SharePoint is a great productivity tool with almost endless possibilities in customizations and flexibility even for end users. This is exactly what end users want, because they have lot of ad-hoc requirements besides the strict processes and core-it-systems.

SHAREPOINT IS EASY TO DEPLOY, EASY TO USE AND EASY TO ADAPT!
So, a lot of companies started with SharePoint years ago without regarding concerns of a lot of IT departments, that moaned about possible problems with "manageability of such a tool, where everybody can do what he wants" - but as IT is known to always have pessimistic thoughts about risk and flexibility or unplanned and ad-hox usage of tools,, a lot of companies started SharePoint on a broad base with optimistic estimations and hopes.

It took no wonder that SharePoint spread in a lot of departments and gained appreciation by end users, as the collaborative abilities of SharePoint are really useful in daily business and especially in conjunction with the usage of Office-Documents and "Daily"-Workflows.

"THE DAY AFTER" - REALITY PROVED THAT IT HAS BEEN RIGHT...

Even though most IT guys are not proud about their abilities to foresee disasters, it is sometimes a good feeling, when finally reality confirms the prognostics.

Most "early-bird" companies learned the hard way, that the creativity of their users need not only strict governance rules in creating sites, there are several dimensions more, that should be taken into account to ensure a durable usage of SharePoint.

PATTERNS, NON-FUNCTIONAL-REQUIREMENTS, SCALABILITY, AVAILABILITY, PERMISSIONS...

Uuh.. Sounds like in earlier days without SharePoint. The IT guys are back and want to control everything.

Yep, that's true for the important governance relevant things. But even those IT guys are "new generation" guys, that understand a lot about the needs in the business departments... and IT staff has been cut down so severely in the last years, that there are probably few guys out there, that produce more IT load then truly necessary.

Because IT and Business are much closer today than years before, there is a good common understanding available, that IT needs some strictness and Business needs some flexibility.

BUSINESS AND IT IN PERFECT HARMONY - CUSTOMIZATION GOVERNANCE

With SharePoint, the IT has detected a brand new way to answer the challenging paradigm between strictness and flexibility: Business-frameworks for SharePoint, like the BPA xRM Framework from BPA Solutions

(www.bpa-solutions.net).

Through the usage of such a business-framework, SharePoint governance on business level becomes much easier even in large corporations, because the business framework enhances SharePoint natively by features and functions, that have been missing until now and that enables end users to model their business needs one level above the SharePoint layer in a consistent set of allowed features and permissions.

IT can decide about the level of freedom on SharePoint level to model new objects (like Sites, tables, libraries..) and the business-framework allows end users to model their needs without programming, just by configuring the relations, functions and permissions on business level.

One of the really great features of the BPA xRM framework is, that BPA Solutions provides "Ready to Run" application templates, that can be provided as is or that can be customized by IT or end users themselves without programming.

By this useful option, the business-framework is not just a "framework, but it is a ready-to-run pattern, that helps companies to support departments with a whole set of supported processes, like CRM, QM, PM and many more, which all work with the same usability and a smooth and seamless integration into each other.

RESUME

By this, SharePoint business governance can be designed by IT and business together.

And that at no risk, as the SharePoint layer may be under full control of IT (if wanted), whereas the business flexibility in using data, processes, relations and functions is kept in full.

And that as free and flexible as end users and business expected from beginning on with SharePoint.

Finally, SharePoint governance, business compliance and business flexibility are no longer a vision, but a matter of the decision to use a business-framework with SharePoint.

AUTHORS PROFILE:
Rüdiger Gros, CEO EFEXCON AG, www.efexcon.com

I am in the IT and Software-Development business since 1989 and my role has passed all steps from software developement over it-integration up to business consulting. With deep knowledge in ERP, DMS and BI-Systems, I started to use SharePoint from 2001.
With more than 350 successful lead projects, people rate me as professional project manager and I have been awarded several times for innovative software solutions and project turnaround success in big software projects.
Today, I lead a company fully dedicated to SharePoint, BPA xRM and project management services.

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