Sharepoint Planning: Application Management

When deploying sharepoint we need to ask the key question: will we be allowing the deployment of applications built on top of that environment? If yes, then defining the process for how those applications will be deployed and who gets involved will be key. Some key questions:

Will your environment develop applications for organizations or will you allow other organizations to develop their own and send to you?

Will you manage the code that others provide to you?

You'll want to test the code before it goes out - will you do a full test of functionality, or focus on security and performance?

What role will the organization that builds the application play in testing?

Who is the primary point of contact for any code delivered to your environment?

Who is responsible for maintaining the code? Suppose someone calls your help desk - where will the help request be routed?

Over the next years, how will you maintain the code? Will you have a schedule to revisit the code with the authors? Code out of sight is out of mind and that's not a good thing.

The deliverable here should be a documented process for how your users will engage your group to deploy custom built applications.