2010 deployments. These articles also provide general guidance and examples of the Microsoft SharePoint Server activities and processes your organization should consider governing.

In this article:

·         About governance

·         What should be governed?

·         Who should determine governance policies?

·         How should governance be implemented?

About governance

Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct, and control how an organization's business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals. A comprehensive governance plan can benefit your organization by:

·         Streamlining the deployment of products and technologies, such as SharePoint Server 2010.

·         Helping protect your enterprise from security threats or noncompliance liability.

·         Helping ensure the best return on your investment in technologies, for example, by enforcing best practices in content management or information architecture.

What should be governed?

Every organization has unique needs and goals that influence its approach to governance. For example, larger organizations will probably require more — and more detailed — governance than smaller organizations.

A successful SharePoint Server 2010 deployment requires the following elements:

·         Information architecture

The goal of information architecture is to create a system that helps users collect, store, retrieve, and use the information that is needed to achieve business objectives. A Web site’s information architecture determines how the information in that site — its Web pages, documents, lists, and data — is organized and presented to the site’s users.

A comprehensive assessment of your organization's information architecture can help you identify potential inefficiencies, such as the following:

·         Inconsistent use of metadata that can make it difficult to search for and compare related data or content.

·         Poorly designed and managed storage of content that can result in multiple versions of documents with no way to identify the authoritative version.

·         Poorly catalogued and managed storage of data that can cause decision-makers to find and rely on the wrong data.

·         Poorly designed navigation or poorly presented information that can make it difficult to find important sites and information.

·         IT Service hosting SharePoint Server

SharePoint Server 2010 includes many new features that should be addressed by a comprehensive governance plan. Some of these features are as follows:

·         A new service application architecture, built into Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, that replaces the SSP model.

·         Backup and restore improvements.

·         Multitenancy, which creates a true hosting environment and makes it possible to share service resources across customers (tenants) while partitioning data based on site subscriptions.

·         Managed accounts that automate password changes.

·         Windows PowerShell, the new command-line interface and scripting language that was designed specifically for system administrators.

Unless you have a governance plan, the rapid and uncontrolled growth of individually managed Web servers running SharePoint Server can have unanticipated results. These include the following:

·         Isolated servers hosting a loosely organized group of sites that do not have a common search index, navigation, or security scheme. If you want to support self-service site creation, you should have a plan that covers content disposition and site archival.

·         Servers hosting applications that are not secure, which may compromise the integrity of your content.

·         Requests for technical support for local servers that are running SharePoint Server without the support team's knowledge.

·         Critical activities, such as regulatory compliance, that may be administered inconsistently across servers.

·         Regular maintenance activities, such as backing up and restoring data or installing product updates, that may not be performed correctly because of poor training or inconsistent server configuration.

·         Changes in site ownership that raise questions about content ownership or cause sites to be locked.

As the use of SharePoint Server 2010 increases in your enterprise, your IT department should implement a set of well-governed hosting services that makes SharePoint Server 2010 available and establishes control over its use and configuration.

For effective and manageable SharePoint Server 2010 solutions, your organization should consider governing one or more of the following additional areas:

·         Customization policy

SharePoint Server 2010 includes customizable features and capabilities that span multiple product areas, such as business intelligence, forms, workflow, and content management. Customization introduces risks to the stability, maintenance, and security of the SharePoint Server 2010 environment. To support customization while controlling its scope, you should develop a customization policy that addresses the following considerations:

·         Approved customization tools. For example, you should decide whether to allow the use of Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 and specify which site elements can be customized, and by whom.

·         Ways to manage source code, such as a source control system, and standards for documenting the code.

·         Development standards, such as coding best practices.

·         Testing and verification standards.

·         Required packaging and installation methods. You should control the use of sandboxing, which enables site owners to host custom solutions in a partially trusted context so they do not affect the rest of your SharePoint implementation.

·         The kinds of customizations supported. For example, you might want to allow the use of Web parts to integrate Microsoft Silverlight 3 applications together with SharePoint sites.

For more information about processes for managing customizations, see the white paper SharePoint Products and Technologies customization policy (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=92311).

·         Branding

If you are designing an information architecture and a set of sites for use across an enterprise, consider including branding in your governance plan. A formal set of branding policies helps ensure that sites consistently use enterprise imagery, fonts, themes, and other design elements. For example, in SharePoint Server 2010, you can import a Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 theme directly into a SharePoint site, which automatically applies the theme to all subsites.

·         Training

Although SharePoint Server 2010 has an intuitive, Web-based interface and includes online help, using and especially administering sites based on SharePoint Server 2010 can be a challenge for some users.

Additionally, the set of governance policies your IT and business divisions implement may require explanation. By training your user community appropriately, you can increase satisfaction with your implementation of SharePoint Server 2010 and reduce support costs.

Who should determine governance policies?

A successful deployment of SharePoint Server 2010 requires ongoing communication and partnership among business managers, IT professionals, and information workers. When you create a governance committee, you should include representatives from as many of the following groups and roles as possible:

 Note:

Your organization might not have an equivalent role, or might use a different title.

·         Executive stakeholders: Key executives should define the overall goals of the governance committee, provide it with authority, and periodically evaluate the success of the implemented practices and policies.

·         Financial stakeholders: Financial officers should ensure that governance rules and processes help increase the return on the enterprise's investment in SharePoint products and technologies.

·         IT leaders: IT leaders must help develop their service offerings and determine how to achieve their IT responsibilities (for example, improving security and maintaining reliability) while they support the features required by the business teams.

·         Business division leaders: Business leaders represent the teams that do the primary work of the enterprise and drive the architectural and functional requirements of the SharePoint Server 2010 deployment. They must work with information architects to determine the enterprise's information architecture and organizational taxonomy standards. Business leaders must also work with IT leaders to create service-level agreements and other support policies.

·         Information architects or taxonomists: Members of these groups have extensive experience in planning and designing information systems and taxonomies. Based on their analysis of the information needs of the audience, they develop plans that support organizational objectives and define site architecture and navigation.

·         Compliance officers: Governance includes making sure that an enterprise meets its regulatory and legal requirements and manages its corporate knowledge. If your enterprise has roles that are responsible for compliance or legal oversight, include representatives from those disciplines in your governance committee.

·         Development leaders: Leaders in your software development organization should help determine which customization tools are approved, how to verify code security, and other code-related best practices.

·         Information workers: The members of your organization who do the day-to-day work should help ensure that the SharePoint Server 2010 services and information architecture meet their needs.

·         Trainers: Instructional experts should be responsible for developing a training plan and conducting all appropriate training and education.

How should governance be implemented?

An effective governance plan anticipates the needs and goals of your organization's business divisions and IT teams. Because every enterprise is unique, you must determine the best way to implement a governance plan that is tailored to your environment.

Consider the following suggested stages of a governance implementation for your organization:

1.     Determine initial principles and goals.

The governance committee should develop a governance vision, policies, and standards that can be measured to track compliance and to quantify the benefit to the enterprise. For example, the plan should identify service delivery requirements for both technical and business aspects of the SharePoint Server 2010 deployment.

2.     Classify the business information/content.

Organize your information according to an existing taxonomy, or create a custom taxonomy that includes all content required to support your business solution. After your information is organized, design an information architecture to manage your enterprise content. Then, determine the most appropriate IT services to support the information architecture.

3.     Develop an education strategy.

The human element is, after the governance plan itself, the most important ingredient in the success or failure of a SharePoint Server 2010 deployment. A comprehensive training plan should show how to use SharePoint Server 2010 according to the standards and practices that you are implementing and explain why those standards and practices are important.  The plan should cover the kinds of training required for specific user groups and describe appropriate training tools. For example, your IT department might maintain a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page about its SharePoint Server 2010 service offerings, or your business division might provide online training that shows how to set up and use a new document management process.

4.     Develop an ongoing plan.

Successful governance is an iterative process. The governance committee should meet regularly to consider incorporating new requirements in the governance plan, reevaluate and adjust governance principles, or resolve conflicts among business divisions for IT resources. The committee should provide regular reports to its executive sponsors to promote accountability and to help enforce compliance across the enterprise. Consider that, although this process seems complicated, its goals are to increase the return on your investment in SharePoint Server 2010, take full advantage of the usefulness of your SharePoint Server 2010 solution, and improve the productivity of your enterprise.

Other Resources

Governance Resource Center (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=133502)

Governance features (SharePoint Server 2010)

Published: May 12, 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 includes features that an organization can use to help govern a SharePoint Server 2010 IT service, an enterprise's information management, or an enterprise’s information architecture. Links to related articles can help you plan and use each feature.

 Note:

Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that guide, direct, and control how an organization's business divisions and IT teams cooperate to achieve business goals. For information, see Governance overview (SharePoint Server 2010).

In this article:

·         Managing SharePoint installation in an enterprise

·         IT service features

·         Information management

·         Information architecture features

Managing SharePoint installation in an enterprise

Because SharePoint deployments are managed at the farm level, a single SharePoint deployment has no information about other SharePoint deployments that might exist in the same enterprise. Administrators need this information to manage and control all deployments in the enterprise. For example, administrators need to know whether a deployment was configured according to organizational requirements, or how many unauthorized deployments exist in the enterprise. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products provides the following ways to lock down, track, and even block random installations of SharePoint Server

·         The following Group Policy object disables the installation of SharePoint Server and related products:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\ SharePoint\DWORD DisableInstall

To block installation, set DWORD DisableInstall=00000001.

When this registry key is set, users who try to install SharePoint Server receive the following error message: SharePoint installation is blocked in your organization. Please contact your network administrator for more details.

·         An Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Marker identifies the SharePoint servers in an organization. By default, the marker contains the URL for the topology service application.

For more information about setting the group policy object and the AD DS marker, see Track or block SharePoint Server 2010 installations.

IT service features

A SharePoint service is an IT service that offers hosted sites and portals based on SharePoint Server. An IT service can include the following components:

·         Sites and portals at a scope, such as site collection, Web application, or server farm

·         Backup and restoration

·         Content storage

·         Support for customizations

·         Security

·         Services levels that are based on speed or availability

This section describes features in SharePoint Server 2010 that are useful in maintaining and governing a SharePoint Server service.

Site templates

Site templates are a set of customizations that are applied to a site definition. By using a site template, a SharePoint Server service can promote consistent branding, site structure, and layout in the sites that users create. You can create customized site templates for provisioning sites and use them instead of the templates that are included in SharePoint Server as part of a SharePoint Server service.

For more information, see Working with site templates and definitions (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=184756&clcid=0x409).

Quotas

A quota specifies limits to the amount of storage that a site collection can use. This process prevents users from adding content when the limit is reached. For more information, see Plan quota management (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/881d7f85-23e1-4721-97bd-80440a62433e(Office.14).aspx)

Locks

Locks prevent users from either adding content to a site collection or using the site collection. For example, you can lock a site that violates a usage policy or exceeds a quota. For more information, see Lock or unlock sites (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/c5d39627-dfa6-4122-8571-a38bdd3ab4d9(Office.14).aspx)

Workflows

Workflows are programs that implement business processes for users of a SharePoint Server site. They are associated with items in the site, such as documents, forms, or list items. Workflows have many applications as part of an IT service. For example, you can use a workflow to provision a new site, track a support issue, or take action when a site collection's quota is exceeded. For more information, see Plan workflows (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/adc8aefd-8c4e-4824-8676-c61c10d18061(Office.14).aspx)

Features

A feature, which is a container for various defined extensions for SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010, is composed of a set of XML files that are deployed to Web servers. You can deploy a feature as a part of a site definition or a solution package, and you can individually activate a feature.

A site administrator can transform a SharePoint site's functionality by toggling a feature on or off in the user interface. Features make it easier to activate or deactivate functionality in the course of a deployment, and help administrators to easily transform the template or definition of a site. Features can be hidden, which prevents site users from manually deactivating them.

When you implement new site functionality as features, you make it easier for administrators to control sites and enforce a governance plan. A technique named feature stapling enables you to attach a feature to all new instances of sites that use a given site definition without modifying the site definition. This lets you control the features that users of your service can access. For more information, see Using Features(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=183450&clcid=0x409)

Self-service site creation

You can enable users to create their own site collections by using the Self-Service Site Creation feature. A key decision in governing self-service site creation is to determine the level of service that supports self-service site creation. By default, this permission is enabled in SharePoint Server 2010 for all authenticated users.

For more information, see Turn on or turn off Self-Service Site Creation (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/01a853c9-6fa0-40b4-8551-fe7ba70045a2(Office.14).aspx)

Web application permissions and policies

Permissions for a Web application are comprehensive settings that apply to all users and groups for all site collections within a Web application. You can control user actions by enabling or disabling the associated permission on the Web application. For example, if you do not want users to be able to add pages to a Web site, you can disable the Add and Customize Pages permission that is one of the site-related permissions. After you disable a specific permission for a Web application, the permission cannot be granted to any user of a site on the Web application. You can control access to a specific URL or zone. You can also specify the level of access that you want for anonymous users. For more information, see Manage permissions for a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/28a53440-2adc-4957-84bd-99ed97f0c430(Office.14).aspx)

Permission policies provide a centralized way to configure and manage a set of permissions that applies to only a subset of users or groups in a Web application. For example, you might want to create a permission policy level for users of a site collection who will be allowed to add items to a list, edit items in a list, delete items from a list, open a list, view items, view lists, or view pages. However, you might want to prevent the same users from creating or deleting lists, which would require the Manage Lists permission. For more information, see Manage permission policies for a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cba65279-cba5-46cb-aea1-f095365ed83a(Office.14).aspx)

SharePoint Designer

You can manage how Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 is used in an organization at either the Web application level or the site collection level. You can control the following types of access to SharePoint Designer 2010:

·         Enable or disable SharePoint Designer 2010 use for an entire application or site collection.

If you want to ensure that all designers and owners within a specific site collection can use SharePoint Designer 2010, enable this setting at the site collection level.

·         Enable or disable the ability to detach pages from the site definition.

If you want to preserve the branding for all sites in a site collection, you should not allow users to make changes that would result in detaching the page from the site definition.

·         Enable or disable master pages and page layouts in SharePoint Designer 2010.

If you do not want users to see the master pages and page layouts for a site, you should disable this setting.

·         Enable or disable the site URL structure and its contents.

If you do not want users to view and edit any file on the site, you should disable this setting.

Sandboxing

A sandbox is a restricted execution environment that enables programs to access only certain resources, and that keeps problems that occur in the sandbox from affecting the rest of the server environment. Solutions that you deploy in a sandbox are called sandboxed solutions. Code Access Security (CAS) limits the operations that these solutions can perform.

A member of the Farm Administrators group must implement the sandboxed environment before any sandboxed solutions can be uploaded. Site collection administrators can upload and activate sandboxed solutions. If the solution does not contain an assembly, a user who has full control at the root of the site collection can also activate the solution.

You can increase isolation by using remote load balancing and by running the sandboxing service on only specific servers. In a production environment, we recommend that you use remote load balancing and dedicate a separate server to running sandboxed solutions. Only members of the Farm Administrators group can block sandboxed solutions, configure load balancing, and reset exceeded quotas.

For more information, see Planning sandboxed solutions (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/30ee9080-546e-4267-b6cc-c2c618c46eb7(Office.14).aspx)

Site collection auto-deletion

Automatic deletion helps to control the number of unused Web sites on a server without requiring any administrative intervention and without any backup mechanism. By default, site confirmation is automatically enabled. Automatic site deletion can be set at the server and server farm level or at the Web application level.

Policies for user profiles and My Sites

Policies are sets of rules that administrators of the User Profile service assign to users or groups. These rules enable administrators to specify user profile properties that control both the site content that users can see and how users can interact with that content.

By default, most user profile properties are visible to everyone, but sensitive information can be configured to have limited visibility. Policies that are less restrictive allow more users to view public profiles more frequently, which affects how often you must update user profiles and compile audiences. In organizations that have many users, frequent updating could affect performance and capacity planning. For more information, see Plan policies for user profiles (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/220d0c2f-326b-47f7-837a-10eddd6a6d4b(Office.14).aspx)

By default, all authenticated users can create a My Site. We recommend that you use security groups to manage permissions for My Sites. My Sites features store or use personally identifiable information. Before you deploy My Sites, make sure that you have planned how to control the behavior of these features — or turn off the features — to help protect the security of this information.

By default, all authenticated users can add ratings and social tags to documents, to other SharePoint Server items, and to other items, such as external Web pages and blog posts. Users can also leave impromptu notes on profile pages of a My Site or any SharePoint Server page. You can use one or more security groups to grant the Use Social Features permission to a subset of users in an organization.

By default, all authenticated users can edit their profiles, add or edit colleagues, and add or edit memberships. You can use one or more security groups to grant the User Personal Features permission to a subset of users in an organization.

Although e-mail analysis can be enabled for all users in Outlook or just for specific groups by using group policy, users can opt out of this feature. If e-mail analysis is disabled for all users, individual users can still opt in.

Information management

Information management in SharePoint Server 2010 comprises organizing, retrieving, acquiring, and maintaining information.

This section describes SharePoint Server 2010 features that are useful for managing documents, records, and digital assets, and for planning eDiscovery.

Document management

Document management controls the lifecycle of documents in an organization — how they are created, reviewed, and published, and how they are ultimately disposed of or retained. It includes policies that implement auditing, document retention, labeling, and barcodes (to ensure that printed content can be correlated with corresponding electronic versions). Policies can be implemented to help an organization comply with legally mandated requirements, such as the need to retain records. For more information, see Plan information management policies (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/4de4007d-a45f-419d-9512-824421e14380(Office.14).aspx)

An organization that uses the Microsoft Office system client applications and SharePoint Server 2010 can enforce policies both on the server and in the client applications.

Content approval

The content approval process gives site members who have approver permissions control of the publication of content. An owner of a document library can enable content approval for a document library or Web pages library and can optionally associate a workflow with the library to run the approval process.

Use content approval to formalize and control the process of making content available to an audience. For example, an enterprise that publishes content might require a legal review and approval before publishing the content.

For more information, see Plan versioning, content approval, and check-outs (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/428b488e-2807-4ef0-b942-91cb09d8921c(Office.14).aspx)

Versioning

Versioning is the method by which successive iterations of a document are numbered and saved in SharePoint Server. As a governance tool, versioning prevents users with read permissions from viewing drafts of documents.

For more information, see Plan versioning, content approval, and check-outs (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/428b488e-2807-4ef0-b942-91cb09d8921c(Office.14).aspx)

Records management

Records management is the process by which an organization determines the types of information that should be considered records, how records should be managed while they are active, and for how long each type of record should be retained. Records management includes the performance of records-related tasks such as disposing of expired records, or locating and protecting records that are related to external events such as lawsuits.

Records management enables you to do the following:

·         Use a records archive to manage records or manage records in-place.

·         Create workflows to move documents to a records archive.

·         Determine whether you will manage e-mail within SharePoint Server or within an e-mail application.

·         Determine how to translate social content such as blogs, wikis, or My Sites into records.

For more information, see Records management planning (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/1c030561-e15f-43a0-9ef2-f43e67fb4c67(Office.14).aspx)

Digital asset library

The digital asset library feature in SharePoint Server 2010 provides a specialized repository for storing and managing digital assets, for example, images, audio files, or video files. A centralized repository for managing digital assets enables an organization to exert tighter control over brand-sensitive content, and helps to ensure that only approved assets for products are made available to the appropriate users. For more information, see Versioning, content approval, and check-out planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/428b488e-2807-4ef0-b942-91cb09d8921c(Office.14).aspx)

eDiscovery

Electronic discovery, or eDiscovery, is the process of locating and producing electronic information to support events such as litigation, audits, or investigations. If you use Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to manage any electronic information, you should consider eDiscovery when you plan your SharePoint Server solution. Auditing, expiration policies, and search considerations should be part of your planning process, which should be completed before the need to use eDiscovery arises.

We recommend that you enable the auditing policy in all site collections that contain active document libraries. You should also consider implementing an expiration policy to delete documents automatically when they are no longer needed. For more information, see Planning for eDiscovery (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/f0415345-4bf4-4118-93a9-01a8e3f217eb(Office.14).aspx)

Information management policies

An information management policy is a set of rules for a type of content, or for a location where content is stored. Each rule in a policy is a policy feature.

For example, an information management policy feature could specify how long a type of content should be retained, or it could provide document auditing. Information management policies enable you to control who can access organizational information, what they can do with it, and how long the information should be retained. You can associate a policy with a list, document library, or content type.

When you configure an information management policy, you can optionally write a policy statement that is displayed in Microsoft Office 2010 client programs to inform document authors about the policies that are enforced on a document. This is a recommended best practice.

SharePoint Server 2010 includes the following information management policy features:

·         The Auditing policy feature logs events and operations that are performed on documents and list items. You can configure Auditing to log events such as editing documents, viewing them, or changing a document's permissions level.

·         The Expiration policy feature helps dispose of content in a consistent way that can be tracked and managed. For example, the policy can delete a document, or define a workflow task to have SharePoint Server route the document for permission to destroy it.

·         The Labeling policy feature specifies a label to associate with a type of document or list item. Labels are searchable text areas that SharePoint Server generates based on metadata properties and formatting that you specify.

·         The Barcode policy feature enables you to track a physical copy of a document. You create a unique identifier value for a document and then insert a barcode image of that value in the document. By default, barcodes are compliant with the common Code 39 standard (ANSI/AIM BC1-1995, Code 39), and you can use the object model of the policies to plug in other barcode providers.

Information management policy reports help you monitor how consistently your organization uses policies. Because information management policies are often implemented to help an organization comply with regulations, frequent monitoring of policy usage can help you ensure that an organization is compliant. For more general information about information management policies, see Plan information management policies (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/4de4007d-a45f-419d-9512-824421e14380(Office.14).aspx)

Information architecture features

Information architecture in SharePoint Server 2010 is the organization of information in an enterprise — its documents, lists, Web sites, and Web pages — to maximize the information's usability and manageability.

A portal Web site's information architecture determines how the information in that site — its subsites, Web pages, documents, lists, and data — is organized and presented. An enterprise can increase the return on its portal investment by creating a governance body that develops and enforces information architecture standards and policies. A well-governed architecture makes information in the enterprise easy to find, share, and use.

This section describes SharePoint Server 2010 features that govern the usage of an enterprise's information architecture.

Content types

Content types enable enterprises to organize, manage, and handle content in a consistent way. They define the attributes of a type of list item, document, or folder. Each content type can specify metadata properties to associate with items of its type, available workflows, templates, and information management policies. Use content types to encourage consistent information management policies, metadata requirements, and other policies. To govern content types, consider associating event receivers and workflows with the forms that are used to modify the content types.

For more information, see Plan content types (Office SharePoint Server) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/63bb092a-00fe-45ff-a4b8-d8be998d1a3c(Office.14).aspx)

Site Content and Structure page

The Site Content and Structure page in the top-level site of a site collection manages the content and structure of a SharePoint site collection. Because site navigation in SharePoint Server is based by default on the hierarchy of sites and subsites, this feature can also be used to configure site navigation. When porting a Web site to SharePoint Server 2010, you can use the Site Content and Structure page to restructure the site to match your enterprise's needs.

Information rights management

Information Rights Management (IRM) enables content creators to control and protect their documents. The contents of documents that use IRM are encrypted and supplied with an issuance license that imposes restrictions on users.

SharePoint Server 2010 supports IRM for documents that are stored in document libraries. File formats of documents that can use IRM in SharePoint Server 2010 include the following:

·         Microsoft InfoPath                

·         Microsoft Word                

·         Microsoft Excel                

·         Microsoft PowerPoint                

·         Word Open XML

·         Excel Open XML

·         PowerPoint Open XML

To add other file types, an administrator must install protectors — programs that control the encryption and decryption of documents that use rights management — for each new type of file.

Blocked file types

You can restrict files from being uploaded or downloaded to a server by basing the restriction on their file name extension.

For example, you can block files that have the .exe extension, because such files can be run on a client computer and may contain malicious software.

By default, many file types are blocked, including file types treated as executable by Windows Explorer. For a complete list of the default blocked file types, see Manage blocked file types (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/4e641515-ef59-401d-b342-c7ab74197ca2(Office.14).aspx)

Web content management (publishing sites)

In most content deployment scenarios, the source site collection, from which content is being deployed, is in a server farm that is separate from the destination site collection. Typically, the destination server farm (the "production" farm) has stricter security to minimize the actions that can be performed in the production environment. It is not expected that authoring will be done on the production server, because changes to content on the production server might be overwritten by a content deployment job. In most content deployment scenarios, the source server farm and the production server farm are in independent AD DS domains. For information about content deployment topologies, see Design content deployment topology (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/1d6d6040-6cbb-4685-a40e-1e9086d42683(Office.14).aspx)

Content deployment is a one-way process: content is deployed from a source site collection to a destination site collection. The content deployment feature does not support synchronization from source to destination and back again. Creating new content or changing existing content on the destination site collection can cause content deployment jobs to fail. Because of this, you should consider restricting permissions on the destination site collection so that users cannot make changes directly to content that is stored within that site collection.

Permissions to content on the destination server farm will usually differ from permissions to content on the source server farm. In many publishing solutions, the destination server farm authenticates users by using a different AD DS domain than the one used in an authoring or staging environment, and there might not be a trust relationship between the two domains. For more information, see Content deployment overview (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/b44a57af-98a1-4818-aab3-a561908d0e07(Office.14).aspx)

Taxonomy and managed metadata

Managed metadata is a hierarchical collection of centrally managed terms that you can define and then use as attributes for items in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. A user's role determines how the user can work with managed metadata.

Users can see only global term sets and term sets that are local to the user's site collection. Local term sets are created within the context of a site collection. Global term sets are created outside the context of a site collection. If there are term sets that some users should be unable to view, assign these term sets to separate groups. For more information, see Plan to share terminology and content types (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/57325cc3-bce2-4dd3-9b26-12fec99140ad(Office.14).aspx)

An organization’s governance policies can affect how you design managed metadata services and connections. For example, a formal process for managing terms and term sets will affect how you set connection parameters. If every document that is created must have a certain set of attributes, you will probably want to have a content type hub in at least one service. Familiarize yourself with an organization’s governance plan before you determine the managed metadata services and connections. For more information, see Managed metadata service application overview (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ecd9e1d1-3e56-4ab9-80e1-29972586c5a7(Office.14).aspx)

Concepts

Governance overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

Establishing and governing a SharePoint service (SharePoint Server 2010)

Published: October 14, 2010

A successful Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 deployment relies on an enterprise's ability to govern the service and ensure that the service meets the business needs of the customers in a secure, manageable, and cost-effective way. This article describes typical elements of an IT service that hosts SharePoint Server 2010, suggests key success factors in governing an SharePoint Server service, and provides an example of a three-tiered SharePoint service.

·         What is a SharePoint service?

·         Elements of a successful service

·         What to govern in a SharePoint service

·         Creating multiple services

·         Service-level agreements

What is a SharePoint service?

A SharePoint service is an IT service that offers hosted sites based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products. Among the things that a service provides are the following:

·         Sites at a scope, such as site collection, Web application, or server farm

·         Backup and recovery

·         Content storage

·         Support for customizations

·         Security

·         Service levels that are based on speed and availability

Elements of a successful service

As you envision and implement your SharePoint Server service, consider the following elements that can contribute to the success of the governing effort:

·         Form and use a governing group

Your IT service that supports SharePoint Server should be governed by a group that includes executive stakeholders, business division leaders, influential information workers, IT managers, and IT technical specialists, among others. The goal of the governing group should be to oversee the service. In this capacity, the governing group defines the initial offerings of the service, defines the service's ongoing policies, and meets regularly to evaluate success.

·         Communicate about the services

The governance policies that you develop must be publicized to your enterprise. Maintain a Web site that describes the set of services.

·         Encourage use of the service

Discourage or block users from deploying their own servers. Instead, encourage them to use the service. Isolated servers may not be configured in accordance with IT security policy and the enterprise’s regulatory requirements. Furthermore, users who deploy their own servers may fail to properly back up their servers or fail to keep servers up-to date with software patches and updates. Finally, content on servers that are not governed by the service may not be crawled by the enterprise’s indexing service, which may create isolated pockets of content.

·         Create multiple services

You should offer a set of services that support SharePoint Server. For example, one service could provide thousands of sites for collaboration and another could support very large, mission-critical sites, such as enterprise intranet sites. A set of SharePoint Server services enables you to apply unique governance rules and policies at various levels of service so that you can vary the cost that you assess to organizations based on their level of service. Lastly, a tiered service enables you to phase in services in a manageable way.

What to govern in a SharePoint service

As you design IT services that support SharePoint Server, a governing group should determine the limits and policies to control the services. If you choose to use the multi-tenancy features in SharePoint Server for hosting services, you can enable an IT group to delegate common administrative tasks for a set of sites to the business unit owners. This allows an IT group to focus its attention on the service itself. For more information about multi-tenancy, see Hosted environments (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/5741edac-68ef-42b1-b5e2-b1e9354a9ac5(Office.14).aspx)

Determine limits and policies for the following elements of services:

·         Quota templates

A quota template consists of values that specify how much data can be stored in a site collection. The value also indicates the limit that triggers an e-mail alert to the site collection administrator. You can associate quotas with sites that are offered at various service levels to govern the growth of SharePoint Server in an enterprise. Note that you can set separate quotas for sandboxed solutions.

·         Maximum upload size

At the Web application level, you can set limits on the maximum size of uploaded files. All sites within the host Web application use the same limit.

·         Site lifecycle management

You can govern how sites are created, the size of sites, and their longevity by using self-service site management and site-use confirmation and deletion. You can also set expiration and access policies to control the lifecycle of content in sites.

Self-service site provisioning enables users to create their own top-level Web sites by visiting an IT-hosted page and supplying data about the site’s intended use. The site can then be provisioned based on a custom workflow. For various levels of service, you can govern the size of such sites and control their longevity.

·         Customization policy

A primary benefit of using sites that are based on SharePoint Server is the ability of site owners to customize them. For example, site owners might change a site's appearance or provide new functionality, such as a custom Web Part or workflow. Carefully consider the type and amount of customization that is allowed and supported at each level of service because some types of customizations are global to the server farm.

Consider using sandboxed solutions to limit the impact of customizations in a farm. For example, services that allow self-service site creation may include thousands of sites that share a single Web application. In this instance, you could limit customizations to only those sites that are supported by the user interface, such as adding Web Parts to pages. If you use sandboxed solutions, the customizations apply only to that site collection. In a service that provides virtual or physical isolation of the server farm, such as for an enterprise intranet site, you might allow a large range of customizations, such as custom event handlers and workflows.

At the Web application level, there is also the ability to control whether SharePoint Designer can be used to modify sites in that Web application. For more information, see Configure settings for a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/2687d49f-b114-4f16-a4c0-5f2bfe496c92(Office.14).aspx).

For a full discussion of the range of customizations that SharePoint Server 2010 supports and the risks and benefits of supporting each type of customization at various levels of service, see the white paper SharePoint Products and Technologies customization policy (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=92311&clcid=0x409). Although this content is specifically written about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, much of the information applies to SharePoint Server 2010. For more information about sandboxed solutions, see Plan for sandboxed solutions (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/9a96fa5e-2361-4b81-a0ca-fc4d0513cbf4(Office.14).aspx).

·         Asset classification

You can develop and implement a classification system for sites and content supported by a service that identifies the impact and value of the information to an organization. For example, metadata can classify content as having high, moderate, or low business impact or value.

·         Impact is related to exposure and content: if the content were distributed externally, would it hurt your business? Or would it expose personally-identifiable information about users or customers? If so, that's high business impact content.

·         Value is related to availability: if the content were unavailable, could it impact the enterprise's day-to-day business? If so, that's high value content.

Each classification would then cause other behaviors – for example you could require that high business impact content be transferred only in encrypted form, or you could require that an approval process be run on medium impact content before it can be published on a public-facing Web site. Perhaps high business impact content should be hosted on a service that provides more restrictive policy and aggressive disaster recovery processes.

·         Lifecycle management

A service should provide lifecycle guidelines or tools for active sites and unused sites. For lower service levels, you could, for example, implement a mechanism that lets only site owners create sites that last six months before the user would have to extend the request for the site. Also, you can implement a tool that looks for sites that have not been used for a specified period of time and deletes them. Lifecycle management also means integrating a service with the records management tools and processes in place in an organization. For more information, see Records management planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/1c030561-e15f-43a0-9ef2-f43e67fb4c67(Office.14).aspx).

·         Branding and navigation

Consistent branding with a corporate style guide makes for more cohesive-looking sites and easier development. Master pages and templates help create the visual brand of a site. Store approved master pages in site galleries so that site designers use them consistently. A consistent design helps users confirm that they are in the right place when they look at the site. Define the parts of the template that can and cannot be changed by site owners. Allow room for sub-branding of individual team or project brands.

Consistent navigation is also key to ensure that users do not become lost as they navigate the services looking for content.

·         Data protection

Features that provide data protection include backup and recovery. You can vary the level of data protection based on the service levels that you provide. Higher levels may require charges to the site owner. For each level of service, plan the frequency at which you will back up sites and the response time you will guarantee for restoring sites. For more information, see Plan for backup and recovery (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/01abe8d2-33f8-48fe-af76-40522a5afe08(Office.14).aspx) and the Business Continuity Management Resource Center (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=199235&clcid=0x409).

·         Security, infrastructure, and Web application policies

Maintain the infrastructure and monitor access to the infrastructure and content to make sure that you have a stable and secure environment. Use Web application policies to allow or deny access to the content in accordance with compliance rules or business needs. Keep the infrastructure current with software updates to make sure that you have the latest improvements and fixes.

·         Training

A well-trained user community provides benefits to IT. It reduces support calls, encourages adoption, helps ensure proper use of SharePoint Server, and helps users understand their responsibilities when using the SharePoint Server service. For each level of service, consider an appropriate level of training requiring as a requirement. Even for a basic service, users with site administration permission will have access to many features that affect the functionality of the site. Online training, such as tutorials, for these users can help them take the best advantage of their site.

Training for a user community is available at SharePoint 2010 Resources for End Users (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=199542&clcid=0x409)

Creating multiple services

Users of an enterprise’s SharePoint Server service require sites that meet a range of purposes:

·         Short-lived, single-purpose workspaces for planning events and managing meetings and projects

·         Team sites for general collaboration

·         Divisional portals for large workgroups to manage their business processes

·         Enterprise intranet sites to broadcast information and supply services to the entire organization

Consider dividing a SharePoint Server service into a set of services that meets the range of needs in an enterprise. Each user of a particular service would get the same level of support and would be charged a similar cost. As more complex or costly solutions are needed, you could add new services to support them. One benefit of this approach is that you can introduce one service at a time, which eases the burden on your IT staff. Work with executive stakeholders, business division leaders, and IT managers to determine the requirements of each level of service and the order in which services are introduced.

The following table illustrates a sample approach to creating a tiered set of services. In this example, three service levels are offered. Note that provided values are not recommendations but are supplied as samples:

Sample approach to a set of services

Basic Service

Advanced Service

Premium Service

Description

A server farm that is used to host tens of thousands of customer site collections.

It is intended to support short-lived sites along with small team sites.

A server farm that is designed to host a small number of portal sites.

It is applicable to customers with some requirements for server-side customizations that will not interfere with other sites that are hosted on the same servers.

A server farm dedicated to hosting a large, highly customized or highly critical site.

The topology is scalable depending on the agreed upon hosting requirements between the customer and the hosting team.

Example

Collaboration site to plan an event

Division portal including integration with line-of-business data and custom workflows

Enterprise intranet site that includes large-scale integration with multiple back-end systems

Scope

Site collection

Web application

Server farm with multiple Web applications

Customizations

Only customizations available in the user interface are supported.

Some server-side customizations, such as custom site templates, are supported. All customizations are tested and reviewed before being accepted for deployment. Alternatively, customizations are allowed only as sandboxed solutions.

Extensive customizations are permitted. All customizations are tested and reviewed before being accepted for deployment. Alternatively, customizations are allowed only as sandboxed solutions.

Cost to user

None to minimal

Moderate

High

Self-service provisioning?

Yes

No

No

Content storage limits

500 MB

2 GB

Unlimited

Backup frequency

Twice weekly

Daily

Daily

Backups maintained for

14 days

30 days

60 days

Service-level agreements

Establish service-level agreements for each service level. A service-level agreement should include the following items at a minimum:

·         The length of time and approvals that are necessary to create a site.

What's the process to create a site? Who's involved?

·         Information about the costs for the service to users or departments.

Who gets charged, and for what?

·         Operational-level agreements that specify the teams that perform operations and the frequency.

Which team applies updates? Which team performs backups? How frequently do these occur?

·         Policies about problem resolution through a help desk.

When a user gets stuck, who do they call? What's the escalation path?

·         Negotiated performance targets for the first load of a site, subsequent loads, and performance at remote locations.

·         Recovery, load balancing, and failover strategies.

·         Customization policies for the service.

·         Storage limits for content and sites.

·         Multi-language support.

Which languages will be installed and supported?

Concepts

Track or block SharePoint Server 2010 installations

Other Resources

Governance in SharePoint Server 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=200590&clcid=0x409)

SharePoint - Sample Service Level Agreement (SLA) - "From the Field" blog (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=203973)

Sample template: SharePoint Products and Technologies governance plan (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=162169&clcid=0x409)

Implementing and governing information architecture (SharePoint Server 2010)

Published: October 14, 2010

By planning and governing an enterprise’s information architecture, you help ensure that solutions that are based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will meet organizational needs. An effective information architecture makes it easy for users of solutions to find and store information and improves the quality of that information and its ease of access. This article includes the following guidance:

·         Introduces the concept of information architecture

·         Recommends how to govern a SharePoint Server information architecture

·         Points to available resources to help an organization’s information architects plan and implement an information architecture in SharePoint Server 2010

·         Presents a case study that illustrates the benefit of effective information architecture to promote collaboration across an enterprise

In this article:

·         What is information architecture?

·         Governing information architecture

·         Resources for planning information architecture

·         Case study: Governing information architecture to eliminate content chaos

What is information architecture?

Information architecture in SharePoint Server is the organization of information in an enterprise — its documents, lists, Web sites, and Web pages — to maximize the information’s usability and manageability. The following factors contribute to the successful implementation of information architecture:

·         How easy it is to find information

·         How information is stored and retrieved

·         How users navigate to information

·         How redundant or overlapping information is

·         What metadata is available for each type of information

·         What templates are used for creating information

·         How well the information architecture is governed

·         How My Sites fit into the information architecture

The goals and implementation of information architecture will vary depending on the type of solution you are creating. For example:

·         If you are designing the information architecture of an enterprise’s intranet portal site, you might focus on the following considerations:

·         How metadata will be used to characterize the site’s content

·         The organization of content in sites and document libraries

·         The availability of that content in portal sites

·         The templates to use for creating content

Note that search is a critical feature for users of intranet sites.

·         When you design the information architecture of an Internet presence Web site, you might focus on the following considerations:

·         How the site is organized into a hierarchy of sub-sites and Web pages

·         How the hierarchy is exposed in the site’s navigation features

·         How easy it is to search for content on the site

Information architecture decisions may also affect the flow of information. For example, in an intranet portal site, information may initially be drafted in sites that are not available to most members of an organization. To make that information discoverable, useful, and actionable across the organization, the information architecture design could include methods and guidelines for exposing information in locations that are available to all users.

Depending on the size of an organization, you should consider including an information architect who is responsible for designing and implementing solutions based on SharePoint Server on your team. Information architects have expertise in structuring information in large Web environments such as intranet portal sites.

Governing information architecture

Information architecture in an enterprise should be governed in order to ensure the following conditions:

·         Information in an organization is manageable by an organization's information technology (IT) team by specifying how that information architecture is implemented and maintained.

·         Information architecture meets the regulatory requirements, privacy needs, and security goals of the enterprise.

·         Information architecture meets an organization’s business goals. Remember that a poorly designed and governed information architecture can subtract from an organization’s effectiveness. Well designed and governed information architecture can multiply that organization’s effectiveness.

Governing content

When you create a plan that governs content in an environment, consider the following best practices:

·         Use workflows and approval for document centers and site pages – wherever official documentation is stored.

·         Use version history and version control to maintain a history and master document.

·         Use content types with auditing and expiration for document libraries to manage document lifecycle.

·         Use site-use confirmation and deletion to manage site collection lifecycles.

·         Identify important corporate assets and sites that contain personally identifiable information – be sure that they are properly secured and audited.

·         Integrate the information architecture with the environment's search strategy. Take advantage of enterprise search features like:

·         Best Bets

·         People search

·         Content sources

·         Connectors for external content

·         Authoritative pages

·         Keywords

·         Scopes

·         Thesauruses

·         Taxonomy and ratings

 Important:

Governance doesn't work without user adoption and compliance. End-user training and education, in addition to good content and search, is the key to user adoption.

As you create a governance plan, determine the rules or policies that you need to have in place for the following types of items:

·         Pages

·         Lists

·         Documents

·         Records

·         Rich media

·         Wikis

·         Blogs

·         Anonymous comments

·         Anonymous access

·         Terms and term sets

·         External data

When you think about content, consider the balance between the following factors and determine which of these factors is the highest priority for each type of content:

·         Availability   Content needs to be available when users need it, and users need to know where and how they can get to it.

·         Redundancy  Exposing a single copy of content in multiple places rather than duplicating the content reduces redundancy and provides one version of the truth.

·         Access  Consider who has access to the content. If it should be secure, is it?

Map the preferred content lifecycle. What steps need to happen when a list item, document, or page is created, updated, or deleted? For best results, start with what you want to use long term rather than a temporary solution.

As part of a governance plan, determine who does what. For example, who creates sites, who controls keywords in Search, or who manages the metadata and ensures that the metadata is applied correctly?

Much of this should be explained by the document and records management plans but also consider the storage costs for the content. Understand the capacity planning limits for documents and items, and keep performance and scale in mind.

 Important:

A governance team should identify a process for periodically reviewing the site to ensure that it complies with a governance plan.

Governing information access

Another aspect of information management is who has access to content – how are you making the content available internally and externally and to whom? Be sure to consider access to content when you design a solution and sites. This overlaps with IT Governance as you consider the entire environment. Ask the following questions:

·         Permissions and Audiences

·         How do I structure permissions in a site?

·         How do I target content to specific audiences?

·         Access

·         How do I make this content accessible to internal users?

·         How do I make this content accessible to external users?

The governance team

Governance of the information architecture requires the participation of all groups that have a stake in its success. A governance team should include the following primary members:

·         Information architects or taxonomists

If possible, include a professional information architect in the planning team and have that person participate in the governance team.

·         Compliance officers

You also need to include compliance officers or others who are responsible for ensuring that legal or compliance requirements are met.

·         Influential information workers

Include influential information workers to ensure that the processes and structure the team sets up will be usable.

·         IT technical specialists and IT managers

Representatives of the IT organization should be included.

·         Business division leaders

Because the ultimate purpose of information architecture is to meet the needs of the business, it is essential that representatives of the enterprise’s business units have a primary role in this governance team.

·         Executive stakeholders

The executive stakeholder is a key participant in the governance team. Although this person may not attend all sessions of the governance team, inclusion of this role is essential so that the governance team is kept accountable to its mission. Furthermore, the executive sponsor helps to ensure that benchmarks are used that help mark the progress of the ongoing effort of governing information architecture.

Along with these primary stakeholders, depending on the type of enterprise, you may decide to include other participants, such as the following:

·         Development leaders

·         Trainers

·         IT managers

·         Financial stakeholders

The best way to run the information architecture governance team will be based on the culture and methodologies of an enterprise. However, here are some general guidelines:

·         Meet regularly and allow enough time, especially in early sessions, to consider every issue.

·         Exemplify good information architecture practices in deliberations. For example, you might use a well-designed collaboration site to record deliberations and maintain artifacts.

·         Report to the wider organization (and gather requirements across the organization) by using a Web site and online surveys.

·         Maintain a set of milestones and a shared calendar.

·         Consider piloting information architecture practices in some divisions of the organization and using that experience to incrementally improve the information architecture practices across the wider organization.

Resources for planning information architecture

The following table presents resources that are available to help information architects plan the information architecture of your SharePoint Server solution:

Information architecture resources

To plan …

See …

The structure of sites and subsites

·         Plan sites and site collections (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cb6871cc-7fc5-4b54-9940-8c0ed51cb08f(Office.14).aspx)

Document libraries

·         Identify users and analyze document usage (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/185da9e8-9ed1-4bf1-bfb5-2a5a874f2a19(Office.14).aspx)

·         Document library planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/33b67ac7-54c3-42d8-87cd-5d7a00f7294b(Office.14).aspx)

·         Enterprise content storage planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/9994b57f-fef8-44e7-9bf9-ca620ce20734(Office.14).aspx)

Navigation

·         Plan site navigation (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/89bc3f15-d823-445f-9bea-27d5abf3b488(Office.14).aspx)

Metadata

·         Plan managed metadata (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/522699b0-8a89-46ef-9c40-d4c222a863b8(Office.14).aspx)

·         Content type and workflow planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/63bb092a-00fe-45ff-a4b8-d8be998d1a3c(Office.14).aspx)

Content expiration

·         Information management policy planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/4de4007d-a45f-419d-9512-824421e14380(Office.14).aspx)

Records management

·         Records management planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/1c030561-e15f-43a0-9ef2-f43e67fb4c67(Office.14).aspx)

Moving content

·         Plan content deployment (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/edcdacca-8013-460e-95a0-d2b83b6cc7ef(Office.14).aspx)

·         Plan workflows (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/adc8aefd-8c4e-4824-8676-c61c10d18061(Office.14).aspx)

Templates

·         Working with site templates and definitions (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=119099&clcid=0x409)

Content approval

·         Versioning, content approval, and check-out planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/428b488e-2807-4ef0-b942-91cb09d8921c(Office.14).aspx)

·         Plan content approval and scheduling (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/b43e9421-66b8-4cfc-ba06-f772ae7420e8(Office.14).aspx)

Information management policies

·         Information management policy planning (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/4de4007d-a45f-419d-9512-824421e14380(Office.14).aspx)

Social computing

·         Plan for social computing and collaboration (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/4c7e118f-e3f3-450d-acf1-4e219c932fce(Office.14).aspx)

·         Privacy and security implications of social tagging (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/9662467a-cf63-4650-a629-081b3a50ba5d(Office.14).aspx)

Case study: Governing information architecture to eliminate content chaos

Fabrikam, Inc. is a world-wide manufacturer and exporter of automobile parts such as fuel and water pumps, shock absorbers, brake pads, and various engine parts. The company has 13,000 employees world-wide and more than fifty manufacturing plants across multiple geographical divisions. Fabrikam’s IT organization owns deployment, operations, and support of information technologies such as e-mail, file management, and Internet technology, along with development of information technology solutions, such as the corporate Web site.

Content at Fabrikam had historically been stored in shared file directories which were distributed across local file servers at the various locations of the company. This contributed to a chaotic content situation. Mass duplication of key content made it difficult to determine the “official” version of a file. Content metadata taxonomy was very limited, based on what the file system could support. Because divisions of the corporation created unique, custom templates for common documents such as work orders, sales proposals, or human resource documents, it was difficult to compare documents side by side across divisions.

As the inadequacies of their information architecture based on file shares became more evident, managers at Fabrikam mandated adoption of new, portal-based technologies. They did this to accomplish several goals:

·         Modernize their information architecture

·         Move content from file shares to libraries in portal sites

·         Provide central access to content and applications such as expense report submissions

·         Provide a home page for central communications to Fabrikam employees

The next step in the evolution of Fabrikam’s information architecture had begun.

The following diagram illustrates the initial architecture of the Fabrikam portal. A corporate portal at the top of the architecture provided a central location from which to broadcast general corporate information. At the next level, a few sites provided shared resources to the organization, such as human resources, legal services, and financial services.

Below the shared resources level in the Fabrikam architecture were divisional portals for the various regional offices of Fabrikam. Initially, North America, Europe, and East Asia were piloted. Gradually other divisional portals were added: Australia, Africa, and South America. Each divisional portal contained repositories for its policies, product designs, research and development, and customer data.

The result of the change from collaboration that is based on file shares to collaboration that is based on portals was disappointing to the sponsors of the portal effort and to the Fabrikam work force. “Content chaos” had not been alleviated. It had just moved from file shares to portal sites.

Because key functions at Fabrikam, such as materials purchasing, customer relationships, parts design and specification, and even some human resources processes occurred at the divisional level, each division had developed local content to support these functions. Policy statements, parts blueprints and specifications, personnel documents, documents related to customer relationships, and similar content was created and managed locally. Templates and metadata for these documents diverged across divisional portals. As metadata became more specific to each division it became more difficult to search for content from one division to another. When a document was found across divisions, it was often copied to another division’s portal to make it more accessible. This process made it increasingly difficult to find the “official” version of a document as duplicates proliferated. Also, some documents in divisional portals were secured in such a way that employees of other divisions could not view them. Although this was appropriate when a document was being drafted, there was no guideline for when and how a document should be made viewable across the enterprise.

To address the growing discontent with the portal, the company formed a strategy team was formed, which was comprised of managers from across the various Fabrikam divisions, core IT team members, and portal architects. The team had the following tasks:

·         Evaluate the current state of the SharePoint Server portal deployment.

·         Recommend necessary changes to the portal.

·         Determine how to measure improvement over time.

The team that developed the portal strategy concluded that the current portal taxonomy’s “divisional” organization was the root to the problem. Each division was duplicating processes and hoarding content without taking advantage of the expertise and best practices developed in peer divisions. This contributed to poor collaboration, wasted resources, and content chaos. Their insight was to move towards a more “operational” organization for the enterprise portal. Shared resources such as information technology and finance were currently exposed in the portal taxonomy above (and visible to) all divisions. The team that developed the portal strategy concluded that other operational disciplines, such as customer relationships, vendor relationships, plant configuration, and research and design should be moved from divisional silos to the same level as the shared resources in the site’s hierarchy. Instead of the content’s location, metadata would associate information with the various divisions.

The following illustration is the revised architecture of the Fabrikam portal:

Reorganizing the Fabrikam portal in this way had the additional benefit of forcing collaboration across parts of the enterprise that had similar responsibilities but were not accustomed to working together on standards and processes. For example, storing design files in a central repository forced the various divisions to standardize on a tool for designing automobile parts. This change saved money and reduced training time. Also, best practices in design were made available for engineers to view across the enterprise and to use as a basis for new design projects.

Here is a summary of the benefits of the redesigned portal architecture:

·         Provides central access to information.

·         Reduces duplication of content.

·         Makes the official version of each item of content evident.

·         Standardizes metadata.

·         Standardizes templates.

·         Fosters collaboration and sharing of best practices.

The redesign and reimplementation of the portal was just the start. The team that developed the portal strategy received executive sponsorship to become a governance team for the portal. As a result, the group represented the needs of portal users by developing policies and standards. This helped ensure accountability across the organization and provided a forum for evaluating and evolving the portal — both to improve portal features but also to help maximize the return on the enterprise’s investment in the SharePoint Server technology. The governance body oversaw the following elements:

·         Metadata standards

·         Template standards

·         Guidelines for when information needed to be made available across the enterprise

·         Compliance with corporate and governmental regulations

·         Training standards

·         Branding standards for content

Fabrikam started seeing a large return on its portal investment. A year into the project, the strategy team did an inventory of content and found that out of 500,000 documents, only 230 were duplicates. The company identified millions of dollars in savings due to the centralization of efforts. And a survey of employees showed a large increase in satisfaction with the portal. Collaboration was healthy at Fabrikam.

Concepts

Site and solution governance (SharePoint Server 2010)

Governance overview (SharePoint Server 2010)

Other Resources

Governance Resource Center (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=200590&clcid=0x409)

Plan information architecture for Web content management (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/7a74c8bf-83a2-4ee1-82e7-c2e9dee78936(Office.14).aspx)

SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning (white paper)

Published: July 22, 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a large number of capabilities that empower business users. For example, SharePoint Server 2010 enables users to collaborate with one another, tag and rate content, self-publish, and even develop their own solutions. With this amount of power in hand, users (and the organizations they work for) can benefit greatly from having clear guidance. In short, they can benefit from having a Governance Plan.

This white paper focuses on what we call the “front end” of the SharePoint environment – the business aspect of governance - the areas that effect business users. This white paper uses a fictitious company named Contoso to provide guidance for the necessary governance planning and implementation of SharePoint Server 2010.

Download the white paper:

·         SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning (Microsoft Word version) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=197150&clcid=0x409).

·         SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning (PDF version) (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=197174&clcid=0x409).

Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010 (white paper)

Published: September 9, 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provides a rich set of capabilities that empower business users. These new capabilities require clear guidance to both underscore their benefits and realize their potential while maintaining a level of consistency and control within an organization.

This document focuses on the “back end” of SharePoint Governance – the technical implementation. It provides high-level guidance about the many configuration options that SharePoint Server 2010 provides to enable you to manage the environment for the benefit of all. For more information about the “front end” of SharePoint Governance - the business aspect, refer to the following whitepaper: SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning (white paper).

Download the white paper:

·         Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=201194) (Microsoft Word version)

·         Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=201195) (PDF version)

·         Implementing Governance in SharePoint 2010 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=201196) (XPS version)

Track or block SharePoint Server 2010 installations

Published: June 10, 2010

Because deployments of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products are managed at the farm level, a single SharePoint deployment has no information about other SharePoint deployments that might exist in the same enterprise. Administrators need this information to manage and control all deployments in the enterprise. For example, administrators need to know whether a deployment was configured according to organizational requirements, or how many unauthorized deployments exist in the enterprise. SharePoint 2010 Products provides the ability to lock down, track, and even block random installations of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

In this article:

·         Block installations

·         Track installations

Block installations

If you want to block users from installing SharePoint Server 2010 and related products, set the following registry key by using Group Policy in Active Directory directory services:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\ SharePoint\DWORD DisableInstall

To block installations, set DWORD DisableInstall=00000001.

When this registry key is set, users who try to install SharePoint Server 2010 receive the following error message:

SharePoint installation is blocked in your organization. Please contact your network administrator for more details.

To set a registry value by using Group Policy, you can use an .admx file in Windows Server 2008 or a Windows PowerShell cmdlet in Windows Server 2008 R2. For more information about how to set registry values by using group policies in Windows Server 2008, see Group Policy ADMX Syntax Reference Guide (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=194348). For more information about how to set registry values by using group policies in Windows Server 2008 R2, see Set a registry key value from the command line using Group Policy PowerShell cmdlets (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=194345). For general information about group policies, see Group Policy (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=177635) on TechNet.

Track installations

An Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Marker called Service Connection Point identifies the SharePoint 2010 Products servers in an organization. To use this marker, create a container in AD DS and set the permissions for the container before you install any SharePoint 2010 Products in the environment. Then, when you or another user in your domain runs the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard as part of installing SharePoint Server 2010, this marker is set, and can be tracked by using AD DS. You must set this marker for each domain that you have in your organization if you want to track installations in all domains. This marker is removed from AD DS when the last server is removed from a farm. You can also set the marker by using Windows PowerShell. The marker contains the URL for the Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service (also known as the topology service application) for the server farm.

You have to grant permission to write to this container to any user accounts or domain accounts that could run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard. If the account does not have permission to write to this container, the following warning will appear in the log file for the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard:

Failed to add the service connection point for this farm

Unable to create a Service Connection Point in the current Active Directory domain. Verify that the SharePoint container exists in the current domain and that you have rights to write to it.”

To create the container in Active Directory and set the permissions, you can use Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) Edit.

To create a service connection point container to track installations

1.     On the domain controller, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click ADSI Edit, or use a remote administration tool to connect to ADSI Edit from another computer.

2.     On the Action menu, click Connect to, and connect to the domain that you want to use.

3.     In the console tree, expand the connection, expand the domain name, and then click CN=System.

4.     In the details pane, right-click in the white area, click New, and then click Object.

5.     In the Create Object dialog box, in the Select a class box, click container and then click Next.

6.     In the Value box, type Microsoft SharePoint Products as the container name, and then click Next.

This is the default name.

 Note:

You can use other names. However, if you do use other names, you must create a Group Policy for the domain computers to set a string value ContainerDistinguishedName under the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\SharePoint. This makes it possible for the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard to detect the new name.

7.     Click Finish.

The container is created.

8.     Right click the container (CN=Microsoft SharePoint Products), and then click Properties.

9.     On the Security tab, click Add.

10.  In the Select Users, Computers, Service Accounts, or Groups box, add the users that you want to write to this container, and then click OK.

Note that if a user who cannot write to this container installs SharePoint Server 2010, no new entry will be created. Consider giving all Authenticated Users the permission so that you can track all the objects.

11.  In the Group or user names box, select the names that you previously added, and then under the Permissions box, click Advanced.

12.  In the Permission entries box, select the names that you previously added, and then click Edit.

13.  In the Permission Entry for Microsoft SharePoint Products dialog box, in the Permissions box, select the Allow check box for Create serviceConnectionPoint objects, and then click OK.

To validate this process, install and provision a new SharePoint farm in the environment, and check whether the service connection point was created successfully. If everything works, you can find a new GUID object under the Microsoft SharePoint Product container. Right-click the object, and then click Properties. The URL for the server farm’s Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service will be listed.

A script is available that lists all the SharePoint 2010 Products server names in a domain. To get the script, see List all SharePoint 2010 boxes in a domain by checking AD Marker (http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/af31bded-f33f-4c38-a4e8-eaa2fab1c459) in the Script Center.

Use the following procedure to add or update the service connection point for the current farm in AD DS.

To set a service connection point in AD DS by using Windows PowerShell

1.     Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements: See Add-SPShellAdmin.

2.     On the Start menu, click All Programs.

3.     Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

4.     Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

5.     At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command.

Set-SPFarmConfig -ServiceConnectionPointBindingInformation StringwithBindingInformation

Where:

·         StringwithBindingInformation is usually the URL for the Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service. Note that this variable can contain any valid string you prefer, such as the URL for Central Administration, instead.

To get the URL for the Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service, run the following command.

Get-SPTopologyServiceApplication | select URI

                     This returns the URL for the Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service. For more information, see Get-SPTopologyServiceApplication (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/fc40e2b8-5710-4034-b37f-b4e61008410a(Office.14).aspx).

6.     When asked to confirm this action, type Y.

For more information, see Set-SPFarmConfig (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/fc9fd625-0df1-467a-bd31-16b7e29fbca9(Office.14).aspx).

Use the following procedure to delete the service connection point for the current farm in AD DS.

To delete a service connection point in AD DS by using Windows PowerShell

1.     Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements: See Add-SPShellAdmin.

2.     On the Start menu, click All Programs.

3.     Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

4.     Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

5.     At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command.

Set-SPFarmConfig -ServiceConnectionPointDelete

6.     When asked to confirm this action, type Y.

For more information, see Set-SPFarmConfig (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/fc9fd625-0df1-467a-bd31-16b7e29fbca9(Office.14).aspx).

Use the following procedure to determine the service connection point information for the current farm in AD DS.

To find the service connection point for a farm by using Windows PowerShell

1.     Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements: See Add-SPShellAdmin.

2.     On the Start menu, click All Programs.

3.     Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

4.     Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

5.     At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command.

Get-SPFarmConfig -ServiceConnectionPoint

For more information, see Get-SPFarmConfig (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/83a26555-6b6e-4959-9a6a-bdef049de2a2(Office.14).aspx).