November 29, 2017 // By Ralph Rivas
This blog posting covers the highlights of the versions of SharePoint through today with the Developer and Architect's eye, which I hope will help guide conversations, roadmap initiatives, or improve planning and solution design where requirements and business goals potentially line up with the product or the customization opportunities that support it. The answer may not always be to proceed in that way but the information will hopefully, and at the very least, help with whatever ultimate set of systems or components are used or built to fulfill those needs.
And with that, let's start not exactly at the beginning, but where development work became appropriate …
2003 - SharePoint Portal Server
- Not precisely the first version of SharePoint but the first one that allowed Developers like us to customize with some documentation support
- Based on SharePoint Team Services 2.0 which came free with Windows Server 2003
- API on the Server (no API for client side)
- Full Trust applications deployed directly to the servers
- Manual Deployment method (x-copy scripts, direct manipulation of server files)
2007 - Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
- First to officially be part of the "office suite" coinciding with MS Office 2007's release
- Based on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 a free download for Windows Server
- First with integrated support for SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) - the SP List was now an alternative to the native SSRS file system
- Still only Server Side API's
- Still using Full trust applications deployed directly to servers
- Features added as a new Plug In Module (and the concept of "Feature Stapling" emerges)
- Packaged deployment as WSP cabinet (Zip) files called "Solutions" versus manual copy with install, enable, disable, delete management abilities
- A major jump in development and customization projects industry wide
- A jump in third party paid and free components including the infamous "Top Forty" solutions
- A major jump in hosting services by third parties with Microsoft privately hosting some clients
- Content Editor Web part used for first supported albeit "untrusted" client side customizations
2010 - SharePoint Server 2010
- The first one to underpin Microsoft's Official hosting service - BPOS [Multi-tenant] Business Productivity Online Services which is the Precursor to Office 365/SP Online
- FAST Search integrated into SharePoint along with its complex, yet powerful, custom query model
- Based on (still free) SharePoint Foundation Server 2010
- Continues to coincide with MS Office (version 2010) and updated to use SQL Server 2008 R2 along with changes in Reporting Services
- MS Project Server integrated using SharePoint underlying services albeit very deep and specific
- Visual Studio Team Services Site uses Foundation version of SharePoint but retains its own schema for work items, etc.
- New Client Side API (known as CSOM)
- Introduction of the Sandbox solution (partially trusted) to mitigate the "IIS RESET" deployment issues of regular solutions
- Improvements to the Content Editor un-trusted solutions and a rise in their use
- New wave of third party paid and free components including Nintex for Workflow coinciding the demise of the "Top Forty" and increased customizations and development
- Beginning of the demise of Feature Stapled applications (still supported!)
2013 - SharePoint and SharePoint Online
- Updated to SharePoint Foundation 2013 which is no longer "free"
- Improvements in the CSOM via true REST API's
- Introduction of the Provider hosted Add-in (originally Provider Hosted App) model for trusting externally sourced solutions using IFrames
- Introduction of the SharePoint hosted Add in (SharePoint hosted app) model as an update to the Trusted Solution
- Introduction of the more formal JSLINK feature for pages (client side, no trust site wide updates not requiring the use of the Content Editor or new Script Editor web parts)
- Deprecation of the Sandbox model (though still supported) in favor of the Add-in model and the JavaScript Injection development model
2016 - SharePoint and updates to SharePoint Online (2013 ++)
- There is no longer a "Foundation" version of the on-premises deployment
- Introduction of Hybrid (On-premises and Cloud) Feature sets
- General Improvements to manageability and updated Administrative UI's
- Significant changes to the Online development model and introduction of Community Sites and The "Modern Page" (all discussed shortly)
- No significant changes to the on-premises development model other than provisioning improvements with the key Framework and "Modern Page" transition now targeted for the next version
At this point there is a bit of a fork in that SP Online has taken the 2013 code base and greatly expanded it while SharePoint 2016 was being put together to coincide with Office 2016. In essences the changes to SP Online has become a superset of SP 2013 AND SP 2016 with additional abilities that will not be seen until SharePoint 2019. The Key change that makes SP 2019 as the next "synced" target (assuming the releases noted in the roadmap follow the original plans) is the introduction of SPFx or the SharePoint Framework which overpowers and just about obsoletes the JavaScript injection solutions and, more importantly, the Sandbox model. It also brings into question numerous Provider Hosted and SharePoint Hosted Add-in solutions there is now a better story for SEPARATION OF CONCERNS with the power of Azure and the cloud (Azure Functions, Azure Jobs, MS Flow, Power BI, etc.)
Other key changes are in the introduction of a new "Community Site" which organizes content and users in a different way than the original "team" sites or publishing sites as well as the lynch Pin of the new user interface known as "Modern Pages" which use a completely different and very responsive paradigm over the "Classic" pages that are common to 2013 as well as SP 2016 on premises. This is very important as it chips away at the many third party paid solutions that would not only be applied to SharePoint to mimic those features and abilities but also elevates the Content Services abilities of Microsoft back to the list of Top Products in this category.
As a final word on history before we leave you with a link to the Office 365 Roadmap pointing to the "official future", it should be stressed that the Web Tool Chain introduced by the release of SPFx greatly expands the developer resource pool by exponential margins which is already evidenced in the download and usage statistics available on this Open Source Initiative. New Development of features in SharePoint from Microsoft will be using the EXACT SAME tools and code as third party people which means that improvements and breakthroughs from either side will be more forthcoming and public and perhaps much more frequent than was possible in the old way. In effect, SharePoint would now advance with the same verve as you would see happening in the Angular or React, JavaScript frameworks world with developers on all types of platforms not just Windows and from practically all parts of the world. Going forward, we may expect to see some major milestones still but a virtual roadmap will become the best way to keep up with adaptability becoming the key skill for architects, lead developers, designers and planners in this space.
Links:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SharePoint
- https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-roadmap
- https://products.office.com/en-US/sharepoint/collaboration?ms.officeurl=sharepoint
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/