Real World SharePoint Debacles
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Part of the SPBiz Conference, a real-world look at some basic and complex SharePoint scenarios that did not go so well. However, each issue has a solution or an alternate method to resolve it. In this presentation, we follow a six step process to analyze, solve and prevent SharePoint issues & "debacles".
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Real World SharePoint Debacles
- 1. Online Conference June 17th and 18th 2015 WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Real World SharePoint Debacles – and Their Solutions!
- 2. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Matthew J. Bailey MCT, MCSE, Independent Contractor Email : sharepointmatthew@gmail.com Twitter : @matthewjbailey1 Website : http://www.matthewjbailey.com LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewjbailey1 I consider myself a “SharePoint All-Rounder”. My job tasks have varied and included Administration, Development, Training, Analysis, UAT and Project Management. My job changes often but it keeps things interesting! Currently, I am a MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer) & MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) in SharePoint. I have worked with SharePoint for almost seven years. I don’t like to use the word “expert” but I have a fair amount of knowledge with the technology and currently use it daily in my career. If I don’t know an answer to one of your questions, I will try to find it out or point you in the right direction! Contact Details
- 3. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Agenda 1. Review a different selection of example SharePoint “debacles” whether that be misunderstandings, bad planning, poor programming, product “unknowns” or other issues, both large and small 2.Use a repeatable process to identify the specific issues, narrow down the potential offenders, identify steps to troubleshoot, fix or provide an alternate solution to the issue and (try) to prevent it from occurring again
- 4. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Today’s examples 1. Workflow not working 2. Cannot find correlation ID 3. The mysteriously breaking web part 4. Complex custom developed workflow project
- 5. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Repeatable Process to Solve “Debacles” 1. Clarification / Specifics 2. Know your environment 3. Round up your potential suspects 4. Steps to troubleshoot / Narrowing down issue 5. Potential/Actual Solutions 6. Prevent from occurring in the future
- 7. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Workflow Not Working An end-user states that while in a list, the status of the list item is not changing and she did not receive an email. She is becoming frustrated with SharePoint because it has been happening all day.
- 8. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM REMINDER - Our Process to Solve “Debacles” 1. Clarification / Specifics 2. Know your environment 3. Round up your potential suspects 4. Steps to troubleshoot / Narrowing down issue 5. Potential/Actual Solutions 6. Prevent from occurring in the future
- 9. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Fixing this Workflow Issue 1. Talk with user, which list, screen shot 2. We see this list has InfoPath & SPD workflow 3. Email working, network, server, workflow service? 4. Start with workflow history 5. Ask programmer to redeploy 6. Dev team needs improvement in testing process
- 13. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Can’t Find Correlation ID in Logs You are providing support for SharePoint but do not have direct access to the servers (another team operates this). After a user reports that they receive a screen with an error message and a correlation ID number to reference, you request the administration team to look in the logs for this error to begin troubleshooting.
- 14. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Figuring Out Why the ID is MIA 1. We know we have an error and to look in the ULS logs 2. Due to lack of access & “budgets” the people that have direct access to the servers are not very well trained 3. After receiving the ULS logs, the ID is not there? Huh? 4. How did offshore team collect the log data, get- splogevent, merge-splogfile, just one server ? 5. Beginning to think the log isn’t the issue 6. User training, a quick CC to a manager and a plan
- 16. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Figuring Out Why the ID is MIA 4. How did offshore team collect the log data, get- splogevent, merge-splogfile, just one server? 5. Beginning to think the log isn’t the issue, send some requests to admin team for screenshots of central admin 6. User training, a quick CC to a manager and a plan
- 18. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Figuring Out Why the ID is MIA 6. User training, a quick CC to a manager and a plan
- 20. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Mysteriously Breaking Web Part You are supporting a large company’s intranet. Their home page is built with several different web parts that look up to other areas of SharePoint and other web sites. Lately, almost every web part has been randomly breaking and showing errors. This error is sporadic but has high visibility.
- 22. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Mysteriously Breaking Web Part 1. We can tell that one web part is still working, but the rest of them are not. 2. Do we know how this page is built, specifically?
- 24. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Mysteriously Breaking Web Part 3. Now that we know the page is built with different types of web parts, we can dig deeper. 4. Investigate correlation ID, check all other logs on servers, track times and affected users, finally ask for Microsoft support.
- 25. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Mysteriously Breaking Web Part 5. Unfortunately, there was no solution discovered in this situation. Rebuilding the page differently was selected based on what we knew was working.
- 27. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Mysteriously Breaking Web Part 6. Our only prevention is to not use the type of breaking web parts on prominent pages any longer. Thanks to Paul Choquette (@starxed) for advice on helping rebuild this page.
- 29. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow You have come into a partially started, long, drawn out project to create a workflow that copied pages to other subsites when a button is selected in the ribbon. The project has not been completed for over a year although hundreds of hours from many people have been invested.
- 32. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow 1. There are a great deal of clarifications that need to occur with this project. You are working with a couple of emails and a quote from a outside consulting firm as your documentation and the code from what was delivered many months ago.
- 33. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow 2. Since this environment has a great deal of custom code already deployed and there are not documented business processes on how SharePoint currently functions with some workflows, there is much to learn of the current environment.
- 34. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow 3. Some immediate items that jump out including: – No clear requirements (for programmers or users) – The current code this project depends on – No other issues with the SharePoint environment
- 35. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow 4. Steps to troubleshoot include: – Meet with all stakeholders involved with a visual meeting – Document specifics in detail, clarify what has been done and what is to be done
- 36. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow 5. Potential / Actual Solution: – Create very detailed requirement documents for sign off, including images of the "after" – Regroup with programmers currently working on the project to review and clarify – Create detailed UAT scripts (testing plans) for each user of the system and programmers – Plan new rollout dates
- 39. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow 6. Getting everyone together to be a part of the requirement creation process helps them realize the complexity of the project and also will prompt the stakeholders to answer questions on specifics of the project requirements before the development begins
- 40. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Complex Custom Developed Workflow Recap: What could have been done better? – Notified everyone that no commitment can be made until detailed research has been completed since I am walking into a project someone else has started – Broken the project into smaller pieces, making "mini- projects" to create quick wins and enhance the odds of project success – Built in features that would not allow as many end-user related process errors
- 41. WWW.SPBIZCONF.COM Please fill in my session feedback form available from the ‘Session Resources’ tab on my session window.