Code Eater (Wael A. Kabli)

Last Blog Post on MSDN

Wael A. Kabli — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 09:24:42 GMT

My best blog readers, i would like to inform you that this is my last blogpost as i've left Microsoft. Any new blogposts will be continued here: http://waelkabli.wordpress.com/

Also, This was my farewell email inside microsoft http://waelkabli.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/farewell-my-dearest-family/

Thanks

The Private Cloud on TechNet Edge - new show every 3 weeks

Wael A. Kabli — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 07:51:17 GMT

Check out the Edge
Show homepage to see all the shows, or jump straight to a private cloud
episode. The IT Pro Technical Evangelism team have returned to bring the weekly
show that put Edge on the map!

Every three weeks Symon Perriman will be hosting the show covering the private
cloud.

The Twitter Pitch

Wael A. Kabli — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:02:00 GMT

Recently, I was talking with some people about twitter and specially about the reason on why they are not on twitter! The argument usually goes like this, "I understand twitter and Facebook, i know what they do, but i don't see the need to use it"! Ok, so I've been luckily old enough to hear the same conversion about mobile phones when they came up. Simply, they are people they think they are some sort of cool or they have this inner strength been so that they don't follow a hype such as twitter. So usually for these types i use the "The Twitter Pitch" which worked successfully with my (80+) grandfather and that's why he is on twitter and Facebook (Facebook has different pitch that would make a future blog post). The pitch goes like this: Twitter is very much like an advanced radio system. The radio in its basic form is a transmitter and a receiver. A transmitter is used to broadcast a message from one person or entity to the world (in its simple shape) and then receivers can "follow" a signal to listen to a broadcast. Now, twitter works similarly but it comes to utilize the amazing power of the web. So a person or an entity can decide to have a "channel" to broadcast on and receivers can "tune-in" and start following the broadcast. The difference is that twitter comes with three types of channels: 1) The general channel: where all broadcasts from all over the world come into one place and any receiver can just start to listen. 2) The personal channel: If you know a channel or a person, you can listen to its broadcast directly. 3) The hashtags: Twitter allows that you broadcast to multiple channels at the same time. These channels are called "hastags". Also, Twitter allows hashtags (channels) to be created by any transmitter on the fly while broadcasting. The channel or hashtag can be about a topic, a place, about someone or about anything. Receivers, can tune tune-in to any of these channels. Receivers, can be people or machines that can record all broadcasts for later use. Nothing in Twitter gets lost (hopefully :D) everything is recorded. A receiver can transmitter too and it can re transmit a broadcast (retwit) to their followers or they can reply to one of the channels. Usually, this works with many people, specially when continue with this analogy. Hope you liked it.

MSFT Looking for high skilled #Saudi talent in #SharePoint and #Application #Development send CV waelk@microsoft.com #jobs #careers #software

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:30:49 GMT

MSFT Looking for high skilled #Saudi talent in #SharePoint and #Application #Development send CV waelk@microsoft.com #jobs #careers #software

Upcoming Windows Phone Training in Riyadh, Jeddah & Khobar in Dec 2011

Wael A. Kabli — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 07:29:00 GMT

Khobar – 1^st Dec, 2011

Riyadh – 5^th Dec, 2011

Jeddah – 8^th Dec, 2011

A Windows Phone Developer Workshop is a 1 day free
event where you come with an idea for a Windows Phone App and we show you how
to build the app. The workshop is divided into two sessions. In the first
session we will cover the important topics relating to phone development and in
the second session we help you build your application. Whether you’re a student
just starting out or a seasoned developer for Windows Phone, Android, Symbian,
Web OS or iOS, we’ll help you turn your idea into a functioning Windows Phone
application

Please come Prepared…

What to do before you come?

Download the latest Windows Phone SDK to ensure you
have the most up to date developer tools. On the day of the event, bring your
laptop computer and identification.

Watch the Windows Phone "Mango" Jump Start Videos

The designer-developer problem

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:20:37 GMT

As fun we like to joke about the designers-developers problem as for everyone of us has his own story for a designer or a developer who cannot understand what he is saying.

Here are some funny translations from the video below

(Please visit the site to view this video)

التغريد والتعليم

Wael A. Kabli — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:51:41 GMT

في مدونتي الشخصية تحدثت عن أثر استخدام تويتر في التعليم. إذا أردت المشاركة أو الاطلاع:

"التغريد والتعليم"

SharePoint Devs & Admins standing proud! Special thanks to Saudi.

Wael A. Kabli — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:29:24 GMT

SharePoint Devs & Admins standing proud today. Why? because these are the people who are developing and supporting over 65,000 customers worldwide, including 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

We came a long way through many SharePoint(s) in the past. Today, SharePoint 2010 has been sold over 125 million SharePoint licenses! and still the next release "is the biggest release of SharePoint we've ever done, [with] the largest engineering team" according to Jeff Teper corporate vice president of the Office Business Platform at Microsoft standing at the SharePoint Conference 2011 at Anaheim, California.

In Saudi, i don't have a exact number however, SharePoint is extremely popular in all sectors i've been working with including Oil & Gas, Financial, Education, Public Sector, etc... many govemerment agencies, banks, small, meduim and large enterprises. I've seen internal, external, extranet portals. I've seen people are using it for internal communication, marketing, just pure collaboration, publishing, integrations, rapid applications and many other scenarios.

Today in Saudi we have three large communities Riyadh SharePoint User Group (RSUG) managed by the one coolest speakers "Jerry" who i've been working with for couple of time including last GDC09.Also, we have other groups SharePoint Geeks and Hijaz SharePoint User Group (managed by good SharePoint godfathers Ahmad Naji and Salman Butt in Makka)". learn more about the Saudi Community Site.

Read more about what happened in the SharePoint Conference: http://redmondmag.com/articles/2011/10/03/microsoft-investing-in-sharepoint.aspx

And Follow the twitter account: http://twitter.com/#!/SPConf

And the facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/wwspc

مخيم ويندوز فون لمطورين الهواتف الذكية في السعودية

Wael A. Kabli — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:59:47 GMT

أتوقع نجاح باهر لتجمع مطورين الهواتف الذكية! مايكروسوفت تقيم مخيم للتطوير ويندوز فون7 للهواتف الذية. الجهاز جديد ولكنه واعد. وأود أن أرى مجتمع التطوير السعودي والعربي الغني يشكل مكانا بين المطورين العالميين. سيقام المخيم في 6 أكتوبر في مدينة الخبر و 13 في الرياض وجدة في 23.

ه>ا رابط التسجيل: http://www.mssaudicommunity.net/wp7camp.html

Windows Phone Camp in Saudi

Wael A. Kabli — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:52:03 GMT

Wow what a great event! Microsoft will be helding a camp for windows phone 7 development. The device is young but promising. I would like to see a rich Saudi community forming up. October in Khobar, 13th in Riyadh and 23rd in Jeddah.

Here is the event link: http://www.mssaudicommunity.net/wp7camp.html

Towards More ReUse in SharePoint

Wael A. Kabli — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 07:40:42 GMT

Towards More ReUse in SharePoint

Trying to enhance the ReUse in your daily work, Microsoft Practices has developed what is so called SharePoint Guidance or Developing Applications for SharePoint 2010. This guidance has a ready code for you to ReUse.

What is it?

The SharePoint Guidance Library is a collection of reusable
code-based utilities that address common challenges in application development
for the SharePoint platform.

What is there to ReUse?

ReUse	Description
List aggregation within a site collection	Effective use of feature partitioning for reliable solution deployment. Using query objects to retrieve data from multiple lists. Using the model-view-presenter pattern in a Web Part to isolate business logic from the presentation layer and the underlying data source. Using constructor injection patterns to isolate business logic from dependencies. Using an exception shielding pattern to stop unhandled Web Part errors from preventing the host page from loading.
The Application Setting Manager	The Application Setting Manager is a set of utility classes that you can use to store and retrieve configuration settings for your SharePoint applications.
The SharePoint Logger	The SharePoint Logger is a reusable component that you can use to write messages to the Windows event logs and the ULS trace log.
The Service Locator	Pattern allows you to request an implementation of an interface without knowing the details of the implementation. As such, you can replace dependencies with alternative implementations or mock implementations without editing or recompiling your code.
Model-View-Presenter (MVP)	Pattern allows you to isolate the business logic in your application from the user interface. As such, you can test the business logic in isolation. You can also make the business logic easier to understand and maintain by removing user interface–specific implementation details.
Repository	Pattern allows you to isolate the data access code in your application from the business logic. You can use the Repository pattern to wrap any data source, such as a database or a SharePoint list. This allows you to test the data access code in isolation and to substitute the data access implementation to unit test your business logic.
Configuration	You can use the following mechanisms to manage configuration information within the SharePoint environment: Web.config. Hierarchical object store Property bags. Lists.
List aggregation with supplemental data from a CRM system	Creating, deploying, and registering a full-trust proxy. Consuming a full-trust proxy from sandboxed code. Deploying pages and client-side scripts to the sandbox environment. Launching pages as modal dialogs from the sandbox environment.
Interaction with external data from sandboxed Web Parts	Creating and consuming external lists from a sandboxed solution. Creating and managing external content types in the Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service application. Configuring the Secure Store Service (SSS) to enable sandboxed code to impersonate credentials for external data sources.
Deployment of declarative workflows with custom full-trust activities and custom sandboxed actions	Creating and deploying full-trust workflow activities. Creating and deploying sandboxed workflow actions. Consuming custom activities and sandboxed actions from a declarative workflow.
Aggregation of data from multiple site collections using a timer job	Creating, deploying, and registering a timer job. Managing configuration data for timer jobs. Deploying custom application pages to the central administration Web site.
Modeling application data with standard SharePoint Lists	Modeling data with lists, including many-to-many relationships. Using Lookup fields and list relationships. Using LINQ to SharePoint for list access.
Modeling application data with an external data source and consuming the data in SharePoint	Connecting to a database with Business Connectivity Services (BCS). Modeling many-to-many relationships with BCS. Using the BCS API to access external data. Using the Business Data Web Parts to access external data. Representing associations between entities using stored procedures. Integrating to external data sources using a .NET Connectivity Assembly.
Using rich internet application (RIA) with SharePoint	Using the Client-Side Object Model (CSOM) from Silverlight and JavaScript. Using REST Services from Silverlight and JavaScript. Using the Model-View-ViewModel pattern with Silverlight. Accessing non-SharePoint services using Silverlight. Accessing binary data with Silverlight. Accessing SharePoint Web Services from Silverlight.

Microsoft Technical Communities February Online Sessions

Wael A. Kabli — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 18:04:00 GMT

This event is one of the must attend events as Microsoft technical communities created the February Online Sessions. The agenda Covers many technologies such as SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics AX , XNA, Client to Mobile Programming, Database Development and Administration.

Agenda Day 1 (10 February 2011 : 11 AM to 4 PM)

Session	Time	Speaker
Using Claims Based Authentication for SharePoint 2010 Sites	11:00 AM	Jerry
Dynamics CRM 2011 Application New Features	12:00 PM	Hany
Introduction to SSIS 2008: Why should developers use it	01:00 PM	Nabeel
Windows Phone Functionality? How to?	02:00 PM	Adel
XNA 101, a brief introduction to Microsoft XNA	03:00 PM	Ahmed

Agenda Day 2 (11 February 2011: 1 PM to 4 PM)

Session	Time	Speaker
Building Distributed Applications on Windows Azure Platform	1:00 PM	Halabi
Silverlight 4 for SharePoint 2010	2:00 PM	Mosallem
The What, Why and How Answers of Microsoft Dynamics AX	3:00 PM	Amer

Register

Weekend TechTalk 2011: Wael doing the Governance Talk

Wael A. Kabli — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:14:46 GMT

This weekend we’ve recorded a second session about SharePoint Governance in Saudi as a part of an ongoing series of a technical channel that talks about several Saudi Microsoft Community technical topics.

This episode talks about SharePoint Governance which consist of People, Porcess and Policies.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

To access the channel and see all videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/jerryyasir

To follow on Microsoft Saudi Community Activities: http://mssaudicommunity.net/

Weekend TechTalk 2011: Wael Talks about SharePoint in Saudi

Wael A. Kabli — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:29:50 GMT

This weekend we’ve recorded a session about SharePoint in Saudi as a part of an ongoing series of a technical channel that talks about several Saudi Microsoft Community technical topics.

This episode talks about general topics about SharePoint and its main challenges in Saudi Market.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

To access the channel and see all videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/jerryyasir

To follow on Microsoft Saudi Community Activities: http://mssaudicommunity.net/

Microsoft Saudi announce the community site

Wael A. Kabli — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:15:01 GMT

Finally, we have one place for Saudi Community! our colleague Abdurrahman Al Qahtani who handles the Developer Marketing and Communities launched a site to be one hub for all Microsoft communities in Saudi Arabia. We thank you for your time to visit this place, and encourage you to join and collaborate with us on sharing knowledge and experience.

In this site, you’ll be able to:

Know which communities exist in Saudi to choose from and join
Get updates on the community activities conducted
Know who leads these communities, and get a scoop of their experience and knowledge
Know who to contact from Microsoft/Communities in order to give feedback and suggestions

Go Do(s):

Visit the site today: http://mssaudicommunity.net/
Subscribe to the RSS feed
Join our Facebook group – Microsoft Technical Communities in Saudi Arabia
Spread the word!

Types of Cloud Services

Wael A. Kabli — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:26:00 GMT

This is a nice representation of types of Cloud Services. What do you actually manange in each offering:

Types of Cloud Services:

On-Premises
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/waelkabli/5369693146/

Don’t Miss the Duet Enterprise Virtual Launch Summit

Wael A. Kabli — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 07:28:49 GMT

Don’t Miss the Duet Enterprise Virtual Launch Summit

Duet Enterprise is a highly anticipated product that blends SAP applications with Microsoft SharePoint to empower information workers with unified and simplified access to data. Join Microsoft and SAP as we introduce this new product through a one-day, worldwide virtual summit on February 1, 2011.

This highly focused, online-only event is designed to provide an overview of the technical and business capabilities of Duet Enterprise, give you an opportunity to connect directly with Microsoft and SAP executives and the teams behind the product, and help you locate solution partners in your region.

Business and technology focused sessions will be supplemented by exhibits from our top partners offering virtual opportunities to discuss solutions and collaborations.

Join us for the only virtual conference dedicated exclusively to Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP!

Which Windows Phone 7 fit you the most?

Wael A. Kabli — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:43:00 GMT

Which Windows Phone 7 fit you the most?

Don't know which windows phone 7 you should buy? it is basically different from a person to another. there is nothing called "one story fit all". Here is a map of all windows Phone 7 flavors.

Here is a better resolution image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waelkabli/5313603878/sizes/l/in/photostream/

SharePoint Governance - Informational Operational and Administrational Policies

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:32:00 GMT

This is a series of 9 articles. Click here for the full TOC

Previously we've talked about Development and Customizations Policies. Now to the final set of policies that are related to information architecture and operations.

Informational Operational and Administrational Policies

This set of policies are the most important ones because they are going to be used on daily basis. It's all about deciding where to put the new coming sites, service offerings to your internal customer and more…

Policy Sample: Available Service Offerings

All companies usually servicing to the business four main types of sites that are fulfilling the business needs and a fourth one will be planned for future. These services offerings are:

Intranet Offering: the intranet is based on the SharePoint publishing portal and it contains information that concerns all employees. It may contain departmental sites; however, it is meant to have information, services, policies that are provided by this department to the rest of the company. This is not meant for document sharing or collaborations.
Team Sites Offering: the Team Sites are based on the SharePoint collaboration portal and it is meant to host a divisional and departmental sites. These sites would contain information that concerns the immediate group for collaboration and their own internal business.
Project Sites Offering: the Project Sites are based on the SharePoint collaboration portal and it is mean for cross group collaborations.
My Site Offering (currently disabled): the My Site offering is based on the SharePoint my site and it is meant for personal and 1:1 collaborations among employees.

With each offering, you need to define set of policies because depending on the offering the freedom varies. The figure below could articulate this idea:

Policy Sample: Sites Management

The site management is controlled in this governance model.

Example: Team Sites Offering - Site Management

For team sites management (Requesting a new Team Site, Deleting a Team Site, requesting a subsite creation and deletion a subsite),there is an automated solution that is ensuring the site owners get the required trainings, get the owner to agree on the licensing agreement between the owner and Your Company. Then, getting the management approval and finally actions to the administrator to do create/delete the site collections manually. For subsites creations and deletions, they will be logged and executed automatically.

Example: Intranet Site Offering - Site Management

The intranet would have one single instance and shall not have another site with same feature or same purpose. For subsites creations/deletions will be controlled by the Marketing Department.

Example: Project Sites offering – Site Management

The project site shall enable the self-service so that any group of people wants to create a project site, will click on a link and will automatically create a project site for them. The site will use the 60 days policy in order to disable the site if it didn't have any traffic or activities. The site deletion will not be automatic. Finally the subsite creation and deletions will be controlled by the project site owner.

Policy Sample: Site Quotas and Storage limits

Site quotas should create a balance between providing sufficient room for teams to store documents related to their project and helping the teams plan and respond to disk and database usage requirements. Short-term site quota considerations focus on ensuring the proper use of the site. Quotas prevent unmanaged or inappropriate site growth while enabling IT to quickly respond and guide end-users with their site usage.

Service Offering	Quota Warning Level	Default Quota Size Limit
Project Sites	450MB	500MB
Team Sites	1.5 GB	2 GB
My Sites	25 MB	30 MB
Intranet Portal (publishing)	1.5 GB	2 GB

Policy Sample: Enterprise Site Collections Administrators Policy

Tasks

Auditing of indexing logs; search and index tuning.

Monitoring: Usage analysis and tuning.

Policy creation and enforcement

Determine content crawling of regional WSS sites (data sources and crawl schedules)

Assist with determining what data stays local in WSS and what data gets stored on the Intranet

Integrate regional WSS locations into Intranet

Enforcement of allowable / prohibited file type storage

Perform routine releases and upgrades to the application.

Create site templates for various business scenarios.

Responsible for modifying permissions for WSS sites.

Policies

These policies are subject to the Customization Policies. For example, Collaboration infrastructure Administrators will adhere to the site provisioning policy as defined under Application Usage Policies when provisioning sites.

Coordinate with Collaboration infrastructure Strategy Team for policy creation and enforcement

Cannot install custom web parts on the server without testing and approval.

Cannot install other apps including custom web applications. This specifically includes SQL Server applications.

No customization of site templates, definitions, or navigation without consensus of Collaboration infrastructure Administrators.

Other policies might be:

Policy: use the hybrid approach Active Directory Groups within SharePoint Groups
Policy: Obey the security principle limitation in SharePoint
Farm Administration and SQL Administrator Policy
Enterprise Site Collections Administrators Policy
Changing Passwords for Office SharePoint Server Accounts Policy
Policy: Keep it clean - Maintain databases in a healthy state
Policy: Keep SharePoint current with the latest updates
Policy: Be sure that you back up and truncate the log files
Restoring data: Test backups and have a standby environment available for service continuity
Policy: Monitor sites and content and perform clean-ups regularly
Policy: Enforce site and content size limits
Backup, disaster recovery and restore strategy (What should be backed-up and how)

Read from the beginning: SharePoint Governance – Table of Content

SharePoint Governance - Development and Customization Policies

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:48:00 GMT

This is a series of 9 articles. Click here for the full TOC

This article to continue the application lifecycle management talk on SharePoint.

Development and Customization Policy

Microsoft published a document called Team-Based Development in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and ALM Resource Center | SharePoint 2010. While this is a good starting place, many additional details of team-based development for SharePoint at your company must be decided; that is the goal is to develop guidelines for the following aspects in order to define all the required development processes:

Application management – how are the files implementing an application organized and managed?
Source control – how can the application files be managed in source control?
Build Process – what procedures are used to build the system on the integration server?
Deployment Process – what processes are used to deploy the system to the integration server and then towards the production environment?
Developer synchronization – how can developers be sure they are using the correct version of all application files?

Policy Sample: Standardize the development environment

The development environments that are used for SharePoint custom application development should allow the complete set of resources that developers will need to create these new applications. These development environments should be autonomous and should allow the developer to work independently on his/her component without interfering with other developers. The unit testing should also be conducted within the developer's individual environment.

Policy Sample: on delivery strategy using the trade-off approach

The delivery strategy for design decisions is "schedule driven." That is, when making decisions such as the level of detail to which Features should be implemented, and even which Features should be implemented, the guiding criterion should be the ability to complete the Feature/detail in the allotted schedule.

This means in [Your Company], resources are fixed (since the team is fixed) and features come from internal customers (the business). Thus, the only thing that is adjustable is schedule. So Given a fixed resources, we will choose feature, and adjust schedule as necessary.

Naturally the design team will make sensible exceptions to this when appropriate. But as a general rule, Features or details that can't pass this criterion should be phased into a later delivery. Details of this process are given below.

Possible options to implement each Feature will be identified, and the effort for each one estimated.
A review is held to decide on the implementation option to be chosen for each Feature. In some cases, it may be desirable to implement a Feature to a lesser degree of fidelity to requirements than is possible, if the lesser degree can be implemented with significantly less effort.
For functions that are judged too much effort to implement in the project's timeline, a follow-on phase of implementation will be proposed, along with the estimated level of effort and time to complete. This will allow project planners to make informed decisions about phasing versus adjustment of resources or other aspects of the current release.

Policy Sample: on key design goals, use the "OOB to Custom" approach

The primary goal when designing "how to implement requirements" is to use "out-of-box" (OOB) functionality whenever possible and to consider custom development only when necessary and justified. That said, OOB functions usually entail some level of effort that's often overlooked in planning. Several examples may help to illustrate degrees of "out-of-box."

Policy Sample: on development process use the DTUP approach

We will use the process of moving between Development, Test, UAT and Production (DTUP) environments. Developers use virtualized servers (virtual PCs) on their individual workstations to develop and unit test for SharePoint. The following diagram shows relationships among the workstations, servers and farms that will be used to manage code development and deployment from end to end.

Policy Sample: how to make namespaces

The following namespaces are recommended.

CompanyName: for now it's contoso, but maybe later fabrikam (contoso partner) or something similar.
Zone: would be internet or intranet
ApplicationName: could be HR, SLA or MyApp
DeployableType: The use of "Web" is designed to indicate components that interact with SharePoint to support end-user actions directly. The "Operations" namespace should be used for components that are run offline or deal more with administration of the farm. And other as shown below:

for example: Contoso.Intranet.EmployeePortal.Web Components that are used across other web namespaces, such as GlobalMethods.

Other Policies might be:

Policy: use GAC deployment instead of bin deployments
Policy: use keyword syntax for querying search as possible
Policy: don't leave connection strings in web.config unencrypted
Policy: Cleanup when deactivating features

SharePoint Governance – Application Lifecycle Management Policies

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:44:00 GMT

This is a series of 9 articles. Click here for the full TOC

Application Lifecycle Management

After setting your policies and procedures around security for each role and responsibility, now its time set policies around the application lifecycle in SharePoint.

Introduction to Microsoft Solution Framework

To help establishing a proper development team, we need a Software Development Lifecycle that can:

Align business and technology goals
Establish clear project goals, roles, and responsibilities
Implement an iterative, milestone/checkpoint-driven process
Manage risks proactively
And responding to change effectively

That is why, Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) is a framework of models, disciplines, principles and mindsets for delivering solutions faster, using fewer people and reducing risk, with higher quality results.

Suggested Team Model at [Your Company]

The table below shows how to scale down an MSF team to fit all roles. Also, we have come up with a suggested team model that is fitting the team. This can be changed any time and varies from project to another. It's very important to note that developers and testers can interchange places and conduct peer testing but at no case developer should conduct testing for its own component.

Below is an example on how to use the scale down table to construct the MSF Team for each project.

Names	Product Mgt	Program Mgt	Architecture	Development	Test	User Exp
Wael		Y	Y
Ali			Y	Y	Y
Umit	Y				Y	Y
Hasan				Y	Y
Willy				Y	Y
Hiba	Y			Y	Y

SharePoint Governance – Table of Content

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:50:00 GMT

This page to gather all articles on SharePoint governance I have published:

SharePoint Governance - Training

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:43:00 GMT

This is a series of 9 articles. Click here for the full TOC

After we've talked about staffing your teams, now we need to address how you want to train them and make them ready.

Training Plan

Skills Matrix

The skills matrix will help the team and the team leaders to assess their capabilities and construct a development plan to be ready for delivering. The matrix is role oriented and can only be understood with the rating scale ascribed below.

Level	Description
0	No knowledge. The skill is relevant to me and will be incorporated in my personal development plan.
100	Theoretical knowledge obtained through formal or self training. Very little or no practical experience.
200	Theoretical knowledge applied in at least one project or scenario.
300	Knowledge successfully applied in several projects or scenarios.
400	Knowledge successfully applied in several complex projects or scenarios. Able to mentor others to apply the skill.

Skills Required

SharePoint Farm Admin Skills

Skills	Description
Office SharePoint Server server farm architecture	Plan server farms for reliability and scalability, and how to deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a server farm.
Configuring server farms	configuration steps needed for server farms after deployment
Securing server farms	help control access to information and how to help protect deployments from malicious users.
Planning SharePoint Products and Technologies solutions	Method of planning the information architecture and solutions in a Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 deployment.
Configuring performance options:	set up caching, IIS compression, and other options to help maximize performance of an Office SharePoint Server server farm.
Backing up, restoring, high availability, and disaster recovery for Office SharePoint Server server farms	back up and recover Office SharePoint Server server farms.
Operations and management	Provides information about common operations and management tasks
Capacity planning	determine requirements to support your capacity requirements
Business Data Catalog administration	Administering security for the Business Data Catalog Administering business metadata Logging and auditing business data operations using the Business Data Catalog
Enterprise Search administration	Getting your content crawled Preparing to crawl content Add content sources Configure searches to return blog post results Configure client certificates for crawling an SSL site IFilters and protocol handlers Change the Indexer Performance setting Manage crawler impact Full and incremental crawl Administering people search Manage user profiles for people search Create a Search Center in a site collection where the Office SharePoint Server Publishing Create a custom dictionary
Forms administration	Manage session state Deploy form templates Deploy administrator-approved form templates InfoPath Forms Services best practices Manage form templates
Personalization Services administration	Administering personalization permissions Administering import connections and user profiles Administering My Sites Targeting content Monitoring usage data for personalization

SharePoint SQL Administrator

Skills	Description
Backing up, restoring, high availability, and disaster recovery for Office SharePoint Server server farms	back up and recover Office SharePoint Server server farms.
Database Maintenance	Check for and repair consistency errors by using DBCC CHECKDB Measure and reduce fragmentation Fine tuning index performance by setting fill factor Shrinking data files Creating SQL Server Maintenance Plans
Planning and Monitoring SQL Server Storage for Office SharePoint Server: Performance Recommendations and Best Practices	Provides planning tips and best practices to help optimize performance, scalability, and manageability
Add, split, and merge content databases:	Offers step by step procedures to help manage content databases to meet changing demands.
Move content databases:	Contains procedures for moving databases as part of an upgrade, recovery process, or deployment to a new farm.
Move all databases:	Lists the steps for moving all of the Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases from one database server to another database server within the same farm.
Run a farm that uses read-only databases:	Describes how to configure a farm to run with read-only databases.

SharePoint Developers Skills

Skills	Description
Office SharePoint Server farm architecture	Plan server farms for reliability and scalability, and how to deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a server farm.
SharePoint Out of the Box	Site Templates List Templates Navigation Controls UI Actions/Functions Views Content Types Mobile Device Friendly Pages
Customizing WSS v3	Customization Options in the User Interface Site Navigation Options in the User Interface Customization Options Outside of the User Interface Cascading Style Sheets and Images
WSS v3 Authorization	Basic WSS Authorization (Who Has Access?, What Permissions Do They Have? And Securable Objects) Advanced Authorization (Web Application User Rights, Web Application Policies, Permission Policy Levels, Security Trimmed Interface)
WSS v3 Performance	Caching values in Web Parts Using System Monitor Performance Counters Usage Analysis Processing (Usage Analysis Processing, Accessing Usage Data on a SharePoint Web Site, Accessing Usage Data in a Site Collection)
WSS v3 Site Definitions	CAML $Resources in WSS v3 Site Definition Dependencies Custom Templates Feature Dependencies WSS v3 LCIDs
WSS v3 Object Model Basics	WSS v3 Core Namespaces WSS v3 Core Classes SPSite and SPWeb SPList SPListItem
Manipulating the WSS v3 Object Model	Manipulating Alerts Manipulating Features using WSS v3 Object Model Foreach vs for index Avoiding Memory Leaks with dispose()
WSS v3 Events	Creating a Basic Event Handler Deploying Event Handlers
Web Part Fundamentals	ASP2/WSS v3 Web Part Infrastructure ASP2 Page Life Cycle Personalization Rollup Web Parts Search Web Parts
Advanced Web Part Techniques	Modifying Web Part Menus & Client-Side Scripting Synchronous and Asynchronous Web Parts Web Part Connections
WSS v3 Web Services	Service Oriented Architecture Using Web Services WSS v3 Web Service Architecture Web Service Management/Abstraction Web Service Enhancements (WSE v3)
WSS v3 Protocols	Non-Web Service remote communication methods FrontPage RPC SharePoint RPC
WSS v3 Workflow	WF and WSS v3 Overview Creating workflows with SPD Creating workflows using VS.NET
Search	Search Architecture Search Administration Object Model Relevance Searching the Business Data Catalog Building Search Queries Programmatically Querying Search Customizing the Search UI Building Custom Search Web Parts
Business Data Catalog	Architecture MetaData Model Authoring XML MetaData Runtime Object Model Authoring Metadata Programmatically Troubleshooting
Content Targeting (Personalizing SharePoint Content)	Architecture User Profiles Object Model Audience Object Model
Managing Enterprise Document Content	Document Information Panels Records Repository Site Template Information Management Policy Document Converters Executing the Search and Process Operation Reporting on the Search and Process Operation
Publishing (Web Content Management formerly Content Management	Architecture Master Pages and Page Layouts Field Controls and Control Templates Output Caching Caching and Operations Page and Site Customization Document Converters Authoring and Rendering Page Publishing Using Document Converters Content Deployment and Migration Multi-Lingual Sites

Architect

Skills	Description
Office SharePoint Server server farm architecture:	Plan server farms for reliability and scalability, and how to deploy Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a server farm.
Planning SharePoint Products and Technologies solutions	Method of planning the information architecture and solutions in a Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 deployment.
Capacity planning	determine requirements to support your capacity requirements
Search architecture and configuration	plan for and configure search for Office SharePoint Server.
Business Data Catalog	Architecture
Content Targeting (Personalizing SharePoint Content)	Architecture
Managing Enterprise Document Content	Architecture
Publishing (Web Content Management formerly Content Management	Architecture
WSS v3 Authorization	Architecture
WSS v3 Performance	Architecture
WSS v3 Site Definitions	Architecture
WSS v3 Object Model Basics	Architecture
Manipulating the WSS v3 Object Model	Architecture
WSS v3 Events	Architecture
Web Part Fundamentals	Architecture
Advanced Web Part Techniques	Architecture
WSS v3 Web Services	Architecture
WSS v3 Protocols	Architecture
WSS v3 Workflow	Architecture

People Mapping to Skills

Now, what is needed to be done is to have the people to be rated against the skills required. The table below is an example. This should be filled by the Technical Manager or the team leader who has a good technical knowledge to assess the team member. Use this to plan for your team readiness and create a training plan for them.

SharePoint Farm Admin Skills Assessment

Skills	Ranking (0-400
Office SharePoint Server server farm architecture	*400*
Configuring server farms	*400*
Securing server farms	*200*
Planning SharePoint Products and Technologies solutions	*300*
Configuring performance options:	*200*
Backing up, restoring, high availability, and disaster recovery for Office SharePoint Server server farms	*100*
Operations and management	*500*
Capacity planning	*200*
Business Data Catalog administration	0
Enterprise Search administration	0
Forms administration	0
Personalization Services administration	*100*
Overall rating	*Average è 200*

SharePoint SQL Administrator Skills Assessment

Skills	Ranking (0-400
Backing up, restoring, high availability, and disaster recovery for Office SharePoint Server server farms	*400*
Database Maintenance	*400*
Planning and Monitoring SQL Server Storage for Office SharePoint Server: Performance Recommendations and Best Practices	*200*
Add, split, and merge content databases:	*300*
Move content databases:	*200*
Move all databases:	*100*
Run a farm that uses read-only databases:	*500*
Overall rating	*Average è 200*

SharePoint Developer Skills Assessment

Skills	Ranking (0-400
Office SharePoint Server server farm architecture:	*400*
SharePoint Out of the Box	*400*
Customizing WSS v3	*200*
WSS v3 Authorization	*300*
WSS v3 Performance	*200*
WSS v3 Site Definitions	*100*
WSS v3 Object Model Basics	*500*
Manipulating the WSS v3 Object Model	*200*
WSS v3 Events	0
Web Part Fundamentals	0
Advanced Web Part Techniques	0
WSS v3 Web Services	*100*
WSS v3 Protocols	*400*
WSS v3 Workflow	*400*
Search	*200*
Business Data Catalog	*300*
Content Targeting (Personalizing SharePoint Content)	*200*
Managing Enterprise Document Content	*100*
Publishing (Web Content Management formerly Content Management	*500*
Overall rating	*Average è 200*

SharePoint Architects Skills Assessment

Skills	Ranking (0-400
Office SharePoint Server server farm architecture:	*400*
Planning SharePoint Products and Technologies solutions	*400*
Capacity planning	*200*
Search architecture and configuration	*300*
Business Data Catalog	*200*
Content Targeting (Personalizing SharePoint Content)	*100*
Managing Enterprise Document Content	*500*
Publishing (Web Content Management formerly Content Management	*200*
WSS v3 Authorization	0
WSS v3 Performance	0
WSS v3 Site Definitions	0
WSS v3 Object Model Basics	*100*
Manipulating the WSS v3 Object Model	*400*
WSS v3 Events	*400*
Web Part Fundamentals	*200*
Advanced Web Part Techniques	*300*
WSS v3 Web Services	*200*
WSS v3 Protocols	*100*
WSS v3 Workflow	*500*
Overall rating	*Average è 200*

Read next: about Policies and Procedures

SharePoint Governance – Staffing and People Mappings

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:53:00 GMT

This is a series of 9 articles. Click here for the full TOC

Staffing and People Mappings

After we've talked about Roles and Responsibilities, now it's time to talk about how you want to staff people around SharePoint and then map the teams to identified people. The model can vary from a place to another.

Staffing

One more commonly overlooked component of a successful implementation is staffing. Architects and administrators usually do a good job creating a bill of goods for hardware and software, but they often forget to secure funding for personnel to adequately develop and maintain systems. SharePoint can consume a large amount of human resources if used to its full potential. Understand what types of dedicated personnel are required in the beginning, and start getting stakeholders' support immediately. The table below offers a suggested staffing schedule for you to consider. (Note: F = One full time person and P = One part time person.)

Staff position	Medium to Large farm
System Administrator	P
Backup Administrator	P
SharePoint Farm Administrator	F
SQL Administrator	P
Active Directory Resource(s)	P
Enterprise Site Collections Administrator	P F
Enterprise Security Administrator	P
Site Owner	F
Developer	P F
Product Management	P
Program Management	P
Architecture	P
Tester	P
User Experience (SharePoint Designer)	F
Release / Operations	P

People

Role	Owner	Secondary	SharePoint Team
System Administrator			Operation Team
Backup Administrator			Operation Team
SharePoint Farm Administrator			Operation Team
SQL Administrator			Operation Team
Active Directory Resource(s)			Operation Team
Enterprise Site Collections Administrator			Operation Team
Enterprise Security Administrator			Support Team
Intranet Portal			Operation Team Support Team
Site 1
Site 2
Site 3
Con't	Con't	Con't	Con't
Developer			Development Team
Product Management			Development Team
Program Management			Development Team
Architecture			Development Team
Tester			Development Team
User Experience (SharePoint Designer)			Development Team
Release / Operations			Development Team Operational Team

Read Next: about Training and Readiness

SharePoint Governance - Individual Roles and Responsibilities

Wael A. Kabli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:51:00 GMT

This is a series of 9 articles. Click here for the full TOC

Roles and Responsibilities

Looking into the three teams that we have talked about earlier, we can break them down into smaller roles that can be mapped to people easily. The recommendation here is as follows:

Role	Responsibilities and Tasks	SharePoint Team	Your Company
System Administrator	Responsible for the acquisition, installation and maintenance of the hardware infrastructure. Provide day-to-day operation support to Portal Team Review existing infrastructure setup, develop best practices and operation guidelines Install software that supports the environment Install operating system security updates Install operating system updates, upgrades and service packs Maintain system, application, security and SharePoint, IIS event logs Maintain registry settings and environmental settings. Manage Windows cluster services Manage Network Load Balancing	Operation Team	Company team
Backup Administrator	Responsible for Backing up the whole SharePoint environment. SQL Server Backup (Shared with SQL Admin) IIS Backup SharePoint Backup	Operation Team	Company team
SharePoint Farm Administrator	Responsible for global portal and WSS configuration, shared services, policies, procedures, and portal vision and SharePoint configuration: Application Management SharePoint Web Application Management SharePoint Site Management External Service Connections Office SharePoint Server Shared Services Application Security Search Administration Workflow Management Operations Topology and Services Security Configuration Logging and Reporting Upgrade and Migration Global Configuration Backup and Restore Data Configuration Content Deployment Shared Services Administration: User Profiles and My Sites Search Excel Services Settings Audiences Office SharePoint Usage Reporting Business Data Catalog	Operation Team	Company team
SQL Administrator	SQL backups and restores (plan for backup and restore and maintain the SLA) SQL Maintenance SQL Security and Performance Tuning Manage SQL Cluster Services	Operation Team	Company team
Active Directory Resource(s)	Responsible for ensuring the portal is leveraging AD appropriately. Assist with Setting up the portal to use AD for authentication Assist in synchronization of portal with AD Set SPNs and Kerberos settings	Operation Team	Company team
Enterprise Site Collections Administrator	Responsible for all Site collections on a web application: Site Collection Level: Search settings Search scopes Search keywords Recycle bin Site directory settings Site collection usage reports Storage space allocation Site collection features Site hierarchy Portal site connection Site collection audit settings Audit log reports Site collection policies Site collection object cache Site collection cache profiles Site collection output cache Variations Variation labels Translatable columns Variation logs Site Level: Regional settings Site libraries and lists Site usage reports User alerts RSS Search visibility Sites and workspaces Site features Delete this site Site output cache Content and structure Site Galleries: Site content types Site columns Site templates List templates Web Parts Workflows Master pages and page layouts Look & Feel: Master page Title, description, and icon Navigation Page layouts and site templates Welcome page Tree view Site theme Reset to site definition Searchable columns Site Actions: Edit Page Create Page Create Site Show Page Editing Toolbar View All Site Content View Reports Site Settings Manage Content and Structure	Operation Team	Company team
Enterprise Security Administrator	Responsible for managing security on the site collection level to create and change permission levels on the Web site and assign permissions to users and groups. Note: Automations will try to minimize role demand and delegate some responsibilities to Site Owners and Contributors.	Support Team	Company team
Site Owner (Team Sites)	Primary and Secondary site owner. Site Actions: Edit a Page Create a Page Show Page Editing Toolbar View All Site Content View Reports Site Settings Manage Content and Structure Site Administration: Regional Settings Site libraries and lists Site usage reports User alerts Content and structure Galleries: Site content types Site columns Web Parts Master pages and page layouts Look & Feel: Master page Title, description and icon Navigation User and Permissions: People and Groups (view only) Advanced permissions (view only)	Operation Team Support Team	Company team
Site Owner (Publishing)	Primary and Secondary site owner. Site Actions: Edit a Page Create a Page Show Page Editing Toolbar View All Site Content View Reports Site Settings Manage Content and Structure Site Administration: Regional Settings Site libraries and lists Site usage reports User alerts Content and structure Look & Feel: Title, description and icon User and Permissions: People and Groups (view only) Advanced permissions (view only)	Operation Team Support Team	Company team
Contributor	Contributing on contents. Meaning can add, delete and edit specific items.	End User	Company team
Reader	Read and subscribe to alerts and RSS feeds.	End User	Company team
Developer	Responsible for building the framework and features of the portal. Build the SharePoint look and Feel Modify SharePoint Templates as Needed Build New Web Parts Write ASP.Net Code Participate in Design Tasks as needed Participate in Development and Testing as needed	Development Team	Company team
Product Management	Responsible for business advocacy and Satisfied stakeholders	Development Team	Company team
Program Management	Responsible for resources and features advocacy deliver solution within project constraints Coordinate optimization of project constraints	Development Team	Company team
Architecture	Responsible for designing solutions within project constraints	Development Team	Company team
Tester	Responsible for approving solution for release ensuring all issues are identified and addressed	Development Team	Company team
User Experience (SharePoint Designer)	Responsible for Maximizing solution usability and enhancing user effectiveness and readiness Connect with SharePoint Designer Change images, CSS, Master pages and layouts (drafts only) User Interface responsibilities	Development Team	Company team
Release / Operations	Responsible for smooth deployment and transition to operations	Development Team Operational Team	Change Management (Release Management)

Read next: about staffing and people mappings.