Previously when provisioning list, libraries, site columns, content types, list definitions etc in SharePoint I typically used SharePoint features, deployed via a WSP - or used PowerShell scripts. This meant I had a package that could be deployed to DEV / TEST / PROD.
I'm working with SharePoint within Office 365 and unsure on the best way to provision lists / libraries / features within SharePoint.
Options:
No Code Sandboxed Solutions
Trying to avoid using these as the information from Microsoft on whether they are deprecated is flaky - however sandboxed solutions would allow me to deploy features with list definitions etc. I know sandboxed solutions with c# are definitely deprecated, but the info around no code solutions is poor.
Apps
I know apps can provision at both the app and host web level, but creating lists, libraries etc using the CSOM seems like a lot of effort and a step backwards.
PowerShell
The SP Online PowerShell is nowhere near as powerful as on-prem SP. I can provision site collections through this, but not lists or libraries...
I'm keen to know how other developers are deploying to Office 365, specifically around provisioning sites with specific list definitions, libraries, content types and so on...
Thanks
Microsoft did clarify the position on No Code Sandbox solutions - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdev/archive/2014/01/14/deprecation-of-custom-code-in-sandboxed-solutions.aspx
Also if you are looking at using Powershell to deploy then you might want to go down the route of using CSOM from within PowerShell - SharePoint Client Browser for SharePoint 2013 is good for setting up a session also very good for viewing the content of a 365 tenant - http://spcb.codeplex.com/
I have been using code based provision for almost two years without any issues at all.
Server side model works just fine, CSOM has some limitation but stil cool one and JSOM could deliver the same feature set as both CSOM and SSOM, sorta 95% :)
PowerShell is not the best option as it hard to integrate into CI, put some unit testing and regressions.
As you mentioned, this is "step back", but if only you don't have any framework or foundation for that. My libraries are internal one, but there is SPGenesis at codeplex and SPMeta2.
As community don't really care, need or with such libraries for provisioning (yep, let's face it), there are much such libraries at all, but there are lots of "MVP" samples sorta "hello world" level.
Finally, what I would suggest is to invest your time and effort in code based provision.
This is a future, that's it ;)
UPD
Struggling with SharePoint's API inconsistency, bugs, "by-design" behaviour, unaffordable amount of time to write, support and upgrade WSP packages and XML, a team of passionate SharePoint professionals decided to come up with robust, testable and repeatable way to deploy such artifacts like fields, content types, libraries, pages and many more.
Enjoy and let us know how it goes.
SPMeta2 at GitHub
SPMeta2 at Nuget
SPMeta2 Documentation Wiki
SPMeta2 Bugtracker
Related
We have an ASP.NET website that we use internally to do some project tracking and various work. We would like to integrate some pieces of it to co-exist with Sharepoint2007 WSS.
Basically what we would really need to do is be able to add items to a list in one of the Sharepoint sites.
I'm not sure where to begin. I've looked online a bit but it seems overly complicated. Is there a quick start guide somewhere that can get me rolling with ease?
The SharePoint Web Services would be a logical place to start. In my opinion this would be the easiest way to build interaction between ASP.NET and SharePoint.
A list of available web services can be found on MSDN.
If adding items to a list is the primary goal, then check out the UpdateListItems method of the Lists web service.
With the scope narrowed to Web Services, you can certainly find tutorials/references online. However, this InfoQ post by Trent Swanson is a decent introduction to SP web services. Note that they recommend generating .NET types using XSD files; in practice, for simple projects I have simply parsed the XML myself using LINQ. You can make it as easy or complex as you like, I suppose.
We are deploying sharepoint MOSS 2007 at our work. I'm trying to come up with a sharepoint development and deployment methodology. We have Dev/QA/Prod environments and I need a way, preferably automated to deploy changes from Dev to QA and from there to prod.
We are creating site collections web parts etc. Some of it is done directly within sharepoint, some through Sharepoint designer or visual studio. I'm looking for a way to extract this and deploy it to other enviornments.
I tried stsadm backup/restore import/export etc but they all move the data along with it as well. I just need the structure deployed. Content deployment paths and jobs does the same thing as well.
We use MSBuild & Curisecontrol.net for other .net projects to automate build/deployment process. I'm looking for something similar with sharepoint if possible.
What are your best practices for this? Since my team is learning we don't have a defined process and we are open to change our development process if needed.
First off, it's a hard problem.
Probably the 'best' method is to put everything into solution packages - but its quite hard to do correctly.
There is a lot of opinions out there - the best I can do is give you further reading
SharePoint Solution Deployment Strategies
SO - How do you deploy your SharePoint solutions?
ROSS - A commercial toolset to help with deployment
DocAve Deployment Manager
SharePoint development / deployment isn't as finely tuned as it is with regular .NET. I haven't heard of anyone using CI solutions for this.
Your basic unit of deployment is a solution package (a WSP file). It's basically a CAB file with a different extension. WSPBuilder is helpful for creating them. (http://wspbuilder.codeplex.com)
SPSource (http://spsource.codeplex.com) is pretty good for reverse engineering some stuff that you build in a web browser, such as Content Types and Lists. It's my preferred way of doing this stuff - trying to cut them by hand is no fun. I've had SPSource reverse engineer simple lists into 2000 line XML files.
Powershell is important for SPT 2010. James Kovacs has built a build tool called psake which plugs into PSH. It looks pretty straightforward, though I need to figure out PSH properly first.
Spend some time on http://sharepointdevwiki.com as this an evolving resource.
Microsoft patterns and practices group have released some guidance as well at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203468.aspx
LearnDevNow.com is also selling online training videos that are pretty good and very affordable (about USD100). They will show you many of the good ways of doing things.
Cheers
Mike
I went to the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 launch event in Minneapolis yesterday and was slightly surprised by how much they were trotting out SharePoint and improved SharePoint development in Visual Studio 2010.
SharePoint is something I've largely ignored over the years as a web developer and solution architect on a small development team. I was always under the impression that SharePoint was used mostly for intranets in large corporations, and that if you were developing for SharePoint, it meant that a corporate decision had been made to use it and you as a developer probably had few (if any) options.
I realize this assumption is probably incorrect. So, what are the "cool" uses for SharePoint? What unique business problems have you solved using it? What could make a developer excited to be working on something for SharePoint?
Document libraries in a Microsoft environment. There are many nice out-of-the-box features for managing documents.
Intranet sites that have permissions setup in such a way to allow business entities to control use of the site within their group.
Project requirements lists. List in SharePoint can be customized to some degree without ever programming.
As a conclusion so far, SharePoint is a blessing and a curse. It has a lot of value-adds, though anything outside that box is difficult change, but there are indeed many 'hooks' to do just that. WSS3.0 is free for Windows Server 2003, as is SP 2010 Foundation for Server 2008, so you can get quite a bit out of that without upgrading to MOSS or 2010 equivalent.
It's probably best used in intranet/extranet scenario's, true. There's many public facing internet sites built on it as well, if you find that cool :)
See http://www.topsharepoint.com/ (I built one of the top-10 sites ;)
It's definately not the best web content management platform but it is not bad and companies like people who have learned to manage their intranet to be able to seamlessly do the same for the internet site.
Personally I find it "cool" that I can deliver functionality quickly and without building the world from scratch (I've built enough document management solutionettes and prefer not to do it ever again). But if I have to custom build there's many footholds for customization and all of the .NET platform is available. There's workflow solutions that allow business users to customize their own workflows and not bug me with them. I'm sure there's plenty of other solutions out there that can do something similar but the integration with Microsoft Office and the rest of the Microsoft world is quite good IMHO.
I don't understand the antagonism against SharePoint and find it's mostly fueled by ignorance and people trying to use the platform for something it wasn't meant to do (like being a relational database). You will have to learn it; it's not like adding ELMAH to your project, it's a really big layer in your architecture.
I am building a publicly facing website that does the following.
Users log in.
And then view a list of their customers.
They click on a customer to view their past purchases, order them, change them etc.
This is not a shopping site by the way.
It is a simple look up tool.
Note that none of the data accessed by the website is in anything other than a SQL database - no office documents. Also, the login does not use users Windows credentials on a VPN or something like that.
Typically I would build this using a standard ASP.NET MVC website.
However the client says they want to use Sharepoint.
As I understand it, Sharepoint is used for workflow and websites that are collaboration tools such as the components you can see here http://www.sharepointhosting.com/sharepoint-features.html
Here are my questions:
Would I be right in saying that WSS is completely inappropriate for this task as it comes with an overhead that provides no benefits?
If I had to use it, would I need WSS or MOSS?
If I had to use it, would I be right in saying the site would consist of :
List item
a) Web Parts
b) And a custom site layout. How do I create one of these?
Addendum:The book Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development looks like a good start
1.) I agree that SharePoint would be quite inappropriate for this task. A few reasons:
It costs thousands of dollars to license SharePoint for use on the open Internet
SharePoint will use a lot of resources (SQL Server, IIS, Active Directory...) that are unnecessarily demanding for your task
SP will give you very little flexibility to develop a solution in your way -- it sounds like you would need to create a database-connected Web Part in ASP.NET anyway (so that could be entirely independent of SP)
SharePoint has it's place--it can be remarkably helpful as a company's internal document management, intranet, and workflow/approval system--but it is not well suited for custom code nor Internet use.
2.) I believe MOSS would be required for the Internet license (as in the link above).
3.) SP development is not like typical relation database systems (for example, it uses flat, unnormalized tables). If your SQL matched the SharePoint way of thinking, you might be able to connect to your database as an external List using SharePoint Designer. More likely you would need to use Visual Studio to create a custom Web Part in ASP.NET.
Hopefully this'll be a few reasonable arguments you can use to help the customer see how SharePoint is inappropriate for the task... In fact, I expect just the first point (the cost of licensing) will turn them.
You can technically use WSS for this task but MOSS has more features aimed at building public facing websites. The publishing infrastructure comes to mind. It has has the CQWP which enables you to build custom interfaces which perform well in SharePoint. With SharePoint there are potentially challenges around scalability. If you know the platform well then doing something like what you have suggested would be a pretty quick task. If you don't know SharePoint and the underlying system well you could face challenges.
You do not want to approach building the final application with SharePoint Designer. It has behavior which can cause major problems with scalability. You want to create a SharePoint Solution comprising a number of features which can be easily deployed to SharePoint. Going this route does not alleviate performance problems but you are going to be closer to the right solution. You can package up the custom user interface elements as CQWPs or write Web Parts. I personally prefer to write Web Parts.
You do the overall site design in a Master Page. Pages within a site are then inheriting from this. If you have MOSS then you can create what are called publishing pages which contain your Web Parts. These are not available in WSS which is why people recommend against it for public websites.
To decide whether SharePoint (any version) is worth it, you need to find out if they are going to use any of the core features. If everything is going to be custom and you are not going to make use of any workflow or document management features in your deployment then I would stay away. To see whether you want to go further with SharePoint from a development perspective, take a look at the WSS developer labs. I recently ran an intro course at my employer using the materials from that site. They are dated, and need more info on best practices but they provide a quick way for you to dip a toe in the water and decide whether you want to go any further.
1) For the core functionality as you describe it SharePoint isn't going to add anything, BUT if you build it on SharePoints premisses it allows your client to add a lot of functionality outside the core for "free" like:
They can add Content Editor WebParts to pages where they can add descriptions, and messages
They can add lists where the customers can enter requests/comments/... and automatically have new entries mailed to anyone in the organisation subscribing to changes
The functionality you develop can be reused on their intranet
Any future small "web apps" can be included in the same site
...
So all in all unless you have a better framework to use then use SharePoint
2) WSS is all you need for now
3) Your main deliverable for now would be:
a feature with some Site Pages and a few Web Parts
a feature with a custom masterpage and corresponding css
True. Well not inappropriate but it doesn't add anything either.. but maybe in the future?
WSS is enough
You'd need web parts to expose your data, yes. The custom site layout is not necessary. If you want your own look and feel a SharePoint Theme may suffice. Even if you want some real custom layout tweaks you probably don't need a site template but you can get away with using just SharePoint Designer to edit the pages or master page.
I am total beginner in SharePoint and I need some help in starting a project. I have to develop publishing site that will be delivered to the client. I would like to give client deployment experience like he would get when deploying standard ASP.NET application as much as possible. I plan to use Visual Studio 2008 with SharePoint extensions and maybe WSPBuilder or some other tools.
I also need help in structuring whole project.
Here is what I plan to do:
1. Develop minimal site definition
2. Create site from this defionition. How should I do this from code ? Use SharePoint Feature ? How should I activate it ?
3. Develop all the needed infrastructure for the site (master page, layouts, content types, ...) as SharePoint Features.
Is this correct and how should I develop all those parts so I can make a some kind install script so can client create get complete site with one click ?
Site definitions are complex no question about it, but they are very useful if you need to deploy to unrelated enviornments. If you are staying on the same server farm, maybe site definition is overkill. If you are going between domains (i.e. test & prod, then maybe they are worth looking into).
Another advantage to site definitions, esp. if delivering to a client is it feels more like a traditional deliverable. They will have a bunch of files (hopefully in source control) that are their custom site. I think that gives IT dept's a much warmer feeling than an XML file created from the SharePoint UI.
Another benefit of site definitions are you have a lot more control over the pages that make up the site. IMHO its easier to add master pages & custom CSS via site defintion that site template.
I am curious as to what are the 'moving parts' to the site you are trying to deliver? I think that answering that question will determine how to define the project's structure.
Generally, I think you are on the right track. Features and solutions are a must. I would stay away from VSeWSS, its buggy and clunky and generally terrible if you are trying to do anything complex. It tries to be so smart, that it leaves you no control.
That said, it really depends on what you are trying to do. If you are going to build a solution to deploy to the GAC with one assembly, and only building features supported by vsewss you may be fine.
If however, you want to develop, say a timer job wiring that into the VSeWSS feature framework gets tough. Also, if you need multiple assemblies in the solution. YMMV, but I had to junk it and find of a more flexible solution (hello NANT).
A lot of the work you will end up doing is building and checking, and re-checking XML configuration files. Bookmark the Feature Schema reference page on MSDN, you will be spending a lot of time going through it.
Finally, yes, if you have all of the parts packaged as features you should be able to develop a nice install script. Ultimately the script will need to call the STSADM (there are some really nice STSADM extensions here) commands necessary to create the site structure, add & deploy the solution & activate the features. You can start with a batch file, and get as complicated as you want.
Personally I don't find that creating a site definition is really that useful for the sites I have built. They can be very tricky to set up, because of their complex nature.
What I do is use the standard Publishing Site and then using features to add my additional componets (deployed via a SharePoint solution).
You can use Feature Stapling to connect up the feature to the Publishing Site creation.
I've also just done a blog post on how to programmatically modify the workflow which is created by default: http://www.aaron-powell.com/blog/february-2009/programmatically-modifying-sharepoint-workflows.aspx (that also has a link in the comments off to the Feature Stapling concept).
Then I use a combination of SharePoint Solution Installer (http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointinstaller) and batch files to install the components. SSI for all the SharePoint database level installs and batch files for the file system stuff.
Adding another answer, because I have more than 300 characters worth of stuff to say :(
RE: SharePoint solutions generator, again I would say your mileage may vary.
The biggest issue with SharePoint dev is managing all of the "magic strings" across the various configuration files. GUIDs and Fully Qualified Assembly names are the spit and glue that hold the whole thing together, and although it all makes sense its very difficult to manage.
The current crop of tool all try and alleviate the complexity of managing these things, but they require that you work in a certain way, so the tool knows how to inject the appropriate plumbing.
If you plan on doing a lot of work with SharePoint it really behooves you too learn to manage the plumbing yourself. Its painful up front, but really pays dividends.
Basically, I suggest you spend your time learning the platform and not the tools. Once you know the platform, using the tools will be much easier.
If you are doing this as a one-off engagement and just want to get it done, I'm sure you can get any of the tools you've mentioned to do the trick.
I would agree with the use of the out of the box publishing site definition, and then customizing it using Site Collection features (Master Page, Page Layouts, CSS) and site features (create lists, pages, sub sites, defining master pages of sites, etc...).
Feature stapling is great when you want to customize new sites (allow user to create new sites) of well known site templates, like customize the "My Site" look and feel. In this case I don’t think its very useful.
As a tool to help this task, I personally use STSDEV (http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev) to help in creating, programming, debugging and deploying my Sharepoint solutions.
First it creates a good project for Visual Studio (clean, or with some nice "starting point" definitions). Then it includes some “build configurations” that really helps with install, deploy and upgrade in the development machine.