SharePoint 2012/2013 Wishlist…dear Microsoft…

Ok, this time I would like to add a post intended for Microsoft and the product group, but also for all of you SharePoint fans out there.
I guess that you have like me and like this time my dear coworker Mattias Gutke who cowrote this list, thought over time that this and this should be done better or added in the next version.

However, I do not know of any good way to get this knowledge across to the product group, or even if there is a way to email someone. Perhaps there is for the MVP’s or the TAP/TechPreview community but for all of us mere mortals??
During my 8+ years at Microsoft there was always talk about the emailaddress mswishlist@microsoft.com. I still today do not know if it even existed or if it was monitored.

So, I’ll just post the list we have gathered over time here and my hope is that it somehow will make it’s way to the top. Please aslo feel free to add your own reasonable requests as a comment and I will be happy to review and possibly add it to the list.

Ok, here we go! The list of features, functionality, added/fixed settings in the next version of SharePoint, SharePoint 2012/2013 (working title SharePoint v. 15)

Dear Microsoft, this is what we want:

• In CA, add a setting for a common Farm wide prefix for all databases. Skip the guid from the gui if this is set.
  Example: Farmname_databasetype_function
• Add a possibility to audit all Central administration settings, even when changed from PowerShell. Audit data should be collected at a separately named database server and database(can be the same as the farm SQL)
• If a service or feature needs to be started in order to create a service application or other objects in CA, prompt to start them.
• Add a link to the Search administration from the start page in CA when Search is installed.
• Add a ‘Verify Kerberos setup’ that can access data and verify if a system are configured properly to operate using Kerberos authentication.
• Add a wizard for setting up Claims authentication from live.com(and possibly other external authenticators)
• Record actions taken in CA as Powershell commands so that they can be re-executed in another farm or again in the same farm.
• Save farm settings to xml+wsp, then import settings to new farm. An improved semi-automated way to transfer a test environment to prod or prod to test. Import will implement the exact same settings as in source farm complete with service applications and solutions. Acount and unique settings will be editable easily in the xml.
• Correlation id link to logfile for admins, even a linenumbers would be great.
  Also for the end user experience they would be able to send (with a button) that id & link to an admin. with the option to write error/problem desctiption. with choices??? i.e Minor incident, Critical for business etc.
• Easier to get UPS up and running in some way. installed default? but not activated/configured feature/service
• Much easier navigation within CA, everything is still a mess. Hate to se a couple of settings as a preview but when you go into i.e Monitoring you will find even more, show everything at the beginning or nothing exectp the title of the section.
• Visual Farm topology in CA would be nice to have, with clickable areas to get more information.
• When copy a item to another library within the site collection a browse button should be available, you should not have to specify a URL!!!
• Clean up permission pages, and default should only be 3 sharepoint groups, visitor, member owner
• Add support to export/import termstore synonyms.
• Add support for Managed metadata/Termstore in SharePoint Workspace.
• Allow the ability to enter metadata on multiple-document upload
• PDF-ifilter out of the box!
• Auto-remove from SharePoint if AD-object is terminated/removed.
• You should not have to have sharepoint installed on your VS dev machine, connect and publish to any external sharepoint farm. It should be enough to install an SDK for SharePoint.
• A way to in the GUI or Visual Studio, select the components that you want to be part of a new Web Template/Site Definition.
• If a new update/CU/SP is available for each product/feature/service, In the upgrade/version/patch level page in CA. Link to the correct place to get that patch/CU/SP, dont want to google it up every time!!!
  One place to select update farm (select in list to what cu/SP)!
• Same for Language packs as for CU/SP, one place to select in CA and the languages should be downloaded and installed.
• Export some configuration in CA as a powershellscript
• Add an extended default example metadata classification tree to the term store.
• Add easier export import of metadata from the term store.
• built in warm-up-script functionality.
• Built in Scedule task functionality.
• Under site settings, red titles are features available but not enabled due to some feature that needs activation like (in red) Navigation – SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature. Once activated the feature turns blue and the text shoowing witch feature needs to be activated is gone.
• Or, as above but with most settings available but if the feature is not enabled, you get a dialog that says that this feature will be activated, do you wish to go ahead?
• Easier cutomization of the ribbon, checkboxes of what options should be available, today it’s too overwhelming experience for endusers. also a tab for admin/owner for the ribbon would be nice to be able to select all non-endusers settings.

For the rest of you – Enjoy!

Regards

  (with great contributions from Mattias Gutke – Enfo Sweden)