The release of Microsoft SharePoint 2013 has created a lot of buzz in the industry and mostly around its powerful social collaboration features, such as an “App Store” model, a new approach to branding the user interface, and a number of other features that blend and blur the lines between the desktop and the portal. Microsoft has also made a big push for use of SharePoint in the cloud, as part of the Office 365 environment and integration with Microsoft Azure for advanced hosted solutions. This position paper by Paragon Solutions' SharePoint epxerts will highlight some of the newer features included in Microsoft SharePoint 2013, as well as a high-level overview of the pros and cons of these features. Download it now to gain a better indepth perspective from our SharePoint experts on the latest features SharePoint 2013 has to offer your organization.

1. Microsoft SharePoint 2013:
An Overview

2. Value Envisioned. Value Delivered.
Introduction
SharePoint 2013, as well as a high-level overview
of the pros and cons of these features.
Microsoft SharePoint has come a long way since
its introduction in 2001. In typical Microsoft
fashion, the product has slowly gained capabilities
and its functionality has matured over time.
New Features in SharePoint 2013
In 2007,
Microsoft
introduced
Calendars
additional
Documents
Surveys &
Voting
SharePoint
capabilities such
as item-level
Commitees &
Collaboration
Chapters
permissioning
and improved
search, and
Tasks & Projects
Intranet/Extranet
made it more
of an enterprise
tool to function both as a portal and a document
management system. Then in 2010 Microsoft
introduced records management functions and
deeper integration with the desktop, sandbox
solutions (for developers), and concepts such as
community templates. As a result, SharePoint is
now recognized as a true player in the portal world,
achieving leader and visionary status in Gartner’s
.
2012 Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals1
Microsoft has now introduced SharePoint 2013.
This most recent release features more powerful
social collaboration features, such as an “App
Store” model, a new approach to branding the
user interface, and a number of other features that
blend and blur the lines between the desktop and
the portal.
While there are many new and exciting features in
SharePoint 2013, the basic architectural footprint has
not changed dramatically. These new features have
been widely publicized in publications such as CIO
Magazine2, Information Week3, and by Microsoft4.
This paper will not attempt to summarize those
articles, but rather serve as a compilation of
comments and observations gathered from Paragon
team members and affiliates.
Social Collaboration
Paragon Solutions has significant experience using
the features of SharePoint 2010, as well as with
the integration of products, such as NewsGator,
with SharePoint. Microsoft has made great
strides in this area. However, we have found that
while people tend to like shiny, new things, they
sometimes struggle to identify the usefulness
in them. Some of the more valued features that
SharePoint 2013 supports include microblogs,
hashtag features, and a more advanced newsfeed
feature to tracks tags and the activities of people
you are following. SharePoint 2013 does well in its
capability that allows people to follow documents,
tags and even sites in SharePoint.
SharePoint 2013 includes community sites, and a
“reputation management” feature that we actually
find somewhat troubling based on earlier social
experiments in portals regarding self-proclamation
of expertise in topic areas.
Microsoft has also made a big push for use of
SharePoint in the cloud, as part of the Office 365
environment and integration with Microsoft Azure
for advanced hosted solutions.
We have seen social features, such as colleague
tracking and newsfeeds, used effectively when
there is an effort to encourage participation and
alter behaviors of users rather than simply providing
a template and hoping they use it effectively.
This Paragon Solutions position paper will highlight
some of the newer features included in Microsoft
1
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portals, September 20, 2012
CIO Magazine: 7 Things About SharePoint 2013 All IT Pros Should Know
2
3
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2
Information Week: 8 Key Features in SharePoint 2013
4
Microsoft: IT Professionals Guide to Reviewing SharePoint 2013

3. Our Take: SkyDrive Pro has great potential in
the workplace. Organizations, however, will need
to determine how SkyDrive Pro will be used and
create best practices, examples and models that
support end-users to prevent it from being an
interesting capability that sits in SharePoint and no
one really understands how to use it.
Finally, Microsoft envisions Yammer being used to
capture meetings, meeting minutes and agendas
(sounds like it will replace the deprecated meeting
template that was popular in SharePoint 2010),
however it is not yet fully integrated in SharePoint
2013. There are also plans to have a cloud version
of Yammer for private groups. It will be interesting to
see how this integration is applied to prevent people
from being confused between existing SharePoint
2013 news feeds, microblogs and Yammer.
Rich Media in SharePoint
Silverlight is gone! Microsoft has promoted
SharePoint as supporting rich media like training
and marketing videos. This capability is designed
to include features such as thumbnails, and
document sets for videos (an interesting concept –
access the video as well as training documents or
other materials as part of the document set). Site
owners can define standard sizes (i.e., renditions)
for how rich media is accessed and presented.
Content authors can resize and crop images
without other applications.
Our Take: When businesses truly want to adopt
social features in the workplace, Microsoft has
made a strong case for using SharePoint beyond
Jive, IBM Connections or similar products. It
is feature rich, and there is some control over
features offered. However, if an organization
adopts SharePoint 2013, they really adopt these
features and it will be hard to not include them
as part of what is offered to business teams.
Consequently, organizations will need to be
prepared with policies for the use of social tools,
best practice tips, training, and communication.
Additionally, care should be taken by international
organizations to ensure that European privacy
guidelines are understood and respected.
Another interesting feature is the ability to drag and
drop videos onto sites and set the frame image
that will be presented to the user as the thumbnail.
Multiple stream rates can be set up as well.
SkyDrive Pro Integration
SkyDrive Pro is part of SharePoint 2013, essentially
replacing SharePoint Workspace. SharePoint
Workspace was an attempt to provide off-line
synchronization with SharePoint. It also replaces
the document storage in SharePoint 2007 My Site,
which did not receive wide acceptance. SkyDrive
Pro is accessed from the toolbar area. It provides
the ability for people to store documents that
are either private, or accessible and/or editable
by others. A key concept is the ability to follow
documents in SharePoint via SkyDrive, and be
notified of changes. Users can get feedback from
others via ratings. The synchronization capability is
a local machine folder that is a mapped drive of a
SharePoint library.
3
Our Take: While these powerful features are
easy to utilize, it is clear that to be truly effective
in an enterprise environment, providing rich
media in SharePoint 2013 should be treated as a
service offered by IT. This service will likely include
considerable customization of master pages and
other pages to support the presentation layer
and optimize usability. An example is providing
“channels” for users to access large amounts of
videos and rich media. These are actually publishing
pages. IT organizations will absolutely need to
develop a strategy, a service, templates, and training
to truly use these new features effectively.
The App Model
SharePoint 2013 now presents what were called
“web parts” in previous versions of SharePoint

4. Value Envisioned. Value Delivered.
as “applications.” When SharePoint 2013 is
installed, users add lists and libraries by accessing
applications (apps) and selecting the app to place
onto a site.
Not only is the app model a new approach for
putting functionality on a site, it is a change in the
development approach that replaces the sandboxed
solutions model in SharePoint 2007. Microsoft
has also gone a step further by including both
SharePoint hosted apps and cloud hosted apps.
From a user perspective, apps can be accessed
via the “edit site” feature, but also (if used by the
organization) via an internal “app store” much like
iTunes. Theoretically, IT could build apps for specific
uses, and could also make apps available as part of
an app store for use by any site owners.
For developers, there is a new model for developing
and installing apps. Previously, development was
loosely termed as developing “farm solutions.” The
argument for apps is that they are now isolated,
which makes them safer. They are also easier to
deploy and maintain, and they are cloud ready.
Furthermore, apps don’t run on the SharePoint
Server, they are stored on an app server and
accessed by SharePoint. Theoretically, this reduces
the load on the SharePoint server. Developers can
now have the ability to use Javascript, CSS and
HTML to support app development.
Our Take: At face value, the app store approach
is an intriguing capability. It represents yet another
way to develop, release, and consume applications
within SharePoint. There are some critics who feel
that this approach is not necessary, and essentially
“trivializes” the effort needed to build, implement
and ultimately consume applications in SharePoint.
Additionally, as this is release 1.0, there is the
potential for “warts” to quickly arise, much like the
shortcomings of sandboxed solutions in SharePoint
2010 that were quickly found by developers.
Eventually, the development community will clear
up much of the angst by uncovering the pain points
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4
relative to app development (e.g., modal dialogs)
and presentation within SharePoint 2013, so this
is really just a maturity issue common with initial
releases. The new app model does, however, have
some inherent benefits like loose coupling between
the applications and the SharePoint infrastructure
since the integration is entirely based on iFrames.
While at the onset it looks like a step in the right
direction by Microsoft, it does bring along a
different set of challenges. The question is—does
your organization have the willingness to take on the
challenge of being an early adopter?
Branding, UI, Look and Feel
SharePoint 2013 introduces a centralized hub called
“Design Manager” for managing all aspects of
branding a SharePoint site. The Design Manager
generates HTML snippets that can be used by any
web design tool. The site design can be created
using the existing expertise in HTML, CSS, and
Javascript and once it is ready, it can be uploaded to
Design Manager to convert the HTML file to an ASP.
net master page which can then be applied to the
SharePoint site.
Two new branding features from SharePoint 2013
that stand out are “Composed Looks” and “Device
Channels.” Composed Looks is a simple way to create
a theme using master page, a color set, a font and an
image. The Composed Looks feature gives the user
the ability to select the font or color palette regardless
of the master page that is created for them. You can
also create multiple Composed Looks for multiple
regions (e.g. Portal, Collaboration site etc.)
Device Channels are a way to apply a certain look
to a certain device. A device can belong to multiple
channels. Publishing sites in SharePoint 2013 are
optimized for mobile development, and the Device
Channels feature can be used to fine-tune how
mobile users experience the site. Device Channels
also leverage the Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) capability.

5. Both of these features can be leveraged by users for
designing either Intranet or Internet web sites. They
ensure that Internet sites will also cater to the growing
mobile audience using smartphones and tablets.
charts and graphs that can help make the data they
represent more meaningful.
Our Take: There is some controversy among
SharePoint pundits around the new Design Manager
feature, and how mature and easy it is to use. The
new branding model is not proven, and early reviews
still call branding activities cumbersome. However,
there are some solid benefits that will become
more evident as use of Design Manager matures.
Designers can still use master pages if they choose
to, so Microsoft has not deprecated that functionality.
We are seeing designers use a combination of old
and new design features. The out-of-box rendering,
particularly for mobile views, is still somewhat weak
and requires custom development.
“Office Web Apps” provides end users with the
capability to view and edit Office documents using
a browser interface. The new avatar of the Office
Web Apps Server product available with SharePoint
2013 is more loosely coupled with SharePoint
as compared to the earlier model of Office Web
Apps, which had a much tighter integration with
SharePoint 2010. Office Web Apps has now been
made a standalone product. The new deployment
model of Office Web Apps Server achieves isolation
levels that aid in simplifying the deployment/
maintenance of SharePoint 2013 since updates/
patches can be applied to SharePoint 2013 or Office
Web Apps independently. Scalability requirements
can also be addressed individually now that Office
Web Apps servers are deployed separately.
Office Web Apps
Power View
“Power View” is an enhancement of power pivot.
You can base a Power View file in SharePoint 2013
with the SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services
add-in on an Excel 2013 data model or on a SQL
Server 2012 SP 1 Analysis Services tabular model,
and vice versa. However, some features, such as
hierarchies and KPIs, are only available if you base
a Power View report in SharePoint Server with the
SQL Server 2012 SP 1 Reporting Services add-in
on an Excel 2013 data model or on a SQL Server
2012 SP 1 Analysis Services tabular model.
Improved touch support and general support exists
across a broader array of device platforms
(i.e., Windows, iOS, Android, etc.) in the new Office
Web Apps server product. Document editing
capabilities, however, are still limited for the most
part to the Windows-based devices.
Our Take: Our perspective on using Power
View comes in two parts; the first being the
obvious: by using the feature, you could simply
solve business problems while harmonizing and
exposing the relative data easily through Power
View in SharePoint. Secondly, the relationships
and their meaningful relationships can be more
easily achieved, allowing drill-through properties on
varying charts and graphs.
Microsoft has also added a nice customization
piece that allows you to add unique images to your
5
Our Take: While it is certainly advantageous
to have a fine-grained isolation model between
SharePoint 2013 and Office Web Apps, the
downside is that more hardware is required overall
to deploy Office Web Apps, as Microsoft does
not recommend co-hosting Office Web Apps
Server on the same server as SharePoint 2013. So
overall, it does look like the hardware footprint could
potentially increase with the new deployment model
of SharePoint 2013.
There are new features added to Office Web Apps
that are quite useful, such as change tracking
and comments, which were not present in the
earlier version.

6. Value Envisioned. Value Delivered.
Enterprise Content Management
(ECM) and Records Management
The support for multiple browser platforms and
mobile devices is definitely better than before, but
for the fullest/best user experience one still needs
a windows based device and an IE browser. The
MS documentation of the devices and supported
feature matrix is also not fully complete at this point
and will hopefully be updated in the near future.
Access Services
The Access client is still used to create and design
tables, views, macros, and more. End-users will
use a browser when interacting with the Access
AppSQL rendered as .net app in SP. Apps are
saved as a package and published in the app store.
An Access web app is a new type of database that
you build in Access, then use and share with others
as a SharePoint app in a web browser. To build an
app, you just select the type of data you want to
track (e.g., contacts, tasks, projects, etc.). Access
creates the database structure (SQL) complete with
views that let you add and edit data. Navigation and
basic commands are built-in, so you can start using
your app right away.
Our Take: Our experience with large lists in
SharePoint typically leads to creating custom
databases that house these large lists and a
developmental structure to support them. This is
primarily because a SharePoint content database
can’t handle heavy loads on large lists. For this
reason, Microsoft created a resource throttling view
for large lists starting at just 5k records for regular
users. For admins, the number of records is much
higher. In SharePoint, the ever increasing demand of
large list creation and use would require Microsoft
to come up with a solution to assist this demand—
and that would either increase resource limits or
require another approach. The Access Services
solution provides both the scale and flexibility you
would expect from utilizing SharePoint to function in
this manner.
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A big new feature that is included in SharePoint
2013 is the ability to perform eDiscovery queries
across multiple SharePoint farms and Exchange
servers and preserve the items that are discovered.
Not having this capability severely limited the ability
to do holds on content in SharePoint 2010, as the
hold could only apply to a single site collection.
A new “eDiscovery” site template supports the
new functionality, and eDsicovery can take place
not only on SharePoint sites but on Exchange
mailboxes and file shares. In-place hold features are
also expanded so that documents, list items, pages
and even Exchange mailboxes (2013) can be put on
hold as well.
There are some other ECM features in SharePoint
2013 worth looking at. Users can now cut and paste
from Microsoft Word into the rich editor with greater
fidelity than before. There is a cross-site publishing
model (supported by search) that may address
some earlier needs to duplicate content in support
of business use cases.
Our Take: eDiscovery and legal hold requirements
can be particularly critical in Life Sciences. Time
will tell if the new features in SharePoint 2013 will
prove to be viable tools when compared to the
very mature products already on the market that
can integrate with SharePoint to provide these
capabilities. SharePoint’s ECM functionality was
already fairly strong (notwithstanding its records
management features). The advances in records
management, along with some of the new ECM
capabilities, help to add to the fairly good ECM
features already in place.
Search
There are no longer two search products,
SharePoint and FAST for SharePoint. Full integration
of capabilities now exists in SharePoint 2013.
Although we have not witnessed it, we have heard

7. that search can actually be used to render content
to pages, almost like a content management
solution. The old “content query” function in earlier
versions of SharePoint is no longer needed. There
is now a web view of content, and reports are that
there is a continuous crawl feature rather than a
timed crawl. SharePoint 2013 search also contains
a stronger ability to federate results from multiple
sources, such as other SharePoint farms, websites,
exchange and content sources.
there could be challenges with compliance issues
(e.g., Where does data reside?; What about regulated
data?) and potentially with performance. Most likely,
large organizations may need an approach that
dedicates infrastructure, rather than joining a
multi-tenancy environment. Microsoft is addressing
this in a number of ways, including infrastructure as a
service in Azure. The models are not well tested yet,
and will require additional examination.
Our Take: Search is greatly improved in SharePoint
2013, though capabilities could be better refined to
take advantage of the inherent power provided by
the FAST search functionality.
Summary-Observations
Microsoft SharePoint 2013 continues the trend
Microsoft has established: add functionality to
compete in key areas (ECM, UI, etc.) and blend more
and more with the desktop. The social collaboration
features are greatly enhanced. The app store model
is new enough that it will be interesting to see how
it matures.
Organizations that have the patience to adopt
release 1.0 before the user community has shaken
out the new features will be trend-setters and will
need to move methodically in implementation, taking
great care to include strong change management
and communication practices. Time should be
included for additional testing and for the learning
curve required to understand how to implement
what features to whom. With that said, the 2013
incarnation of SharePoint does address several
business issues around social collaboration, the
UI element, and to some extent ECM in terms of
additional support for compliance that were not
accounted for by its predecessor. The app store
model is intriguing, as technical teams could create
solutions for a business team, and then put the new
app in the internal app store for use by other teams.
Regarding SharePoint in Office 365, there is a need
for maturity there as well. For large organizations,
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About Paragon Solutions
Paragon Solutions is an advisory consulting
and systems integration firm that specializes in
enterprise information management to help clients
leverage information assets for better business
results. The company does this through its industry
practices, solution accelerators and specialized
technology competencies that help clients achieve
operational efficiency, business scalability, and
regulatory compliance.
Paragon works with businesses that are focused
in a few key industries—communications, financial
services, healthcare, insurance, and life sciences.
The industry-focused practices work with Paragon’s
competency groups to address today’s client
concerns in Process Optimization, Information
Management, and Information Insight.
For more information, please visit the Paragon
website at www.consultparagon.com, or call
1.800.462.5582.
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