SharePoint Working Group Minutes, October 6, 2008

*Attending*

Mike Grady, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign (Chair)
Galen Rafferty, CIC
Jim Ferraiollo, University of Virginia
Paul Caskey, University of Texas
Ann West, Internet2
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2

******
There was a discussion about the expectations for this working group; here is a summary.

First, there were a number of concerns identified with trying to federate SharePoint:

• the lack of delegated authorization management.
• users coming from a different IdP (i.e. one other than where the SharePoint server is located) cannot save a document directly on the server. The user must save the document to the desktop, make the changes, then upload the document back to the server with the same file name.
• the 9Star product ASFS uses a centralized model for authorization - central IT builds the rules - when a decentralized method is needed.
• many campuses have installed SharePoint and have designated this as the collaboration platform, so IT people are expected to make it work.

Suggestions for the focus of this working group.

There was an extensive discussion about whether the working group is defined broadly enough. Should the focus go beyond SharePoint to incorporate all collaborative tools?

If SharePoint remains the focus, some ideas are to:

• Develop a tool that would allow for delegated authorization management, via a GUI, for SharePoint.
• Develop a federated workflow for SharePoint.
• Build use cases and stories about campus use of SharePoint (federated or not).
• Develop use cases specifically for a federated SharePoint.
• Flesh out the specific requirements necessary in a federated SharePoint. Build these into a library in the wiki.
• Develop a survey for the SP list, or for the InC-Participants list, to determine the current state of federated SharePoint use.

If the group expands to focus on collaborative tools more generally, some ideas are to:

• Expand the focus of the working group to federated collaborative tools, where SharePoint is just one of the tools. Perhaps re-title the group as InC-Collaboration Tools, opening an option for different people join and demonstrate when they've done with collaborative tools.
• Develop a list of other collaborative tools and/or platforms that are available (and how they operate), such as COManage, wikis, others.
• Develop a process that organizations can use to determine just what collaboration tool they need.
• Do a survey to discover the collaborative tools that exist, and what is federated and what's not.

Three potential next steps were discussed, in terms of the future direction for the working group.

1. Suspend calls until early in 2009, when we have reason to believe one or more vendors are expected to offer richer authorization control around managing federated access to SharePoint.
2. Continue to have calls focused on various strategies for federated access to SharePoint, and use cases specific to the use of SharePoint.
3. Expand the scope of this group to discuss federated collaboration tools more broadly, including use cases, particular tools and their strengths and and weaknesses, and the issues and approaches around federated access and scaleable delegated authorization management.

In order to receive input for scoping the group, we will prepare a survey, offering these three options, and send it to the SharePoint list and then, possibly, to the InC-Participants list.