This document discusses best practices for developing SharePoint solutions. It covers topics like maintaining separate environments for development, testing, and production; source control of artifacts and content; automated build scripts; and tools for content deployment, workflow creation, and debugging. The presentation demonstrates several tools, including the Content Deployment Wizard, STSDEV, WSPBuilder, SP Deploy, and SharePoint Inspector. It emphasizes that all artifacts should be packaged in WSP solutions and stored in source control before deployment.

1. SharePoint Best Practices
ReadiDepth
Jeremy Thake
Senior Consultant, Readify
Discover, Master, Influence 1

2. Agenda
• Painting a picture
• Team development
• Deployment
• Tools
• Celebrity Deathmatch

3. SharePoint Best Practices - ReadiDepth
PAINTING A PICTURE

4. Development
DEV
INTEGRATION UAT PRODUCTION

5. Content and artifacts
– Artifacts
• Master Pages, Page Layouts, Style Sheets, Images, Web Parts,
Content Types, List Templates, Event Receivers, Workflows, InfoPath
Forms, Site Columns, Custom Fields
– Content
• List Item Instances
– Pages, Documents, Tasks
• Site Instances
– Team Sites, Document Workspaces

6. Synchronising Environments
• Hard to do two way syncs
• Storage
– 12 Hive
– Content Databases
– Web Application Web.Configs
– Web Applications, Site Collections, Sites, Lists object properties
– Assemblies (GAC, Web Application bin directories)
– Components
• ASP.NET 3.5

7. More than one way to skin a cat
• Web User Interface
• SharePoint Designer
• Custom scripts
• Solution Development

8. SharePoint Best Practices - ReadiDepth
TEAM DEVELOPMENT

9. Environments
• Need SharePoint running on development environment
• Visual Studio 2008 / SQL 2005

10. Source Control
• Team Foundation Server
– Shared Check outs
– Labelling
– Branching

11. Code Analysis
• Disposing of SPWeb
• Iterating through object collections

12. Code Manageability
• Structure

13. Visual Studio Team Edition Load
Testing Tools

14. SharePoint Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEPLOYMENT

15. Automated Build Scripts
• Powershell

16. Continuous Integration

17. Traps Avoid
• Moving artifacts and content to environments using:
– Backup/Restore
– SharePoint Designer Export/Import

18. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
TOOLS

19. Content Deployment Wizard
• http://www.codeplex.com/SPDeploymentWizard

20. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEMONSTRATION
Content Deployment Wizard to move
content into Dev Environment

21. STSDEV

22. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEMONSTRATION
STSDEV to create workflow with InfoPath
integration

23. WSPBuilder

24. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEMONSTRATION
WSPBuilder to create Web Part Solution

25. SP Deploy
• http://code.google.com/p/rapid-tools/

26. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEMONSTRATION
SP Deploy to create Site Structure

27. SharePoint Inspector

28. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEMONSTRATION
SharePoint Inspector for debugging

29. VSeWSS – Solution Generator

30. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
DEMONSTRATION
Solution Generator to create SharePoint
List Template Solution

31. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH

32. SharePoint Designer vs Visual Studio
Workflows

33. SharePoint Lists vs SQL Database
Tables

34. InfoPath Forms vs ASP.NET Forms

35. Site Features vs Site Templates

36. Web.Config vs SharePoint Lists vs Web Service
Configuration Management
• Web.config
• SharePoint List
• Web Service / Database

37. SharePoint Development Best Practices - ReadiDepth
SUMMARY

38. Points to take away
• Nothing gets into an environment without a Solution WSP
Package
• All artifacts are stored in source control
• Choose your weapons wisely

39. For more information
• Jeremy Thake’s blog
– http://wss.made4the.net/
• Jeremy Thake’s Diigo Social bookmarks
– http://www.diigo.com/user/jthake/
• Perth SharePoint User Group
– Richard Greene – Implementing BDC
– Tommy Segoro – Comparing Development Tools
– Clinton Cherry – Semantic Search Add-on

40. A Readify Developer Network session
By Jeremy Thake, Senior Consultant, Readify
Email Address: jeremy.thake@readify.net
RDN Website: www.readify.net/rdn
Discover, Master, Influence 40