Monday, July 13, 2009

What are you hoping for in SharePoint 2010?: Public Request!


Seems like today is a good day to ask this question.

The reason is that today is the first day of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. And, the first official "sneak peek" of SharePoint 2010 will be given on Tuesday in a breakout session titled "Building Solutions on SharePoint: The Value Delivered Today, and a Sneak Peek at Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 ".

The session will be given by our friend at Microsoft, Owen Allen, and his colleague, Arpan Shah.

One thing that I haven't run across anywhere on the Internet is a wish-list of features for SharePoint 2010 that was contributed to primarily by the public. (Someone else has probably tried assembling one, but I just haven't run across it yet).

Granted, it is probably way too late for a groundswell of public opinion that would cause any substantial changes to be made to the 2010 feature-set, but still, seems like it would be fun and potentially useful to have a public record of what the people are wanting! In fact, after the actual feature-set becomes known, I will commit to doing an analysis of what people were hoping for vs. what is actually delivered, and will publish the results on this blog.

So, give us your SharePoint 2010 wish list in the form of comments to this blog post. We will publish any comments that are not blatant rants or deemed offensive.

Let the people be heard!

P.S. If you think this is a post that others might want to know about and participate in, please Digg it with the linked image in the upper right corner. If you are not already a member of Digg, I believe you will have to create an account before you can digg the article, but that is a free and painless process. Also, if you are a twitterer, we would love for you to tweet out a link to this post. Thanks!

83 comments:

Kevin Pine said...

How about a MS Office style ribbon right in the SharePoint 2010 UI?

Russell Wright said...

Man, where do I start? How about fixes. Fix SPD so the status of documents and list items stays in sync with SharePoint, specifically the "check-in/check-out" status.

Unknown said...

A set of more advanced, yet easier to use Visual Studio development tools would be great.

Anonymous said...

I really hope the permissions area of SharePoint is easier to work with. I find it confusing.

The ability to move sites once they're created and established.

The ability to link across collections.

Anonymous said...

I hope sharepoint business data services hooks into Unity so that I can perform data entry against my existing business framework and business validation.

David Fisher said...

An easier way to create custom workflow activities. Maybe a tool to allow visual or other logical way of getting access to SharePoint values to affect changes or other actions instead of each activity addressing specific a task.

Anonymous said...

Auto-Sync User Profiles in all site collections from whatever SSP they are using.

Have a permission to ADD but not VIEW, like in SP2003! We like to use those as 'dropboxes'!

Be able to set a permission level to a content type.

Anonymous said...

SPD Workflows:

Email: BCC please!

Workflow Data: I am working with AD users, I need the firstname/lastname instead of "DOMAIN\USER" - my users hate this. I should be able to pull any AD from the AD profile of a people picker value.

The ability to run a workflow from different security - so that I can create an item in a list that the current user doesn't have access to. I have no idea how this can be done, maybe use the credentials of the user who created the workflow?

Fix the 'aardvark' task list problem (SPD chooses the first task list in alphabetical order to place the workflow tasks in).

Some would say remove pages from the publishing sites URLs, but I like that 'feature' actually.

Have the ability to use a sub-site's pages as the top level sites 'welcome page'. We have the Top Level blank and reserved for company-wide IT department Admin use only, and use subsites for content.

Sharada Harnal said...

Ability to send alerts to Sharepoint groups

Ricky Spears said...

Office-wise, I want to be able to edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents right within the browser like using Google Docs.

Design-wise, I want a Theme gallery similar to the master page gallery without having to work in the hive.

Workflow-wise, I would love to see SharePoint Designer workflows have for...next, or do..until/while loops.

Data-wise, I want a 1:1 mapping of my SharePoint lists and libraries in SharePoint to tables in SQL Server.

I also would like to be able to set security on particular pieces of metadata instead of an entire list item.

Oh, I want....

Laura Rogers said...

I'd like the permissions to be more granular. For example, right now, if a user doesn't have permission to "manage permissions" on a site, they also don't have the ability to split off a list or library's permissions. It would be nice if these were 2 separate things.

Tony Rockwell said...

* I second wonderlaura's request for more granular permissions.
* Easier management of themes
* More Workflow capabilities and the ability to make workflow templates so a complex workflow can be re-used without starting from scratch
* Include the ability to see what groups and every site/list/library each user has access - improve user management without the need for 3rd party tools
* BCC in email from workflow
* Allow workflows to start other workflows
* Enable a control that we can add to a form which allows the user to Click a Button to start a workflow

Peter said...

Part 1:

* Reliable API, fix the concurrency bugs with item event receivers (and thus, Workflow). If I'm supposed to be building apps in SharePoint that are supposed to work reliably, I have to know that the underlying framework is also reliable.

* Continue to fix or otherwise work around problems with moving content. Artifact deployment is a tricky problem, but it doesn't have to be as unreliable as it is right now.

* Either ditch Workflow completely, or provide some built-in Activities to make it more of a RAD experience. At present it might just be the world contender for most painful developer environment.
-ForEachMemberInSharePointGroup
-ForEachMemberOfADGroup
-ForEachSiteMember
-ForEachEtcEtc
-Look through a bunch of custom solutions and encapsulate the most commonly-used features.

* Make SharePoint Groups ubiquitous (e.g. be able to use them in lookup fields, create views, be able to export them to Excel, attach workflow to group join requests)

* SAMPLE ENTERPRISE DEPLOYMENT! Like the P&P sample guidance application, but do a start-to-finish "open source implementation" - PS this is free, the only thing it potentially costs you is embarrassment

* Open source enterprise search deployment - the webcasts were good, and Patrick Tisseghem's book was good, but we're still missing a lot of pieces. An open source, working implementation would (maybe unknowingly!) answer a lot of questions. E.g. what are some good crawl rules to set, how do you go about monitoring your search crawl status, how do you use the object model, etc. These same benefits apply to all my "Open Source implementation of X framework" suggestions (below).

* Open source people search project

* Open source records management project

* Open source intranet project

* Open source WCM project, both "lightweight" and "heavy process" WCM

* Open source a project from pretty much any framework bit to help us get our first project published. Please don't underestimate the utility of freely-browsable source code.

* Open source team collaboration site (I think there are a lot of good out-of-the-box features that could be showcased with something like this)--this is important because a lot of people haven't seen a well-implemented SharePoint team site, ever--and they don't know what they're missing.

* If possible, award bonuses to your premier field engineers for publishing information about bugfix/workaround issues like Bill Baer did occassionally. I was very frustrated when I got to talk to a guy after a looooong troubleshooting session, and he explained the solution and that "this happens all the time." Dude, if it happens all the time, write it down! Not his fault though, he just needs to make it a part of his (or someone's!) job.

* Related topic: instead of rewarding MS employees with a post count, INSTEAD assign them a random unsolved issue and have them take it to resolution. This will force some very difficult questions, like "why is it so ridiculously difficult to crawl web content." This is a long play with lots of short-term pain.

* Open source the next generation of Fab40 templates - again, only costs embarrassment

Peter said...

Part 2:

* Deployment fixes:
- Allow me to group a bunch of related (dependent) Solution packages into one Solution. E.g. Right now I can't deploy an "activate on install" Feature unless its corresponding DLL is already installed.
- Allow more useful Solution features, like Add Web Part To Page, or Attach Workflow to One List (yes I'm aware of Content Types)
- Do a survey of Solution deployments and inspect all the code that's being written to figure out what they're trying to do, and ADOPT THE MOST COMMON SCENARIOS! E.g. switching master page should be available at the Solution/Feature level, without code.
-So much else to talk about with Solutions. The scheduled deployment stuff is worthless because Solution deployments aren't reliable. Fix the problem, somehow (I don't know either).
-Small nitpicky fixes, like deploying Web Parts to the Web Part Gallery - this should be a SPSite-level feature, not a SPWeb-level feature as it is now. Deploying at the SPSite-level is buggy.
-Timer Job deployment - fix.

*InfoPath - can we deprecate this technology already? I'm pretty sure Silverlight handles all the developer-heavy scenarios, whereas OOB SharePoint lists handle the simpler form entry scenarios. InfoPath: it's useless now, let's make it official and deprecate it.

* Deprecate other useless features like the Site lifecycle management--did that ever work? No?

* SDLC assistance - I like the VS2010 features, but only if I can run a build and end up with a deployable product (like a self-contained WSP). If I need something else on top of the WSP to deploy, this is a problem and we may need a "super solution" or even an MSI to fully script installations. And I want Microsoft, the people who have created the framework in the first place, to figure out how to get this working--not me, the consumer. This was the promise of the Solution framework, and for the most part it has gone unfulfilled.

* Content Type composability - I want all features to work on all content types. And I don't want excuses. Content Approval, Email alerts, Item-level security, the ability to attach and run Workflow, Versioning. If I can do it once, I should be able to do it everywhere.

* Composability in general - I want to be able to change out the formatting of email alerts, but only sometimes. Have you provided the extension points that would make this type of composable behavior possible? PLEASE ask Arpan Shah about how they plan to adopt a MEF-like approach, PLEASE. This is the future, and from all appearances SharePoint as a product is dutifully ignoring the concept.


I think I've said enough at this point. If I can summarize, it's

SUMMARY:
----------
* Provide Open source projects as a reference for us to follow--better than any number of books (I'm serious!)
* Ask about MEF and if they will at least consider adopting the MEF approach to extensibility
* Fulfill the promise of pain-free deployments

Peter said...

Okay, I read everyone else's suggestions and I have more:

* Deprecate SharePoint Designer and replace it with both of:
-browser-based replacements for things that should exist in the browser anyway (Workflow, site administrivia)
-replace designer-ish features with in-browswer designer; simplify designer with either a custom view engine or better master page templates. Replace the mishmash of CSS with a CSS templating engine, which would make theming (and creating a browser-based designer) a ton easier.

* Anywhere I see XML, unless it's a really out-of-the-way scenario, someone at Microsoft has failed. This includes Feature XML, Solution XML, Site Definition XML, CAML Queries (!!!!!), and the BDC.

Peter said...

I should also clarify: MEF (the Managed Extensibility Framework) is a framework that enables you to build composite applications. I mixed up my example problem "changing the behavior of email alerts" with the general solution "build your framework up from interchangeable parts." This isn't just about email alerts--it's about people picker behavior, it's about site permissions (or permissions in a general sense), it's about site creation policies. It's like providing a Workflow Foundation extensibility point to every single piece of your application, but with more flexibility.

Alex Angas said...

Some others relating to the SharePoint API here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/525968/regarding-moss-or-wss-3-0-what-parts-of-the-api-might-have-been-implemented-bett

Also the web service functionality needs to match what the object model can provide.

Brian Shoemaker said...

No more IIS reset after every solution deployment!!!

Anonymous said...

How about a calendar roll-up that works across sites?

fiskit said...

I am hoping for complete calendar integration with exchange 2010!

Anonymous said...

1) How about a more advanced GUI for doing and managing a full crawl. A real time progess report. and How about making it available in WSS also and not just in MOSS.

2) How about more granularity and capability in the natiove backups to be able to do item level backups.

3) How about a more user-friendly and actually useable workflow??

4) How about the possibility of merging lists?

5) How about the ability to view lists from other sites

6) How about the ability to categorize on more than 2 levels

7) How about the ability to add advanced date based filters in Calendars

The list is endless!! :-)

Murray said...

-- Significantly improved Wiki that allows for easier easy picture and document upload while creating a wiki page
-- A column type for tags and a tag cloud web part
-- A column type for rating content
-- A column type that recognizes hierarchy. For example, after you select the value in column A, the choices in column B are filtered based on your previous selection.
-- Significantly improved indexing, in terms of performance and flexibility
-- Improved search engine that doesn't bury lists, list items, and BDC items deep in the results
-- Better usage analysis reports
-- Farm level columns and content types

The SharePoint Dude said...

How about Native Aggregation Web Parts that work across site collections?

Ability to use Security groups across site collections.

Better Audience targeting (especially Item-level).

More Theme Templates and the ability to apply themes to ALL of your site content (Admin Pages, WSS Templates, Etc.). WYSIWYG Theme/Master Page editor.

Kevin Busacker said...

1. A way to edit ASPX files more directly without having to click six times to open the editor.
2. Better formatting tools in the ASPX editor (more like Word).
3. The ability for SP to upload/download CAD (.dwg, .dgn) files or BIM (Revit .rvt) models and be aware of dependent reference files. Provide the option to include or exclude references.

Anonymous said...

I would like to see SharePoint Designer be able to customize the "out of the box" SharePoint workflow emails, etc.

I would like to see SharePoint support accessing external databases via ODBC.

I would like to see more customized validation for SharePoint custom list entry/edits (complex regular expressions, etc. )

I would like to see better debugging facilities for SharePoint out of the box and SharePoint designer workflows as well as better debugging InfoPath forms.

Jay said...

Off the top of my head:

1. Better documentation on features or capabilities some might consider a lower priority or seldom used.

2. Better documentation/explanations and support for error messages.

3. Elimination of the generic error message that plague admins (an error has occurred really doesn't help much does it?)

4. Better management of permissions levels. I'd like to see some of the dependencies eliminated.

5. The ability to move sites across site collections from the UI or SPD.

6. Better/more granular reporting across the board.

I'm sure there will be more as I continue to think about it.

Anonymous said...

More or less any good idea from communities such as Codeplex should be considered.

See also my blog post about required basic feature requests:
http://www.wikmark.name/archive/2009/04/21/desired-sharepoint-solutions.aspx

Anonymous said...

Easier way to create SPD workflows like K2 or Nintex.

A way to control all permissions across all sites and libraries from a central location.

Ability to have color on calendars would be nice.

Anonymous said...

To be able to customize the task assigned messages as far as dynamic content and look & feel.

Anonymous said...

I would very much like an ability to use SQL Reporting Services with the Sharepoint Database. The Web Services connection is not as reliable or efficient as it needs to be.

NSYYoung said...

Wow. Go Peter!
And then add these:
• set a permission level to a content type (ditto above)
• “firstname lastname” instead of domain\username (ditto above)
• Start a workflow from a survey response
• View what permissions an AD group has on a site (like we can for SP Groups)

NSYYoung said...

And filtered lookup columns without custom code...

Bruce Alcock said...

1. More interoperability between broswers - right now, I can't do "SharePoint authoring" in Firefox or Safari.
2. Outlook type integration with MAC Office Entourage.
3. Ability to bring Exchange and other (eg. Google) calenders into SharePoint.
4. Better error logging, or at least a supported utility that helps read the unified logs.

Jay said...

The ability to link to different sections within large documents AND to be able to set independent workflows on different sections of the same document.

Jay said...

How about advanced calendar functionality. (see Bamboo)

Unknown said...

Multiple File Check in/Check out...

(Although I hear that its going to be there...)

Anonymous said...

I would just like it to run faster. Even running on dual core 8 MB load balanced local servers with absolutely no throughput, custom sites and large lists (+100) were often taking a long time to load. Like 10-15 seconds just for a customized front page with custom master page.

Any time a list becomes more than a few hundred it's practically unbrowsable. Rendering everything in CAML probably slows it down.

The SharePoint Designer master pages are all designed with endlessly nested tables and that doesn't help. It's not best practice.

Last time in SP 2003/Office 2003 you had two-way Outlook sync and Excel sync, but you took away this compatibility with Office 2003 in MOSS 2007. Since many users were still on Office 2003 this resulted in previous working functionality being destroyed. Please try to preserve backwards compatibility.

There should be better support for mobile devices, particularly authentication.

SharePoint Designer is a disaster. Half the time it doesn't know whether I have something checked out or not. It will say X is checked out, but when I check it in, it will say I don't have it checked out. And so on.

SharePoint Designer workflows need to be able to be saved out or encapsulated out of the box, so they can be easily moved from site to site by power users.

I would like to see the ability for users to update documents in real time as they can in Google Docs. Check-in/check-out is ok but what if two people want to work on the spreadsheet at the same time?

When using the explorer view and dragging in multiple documents, the required metadata isn't prompted for.

When you customize the master page, this really needs to apply to the application pages as well. Sometimes end users need to see the View All Site Content or other application pages. I had to write a custom http module and a trigger in the SQL database to do this basic functionality.

Jack Lapke said...

Bring back the individual alert subscription web part that we had in SharePoint 2001 and 2003, that I could put on my My Site or other sites/pages. (We have SharePoint 2007, but still only have Office 2003.)

John M. Shaw said...

That they do away with OLD-style table layouts in their templates and introduce CSS 2.0-3.0 layouts standards and compliant CSS with Divs. And that they include an application for redesigning Themes/Templates/Webparts.

Also, include an ability to deploy SPD workflows and InfoPath Forms without having to republish/reconnect them to different servers when deployed.

Anonymous said...

Ability to copy and reuse SPD workflows.

Better backup and recovery. Scheduling.

Anonymous said...

SPD:
Fix the user lookup to show the name
Add more workflow actions
Workflow templates that can be exported/imported

Lists:
Create column/field dependencies so that choices can be limited by other fields.
Create column/field security so that only authorized individuals can update specific columns.
Better ways to handle large lists and libraries.

BDC:
Vastly improve the BDC ability to render data and manipulate it once it’s displayed in SharePoint.

hazard2600 said...

LDAP configurable sync between AD and WSS user's user info in the WSS database!

Scott C. Mayo said...

much better content deployment for companies with quality assurance policies in place that use completely seperate farms or even just site collections for development, staging and production.

Sorivar said...

How about not having to authenticate yourself every 5 seconds. I open a folder, and I am prompted twice to give user name and password. I open a document in the folder and it asks me again for username and password. The session should hold my username and password for at least a minute or two.

Jenkins said...

I am expecting improved Excel Services, Sharepoint missing Features like
1. Notification based on Date
2. Attachment in SPD Workflow Mail
3. improved Application master pages
4. All issues need to fix, that's better.
5. Improved Customization
6. etc...........

Anonymous said...

1. Functional conflict resolution in the SharePoint calendars.

2. Reminder functionality for items with date fields (similar to Outlook).

Unknown said...

Full application lifecycle support for all components deployable through SharePoint solution files. This should include features, content types, site and list definitions, etc.

Anonymous said...

One more thing...better integration for MAC users and non-IE browsers.

Anonymous said...

Great suggestions so far, but I wanted to repeat and emphasize this one:
SharePoint Designer is a disaster. Half the time it doesn't know whether I have something checked out or not. It will say X is checked out, but when I check it in, it will say I don't have it checked out. And so on.

SharePoint Designer workflows need to be able to be saved out or encapsulated out of the box, so they can be easily moved from site to site by power users.

I would like to see the ability for users to update documents in real time as they can in Google Docs. Check-in/check-out is ok but what if two people want to work on the spreadsheet at the same time?

When using the explorer view and dragging in multiple documents, the required metadata isn't prompted for.

When you customize the master page, this really needs to apply to the application pages as well. Sometimes end users need to see the View All Site Content or other application pages. I had to write a custom http module and a trigger in the SQL database to do this basic functionality.

Anonymous said...

Customizable Surveys. Ability to add formatted fonts/etc to survey questions and answers.

Ability to look up users various SP site memberships.

Link all lists/libraries especially custom with Outlook.

Zeev said...

1. Filtered / Cascading Lookup. All current solutions are not comprehensive. Don't work for content type, or in a custom page, or incorrectly exported to Excel, etc.

2. List's help button where you can explain the list's or library related process to users.

3. Help on form's field (column)-shown when the user hovers the field.

4. Bi-directional of Excel list synchronization.

5. Connection to IBM mainframe or iSeries tables through ODBC. (probably in SPD)

6. The ability to define uniqueness on a list column.

7. On search result pages, a link to the doc's container (library / folder)

8. On upload, a checkbox to ensure the uniqueness of a document name within the site / site collection.

Anonymous said...

Column and View level security options in a List

Unknown said...

Replace the Wiki functionality with the functionality within OneNote - if the idea of a wiki is to facilitate collaboration, it would take a while to find a tool that Microsoft already owns that does that better than OneNote. While I do find that can be clumsy sharing OneNote content with others, having it within SharePoint would be the best of both worlds.

Anonymous said...

Complete the records management functionality that provided a good start but falls short of meeting the requirements to be considered a player in this market.

Unknown said...

To add to or repeat from the list:

1) easier permission controls
2) portable workflows
3) list-level backup
4) site-level restore
5) easier list form customization
6) better reporting on all fronts
7) column and view permissions
8) dynamic choice field rather than "add your own" which is static
9) publishing for all site types (or at least move default.aspx to pages when enabling publishing)
10) global (farm) permission level control
11) indexing the index or aggregating catalogs into a master index
12) easier BDC creation, editing and updating
13) write-back BDC
14) granular KPIs
15) KPI workflows OOB (not through SPD)
16) better KPI Web Part view controls
17) easier CSS management
18) global workflow instances
19) content and code deployment for content deployment
20) easier information policy custom creation
21) knowledge network
22) item/document pointer instead of complete new instance
23) better aggregation/rollup web parts
24) easier (or at least GUI) solution deployment
25) easier (or more streamlined) forms creation/customization management

Anonymous said...

A more sophisticated text editor The current one makes it difficult to format text (without using SharePoint Designer) if you don't want to use the standard settings.

Mark Spokesman said...

1. Drag and drop multiple file upload support under firefox rather than just under IE.

2. COnsistent support for navigation link management under Firefox / Safari

prat said...

How about Integrating the Content/Tags to FAST search engine.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Many have probably point out those but here are my great hope for SharePoint 2010...

- OOTB Wildcard search
- OOTB Chart WP
- Easier permission & overview/user
- Better backup & Restore (web or list level)
- OOTB Print list item feature
- OOTB Easier email integration
- OOTB More workflow activities
- OOTB better stats (Google analytics like)
- OOTB Search much more like Google
- OOTB Page & News based on User profile
- OOTB PDF generator (also via workflow)

Here are some feature, wp or enhancements I hope for 2010... But shouldn't we speak over 2011 because 2010 is coming soon ;-)

Jeremy Thake said...

The "Ultimate SharePoint Development Tool". Nuff said.

benb3342 said...

Easier customization of MySites would help. Make the site as the bosses want it, press publish and it rolls out as the default template :)

Anonymous said...

easy upgrade from MOSS 2007

Anonymous said...

1) A faster loading app layer that ensures that works even on slow bandwidths.
2) A more user-friendly UI that assumes that the people using it are not developers and therefore not familiar with menu's etc.
3) Aggregation of content across sites and site collections.
4) More web 2.00-like features.

Anonymous said...

How about alert management?
The current is way off to stupid done. We have to go thru all the sites to remove alerts that a user have when they quit or we will get a lot of messages to the sharepoint admin mailbox (witch is used to request access and so on).

Best would be if the AD sync would delete the user and data that belongs to the user (alerts and som on, not anything that the user have written or added to the sites.

More than 1 search page (using Windows Search Server 2008 Express). 1 for site content and 1 for file content. When you have both together it's very hard to find anything in the result pages. Or better split the content result in to 2 resultlists. Site content to the left and file results to the right.

A way to remane the sharepoint web you have build. Used when you change server it was on and you use an alias in the DNS to access it like sam-intranet (same as mashine name) and you then move it to an new server but still have the old running because there is more applications running on it.

There is alot to make better so it would take a long time to list it all here and i thing that most of it is already written by others.

Anonymous said...

1. More OOTB Workflows
2. Ability to expand / contract items in a list form
3. Ability to have a rating system OOTB for FAQ's, Discussion Boards, etc
4. OOTB Images (traffic lights, status bars, etc.) that you can use for project/task status instead of having to use calculated column and CEWP
5. More user friendly reporting
6. Be able to set permissions at the field level in a SharePoint form
7. OOTB Branching within a SharePoint Form like you can do in a survey

Eric Eaton said...

* Ditto on the SPD check-in/out problems.
* Able to setup true relationships between SP lists.
* Better large list support - 2000 items just isn't very workable to build many apps.
* Easier BDC integration - I shouldn't need a 3rd party program and custom code to connect to a SQL table to read and update.
* Wildcard search!
* Granular restoration using native tools.
* A single, inheritable, comprehensive branding strategy instead of a conglomeration of master pages, custom themes, and alternate css sheets.
* Visio integration with SPD workflows. We should be able to flow-chart workflows on the fly for development and documentation without having to create it all twice.
* More / easier roll-up and aggregation across site collections.
* RSS subscriptions without requiring anonymous or Kerberos.
* Consistent naming. Is it a site or a web? Is it an extended web application or a zone? We can figure this stuff out, but why should we have to?
* A native way to archive inactive documents in a way that reduces disk space requirements instead of increasing them.

Anonymous said...

Nightly report that gives a consolidated, summary view of all changes to a site

Anonymous said...

Here's my pick
1. simpler admin
2. Open ID integration
3. blog and wiki features closer to WP capability and userfriendliness
4. drag and drop home page layout features in Ajax fashion
5. online simple MsOffice interface to simplify collaborative work by letting people update documents live online ala Google docs but with our preferred MS office features. Would make document editing easier and more straightforward
6. fix wonky user management features and site permission inheritance. Must admit that although we set up tens of SHPT spaces for our clients I am still hesitating when I create a user in there for I am never sure about what happens when I delete them for instance
7. image gallery feature ala wordpress and ditto for other multimedia files
8. more discussion/web 2.0 features
9. microblogging functions to post stuff via email even from a mobile ala posterous.com

in fact, I would suggest to make SHPT as easy and manageable as Wordpress, but with all the office collaboration features that wordpress is missing and the incorporation of the Ms Office features that users like so much. They are used to these office features and don't want to change their habits. The ability to store a file on SHPT and collaboratively change it is in my eyes what makes SHPT such a killer app in the business world. It is the only way to do it properly at the moment. If you manage to add the userfriendliness that std web 2.0 apps offer then I believe that users will vote for your product with their feet.

Anonymous said...

A My Site that is more functional and most importantly functions exactly like a sub-site in SharePoint from a site development, site management, and site navigation perspective.

JedPC said...

Architecturally: Out of the box option to store content items in a file store (a share) rather than in the SQL Database

Information Management: Better metadata management tools, out of the box capability to build and manage metadata taxonomies. Also ability to add metadata (column) value as a standard entry for every instance of a specific content type, and the ability to apply metadata to a document library and have every item placed in the library inherit the values (even better if this extended to folders within the libraries)

Anonymous said...

1. Security on the column level, at least read only, write, and hidden

2. Ability to check the previous value of a sharepoint list item from within a designer workflow

3. Ability to filter multiple items on a sharepoint column. (not in the view) but on the actual column filter have check boxes so i can see like active and on hold status.

4. Have an auto renumber column in lists. for example a priority list that if i number items 1-10 and then re prioritize number 10 to number 5 it should reorder all the others approperly and automatically

5. Have a document/list items rating system built in.

6. We shouldn't have to do an iisreset every time a solution is updated.

7. Ability to use Today and Me variables in a calculated column

8. Cascading dropdowns and filtered lookup lists.

9. Ability to sync from sharepoint profiles back to active diretory, so if i update a profile item like name or manager or address it updates it in active directory. make this an optional setting turned off by default.

10. Easy way to have one to many relationships on sharepoint lists. maby a custom column or something that auto manages the association.

11. Web part that aggregates data from a bunch of random lists into one read-only list that has all the features of a regular list.

12. Ability to temporary increase the access of a SharePoint designer workflow (like running under system). We could somehow specify who is able to designer a workflow like this (admins only).

Bonnie Kistner said...

Workflow:
- Allow a SPD workflow to start if a date field reaches a specific date - not just when a new item is created, edited, or manually kicked off.
- When using workflow to copy an items to a list from another list, the user must have access to the 2nd list for the workflow to complete. You would think the system would have access if that is what you told the workflow to do.
- Can't assign a to-do item to a person or group field. For instance, wanted to allow employees to submit photos to an album. Then have the workflow look at the current item and have anyone in the Employees Pictured (person/group) field to approve the posting of the picture before it was posted. No easy way to do that...

Audiences:
- Audience targeting should work in list views as well. Currently it only works if you use the content query web part to display the list data. Therefore in our calendar, we had to right custom views instead of just using the calendar function out of the box.
- Summary link webpart with the ability to add an audience per link. Had to custom write.
- Alerts & RSS Feeds on list items get sent regardless of the audience applied. Custom work required here.
- Can't have AND & OR rules in the same audience without writing code. Wanted to do any user who is a member of X security group OR City=X AND user=testid.
- In a list view, the Target Audience column should display the acutal audience instead of just Yes or No.

Content Query Webpart:
- Filters not intuitive in Content Query Webpart. To filter on yes, you have to know to put in 1, and for no, use 0. However, on views you can actually use the words "Yes" and "No". Also, I think Approved for workflow is 16? How would a regular user know this??
- When you display a links list in a CQWP, the URL link would take you to "view item" - not actually open the URL that was entered.

Other:
- The navigation control is not good after you get deeper than 2 levels. We wanted the ability to have the navigation expand down to the 4th level, then remain the same as you navigate throughout the site. We had to write custom code to do this. We tried to stick with the out of the box navigation and just live with the fact that it changed after 2 levels, but it wasn't consistent throughout and users were very confused during usability studies
- We had issues with actually adding web parts to the web part zones in the page layout. We wanted to add certain ones by default, but allow the content owner to delete them if they weren't needed or modify it in some way. However, it seemed that every time we made a change and published a new major version of the page layout it deleted the web parts from the web part zones.
- Is it possible to change the page layout of the default.aspx page on a site to a different one associated with your content type? For instance, we created a new content type that inherits from the Page content type. I’ve added that content type to the Pages library. On the other pages I can go to the Page Settings to change the content type, then change the page layout. On the default.aspx page that already existed, my new one is not an option in the content type drop-down. We ended up deleted default.aspx and creating a new welcome page called Home.aspx.
- Versioning can't be set to "Keep for X number of years". Very important to our records management needs.
- Need ability to easily search and replace on all content within the site and much of our site is built on webparts.

Anonymous said...

What a good idea to give peeps a place to post on this!

I would like a more portable way of doing spd workflows - they are really only useful for poc's the way they are - I want to be able to create and test in dev and then move to prod (using a few configureable parameters)

W0ut said...

Look-up fields that go cross-site.

- An easy way to share , import, export content types (even if they include lookup fiels or custom fields) so they can be easily provisioned in other site collections or in site definitions.

- More tools so less XML hacking is needed.

Shelly said...

I know what I'm hoping for, but will probably see little of it, if any...

SPD Workflows:
1. Ability to port workflow from one site collection (like dev env) to another (like prod)
2. Ability to author workflows to content type
3. Fix issue with updating fields in a list: If a workflow uses the 'Set Field in Current Item' action and the item is open in InfoPath (not an issue when open in the browser), the workflow will display an error message and hang - will need to be manually cancelled
4. More flexibility with workflow tasks page:
a. easier ability to change labels (like Related List Item) to user-generated names without having to manually modify .aspx pages
b. ability to have item link associated with Related List Item display in the browser - not InfoPath
5. More flexibility in writing workflows:
a. nested 'if's
b. do until / do while loops
c. branches to different workflow steps
d. more actions (for example):
1- capture substring data
a- capture text until specific 'character'
b - capture text from 1st position # to 2nd position #
6. Workflow task reporting - the current workflow "reports" are useless
7. More options on workflow startup - ability to auto-start workflow on 'Submit' but not on 'Save' (see Infopath comment #2)

InfoPath:
1. Ability to set delimiter in InfoPath between repeating section data fields if selecting 'merge', when publishing to the form library - currently InfoPath puts an unprintable character between the fields, and displays the data to the workflow as one text stream, which the workflow cannot parse
2. Ability to distinguish between 'Save' and 'Submit', such that the form will be created/modified in the form library but a workflow will only kick off on 'Submit', not 'Save'

Anonymous said...

SPD : Fixing Oracle as datasource

Anonymous said...

We would like to see increase speed with sharepoint.
More Security friendly.
More Template options.
etc.

Rob Woods said...

Disaster Management - Ability to back up everything and restore it all in one fell swoop. Including changes to web.config and 12 hive.

OOB Wildcard searches

Content deployment down to the Item level, and filters to deploy based on criteria.

Ability to select lists from other sites in the Add Web Part pages.

Ability to write a SQL script to combine data from multiple lists and place into a Web Part Data View easily.

Ability to remove the person who created or edited a list from the search crawl

Fix the Search Crawl settings so they actually work.

Provide .NET functions in an XSLT Namespace for our use.

Provide additional system values like [Now] instead of just today.

Create method of creating advanced views. This includes the ability to use the "and" and "or" statements in a parenthesized manor.

Ability to set which features you want to be turned on by default when you create a site.

Easier ability to move sql databases from one server to another.

Automatically remove old content deployment files after x days when the deployment fails

The ability to set the search information the same on multiple farms. i.e. use content deployment to manage the search settings

Anonymous said...

1. Drag and drop with documents in outlook.
2. See/filter documents by custom metadata/columns in outlook.

Anonymous said...

1. Unique item/document ID = persistent URL for a document even if moved.
2. Browse capability whereever there is an image link. e.g. image reference in summary link webpart - annoying to have to remember to grab the image URL before I begin.
3. Improved usage reporting OOTB. Can't get to detail or change the canned 30-day window.
4. Tag cloud webpart and ability for users to enter tags even if they don't have edit rights on the item.

Olivier Travers said...

- Real browser compatibility, my Mac users are not going to switch to windows to use... a web application (we use hosted SP WSS)

- a wiki/blog editor that's not 8 years behind the times: toolbar across browsers, HTML that's not atrociously bad, decent image management...

Basically get out of the intranet shell and realize some people are using SP in distributed environments with no IT to speak of. This isn't 1998 anymore and it's not all about simplifying network shares on the LAN. SP needs to behave and feel like a modern web application.

Jeff Cate said...

Web content authors and managers using MOSS for Internet sites really need the ability to configure page-level 301 redirects from the user interface.

SEO requires that from time to time you need to change the URL to a page to make sure the best keywords are in the URL.

Currently there is no way to do this in MOSS. See this post for more information:

http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/2009/10/moss-for-internet-and-301-redirects.html

Anonymous said...

How about ability to embedd flash video and audio into blog and wiki at a an end user level without having to "re-code" the content format from video source.