SPC14: Developing future-focused, on-premises solutions

SharePoint Conference 2014 session “Developing future-focused, on-premises solutions” by Bob German.

This session will focus on how to develop on-premises solutions based on architecture patterns that will support migration to Office 365 in the future. These solutions are based on a shift to client-side development to allow repackaging rather than rewriting to enable the new App model. The result is code that is safer and easier to deploy, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

This is an interesting session for me – we currently invest a lot in creating Apps.

SharePoint development today is like MS-DOS

development was in 1981

Comparing the Models

Traditional: Runs on SharePoint, maybe even full trust code. Runs as user or omnipotent.

Modern: Designed for the cloud, runs outside SharePoint, run with granular App permissions.

Switch from traditional, server-side solutions to client-side solutions will take some time – but we cant continue to create server-side solutions like nothing has changed. Bob asked the audience how many are still on SP2010 or work with it – roughly 90% raised the hand.

Real World Scenario

Visual tracking of issues across large department

• Deployment approval takes 6 months
• No sandbox solution

Bob showed a pretty cool demo that renders a ticket system based on (knockout, highcharts and jQuery) – that originally was created in a content editor webpart. Then they converted it to an App with 95% code reuse – pretty nice!!!

Feature Request: Auto-hosted for on-prem – make the provisioning simple

I would sign that.

Workflows

Bob showed in simple steps how to create a workflow that provision a site. In his staged workflow he had an App Step (basically run with elevated permission) that created a subsite.

Everything is an App – even Workflow runs as an App

Summary

That was a good one – simple but effective, with some good advice how to create solutions - “develop outside of SharePoint” - so that you don’t have to recreate entirely when you migrate. Bob showed some really nice demos, I even forgot to take notes!