West Chester University SharePoint Governance Plan

Transcription

1 West Chester University Information Services Division Governance Strategic Direction Last Updated February 24, 2014

2 SharePoint Strategic Direction Table of Contents I. Executive Summary... 3 II. Introduction... 4 III. Architecture (Farm) Design... 7 IV. Security... 9 V. Internal Communications... 9 VI. Training VII. Content Management VIII. Document Workspaces IX. Forms Management X. Appendix D: Application Usage Policies XI. Appendix E: Communication and Training West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 2

3 I. Executive Summary The SharePoint Governance Plan is a guidebook outlining the administration, maintenance, and support of West Chester University s SharePoint environments. It identifies lines of ownership for both professional and technical teams, defining who is responsible for what areas of the system. Furthermore it establishes rules for appropriate usage of the SharePoint environments. An effective governance plan ensures the system is managed and used in accordance with its designed intent to prevent it from becoming an unmanageable system. The management of an enterprise-wide system involves both a strategic, professional-minded board to craft rules and procedures for the use of the system and also a tactical, technically-competent team to manage the routine operational tasks that keep the system running. Users of the system will be empowered by a support and developer community sponsored by the organization leaders. The primary goals of this project are to: 1. Create the people infrastructure to govern and support the SharePoint environments. 2. Document initial governing policies and procedures of the SharePoint environments. 3. Communicate the need for the organization to provide support via people resources. Portal Management Description of Centralized or Decentralized SharePoint Environment SharePoint is centrally managed via the IT/WCU Web Team. Site Each owner is given responsibility and access to manage his or her specific sites. Access to the site is mainly limited to WCU faculty, staff, and students (i.e. graduate assistants, interns), who are working with a specific faculty or staff member. Future Direction It will be the responsibility of the Web Team and the Web Advisory Committee to collectively seek out organization opportunities for enhancement. The team will ask questions such as: How does the Web Team improve organization processes and deliver on that? What structures need to be in place to deliver this value? What areas of the organization offer the most opportunity for growth? How can the Web Team align its activities with the goals of the organization? Are there synergies that can be created between divisions and departments? What groups are doing similar initiatives and how can the Web Team help? What ways can the Web Team reduce inefficiencies and duplication? West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 3

4 II. Introduction The following sections outline the main concepts for the proceeding report. Objectives The primary objective of this plan is to establish the creation of a governing body for the usage and management of the SharePoint environments. Other objectives are: Identify appropriate university leaders willing to provide strategic insight and direction for the portal, and able to drive strategic initiatives into their respective organizations. Identify appropriate infrastructure (IT) resources to provide operational support for the system. Create an effective support system with proper channels of escalation for end users of the SharePoint environments. Communicate the need for university leaders to provide technical support to the system in the form of technically talented employees both willing and able to customize, personalize, and use SharePoint in a manner that fulfills the business opportunities as identified by the strategy board. Establish initial governing usage and maintenance policies and procedures for the SharePoint environments. Audience This document is intended to be read by all members of the SharePoint governance team as well as all key users of the SharePoint environment (IT, university leaders, and site administrators). Scope This Governance Plan includes the live SharePoint environment. Risks / Concerns The following are risks to an effective governance plan: Inadequate support from the university leaders to affect proper governance Administrators or users refusing to abide by the given policies in this plan Lack of policy enforcement. Team Roles and Responsibilities The SharePoint environment will be managed by four teams: Networking and Telecommunications, Web Services, SharePoint Administration, and secondary site owners. Regardless of what name the Web Teams ascribe to these teams, they will play distinct roles and have distinct responsibilities. For the purposes of this governance plan, the teams are defined as follows: West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 4

5 Individual Roles and Responsibilities A. Networking/Telecommunications Role System Administrator/Portal Administrator SQL Administrator Infrastructure Resource(s) Responsibilities and Tasks Responsible for portal infrastructure (hardware, OS, etc.) Security / permissions Backups / restoration Initial support; train and assign a resident SharePoint expert for SharePoint admin. Disseminate general SharePoint info Meet w/ business on "how-to" accomplish tasks Manage file size limits or quotas Initial configuration of SharePoint (Central IT) SQL backups and restores Responsible for the acquisition, installation and maintenance of the hardware infrastructure. Provide day-to-day operation support to Portal Team Review existing infrastructure setup, develop best practices and operation guidelines Active Directory Resource(s) Responsible for ensuring the portal is leveraging AD appropriately. Assist with Setting up the portal to use AD for authentication Assist in synchronization of portal with AD B. Web Services Role SharePoint Lead Architect Responsibilities and Tasks Responsible for translating needs addressed into initiatives for the portal and coordinating Portal Administrator efforts. Gather initial business requirements Design the initial architecture for successful development Provide architectural guidance to development Lead consulting team for initial release Manage project risks, and escalate incidents to the team as necessary Work with the Infrastructure Team to develop infrastructure and operation best practices Work with System Administrators to develop best practices West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 5

6 Role Developers Application Resources Site Owner Content Creator Legal Responsibilities and Tasks Responsible for building the framework and features of the portal. Build the SharePoint look and Feel Modify SharePoint Templates as Needed Build New Web Parts Write ASP.Net Code Participate in Design Tasks as needed Participate in Development and Testing as needed Responsible for portal applications and third party applications. Build and maintain applications or web parts that leverage KPI data Business Intelligence, Reporting, Dashboards, and data analytics. Responsible for owning and directing a specific piece of the portal, relevant to their department, or team. Responsible for content creation. Responsible for portal and content compliance with legal mandates. Assist with compliance policy creation Educate users on compliance law Audit and enforce compliance C. SharePoint Administrator Role SharePoint Administrator Responsibilities and Tasks Responsible for global portal and SharePoint configuration, shared services, policies, procedures, and portal vision. Configuration of SharePoint SharePoint Administrator SharePoint Administrator (Site Collection Administrator) SharePoint Administrator Responsible for portal area content. Manage security Create sub-areas Content creation Responsible for SharePoint database, site collection. Enforce site standards (layouts, security processes, etc.) Local contact for local clients Configuration of SharePoint Site provisioning Responsible for site provisioning of all sub-sites; responsible for West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 6

7 Role Responsibilities and Tasks administering and maintaining primary site. Manage security for all sub-sites Provide training to clients D. Secondary Site Owners Role Secondary Site Owner Responsibilities and Tasks Responsible for administering and maintaining secondary site. Manage the site layout (look and feel), structure, and content Content creation Manage sub-sites of the secondary site Manage secondary and sub-site permissions Reference Appendix D for Operations Policies regarding System Administration and Portal Administration. Hardware Constraints The SharePoint interface is compatible on an Apple computer and ipad using the Safari web browser. However, Microsoft Office files can be viewed on a Mac computer and ipad, but cannot be edited. To have the full editing capabilities, Mac users need to install Microsoft Office for Mac s on their Apple products. Mobile devices can access the WCU SharePoint portal, however, a Mobile view has not been designed, therefore, users will have some difficulty reading the site. Reference Appendix C for information regarding servers and IP address information. III. Architecture Farm Design Description The intranet would only be accessible to WCU employees and PASSHE stakeholders, who have been given access to a site directly, by authentication of their PASSHE Active Directory account information. The WCU SharePoint Portal consists of seven site collections, one for the President and one each for the Vice Presidents of the University. Under these site collections different sub-sites have been created for various departments, which will allow the Web Team to control security and access to departmental resources through individual Active Directory accounts. Even within a department site, such as Human Resources, a layered access model would be followed. For example, on the general HR site, policies, procedure guides and electronic forms that are available to all employees may be found. However, other materials on the site might be restricted to managers, such as employee performance reviews, West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 7

8 and still further restricted might be items like draft policies, pay information reports, etc. that would only be accessible to HR staff. The Facilities Division site was designed by Collective Intelligence, a SharePoint consulting firm. The site has been assigned it s own database due to the volume of data that the division stores. The Facilities Division has purchased three third party plug-ins, Colligo (for ), CADtoWIN (for AutoCad) and BoostSolutions (for multiple document check-in). The Facilities Division is responsible for contacting the vendors for any technical support that may be needed. Neither the Web Team nor the IT Help Desk support 3 rd party plug-ins. Each site is carefully designed with the work processes and information storage requirements of the individual department. Planning starts at the site level where the Web Team determines what type of information and documents will be published there. Next the Web Team determines where those information resources are stored on the site and what additional information should be stored along with the files. Investigatory work such as planning for automations, forms and workflow processes as well as who requires what level of access to the site will be completed prior to site development and release. These steps provide a recipe for the creation of the intranet, guidance for developers and system administrators and eventually the first iteration of the structure for testing by pilot users. Our effort is aimed at removing dependence upon network folders and/or ing files as the means by which West Chester University stores and manages documents, information and records. By moving our files into SharePoint the Web Team can take advantage of the opportunity to reengineer our information taxonomy into a planned and controlled environment. The Web Team can also apply new access controls, take advantage of published templates and content types, capture additional information about our documents, define alerts and create business specific workflows aimed at enhancing human productivity. Finally the Web Team gains the advantages of indexed searching of all the content that is placed in the system. Current Practices Strategic Direction It is the practice of the West Chester University IT Department to address both the technical and organizational aspects of the SharePoint farm deployment. The technical performance issues will be closely monitored applying both the Microsoft SharePoint best practices analyzer and the SQL performance monitor to anticipate when physical expansion of farm resources might be required. In addition, usage processing analysis is enabled on the farm to provide insight into what content is being accessed. Organizationally it is preferable for West Chester University to move to a farm structure where internal business processes and departmental work happens on a site separate from the public website. Intermixing of purely internal information with a site that is constructed as a general purpose site is not ideal from a process or technical standpoint. Construction of an intranet focused SharePoint site will allow for distinct functional and security separation from the existing web while simplifying West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 8

9 management of features and tools. The IT department will work with each department to design an intranet based structure that is more conducive to internal business processes and needs. IV. Security Creating a secure technology environment is paramount to the overall strategic direction and business requirements. The individual areas where best practice security measures can be applied are: During sign-in, when usernames and passwords are submitted SharePoint internal communications o Least privilege account setup File level security Security Practices During Sign-In The Microsoft IIS servers (Internet servers) are configured to perform "Integrated Windows Authentication", which allows the clients web browser to use NTLM. This authentication method coupled with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and strong passwords used by WCU s Active Directory protects the SharePoint portal from unauthorized access. Also, as an added measure, any SharePoint portal that requires authentication (document libraries, team sites, etc.), will be protected during transmission via SSL. V. Internal Communications Least Privilege Account Setup Description Least privilege administration is a recommended security practice in which each service or user is provided with only the minimum privileges needed to accomplish the tasks they are authorized to perform. This means that each service is granted access to only the resources that are necessary to its purpose. The minimum requirements to achieve this design goal include the following: Separate accounts are used for different services and processes. No executing service or process account is running with local administrator permissions. By using separate service accounts for each service and limiting the permissions assigned to each account, the Web Team reduces the opportunity for a malicious user or process to compromise our environment. Least privilege administration with domain user accounts is the recommended configuration for most environments. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 9

10 Current Practices Strategic Direction It is the policy of the West Chester University IT Department to configure the SharePoint farm environment in a least privileges security model and to continue to implement this methodology as new SharePoint sites and web applications are deployed. The use of the least privileges implementation model provides the greatest degree of separation of security rights between service accounts, system administration and IT support accounts. It also provides the greatest degree of protection from accidental or intentional misuse of an account, common issues such as an inadvertent password change to a service account or account expiration. SharePoint service accounts are implemented in three functional categories: content access, application pool, and execution. Content access accounts allow SharePoint to interact with SQL. The SharePoint indexing and search services require a content access account, which has read-only rights to the databases. As such, only one service account is implemented for all content-access needs. Application pools are used in Internet Information Services (IIS) to execute code for the websites that are assigned to it. If an application pool encounters an error, only the sites using that pool will be affected. The SharePoint site is separated into several different web applications, each using a separate application pool. Application pool service accounts are used to start and execute processes at the IIS / OS level for each application pool. To maximize robustness and security, each application pool uses a unique service account. Execution accounts are needed to allow SharePoint to start, stop, and manage OS level services across servers in the farm. Central Administration requires an execution account to allow timer jobs and other administrative tasks to be performed. The Shared Service Provider (SSP) also needs an execution account to coordinate the search indexes and global SharePoint services. Since Central Admin and the SSP are two distinct applications, each uses a unique service account. The separation of service accounts as described in Appendix A was developed following the models and guidelines recommended by Microsoft. VI. Training Two information sessions were held in December 2011 for all SharePoint site owners. These sessions demonstrated the new features of SharePoint 2010 focusing on the new layout and the integration of the Ribbon bar. Starting in January of 2012, training sessions have been held twice monthly. These sessions are open to all WCU employees, however, most attendees at this point in time are department representatives who have been asked to update their sites. At these training sessions individuals charged with making department level editing changes to the website were given instructions on how to maintain the existing content, create new content, and to develop new pages. The training booklet is located on the WCU Client Services software application training handout index under SharePoint. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 10

11 As users became more familiar with SharePoint s capabilities, the Web Team will be offering training on what additional functions a robust enterprise portal and content management environment has to offer. As a result, the IT department has continued to offer individual department information workshops and consulting sessions on applying the available tools to help streamline current processes. Advanced training classes: Creating a Teamsite Working with libraries and custom lists Web parts VII. Content Management A common dilemma in SharePoint deployments is how to make content available to users across all sites in the portal. Content is defined as items such as documents, forms, list items, records, and many others. The SharePoint technical architecture tends to follow the "one version of the truth" philosophy. In other words, a file "exists" in one location in the portal and for business purposes this file should be considered the only true copy. The file may have many versions, however the file and associated versions are stored in a single location. SharePoint remedies the deficiencies of network shares and management of documents by allowing the Web Team to have a definitive version of such information rather than having multiple copies stored in various locations. It is possible to store files in such a manner but it is not recommended as it would be duplicating the chaos of network shares. Current Practices Strategic Direction It is the policy of the West Chester University IT Department to create a SharePoint information organization and sharing structure that is orderly and follows closely the practical day to day needs of the users. Implementation of such a structure requires the active input and feedback from the user community. User understanding and acceptance is necessary to ensure that employees understand and receive tangible business process benefits. Guiding Principles West Chester University s IT department has used the following key points to ensure the Web Team is meeting or exceeding our user s expectations. Effort should be made to create a proper library and list for information that should be stored in the portal. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 11

12 Rather than using folders in document libraries it is preferable to capture metadata from the user when they store or create new documents, which helps to identify information and is searchable; o This will be one of the most difficult tasks and will only be accomplished over a long period of time. o There are no plans to conduct a large metadata identification process Use content types as much as possible to define standard templates for things such as letterhead, fax cover sheets, forms, etc. This maintains tight standards and maintenance of the templates, taking it out of the hands of the user to recall which template is correct. Links list can be used to publish links to specific documents, allowing the document to reside in its proper document library and yet can be opened provided the user has at least read rights to the library or file. Have system users use the "Connect to Outlook" feature in lists and libraries and use Outlook as a means to aggregate content for them. The content still remains in SharePoint but with Outlook users can read write from Office without navigating to SharePoint directly. Do not overly complicate security by applying security at the document level when possible. Security should be applied at the highest level practical for the intended business purpose to maintain ease of administration. Never create a list or library for "MISC", "OTHER", etc. Each document library and list should be planned out and have a business purpose. A well designed portal should be extremely intuitive. If they have to resort to the search feature to find their everyday work materials the information organization structure should be revisited. VIII. Document Workspaces It is the practice of the West Chester University IT Department to not use the document workspace features of SharePoint at this time. The extra administrative burden and dilution of document resources does not seem to offer a tangible benefit at this time, although this policy can be revisited. If there is keen interest in this feature it would be recommended to setup a test environment outside of the production SharePoint deployment so that a group of pilot users could try the document workspace features and make an informed decision as to whether this is a component of SharePoint that should be generally used. My Sites Personal Portals This feature has been currently disabled due to the lack of documented policies, procedures, and controls on the usage at this time. However, this feature may be offered in the future. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 12

13 IX. Forms Management SharePoint includes the capability to produce, publish and receive electronic forms. Forms are designed in an application called Microsoft Office InfoPath. While not widely used within West Chester University it is deployed as part of the Office Suite of products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Electronic forms may be developed such that they require the end-user to have InfoPath installed on their computer or they may be developed in such a way that they only require a web browser to complete and submit. Browser only designed forms do have some limitations in features that are available during the design process, but most can be worked around through proper planning and matching of the form features to the business process that is being automated. When publishing a form to SharePoint for user interaction, there are a wide variety of options available. Forms may be published administratively by the SharePoint Central System Administrator(s) and deployed to multiple site collections as a form that is available across all sites, or they may be published to a specific site collection as a content type and used on multiple sites in the collection. They also may be published to a specific form library. Generally speaking forms are most commonly deployed either to the site collection as a content type or to a specific form library. Administratively deployed forms have rather rigorous technical requirements to properly implement and that level of publishing is usually not required for most business scenarios. It is possible to have users initiate completion of a form in one location and the forms submit action to actually save it to a different location in the portal. This is dependent upon the user having the proper level of permissions in the eventual destination. Current Practices Strategic Direction It is the practice of the WCU IT Department to use InfoPath electronic forms to seek opportunities to convert internal use paper based forms to InfoPath electronic forms. These forms will be published on the portal for use by authenticated users [logged in accounts] and developed to save as electronic documents to form libraries. Form templates (.xsn filetype), will primarily be published to specific document libraries which will also be the destination location for the completed forms (.xml filetype). The Web Team will still have the capability to provide users with a link to initiate a form from a SharePoint page and the electronic form will be pre-programmed to store the form in the final destination. This feature would allow the Web Team to centralized access to forms as much as possible except as where required by security or business considerations. Provost, HR, Finance & Business Services and IT departments are currently the only departments on campus using InfoPath forms. However, there is the potential of expanding the use of these forms to other departments. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 13

14 Technical Information To submit a form directly to a SharePoint form library a user must be logged in with an account that has contribute rights to the destination form library set in the form's submit action. Anonymous forms may be submitted to a custom web service that can then write the form to the form library on behalf of the user. The use of a third party custom web part will also allow for anonymous form submission. Forms that are programmed to submit via require the user to have Outlook 2003/2007 or later on their local machine. This can be problematic for anonymous visitors as you cannot know what Office programs they have on their home or work computer. Forms can be programmed to submit to , a database, a web service or a form library, or to perform all of those actions simultaneously. Forms designed for browser only operations have limitations as to the types of forms controls that may be used during design. These limitations must be compared against the intended business use of the form. Each form's business purpose must be carefully reviewed prior to development to determine the optimum design strategy. Security of forms that will contain sensitive or personal information must be considered during the form design planning process. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 14

15 Appendix D Application Usage Policies Policies Site Provisioning (intranet, extranet, regional vs. corporate, etc.) Sites should target a specific audience Portal Sites should only be used in instances where: Content that applies to multiple parts of the organization is being aggregated and made available. There are resources responsible for maintaining the content on the site. The site can be recognized as a top level topic within the organization and is enduring. (e.g., Human Resources, IT) SharePoint Sites should be used as follows: By teams as a method for organizing information that is specific to the team or project they are currently working on. System Administrators may decide to provision top level sites and grant university leaders (was business owners) provisioning permissions (create, administer, delete) over their own sites. Portal Administrators may need to coordinate and create Project sites since all users may not have access initially; however, smaller team sites can be created by Site Administrators. Sites will be created with templates appropriate for their business purpose. Sites are based on templates that are centrally designed. The assigned business site administrator is responsible for assigning further access to new sites. Sites will adhere to the following standards: The WCU SharePoint portal is used campus wide and, therefore, will maintain a professional look and feel throughout all sites and subsites. The use of excessive color themes, graphic art or anything that does not uphold West Chester University s standards will be removed. The University logo is a standard across all SharePoint sites and should not be changed or modified. Content: Site owners are responsible for all content of their site. Any information or files that are outdated and are no longer in use should be removed. Site URLs will be created according to the following standards: WCU Portal Division Sites htts://sp.wcupa.edu/division Team Sites Sub Sites Site Management Site auto expiration: To ensure stale sites are removed and data storage is reclaimed, sites untouched for 12 months will be slated for automatic deletion. Site owners will be notified if their site is slated for deletion and provided with a mechanism to remove it from the automatic deletion list. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 15

16 User Access All SharePoint Administrators must review the training materials and complete a skills assessment prior to becoming an Administrator. Development Custom development needs to be first scoped by the Web Team. This includes any development under Windows Workflow Foundation (WinFX). No web development tools other than those provided by SharePoint for development of the SharePoint user interface (no SharePoint Designer, a.k.a. FrontPage, no Visual Studio, no Cold Fusion, etc). These tools are permissible only for the development of custom web applications outside of SharePoint. These applications are considered external to SharePoint. West Chester University Employees must develop web sites in compliance with Intranet design standards and laws concerning copyrights, proprietary names and trademarks. Storage Quotas By default SharePoint imposes a 50MB limit on the size of a single document that can be uploaded into a document library. At this time, no storage limit has been imposed on Top-level team sites. However, this policy will be revisited on a regular basis to assure that storage remains ample for all sites. SharePoint administrators can override storage quota for Site Collections if necessary Document Management Documents used only by a particular location, or with minimal sharing, should be stored at that site, typically on that site s SharePoint server. Documents shared across multiple divisions should be stored on the Portal Allowed file types: doc, xls, ppt, jif, jpeg, png, etc Prohibited file types: mp3, avi, mdb, etc Content Management All portal content that reaches the portal site is created by a user and then deployed to the portal via a request to the appropriate content approver or site administrator to add or update the content on the portal. The administrator may be required to convert some of this content into a format more suitable for the portal prior to updating the portal site. Content will be maintained by the appropriate business content owner, typically the author of the content. Content posted to the Intranet as: INTERNAL is not to be transmitted outside the West Chester Univerisity Group. Content that is not identified is considered to be INTERNAL. CONFIDENTIAL is not to be transmitted or shared with anyone who does not have authorization to see it. PUBLIC USE has been deemed to not contain proprietary or confidential information and may be shared with anyone. PRIVILEGED is regarded as attorney-client communication and shall be dated and not transmitted or shared with anyone who does not have authorization to see it. COPYRIGHTED shall be assumed to be protected by copyright and shall be dated and marked. It shall show West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 16

17 the copyright owner s name and shall not be reproduced in electronic or hard-copy form without authorization. Users follow a built-in approval process for getting content published to their sites. If the setting is automatically approved the content is immediately available. Where approval is required, the content must be approved by the appropriate content approver or site administrator. In this case, the content approver is responsible for reviewing and approving content posted to the Intranet. Conduct West Chester University Employees or agents of West Chester University using the West Chester University SharePoint environments are representing the University. They are expected to conduct all business in a professional business manner. Procedures How to Obtain Support Contact the site owner listed on the site Contact your local System Administrator unless a SharePoint Support Representative has been designated for your location. In that case, contact your local SharePoint Support Representative Contact a member of your business unit s volunteer Support Team. Members are listed on the SharePoint Governance site Contact the Portal Administrator, Portal Administrators are listed on the SharePoint Governance site Contact the Web Team. Discover Who is Serving on the Governance Teams To Request a SharePoint site, the requestor s department Chair or manager must submit an to webmaster@wcupa.edu, the SharePoint Administrator, with the following information: Define purpose of the site. State the name of the site. The site collection where the site will reside; example Academic Affairs, Advancement, etc. Names of the owners of the site. Requesting Access To a Site Find the site owner listed on the site you want access to. Contact that person to request access. Alternatively, if the site has Access Requests enabled, simply submit the access request when presented with that option. How To Become a Site Owner Administrator Steps to becoming an Administrator of your own site: 1. Request permission for a site from your department chair or manager and submit the request to the webmaster account, webmaster@wcupa.edu 2. Attend a SharePoint 2010 training session. These sessions are offered twice a month. 3. After training is complete, the SharePoint Administrator will create your site and grant you administrative rights to the site. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 17

18 Appendix E Communication and Training Communication Plan Communication to the business regarding this Governance Plan will be in the form of web content on a site off the home page of the corporate portal site. Communication to the Governance Teams Communication to the governance teams regarding this Governance Plan or any governance activities or issues will be in the following forms: Web content listed above Scheduled meetings or conference calls Ad hoc communications via . Training Plan For any new system, a solid training plan is required if the users are going to adopt the new system and use it effectively in their daily activities. Training Requirements are listed below. Training All users of the system will require some form of training. Business Owners need education of the product including capabilities. Site Owners need advanced training, including office integration and Security Policies. End Users need usage overview training. Help Desk personnel require intense training and troubleshooting analysis. Tier two or tier three support should be considered for official, externally-provided training. Training approach should begin by covering elementary tasks and progress to more difficult tasks, culminating in administrator level tasks and administrator certification. Training tools may include: How to documentation (such as what exists today) Instructor-led training hosted by the Portal Administrator or other competent individual(s) Online labs hosted on a sandbox environment Training will initially consist of online reference materials for both typical end users (addressing How To information) and system administrators (addressing more technical issues such as SharePoint deployment best practices ). Refer to the official SharePoint Training Plan for a comprehensive overview of this training. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 18

19 o Support Plan Support for the SharePoint environments is similar to the management of the SharePoint environments. Support will be provided via a regional, multi-tiered approach. The support system consists of a network of support professionals: business owners and SharePoint Products and Technologies experts for first level support, Plant SAs or the CompanyX Corporate Help Desk for tier two support, and portal administrators for tier three support. The types of support required for SharePoint Products and Technologies are Operational support (both back-end system administrator and front-end portal administrator support) and Application Support for end users. Who to Contact Operational Support The System Administrator will support the day to day operational issues for the SharePoint deployments. Infrastructure issues requiring technical escalation will be escalated to the IT contact and subsequently to the corporate IT contact. Final escalation would be to the appropriate hardware or software vendor. End User Support The End User Administrator will be the primary end user support first point of contact to answer all end user questions. Second tier escalation will be to the Portal Administrator. Final escalation would be to the appropriate software vendor. Support Availability Support Group Special Functions Availability User Self Help Tier 1 End User Support Administrator Tier 2 Portal Administrators Online information on the Corporate Intranet Default SharePoint Products and Technologies help documentation Basic product support; general how to and troubleshooting questions from users Provide routine tasks to users such as fulfilling requests for site provisioning of team sites Site access issues Change site ownership Escalations to tier 2 Create or delete portal sites Redirect or rename site Site restore requests Resolve escalated issues 7 days x 24 hours Normal Business Office Hours Normal Business Office Hours Tier 1. The End User Support Administrator is the first line of contact for all users with questions and West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 19

20 problems concerning the SharePoint environments. Support staff help users validate issues, understand features and functionality, resolve known issues and escalate issues that require additional expertise or back-end administrative access to the SharePoint Products and Technologies application or hardware. Tier 2. Portal Administrators and System Administrators with extensive SharePoint Products and Technologies experience, including those involved in the design and architecture of the system, provide tier 2 support. Tier 2 support is expected to comprise approximately 1 to 2 percent of support calls. West Chester University SharePoint Governance Page 20