I am working with a company which designs and builds one-off machines. They have

Question

I am working with a company which designs and builds one-off machines. They have been 'dabbling' with hosted Dynamics CRM and Sharepoint (on different servers!) in an attempt to centralise their data and help colleagues collaborate more effectively across projects. They haven't used either system to their potential.

Now we are looking at the engineering department who already use a form of version control software for the various CAD files (Autodesk Vault) however it is becoming increasingly necessary to implement more of a generic file version control system as they use many more files than can be managed in Vault (sometimes just photos or scans of paper documents), hence why they were looking at using Sharepoint.

However... as the 'programmer' of the bunch, I can see several scenarios which don't seem to fit well with the Dynamics + Sharepoint approach; simple reports based on cross-table queries, exporting certain metrics as a spreadsheet, defining project hierarchies and many-many relationships, and as such I have been pushing for an in-house developed 'ECM' / 'ERP' software package (perhaps in .NET or php).

Some colleagues seem to attach a greater value to the MS software (perhaps becuase it has a logo!) but don't see that it's just a framework, not a solution.

Can anyone provide a good example of when custom software would actually be better than using Dynamics + Sharepoint and how do I relate that to non-technical staff?

Explanation / Answer

Speaking as a SharePoint developer, yes, there are times that one would not want to to implement your solution in SharePoint. Some things it just doesn't fit with very well, which is usually a question of information architecture and/or scale.

Further, SharePoint can be too big and generalised for some projects. For example, if you only need a Web Content Management system there are simpler, lighter ones that do the job of WCM better. There are better blogs, discussion forums, wikis, etc. - but few products have as many features as SharePoint. If you find you aren't using lots of features of SharePoint in your dabbling, well, maybe there is a case for something smaller/simpler.

However, you've not really described anything that isn't achievable in SharePoint.

Simple reports based on cross table queries - DataView web part. Or write you own - CAML can do joins.
Exporting lists as Excel spreadsheets - built in.
Many to many relationships - depends on the entities involved, but lookup fields can support that.
Don't discount the things that SharePoint does give that are often overlooked - the Office integration (though Outlook integration is notably poor), search, document retention plans, the default list forms, etc.. It is a framework - but it gives you quite a lot. And it can be a bugger to make it do what you want, sometimes.

I would recommend (like all good consultants!) that if you're not certain, push for a pilot project. It sounds like you might already be doing that - the dabbling - so consider what things haven't been tried yet, maybe give those a try. You know your needs, so try to find something concrete.

It may be worth factoring in the SharePoint Devs are normally quite expensive - there is a shortage of good ones - and that I reckon it takes a good ASP.NET developer 6-12 months to become proficient with SharePoint. Your organisation may have skills more aligned with other technologies, in which case you need ask if that investment is worthwhile.

Otherwise, without know more about what you're trying to do, it's hard to offer more detailed advice.

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