Comments on: Using third party tools in SharePoint

By: Virto

Virto — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:25:00 +0000

thank you for the shortlist of common problems, it’s pretty useful not only for users but also for web part vendors. We’re quite new player on this market (www.virtosoftware.com) and this really helps us to understand all customer needs.

By: Virto

Virto — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:09:00 +0000

thank you for the shortlist of common problems, it’s pretty useful not only for users but also for web part vendors. We’re quite new player on this market (http://www.virtosoftware.com) and this really helps us to understand all customer needs.

By: SharePoint Round Up : Beyond Search

SharePoint Round Up : Beyond Search — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:02:42 +0000

[...] for the SharePoint administrator who wants to leave early and have free weekends. First, click here and read “Using Third Party Tools in SharePoint”. Second, save the file and keep in [...]

By: whymoore

whymoore — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:58:59 +0000

I agree, a serious attempt at performing QA on SharePoint products needs to not only to examine the basic differences between WSS and MOSS, but needs also to take a serious look at the customizability and extensibility of SharePoint. Load balanced and multi-server environments are becoming standard enough that most ISVs / 3rd Party Vendors are familiar with the challenges there. But custom workflows, web parts, features, and solutions are certainly starting to take off as both in-house and consultant-based developments. The need here does not necessarily fall to the vendors of this code but to Microsoft itself. SharePoint 14 and Visual Studios 10 must make sure that the open ended and flexible deployment of solutions and features follows a regular and recognizable pattern for QA developers to do their job well.

I’ll add to your list above that when considering a 3rd party vendor, make sure that they’re a Microsoft Managed partner or Gold Certified Partner, and that they’re involved in the TAP program to plan ahead for compatibility and differences in future versions, not just the current one. A good example is www.avepoint.com.

By: Rick McDannel

Rick McDannel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 03:32:53 +0000

Nice article. We discovered some of the same “gotchas” with third-party tools. Your points are valid and should be considered before evaluating add-ons. For instance, one product we looked at had all of the functionality we needed, but it broke the native content deployment or STSADM backup/restore functionality. Spent many hours fighting this.

By: loumf

loumf — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:13:42 +0000

Great article — very comprehensive. I can't begin to address all of these questions, but I blogged here:

http://www.atalasoft.com/cs/blogs/loufranco/arc…

About how Atalasoft addresses some of these questions with Vizit. I think this article is a must-read (and must address) one for anybody hoping to sell third-party addons to SharePoint.

By: Inna

Inna — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:14:00 +0000

This is a great list of considerations for purchasing 3rd party tools. Many successful deployments, however, included vendor products and simplified the process in general. When looking for products, good place to start is http://www.SharePointReviews.com. Also, please share your feedback to help address one of the points in this article.

By: Jeroen Ritmeijer

Jeroen Ritmeijer — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:08:00 +0000

Good article.

My personal experience is similar. Providers of third party products as well as consultants / external developers don’t seem to care much about testing or any kind of quality control. The most common problems I have encountered:

1. A lack of, what seems to be any kind of, testing & QA.
2. No localisation
3. No support for WSS
4. No support for load balanced environments
5. Dependencies on the latest and greatest version of the .net framework
6. Bad installation experience
7. Horrendous support
8. User interfaces that don’t look like any other SharePoint user interface
9. Bad or non existing documentation.

In my current position as the CTO for a company that develops 3rd party products for the SharePoint market I make sure that we don’t make these mistakes. To be honest, we spend more than half of our time on testing, documentation and support. We test on MOSS, WSS, different patch levels, different language packs, load balanced environments and make an extra effort to make our user interfaces look like the ones that ship with SharePoint. I am not saying we will never make a mistake, but we really are trying to go the extra mile to make our customer’s experience a great one.

Jeroen Ritmeijer
CTO Muhimbi Ltd.