Governance for successfully implementing SharePoint.

• Author: Douglas, Marcia

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New and improved! Longer lasting! Tastes great, less filling ... okay, maybe the hype about Microsoft" SharePoint Server (MSS) 2010 is a bit overdone. But it is inevitable. With the beta release of MSS 2010 and anticipation of the final General Software Availability release only months away, many individuals in the enterprise content management (ECM) community are wondering what this will mean for their organizations.

Although it is vital to understand what technical ECM and records management (RM) capabilities are offered with MSS 2010, it is not the technology itself that makes a successful RM program. An effective enterprise RM program is driven by successfully enabling records capabilities seamlessly within a broader content management program supported by sound governance.

Some Inadequacies Addressed

Many in the RM community were largely disappointed with the ability of Microsoft[R] Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 to provide a robust, enterprise-worthy RM solution. It appears--at least from the beta release of MSS 2010 and its marketing materials--that several key inadequacies have been rectified. Several new capabilities will interest records managers and should be mentioned as they do impact decisions organizations may make as to the enterprise readiness of MSS 2010 (and, perhaps, on whether to abandon or replace any existent RM applications).

Most significantly for records managers, MSS 2010 provides two possible methods for managing records. The records center has been retained, yet content can also be managed "in place"--meaning within the site collection itself, rather than being copied to the records center. So, records declaration can be enabled more flexibly.

In addition, MSS 2010 provides folder inheritance functionality. This facilitates associating policy at various nodes in the file plan and enabling any content filed to child folders to inherit the characteristics of the parent including metadata and retention policy. Managed metadata (managed terms), tagging (managed keywords), and faceted-type navigation (term sets) allow users to participate in content identification and administrators to layer controls on the level of participation. Type-ahead functionality may encourage users to leverage standardized terms and keywords.

MSS 2010's new content organizer provides the capability to auto-file information based on the content type and metadata. Since content types and metadata can be defined and shared across all site collections, there is greater opportunity to achieve consistency in identifying content and applying retention policy.

Notice the wording of the last sentence--"there is greater opportunity." Whether an organization chooses to leverage this opportunity remains a governance issue, rather than a technical one.

MSS 2010's improved technical capabilities will not, in and of themselves, ensure excellence in RM or content management. As many have discovered with MOSS 2007, having a defined strategy and adequate governance for leveraging ANY technology is crucial. For many organizations, MOSS 2007 was introduced without sufficient forethought about its governance. (See sidebar for questions organizations should resolve before deploying SharePoint.)

The Governance Dilemma

The problems with many MOSS 2007 deployments often stem back to basic strategy and governance inadequacies. Typically, robust business...