SharePoint development may be required to provide an environment that is custom to a business as well as to enable additional features and integrate with existing and new technologies. Many companies provide consulting services for SharePoint, allowing an understanding to be gained on the capabilities of the core features provided by SharePoint, and how they can be utilised or developed to build solutions for the business. Custom SharePoint Development may include anything from the construction of an intranet environment to the development of complex workflow involving many people within the business, that may also draw from a range of existing sources for data such as project reporting or accounting systems.
An Intranet environment would generally have appropriate team sites created for each division or team within the business, including document management tools, team communication and collaboration, task and resource management, security, etc. Document repositories with version control and approval workflow can allow business documentation, forms and form templates to be maintained, distributed and controlled securely from a central or many locations.
Once configured and secured on the network of a business, SharePoint provides a large range of easy to use features for creating and configuring sites, groups and permissions, individual lists & libraries such as calendars, tasks, discussions and document/form libraries and basic workflow. With sufficient permission to a site collection, new sites, workspaces and site components can be created and maintained easily using the list / site settings & other components of the web interface provided by SharePoint.
Some organisations may require custom SharePoint development to build solutions that automate existing processes within the business to improve efficiency and reduce the chance of human error. This may even include the development of a web facing form for clients/customers that can be placed on an extranet that would also be powered by SharePoint, and could interact with other internal portals and site collections used by the business.
SharePoint provides a range of predefined workflows that can be applied and configured on lists / document libraries on a SharePoint site. No SharePoint development is required to configure or use these workflows, as the process is configurable using the browser. In most cases, the approval workflow provided by SharePoint will be the most commonly used, as it allows documents, files and content to be maintained by all or a set of users, but changes need to be approved by an authorised person before they will become available to others.
SharePoint Designer also provides functionality to build workflow and develop in SharePoint, allowing greater control over the process and number of options available without needing to use code. Other third party workflow tools also exist to help ease the process of creating workflow in SharePoint, as well as making it possible for a general SharePoint user to understand and build workflow instead of a SharePoint Developer.
In many cases, the core features provided by SharePoint and SharePoint Designer will not be suitable for, or capable of being used to build solutions in SharePoint. This is where a SharePoint consultant or solution architect may be required to help design a solution that will best suit the needs of the business. Companies providing SharePoint consultancy services can, and will generally assist with each of the planning, design, development an implementation phases of a SharePoint implementation, or the development of various solution for the business using or utilising SharePoint.
Find SharePoint Development resources, including resources for SharePoint developers and a collection of companies providing SharePoint Development services. Stay up to date with SharePoint development news and resources, or simply learn more about SharePoint and it's capabilities using the range of resources provided by DevSharePoint.com.
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