When it comes to SharePoint customization, there are a few crucial aspects that must be taken into consideration. SharePoint is a platform that is highly customizable. You have the ability to add web parts, configure them, and move them around from one zone to another. It is fairly simple to download SharePoint designer, and determine how to make major changes to SharePoint branding by pointing, clicking, dragging, and saving.
Although SharePoint is open and can be customized, it is important to remember the fact that it is a software product, after all. Poor and sloppy customization may lead to dissatisfied users, poor quality designs, and performance problems. It may even damage your entire system, compelling you to run that disaster recovery plan that you never expected you would have to bring out from your repertoire.
In order to avoid these types of issues and nightmares, you need to have an appropriate plan that contains definite rules for SharePoint customization. When you follow these tips and suggestions, you would manage to enjoy the best of both worlds – a fully customized SharePoint solution catering to your specific business needs that is also efficient and stable for the user community.
Common SharePoint Customization Tips
- For a number of companies, document libraries and custom lists offer backbone functionality, resting their entire SharePoint implementations. Moreover, it is fairly simple to customize them through views.
- SharePoint has two kinds of views: personal and public. Public views should only be created by site administrators, or power users. Based on the efficiency of the company’s SharePoint training plan, developers may also be required to create public views. Casual users, however, must not create public views.
- Personal views can be created by everyone. But, bear in mind the fact that personal views are not to be promoted to the public views.
- Developers must ensure their availability for any assistance. It is possible to accidentally depose a whole SharePoint environment, causing lost time and mad effort to have it restored from backup.
- Finally, training is extremely crucial and must be effectively integrated into any specific SharePoint governance plan, as it strongly relates to SharePoint customization.
It is imperative to balance the power and authority that SharePoint’s tools give to the end users, while preventing any risks that pop up from the very same thing. If you relieve the user from the tools all together, then you reduce the likelihood of risk as well as the support requirements linked with user SharePoint customization.
The disadvantage of keeping customization tools away from the users is that you would curtail the power of the users. This could lead to longer development times and productive projects that never really take off from ground, making processes ineffective that could prove to be a permanent drag on your company.
Just like many other SharePoint governance problems, maintaining the right balance is essential. The best way of doing that is to weigh the benefit received from end users undertaking their customization work against the measures IT will have to undertake to support them. With that said, for efficient SharePoint customization, these tips could be prove to be both helpful and productive.
