Microsoft’s SharePoint 2007 received a fair amount of buzz at last month’s ILTA conference, with many firms declaring that they are forging ahead with new intranets and portal projects based on the software by year’s end. These plans are even more bold considering that the software isn’t expected to get out of beta until next year. Here at SAGE, we have been helping a number of clients with their SharePoint 2007 projects. One lesson coming out of these projects is: if you don’t have developers and engineers that are experts in SQL, ASP.NET, and web development, make sure you get someone to back you up.

Fact is, SharePoint 2007 is easy to break at this point. This isn’t surprising since it is still in beta. We have seen instances where simply changing a setting causes it to fail. The application’s saving grace is that it is mostly built on ASP.NET, so an able ASP.NET programmer can often fix SharePoint controls and web parts that even Microsoft gets wrong or are currently incomplete. SharePoint 2007’s deep integration with SQL Server also requires in-depth knowledge of the database program to fix faulty group pages or lists. We have found that these problems can often be resolved with good web developers to trouble-shoot the problem and write the necessary code or queries to fix it.