Organizations are starting to build and deploy business applications within their SharePoint environment. Once deployed, these applications are available to users within a single department or across the entire organization. Users navigate to the application and access specific features based on what they need to do. For example, R3 Business Solutions (R3BS) publishes a Time-Off Request Management application. The application allows employees to create time-off requests. They submit their requests to a manager who reviews and approves the request. The application would typically be installed and managed by the HR department. The assumption is that there would be one or more administrators in the HR Department who would be working in the application and be responsible for managing it. End-users would go to the application to add a new request or check on the status of an existing one. Their manager would need to go to the application to review and approve the requests they are assigned. Both groups of users would need to be familiar with the application in order to access a particular feature. And because there would be information that shouldn’t be available to them, individual pages or lists would need to be secured. In any case, users would be working in the application.
However, in a distributed work environment such as SharePoint there may be a better way. Imagine if you could distribute features of the Time-Off Request Management application across your SharePoint environment. End-users would be able to add new requests and check the status of existing requests from wherever they work within SharePoint, such as a My Site or departmental dashboard. Managers would be able to see all of the requests they need to approve from where they work as well. They would have access to the same features just as if they were working in the actual application, but would never have to actually go to the application. This can be accomplished by building and deploying Snaplets.
Snaplets are self contained components that carry with them all of the business functionality of forms, displays, access to data, and end-user actions. Snaplets give the ability to distribute functionality outside of the application. This technology allows you to create pre-configured web parts that are specific to a task. They can then be distributed and consumed by end-users without configuration. Additionally, they are centrally configured and managed by the application owner. This means that the application owner can make a single change within the application and the distributed Snaplets will change without having to touch the UI where they are deployed.
As an example, the Time-Off Request Management application comes with four Snaplets:
- My Time-Off Requests – shows the currently logged in user the status of their requests along with actions to create and submit requests
- Time-Off Requests Assigned To Me – shows the currently logged in user those requests that are assigned to them for review along with actions to approve or reject the request
- Shared Time-Off Calendar – shows a calendar view of approved time-off requests
- Approved Time-Off Requests Chart Report – Shows a chart of approved time-off requests organized by type of request and the person who made the request
These Snaplets can be added to any page within your SharePoint environment. They work exactly the same as if the user was actually in the application. And because they are centrally managed (one touch), they require minimal maintenance. Any change that is made to the display will automatically be changed anywhere the Snaplet is used. Whether the change requires adding a new column to display, or associating a new action, simply make the change once and you are finished.
In Part 3, I will show you how to actually build and deploy a Snaplet using Global Links and Central Views.
