Policies for Managing SharePoint Designer 2010

      Many of my customers are concerned with how they manage SharePoint Designer 2010 in the enterprise environment.  SharePoint Designer 2010 is a great tool, but unfortunately, in the hands of a undisciplined or inexperienced individual it can do great damage.  The purpose of this post is to provide suggested management policies for the use of SharePoint Designer 2010 in the enterprise and development environments. 

      SharePoint Designer 2010 has many new or enhanced features that can be leveraged to create advanced SharePoint 2010 designs and solutions, for example: 

a.      Reusable Workflows

b.      External Content Types and Lists (Utilizing BCS)

c.       Site and List Content Types

d.       XSLT List View Web Parts

e.      List\Library Data Connections

f.        Advanced CSS for Branding

g.      Advanced Master Pages 

      Given that SharePoint Designer 2010 is a powerful tool for developers and designers, the concern any SharePoint Team must address is how to properly secure and manage the use of SharePoint Designer in the enterprise SharePoint environments.  

The following are my recommended best practice policies for managing SharePoint Designer 2010:

a.      Production: Disable the direct use of SharePoint Designer 2010 against any production SharePoint farms

b.      Development: As needed per project enable the direct use of SharePoint Designer 2010 against any required Site Collections in the development environment

c.       Desktop: Only install SharePoint Designer 2010 to the desktop of trained and knowledgeable SharePoint developers and designers.

d.      Process: Follow a normal SLDC process for the definition, design, test, deployment and maintenance of SharePoint Designer 2010 workflows. 

      Production: Disable the direct use of SharePoint Designer 2010 against any production web applications in the SharePoint farms. 

a.      From Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Web Applications

b.      From the Manage Web Applications interface choose the first web application and then select General Settings -> SharePoint Designer

c.       From the SharePoint Designer Settings interface uncheck all the “Enable” features:

                                                              i.      Uncheck - Enable SharePoint Designer

                                                            ii.      Uncheck - Enable Detaching Pages from the Site Definition

                                                          iii.      Uncheck - Enable Customizing Master Pages and Layout Pages

                                                           iv.      Uncheck - Enable Managing of the Web Site URL Structure

d.      Repeat step “c” above for all web applications in the production farm

e.      Once these steps are completed no designer\developer, regardless of their permissions or access, can modify any production site in any way with SharePoint Designer 2010 

      Development: As needed per design project enable the direct use of SharePoint Designer 2010 against any required Site Collections in the development environment. 

a.      From Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Web Applications

b.      From the Manage Web Applications interface choose the web application that will be used for the design project and then select General Settings -> SharePoint Designer

c.       From the SharePoint Designer Settings interface check all the “Enable” features:

                                                              i.      check - Enable SharePoint Designer

                                                            ii.      check - Enable Detaching Pages from the Site Definition

                                                          iii.      check - Enable Customizing Master Pages and Layout Pages

                                                           iv.      check - Enable Managing of the Web Site URL Structure

d.      Once these steps are completed users with the correct site permissions and access to SharePoint Designer 2010 on their desktops can access and modify any development site in any site collection within the web application for which we enabled SharePoint Designer 2010

e.      Since we want to restrict the use of SharePoint Designer 2010 to just the design project site collection we now need to disable the use of SharePoint Designer 2010 within any site collections that are not going to be part of the design project

f.        From Central Administration -> Application Management -> View All Site Collections

g.      From the Site Collections List choose the web application that will be used for the design project from the drop down list in the top right hand corner

h.      From the URL pane on the left portion of the interface click on the first site collection that will not be used for the design project

i.        From the information pane on the right copy the full URL of the Site Collection

j.        Open a new browser and paste the URL into the browser’s address field and then navigate to the Site Collection

k.       From the Site Collection Home Page choose -> Site Actions -> Site Settings

l.        From the Site Settings Page under the Site Collection Administration heading choose SharePoint Designer Settings

m.    From the SharePoint Designer Settings interface uncheck all the “Enable” features:

                                                              i.      Uncheck - Enable SharePoint Designer

                                                            ii.      Uncheck - Enable Detaching Pages from the Site Definition

                                                          iii.      Uncheck - Enable Customizing Master Pages and Layout Pages

                                                           iv.      Uncheck - Enable Managing of the Web Site URL Structure

n.      Repeat steps “h” through “m” above for all web applications in the production farm

o.      Once these steps are completed designer\developers can only modify the specific design project site in the development environment with SharePoint Designer 2010 

      Desktop: Install SharePoint Designer 2010 to the desktop of trained and knowledgeable SharePoint developers and power users. 

a.      Request for the install of SharePoint Designer 2010 to a user’s desktop should be reviewed and approved by the SharePoint Team

b.      Before approving the install the SharePoint Team should verify the following:

                                                              i.      The requesting user has received the approval of their project\team lead for the request

                                                            ii.      There is a direct project need for SharePoint Designer 2010

                                                          iii.      The requesting user has had sufficient experience and\or training to properly use SharePoint Designer for the project task for which it is intended 

      Process: Follow a normal SLDC process for the definition, design, test, deployment and maintenance of SharePoint Designer 2010 workflows.  As a minimum the following steps should occur: 

a.      The requirements for the SharePoint Designer 2010 solution are documented

b.      The designs for the SharePoint Designer 2010 solution are documented

c.       The tests for the SharePoint Designer 2010 solution are documented

d.      The SharePoint Designer 2010 solution is packaged for deployment to the staging and production environments

e.      The deployment instructions for the SharePoint Designer 2010 solution are documented

f.         The maintenance instructions for the SharePoint Designer 2010 solution are documented  

      With all the capabilities that come with SharePoint Designer 2010 also comes the need to properly secure and manage this advanced design tool so that great SharePoint solutions can be built within the ALCOA SharePoint environments.

I hope that helps!

Tom