About Me

• Solution Principal, Slalom Consulting, Chicago

• Current focus area Office 365 and SharePoint Platforms

Contact Info

• Email - patenik2@yahoo.com

• Blog - Office 365 and SharePoint with Nik Patel -

http://nikpatel.net/

• Twitter - @nikxpatel

• LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/nikspatel

• Slideshare - slideshare.net/patenik2

Communicate

Corporate Portal

Department Sites

Resource Centers

Context

Personalized, Contextual, and

Relevant Information

Collaborate

Team and Project Sites

Internal and External

Collaboration

Converse

Likes, Comments, and Open

Communication

Convey

Design for Mobile and Touch Friendly

Applying Organization brand

– look and feel

Customize

Business Processes Automation

Content

Current and Frequently Updated

Information

Able to find and search content

easily

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•

•

•

•

•

•

https://www.nngroup.com/reports/topic/intranets/

Features and Trends

• Emphasis on organization brand

• Responsive design over stand-alone mobile apps

• Flat and boxy layouts, simple and clean design

• Visual design – photos and videos

• Spotlights & news on home page

• Better employee profile pages & personalized home pages

• Blogs by both executives and regular employees

• Emphasis on search

• Use of pre-defined page layouts

• Content curators and training for site managers

• Mega menus and fat footers

• Social comments and likes

• Multi-language support

Top 10 Sites Platforms

2016 – 7 SharePoint 2013, 1 Office 365

2015 – 4 SharePoint 2013, 1 SharePoint 2010

2014 – 4 SharePoint 2010, 2 SharePoint 2013

2013 – 7 SharePoint 2010

2011 – 5 SharePoint 2007

What’s it Good At

• Sites Hierarchies & Taxonomies

• Branding - Look and Feel Customizations

• Lists as Data Storage

• Document Library

• Web Parts Architecture

• Sites and Pages Templates Architecture

• Wiki Pages, Web Part Pages, and Publishing Pages

• Granular Permission Support

• In-Built Search Engine

• Sites and Permission Management Delegations

• Customizations and extensibility support with App Model and APIs

What’s it Isn't Good At

• Social, Gamification

• Multi-Language Support

• Web Analytics and Usage Analytics

• Enterprise Video Streaming

• OOB Responsive Design Support

• Accessibility Support

• Mobility Support

2013

Refresh (New) Cold Fusion ->

SharePoint 2013 On-

Premises

2014

Divesture (New) SharePoint Online 2013

2015

Refresh (New) Cold Fusion -> SharePoint

2013 On-Premises

2012

Divesture (New) SharePoint Online 2010

Architectural Details

Hosting Platform SharePoint Online 2010 (Initial version of Office 365)

Application Development

Frameworks

No full trust code, No CSOM across site collections, Apps Model wasn't even released, Sandbox with Code still

considered as best practice for the online.

Data Storage Architecture SharePoint Lists and Pages Library

Information Architecture

Site collections per department due to content size - client wanted to use both as collaboration team sites and

communication platform, designed root site collection for corporate home and other corporate applications like news

center & policy center but each department had dedicated site collections

Branding and ExperienceMultiple master pages - search, my site, and intranet, no requirements for mobile & touch friendly, no requirements

or needs for responsive UI, there was no trend of responsive UI

Navigation SharePoint List in Root Site based navigation, used SP Services for cross-site data retrieval

Site TemplatesManual approach for creating department sites, save as site template doesn’t work publishing sites, no site

collection provisioning APIs available in SPO at that time.

Content Pages TemplatesCustom publishing page layouts for events, news, and leadership message articles, Wiki pages for quick article

authoring. Web part pages for structured pages.

Custom Widgets Custom sandbox web parts for departments and custom content query web parts for home page

Rollups and Categorizations

Some of the features required rolling up news & events & leadership messages from departments. Content Query

web parts for root site collection rollups for news, Custom web parts using SPServices for cross-site collection rollups

for events, Search based rollups for forms & policies, used content type hub to standardize the content types

Code Packaging and

Deployment

No full trust but sandbox with code was still a best practice, used sandbox feature & solutions framework to package

up artifacts and deployed in site collection galleries - style library, content types, web parts etc.

Architectural Details

Hosting Platform SharePoint 2013 Online

Application Development

FrameworksNo full trust code, No CSOM across site collections, Apps Model wasn’t matured, used OOB features

Data Storage Architecture SharePoint Lists as data storage.

Information Architecture

Architecture was single site collection with root site and multiple department sub sites - client wanted separate

collaboration team sites from communication platform, designed root site for corporate home and other corporate

applications like news center & policy center and each department sites with dedicated permissions to delegate

permissions as sub sites

Branding and ExperienceCreated multiple master pages with supported device channels to support multiple form factors. Created application,

search, and my site master pages.

Navigation Managed metadata based navigation. Limited to single site collection.

Site Templates Manual approach to deploy site collections.

Content Pages Templates Custom page layouts for article pages.

Custom WidgetsCustom content query web parts. Couldn't write any custom code using CSOM C# since Sandbox with code wasn't

allowed instead used CSOM with JavaScript or REST API at places whenever data retrieval logic required.

Rollups and

Categorizations

Custom Content Query web parts for root site collection rollups for news, forms, and policies, Content Search web

parts wasn't available in SharePoint Online at that time

Code Packaging and

Deployment

No sandbox with code but sandbox with declarative was still supported, used sandbox feature & solutions framework

to package up artifacts and deployed in site collection galleries - style library, content types, web parts etc.

Architectural Details

Hosting Platform SharePoint 2013 On-Premises

Application Development

FrameworksNo full trust code, No Sandbox, both were supported but isn't a best practice for cloud readiness anymore.

Data Storage Architecture Used SharePoint lists as data storage, there was no need for SQL for complex data entities.

Information Architecture

Architecture was single site collection with root site and multiple department sub sites - designed root site for

corporate home and other corporate applications like news center and each department sites with dedicated

permissions to delegate permissions as sub sites

Branding and Experience Created custom master page with responsive UI, used Codeplex solution with Bootstrap

Navigation Used managed metadata based navigation due to single site collection architecture.

Site Templates Used custom site provisioning tool and deploy features necessary using Provider hosted model.

Content Pages Templates Used standard SharePoint publishing pages. Designed these pages as responsive.

Custom WidgetsUsed content editor, script editor web parts to design widgets to show data from SharePoint lists – Major

benefit here is home page would be functional even if Search is down.

Rollups and CategorizationsUsed content by search web parts to show rollup data - Major issue with this is rollup data view is delayed

due to search crawl lag time.

Code Packaging and

Deployment

Provider hosted high trust model used to deploy the artifacts as remote provisioning rather than feature-

solutions framework.

On-Premises (Codeplex) Online (Office 365 PnP)

SharePoint

Online and

Office 365

As a Service

SharePoint

Online and

Office 365

As a Platform

Host Web

App Web

Add-in

Hosting Servers

CSS

png

aspx

master

js

Web Services

Databases

Office 365 and

SharePoint Online

• Design Intranet on SharePoint

Online Platform

• Use either Database or

SharePoint Lists as Data Storage

• Plan to use Office 365 workloads

in your intranet application in

addition to SharePoint Online

goodness - Delve, NextGen

Portals, Video/KM Portal

• Have Azure hosted Provider

hosted low-trust Add-ins as

customizations and deployment

framework.

• Plan to use content search and

script editor web parts rather than

App parts.

• Same URLs for both

administrative and end-user UI,

making maintenance quicker

Add-in

Hosting Servers

CSS

png

aspx

master

js

Web Services

Databases

Office 365 and

SharePoint Online

• Design Intranet as Standalone

ASP.NET MVC or other

development platforms

application.

• Use either Database or

SharePoint Lists as Data Storage

and SharePoint sites hierarchy

for sites architecture.

• Have Standalone application

using Azure AD Consent

framework to access Office 365

workloads (Yammer, Delve etc.)

and SharePoint Online data.

• Multiple URLs - SharePoint UI for

administrators (sites and lists

structure & content storage) and

standalone ASP.NET MVC

Intranet application