Microsoft Sharepoint, how customizable is it? 88 Responses

Last post: 2 years, 7 months ago | Thread started: Sep 24, 10, 6:31 a.m.

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• Andrew_D

  Hey, I've done some recent identity work with a company that uses a separate company for Web Dev. I wanted to integrate the work I've done into their site and redesign some elements of the site to better suit the re-branding.

  I'm sorry that I can't link anything (NDA and all that), but the Dev company is saying that I can't do any of the updates to the site because it will fuck up what they've done using Sitepoint and that Sitepoint doesn't allow for this change.

  I'm calling total bullshit on these hacks and think they might be after the work I've done with said company.

  I'm not very knowledgeable about Sitepoint, but what I've read seems like the things I wanna do are possible and the case is that the dev company wants more of their business and me outta the picture. Thoughts? How can I tell my client that what they're saying is a pant load and what we were proposing can in fact happen.

  Happy friday to you all and cheers in advance!

  Sep 24, 10, 6:31 a.m. – Permalink

• Andrew_D

  Shit, I said sitepoint a few times, I meant "Sharepoint". Sorry, this dev company has me a bit pissed off at the mo.

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 6:32 a.m. – Permalink

• SlashPeckham

  form should follow function - why dont you update the site according to the templates provided (do it well) and then chill out for the weekend - its seems like you're asking for a re-build of certain components which might out of the project scope..
  ...just sayin'...

  • Yeah, but I think now that they are actually right. Might just wipe my hands clean, actually.– Andrew_D1/2

    Thanks though, Slash.– Andrew_D2/2

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 6:46 a.m. – Permalink

• Andrew_D

  ^Talked to a Tech Director friend and he said it will always end up looking "Microsoft'ish, unless they updated that P.O.S., but I would steer clear of it".

  Thanks, though!

  • Don't be microSOFT on those mutha' fuckas' andy_d; YOU is the boss...– ideaist1/2

    technology is da boss here (shouldnt be that way i agree)– SlashPeckham2/2

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 6:59 a.m. – Permalink

• sherm

  Sharepoint is a piece of shit. Don't sweat it.

  • Thanks Sherm, this is what I've been hearing.– Andrew_D1/2

    trust me its not worth the stress. in fact, if another proj requires sharepoint tell em fuck off.– sherm2/2

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 7:11 a.m. – Permalink

• mstocks

  SharePoint is what you make of it. You can customize the master pages to create any site you want. We use SharePoint in-house as a Platform, it connects to our ERP and CRM applications; and aggregates the data.

  Sounds like the Dev company sucks. SharePoint if fully customizable. They might be using an old version like 2003.

  Example SharePoint Site:
  http://www.ferrari.com/Pages/Cou…

  • Thanks, dude. I guess they're arguing it's a huge hassle for them to change it.– Andrew_D

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 7:55 a.m. – Permalink

• luckyorphan

  SharePoint is a disaster. That Ferrari site is a perfect illustration of why, and the problem you're having, Andrew_D, is a perfect example of the hassles you meet when you come up against the shortcomings of SharePoint.

  To suggest that the designer follow a pre-determined templates is an unfortunate (though sometimes necessary) solution, but it's a pretty piss-poor one. Often, the templates that are being used were developed five or more years ago, and the volume of sites built to those templates are so numerous that it becomes a huge undertaking to reconfigure them. Thus, all future development requires all sites to be designed to out-dated templates.

  But your developers are not bullshitting you. You're just stuck with a colossally horrible system. Try to move on to something else, if you can. If you can't, you'll have to play ball within the SharePoint system.

  • Again, thanks to you and everyone who posted, this isn't a battle worth fighting is what I gather.– Andrew_D

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 8:31 a.m. – Permalink

• vaxorcist

  I'm curious about sharepoint recent experience.... not just historical hell..... I keep hearing that sharepoint is better than it was, but I'd like to hear this from actual designers with actual new projects....

  I was stuck with inheriting a sharepoint fiasco site many years ago, the client had drank the MS kool-aid, so no going back.... everything ended up looking sharepoint-ish no matter what we did, and our heads wanted to hit concrete walls for relief a few times... easy things became very hard sometime due to oddball dependencies and things being linked in ways that didn't make much sense to us....

  It does seem that anyone who can whip sharepoint into some elegant design can make TONS of money, as sharepoint seemed to be a huge hourly billing machine for dev shops.....

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 10:06 a.m. – Permalink

• vaxorcist

  In my old experience, It really, really did seem that you CANNOT just make screenshots and "convert them into sharepoint templates" without having something unpredictable mess up your time estimates....

  so I have NO idea how to estimate time on a sharepoint project unless you start with their templates and tweek.... on our project.we eventually had to wrestle some very old-school table and font-tag code into something a bit better....

  

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  Dog-earSep 24, 10, 10:09 a.m. – Permalink