SharePoint is certainly a huge platform to learn and certainly was daunting to me when I first jumped in. What do you think? What advice would you offer someone completely new to SharePoint so they could succeed, whether from an IT Pro perspective or Dev perspective?
Certainly, I would suggest being involved in the community (such as this site) and reading everything you can find. It would be most beneficial to work closely with someone that has a good understanding of SharePoint (which I have not had, much to my dismay).
I have been working with SharePoint on and off for 2 years now and am still such a newbie and may be for some time.Â
Thanks in advance for your feedback. 🙂
From an IT Pro perspective, here is what I’d offer as advice:
Learn the very basics of SQL Administration and general server-wide “best practice”, you will not be touching the SharePoint databases (much), so DBA-level knowledge is generally not required.
Learn IIS thoroughly, you’ll want to know all about IIS Sites, Application Pools, the metabase, as well as configurations (extending into web.config, how they’re structured, and so forth).
Learn PowerShell thoroughly, from the basic core concepts to the SharePoint cmdlets.
Learn how to troubleshoot SharePoint, knowing when to look at the ULS log versus Application Event Log, System Event Log, and so forth.
Once you’ve mastered those, learn C#. Â As an IT Pro, knowing C# is invaluable when troubleshooting SharePoint at a deeper level. Â You’ll understand why SharePoint works the way it does, and often times, how to fix or workaround issues presented by SharePoint.
