Enterprise Deployment and Planning Services are designed to help you envision
SharePoint’s place in your business. We focus on the long-term
solution objective, an understanding that facilitates the key discussions and
requirements gathering sessions needed to ensure the solution meets stakeholder
expectations.
Deployment Planning Services are delivered through the following practice
areas:
Vision: The SharePoint Platform provides tools and features
across 6 categories: Business Intelligence, Business Process, Content
Management, Enterprise Search, Enterprise Portal, and Collaboration.
Given this, working through the mechanics of functional prioritizations can be a
daunting task. Our consultants work with you to provide overall direction
for the solution within the context of your business goals.
Taxonomy: Defining Taxonomy, or site structure, for a
SharePoint environment begins where the Solution Vision ends. Taxonomy
discussions focus on site planning to determine the set of portal sites,
internet presence sites, team sites, and any specialized enterprise sites.
Once defined, a deep-dive is conducted for specific requirements within each of
the defined sites and site collections for roll-up, division\department\team,
application, and other site specific considerations. In addition,
discussions occur regarding size of user base, performance, security, and user
roles considerations.
Governance: Governance, or SharePoint-specific
policies and procedures for operations, are the most critical components for the
long-term sustainability and efficient management of a SharePoint environment.
SharePoint’s ease-of-use and flexibility as a collaboration platform are
responsible for its high adoption rates among users, but are also the most
common reasons for failed or unruly SharePoint implementations. Orphan sites,
unregulated user policies, and lost content are indicative of a poorly governed
environment. Our focus is consistency and defined process across
Infrastructure, Operations, Information Architecture, Testing, Taxonomy and
Navigation, Search, Training, Development and Configurations. Disaster
recovery and backup considerations are also discussed.
Architecture: Architecture design discussions utilize
data collected during prior stages to determine the appropriate installation,
configuration, and network set-up for the SharePoint environment. Use of
clustered farms, server redundancy, and environment parameters is determined.
The deliverable from this engagement is a Solution Deployment Plan with
detailed requirements for installing, configuring, building, and maintaining the
SharePoint environment. Documentation includes specific site build out and user
administration procedures, as well as requirements for any custom development
needs.