It’s hard to believe that 15 years ago, I was working on a SharePoint 2007 deployment and embracing the service provider model, which seemed so new and different. I learned through friends in the SharePoint community by reading blogs and chatting over IM. I would share what I learned with others as we helped fill in our knowledge gaps. Fast forward to 2022, and we find ourselves with more knowledge than we know what to do with.
Microsoft docs are chocked full of information and updated regularly by the paid employees that are sharp and have worked in the field and community members. Microsoft has invested so much in it that they’ve established the Learn platform – more about that over here – https://danusher.com/2022/01/27/microsoft-learn/.
In addition to Microsoft Docs, many learning providers provide anything from Labs to Podcasts to Practice Exams and presenting material to help educate on topics. A few of my favourites include:
Microsoft Learn (see above)
A Cloud Guru – https://www.acloud.guru – overall they’re well known as being an AWS training provider, but over the past few years they’ve branched out and have an entire cadre of MVPs support Azure topics in a regularly scheduled video / podcast. Further, they’ve got some terrific Azure training courses with labs to test your skills out.
Adrian Cantrill’s AWS training – https://learn.cantrill.io – yes, it’s all AWS cloud focused, but if you’re going to flourish in this world you need to put the time and energy into it. Adrian will get you there pretty rapidly and you’ll be deploying environments and solutions in no time flat due to his realism in the hands on labs.
Pluralsight – https://www.pluralsight.com – while the training tends to be more lecture style than hands on learning labs, they’ve got topics that cover a good chunk of Microsoft as well as others and help you get moving in the right direction. Also they just started the acquisition of ACloud.guru, so I can only imagine that things will get better in terms of their hands on labs. In addition to Cloud, they have a ton of materials that are related to Office 365 and Microsoft services and apps.
Voitanos – https://www.voitanos.io – How could I not stop to take a moment and remind you of the premier Microsoft Developer training curriculum that’s out there for all of the SharePoint developers learning new ways to leverage the platform and framework. Great training, great trainers.
Many great providers cover many topics, and there are variations of every form to help you along the way. This does assume you have a budget unless, of course, you want to go with Microsoft Learn, which for the most part, is free (just your time is required).
Bottom line – if you’re looking to gain a certification or knowledge, check across the providers, watch a video or two through their free libraries, figure out if it’s what excites you and then go for it.
If you’re going to be in the Washington DC area in April of this year and you’re looking for some SharePoint and Office 365 training, then I would highly recommend coming on out to the SharePoint Fest that’s taking place in downtown Washington DC on 8-10 April.
There are a ton of sessions that will be going on being taught by Microsoft MVPs, Practitioners, Technologists and Experts from the community. More information about the event is available here: http://www.sharepointfest.com/dc
Back in June 2010, Microsoft released what was known as the Productivity Hub for SharePoint 2010. It was a site collection that Microsoft provided that could be extended out for end users to visit to acquire knowledge on how to use SharePoint. Great resource if you were short on training components and looking for assistance but weren’t able to find their IT Pro (who was probably hiding somewhere no doubt, fearing for their lives). Further for those that are looking to engage and foster adoption of the Information Worker’s in your business, the productivity hub is key to gaining their buy in and helping them to truly dive into the SharePoint platform to make it their tool set.
The best part of the hub in my opinion is the ability to customize it and add additional modules that meet your organization or business unit’s needs to ensure that your implementation is actually serving them from a business perspective rather than just humming away as another file share replacement.
Well, like most technology solutions, there are updates and enhancements. On 17 January 2011, Microsoft released such an update for the Productivity Hub for SharePoint 2010. So, if you’re looking to just download and implement with the content packs – fear not, it’s simply and easy by just heading over to the Microsoft Download Center at:
However, if you’re feeling crafty and are looking to customize this product, it’s available on CodePlex from the team that created it (thanks RedTech!) at:
The key enhancement to the Productivity hub in this case is that of the customization documentation to provide guidance when crafting the Hub for your implementation’s UX.
Being somewhat of a technology addict that enjoys the stream of bits coursing through the air, inducing flux through the antennas embedded within electronics, I tend to also have a craving for knowledge. From a theological standpoint, some might refer to this as the theorist that enjoys staying in the balcony. For the IT Pro they might refer to this as the architect. I suppose I’m a little different though in that I enjoy getting my hands dirty and understanding how the technology beneath the shiny shrink wrap works.
To some this might seem ridiculous – why would you care how something works if you’re able to develop solutions on top of it or just get it operational by clicking Next, Next, Next? I sometimes wonder that as well and it goes back probably to the fact that if you don’t understand things at the bit level, when you start scaling something out at the gigabyte level and you hit limitations you’re going to wonder, “What is it that is your LimFact?” LimFact or limiting factors always tend to be those items that restrict us from proceeding or crossing the plateau of a success criteria.
Limiting Factor – A condition that acts as a control or constraint on some function or process
In the SharePoint world though the limiting factors aren’t just at the level of the technology – in many cases it’s at the level of the education.
What do I mean by this? Well, more times often than not, there’s a misunderstanding as to what someone with a Site Administrator skillset can do in comparison to say a Portal Administrator, Infrastructure Engineer, Solutions Developer, SharePoint .net Developer or UX/UI developer.
Probably Christian Buckley termed this best in a video he put together regarding how one becomes a Site Administrator.
As the video accurately portrays, more often than not someone with tertiary skills and knowledge of how basic list functionality and a copy of one of Wrox’s several SharePoint books is suddenly thrust forward into the roll of SharePoint Site Administrator.
Is it the Site Administrator’s role to ensure that lists and libraries are working properly with the views that their management want? I would argue that it depends on the organization but more than likely such items are more the role of an individual that is the solution developer for that organization. There’s a good chance that management doesn’t quite get that and intermingles the two.
So what does a Site Administrator do then? One might say that they’re the responsible party for ensuring that permissions are set properly for individuals and that views of information are accurate. If they’re not, either they switch hats and take on the role of the solution developer or they delegate the task to the solution developer with a request date for completion.
What about the quotas for the site though and the search scopes? Can’t my site administrator do that? Again, it comes down to a management team’s understanding of a SharePoint organization. More likely than not your SharePoint Site Admin is not also the Portal Administrator (though they probably do have them on speed dial for help troubleshooting issues in their site).
Welcome to the Portal Administrator tier, the individual that ensures the application framework itself is operational – keeping the system’s search indexes up to date, ensuring that services are running and that permissions and the authorization settings at the portal level are working. Is this individual’s responsibility also the health and welfare of the infrastructure that the SharePoint system is hosted on? I surely hope not though this is a common position for dual hatted assignments.
The IT Pro / Infrastructure Engineer typically gets called on frequently to assist with troubleshooting issues with the portal but their daily job description is more to ensure that the authentication and authorization system (if using something than regular classic authentication) is operating normally with little latency, that disk backups are operating properly and that if restored will properly work.
So what about content management? Who’s in charge of that? Clearly I’ve left something out (and I have left out a lot of detail because I didn’t want this to become a highly respected TechNet article on governance)… Content Managers should be individuals appointed within an organization that know the organization and the content, data and information that is relevant to them. If a management structure has the expectation that the individuals within their organization will monitor their information and ensure the care, feeding and nurturing of said information they’re in for a surprise when the system stops being used because individuals resort to just using e-mail – permissions on that are pretty easy, just make sure that they keep the authorization to that “To:” list and that they don’t forward it outside the circle of trust.
I digress. Where’s that leave us with training?
Site Administrators – Definitely should take a class through Microsoft or a partner that is able to educate the individual on the basics of SharePoint site administrator, lists and document libraries (views, content types, columns, permissions, etc.) as well as the permissions model that SharePoint uses for a site.
Site Collection Administrator – Whatever an organization determines their Site Administrator needs to know, Site Collection Administrators should have the same training as well as a greater understanding of site permissions such that they don’t inadvertently remove permissions put in place by their Site Administrators that they shepherd. Further having an understanding of features and their effects on the site collection and underlying sites is a must.
Tenant Administrator – This is definitely something new in SharePoint 2010, but seems to be glossed over in some respects by most training programs. I’d recommend that these individuals be your top notch Site Collection Administrators or have served as a portal administrator at some point so as to ensure that they understand some of the additional benefits of having a multi-tenant dashboard presented to them and what power it gives them.
Web Application Administrator – Wait, what? This was never mentioned. These individuals are typically individuals that either have full read or full control access to a web application. More often than not these individuals are help desk individuals or content managers. With great power comes great responsibility. These individuals really do need to have a site collection administrator background at a minimum to ensure that they don’t inadvertently remove a permission that sabotages the work of another admin.
Portal Administrator – First I’d say that these individuals really do need to have the same training if not more than a Site Administrator. I’d highly recommend these individuals take a course through one of many training organizations for their SharePoint Administrator Boot Camp class so that they have a distinct understanding of how their actions are applied throughout the system they’re in charge of.
SharePoint IT Pro / Infrastructure Engineer – These folks really need to be well versed in SharePoint, with the knowledge of the portal administrator but also with the know how of performing Windows Server administrator functions – trust me, I never thought I’d be setting up clustered servers with shared disks as a SharePoint guy – it’s something that comes with the territory. What’s more having an MCITP or MCSE background is extremely valuable when having to troubleshoot Active Directory issues, or perhaps a Juniper or Cisco background when working with Network and Firewall engineers.
So there seems to be several different levels of SharePoint skillsets without even getting into the solutions developer / application developer / sandboxed solutions developer / no code design developer / SharePoint Designer side of things. How do I find the right training?
I’d recommend any of the following training organizations:
The SharePoint Meetup on Saturday, 4 April 2009 at La Madeline’s in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia went very well, with a diverse crowd of SharePoint professionals from the community coming out to discuss certifications, training and career paths. Additionally it was great to meet other individuals and hear about some of the training that they’ve taken, what they liked, what they didn’t like and what they’re looking to pursue in the future.
I’ll be putting together a short presentation deck on this topic for anyone that’s curious as to what’s certifications are available, best tips for training and what to consider for if you’re looking to go down a particular career path or another.
Next Meetup will be on 2 May 2009 at the SharePoint Saturday DC event at the Reston MTC in Virginia.
If you’re going to be in the Washington DC area in April of this year and you’re looking for some SharePoint and Office 365 training, then I would highly recommend coming on out to the SharePoint Fest that’s taking place in downtown Washington DC on 8-10 April.
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