What to govern in SharePoint
As you design your SharePoint services, governance is critical:
- Quota templates
The size limit (amount of data) placed on each site collection should be determined by the service level for a particular site collection. In addition you can specify the maximum size of files that can be uploaded. To establish the site collection's service level it should be ranked in expected usage and criticallity among other site that will compete for resources in the farm.
The value also indicates the limit that triggers an e-mail alert to the site collection administrator.
- Self-service provisioning
Users can be allowed to create sites on a self-service basis. As a best-practice, using a custom form and workflow to provision sites will allow you to enforce governance rules like size and access levels, while providing a self-service interface.
- Customization policy
The amount of customization allowed at each site level must be carefully considered. Keep in mind that some types of customization are global to the farm. As an example, services that allow self-service site creation may include hundreds of sites that share a single Web application. In which case, you could limit customizations to only those in the user interface, such as adding Web parts to pages. In a service that provides virtual or physical isolation of the server farm, such as for an enterprise portal site, you might allow a large range of customizations, such as custom workflows and event handlers.
- Asset classification
Information should be classified according to business value, simply high, medium, or low will do. Also consider whether the information is public or internal only. This can help establish publishing rules, size limits, content expiration and many other attributes of managing your content and configuration.
- Lifecycle management
You should plan for both long-term and short-term site lifecycles. Some sites are expected to last for only a short period of time, such as, a project specific site or a site pertaining to a business acquisition. Guidelines should be created around site lifecycles, content archival, and site management for each lifecycle established. Records management and data retention should also be considered.
- Branding and templates
Site templates are simply a site definition with saved customizations. Site templates can be used at the site collection level or globally across your farm to enforce consistent branding.
- Data protection
A testable backup and recovery plan should be in place before you begin any SharePoint project. Establish service levels for each category of site based on criticality. An SLA should establish recovery time, criticality of data, outage windows, etc.
- Training
One of the most frequently over looked tasks is training your end users. This is probably the most important. Make sure that the training addresses each role and access level. A good training plan is the key to product adoption and ultimately the projects success.
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