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s anyone who has ever done a SharePoint integration project knows, it can be challenging
enough to drive one to drink. SharePoint integration is tough to get through without
imbibing alcohol because, well, it’s HARD. Unless your company has standardized on
SharePoint portals and ASP.NET applications across the board and NEVER needs to connect to external
partners, you are at some point going to need to integrate different types of portals and web
applications. SharePoint integration can be quite the painful journey, so we’re doing a public service
and providing you the list of cocktails you can knock back along the way:
Excitement:
Your mission, should you choose to
accept it, is...
You’ve been given the responsibility of
leading a SharePoint integration. A successful
integration may be the first step to a
promotion. You have dreams of impressing your
CIO and even becoming one yourself someday.
Ingredients: Peach, strawberry, and wild berry
Schnapps. Finished with a can of Red Bull and
a shot of Jagermeister.
Preparation: Shake Red Bull, peach, strawberry,
and wild berry schnapps in a cocktail shaker with ice.
Strain into glass. Then put Jagermeister into shot glass.
Drop in the shot and drink.
You’re on your way!
Reality sets in:
This will not be cheap.
Not just ANYONE can do SharePoint
integrations. You need a deep knowledge
of the Microsoft API framework and need to
understand how to use their custom APIs to
connect SharePoint with other applications.You
need certified Microsoft.Net developers, who
can be expensive hires. Many businesses don’t
have the budget or the ability to hire specialists
with years of experience to implement
these solutions.
It’s a one-two punch:
Microsoft dependency
For this SharePoint integration, businesses also
need to have an infrastructure consisting of
dependent Microsoft products such as Visual
Studio, IIS Web Server, InfoPath, SQL Server database, and dev/test SharePoint environments,
just to name a few. Yes, SharePoint integration
is dependent on many other Microsoft products
— which you may or may not have.
More bad news:
Code complexity
There’s no simple connector, so you need
custom source code to create point-to-point
connections between SharePoint and other
applications. You know this is a short-term fix
because over time, this will become a complex
and tangled control structure. Especially if
“unstructured” branching constructs are used,
such as statements, exceptions, threads. This
result is also known as “spaghetti” code.
Knocked down:
Poor documentation
You know that Microsoft.Net developer you
lobbied so hard to hire? Well, he went off to
Thailand, met a woman, and never came back.
What’s worse, he didn’t document anything, so
there’s no way to figure out why we wrote what
he wrote. It’s a maze.
Down for the count:
Keeping up with policy updates
Even if your developer came back, it will be
difficult to keep up with changes. Regular
revisions in SharePoint’s API framework, such
as new policies on OAuth security, force companies to make related edits, making debugging
very difficult and time-consuming.
Total Failure
You don’t realize it, but hell is where you’re
going when you embark on a Sharepoint
integration. Might as well drink this and hope
your stay there is short.
You are screwed, because you have to ask for
more dough before the project even begins.
Ingredients: 1 3/4 oz. Vodka, 3 1/2 oz. Orange juice
Preparation: Mix in a highball glass with ice.
Garnish and serve over ice.
As it turns out, you only have a drop of the
Microsoft products you need in this integration
bucket.
Ingredients: 1/3 cup frozen vodka, .5 oz Triple Sec,
3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice, 1 Tbsp. superfine
sugar, 1 lemon slice, Ice.
Preparation: Coat the rim of a cocktail glass
with sugar and set aside. Add the remaining
ingredients to a shaker and fill with ice. Shake,
and strain into the prepared glass. Garnish with
a lemon twist.
This will help you hop to a new job so you don’t
have to manage the spaghetti code.
Ingredients: 1 oz fresh cream en, 1 oz. Crème de menthe,
1 oz. Crème de cacao
Preparation: Pour ingredients into a cocktail
shaker with ice. Shake briskly and then strain
into a chilled cocktail glass.
At this point, you know you’re going to have
to reach into the realm of the mystical and
magical to pull off your Sharepoint Integration.
Ingredients: 1 oz coconut rum, 1 oz Kahlua coffee
liqueur, 1 oz butterscotch schnapps, 2 oz milk
Preparation: Pour ingredients over ice in an
old-fashioned glass. Stir, and serve.
The project just keeps sliding downhill. Into the
mud. Might as well drink up.
Ingredients: 1 cup crushed ice, ½ oz. vodka, ½ oz. coffee
flavored liqueur, ½ oz. Irish cream liqueur, ½ tablespoon
chocolate syrup, 1/8 cup whipped cream
Preparation: In a blender, combine crushed ice, vodka,
coffee liqueur and Irish cream liqueur. Drizzle in
chocolate syrup. Blend until smooth. Pour into glasses
and garnish with whipped cream.
Knocked Out:
So your SharePoint integration failed. There
are worse things in life — at least now you no
longer have to bang your head against the wall
on an hourly basis.
Okay, you’re done crying now.
It’s time to move forward.
Ingredients: 3/4 oz Dubonnet Rouge, 3/4 oz Brandy,
1/4 tsp Maraschino liqueur, Juice of 1/2 Lime
Preparation: Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into
a cocktail glass, and serve.
If you’d like to forgo the alcohol while doing
Sharepoint integration, choose Adeptia.
We provide a fully configured out of the box connector
for SharePoint that makes it easy for a business user
to connect to any application, without the
help of specialized IT staff, investment in additional
Microsoft applications, or custom code.
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