Don't Upgrade Your Mess - Re-organize!
Tips for SharePoint 2010 Migration |
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Microsoft announced that SharePoint 2010 will be released on May 12. Are you ready for it? If you have a hard time searching SharePoint content, don't know what content is being stored in SharePoint or who is accessing it, than you need more than just an upgrade to 2010. Don't upgrade your mess, take the time to reorganize.
As you start planning your migration strategy, now is perfect opportunity to reorganize content in order to exploit the new features in SharePoint 2010. To reorganize content, there are a few specific tasks that should be performed during the migration. They are:
- Introduce and apply a data retention policy to your content. Some old content or versions should simply not be moved to the new environment. It should be archived or even abandoned rather than migrated to the new system and then deleted. Applying a data retention policy is an easy way remove old, outdated content as well as saving valuable.
- Design a site hierarchy and lists in the new system so that migrated content is placed into the appropriate locations. There are many factors that play a role in the site tree and list design. Among these are security, data access, navigation, search and authoring.
- Design term stores and term sets so that they could be used and reused in many lists and by many users. Create generic managed metadata fields to be used throughout your environment. Analyze whether your old fields (choice, lookup, check-boxes and radio-buttons) should be converted to this new format.
- Define columns and content types by assigning them to lists and libraries that enforce organization policies; best practices and standards; and enable the use of the unified metadata navigation features.
- Design content types hubs network to reuse content types across multiple site collections. Decide which content types could be reused and where they should be maintained. Consider content types hubs limitations that prevent publishing content types if they are created in the sub-sites of the content types hub. Move re-usable content types into content types hub during migration process.
- Determine how the content will be accessed and design initial navigation structures such as list views with group by clauses, metadata navigation hierarchies, metadata key filters and refinement panel layout.
- Migrate existing content into the newly designed lists and content types that define values for the fields that will support content access and navigation tasks in the future. Retain the value from the existing metadata fields. Map values from the existing fields to the newly designed taxonomy managed metadata fields.
-The MetaVis Team |
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| Out-of-the-Box Migration Strategies vs. Migration Tools |
Microsoft details two out-of-the-box migration strategies - In-Place Upgrade and Data Attached Upgrade. However these strategies may put your valuable intellectual assets at risk if not done correctly. Out-of-the-box strategies make it hard for gradual updates to be made, can compromise existing content, and do not allow for the reorganization on content when migrating. In addition, they do not allow for migration to SharePoint Online or hosted environments. However, there are many tools available that can help ensure a smooth migration to SharePoint 2010.
MetaVis Migrator takes the complexity out of migrating to 2010 by providing a safe and easy tool to migrate content from SharePoint 2003 or 2007 to SharePoint 2010. Using a familiar interface, users can load files from network drives and classify legacy or imported content to unlock the full potential of SharePoint search and navigation. MetaVis ensures that existing metadata tags and content types or values are transferred or can be changed along with folder structures for improved SharePoint organization and manageability.
 For more information visit MetaVis Mirgator and for a free trial download click here. |
| SharePoint Taxonomies - Visualize, Design & Control |
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MetaVis Architect for SharePoint is built to visualize, design and control SharePoint taxonomies. This is the first in a series of articles that digs deeper into the theme of visualizing, designing and controlling SharePoint taxonomy. In these articles we will define what taxonomies are in the context of SharePoint information architect and discuss various business cases related to SharePoint taxonomies.
Within SharePoint there are two kinds of taxonomies:
- Data Taxonomy defines physical location of items and documents. Data taxonomy consists of sites, sub-sites, lists, libraries and folders.
- Information Taxonomy defines metadata and consists of fields and hierarchy of content types in sites, sub-sites, lists and libraries as well as actual field values assigned to SharePoint items and documents.
Logic might suggest that data and information taxonomies should be designed prior to the system implementation. However, systems designed this way may not truly reflect how the content is used, accessed, searched and its relationship with other content. In many situations, the data structures should be discovered from the existing system. For some, it might be appropriate to evolve taxonomies gradually while rolling out new functions or involving additional organizational units into the SharePoint evolution. For others, it might be beneficial to let several power users to define their own taxonomies and then learn about business processes in the organization by studying these taxonomies, making them generic for the larger groups or fixing their flaws.
At MetaVis, we often hear complaints that uncontrolled SharePoint sites grow like weeds within organizations. With proper tools to understand and organize SharePoint sites it is possible to analyze how data is collected and apply this knowledge to building more efficient systems. This way of thinking provides a compelling alternative to the traditional school of thought and how to manuals.
Good data organization in the enterprise usually does not appear as a sudden solution for all problems. Rather it evolves from no taxonomy at all to a system of collecting all data in the same place, enforcing corporate policies and engaging project teams to gradually but constantly improve content usability through the use of metadata.
Considering the natural complexity of both data and information taxonomies and the different ways it is created, used and maintained, we will discuss in these articles on three major activities performed by an information architect responsible for their support:
- Visualize - discover architecture of the existing system or layout the design of the future one. Present this architecture in a comprehensible way.
- Design - create new taxonomy elements or reuse parts existing in the other systems.
- Control - make sure that taxonomies in the existing systems follow corporate policies and industry accepted best practices.
Stay tuned for our next article focused on visualization. |
Featured Video:
MetaVis Migrator - Import Files into SharePoint |
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In this video lean how to import multiples files en masse into SharePoint. Topics covered in the demo include:
- Selecting multiple files and folders in local and remote storage
- Using drag and drop
- Tagging files as they are imported
- Overriding the default Modeified/Created fields in SharePoint
- Using tagging templates
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MetaVis Technologies is a provider of software that extends the value of Microsoft SharePoint by enhancing search, findability and e-discovery. MetaVis products allow information architects and administrators to develop and maintain reusable taxonomies and better organize SharePoint content.
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