For about the last month I’ve been working fulltime on an enormous MOSS 2007 rollout for a big Chicago-based enterprise. For the couple of years before that I’d been almost 100% on Dynamics CRM. Which goes some of the way to explaining my recent posting paucity, but that’s beside the point.

In any case, since my specialty is combining the two platforms, it’s been a good thing for me to be full-on MOSS and get my chops back. And to see how it’s done in a first-class enterprise rollout — with actual investment in things like custom web parts, standards and governance, change management — it’s good to know there are large enterprises that take those things seriously!

It’s also been an eye-opener for me to see where the skill shortages are. To me it looks like the biggest requirements — at least for the gig I’m on — are for what I’d call “Content Publishers”. Here’s what I think they need to know:

·         Understand SharePoint lists and libraries. Should have extensive experience with and deep understanding of the core data storage mechanism of SharePoint, lists and libraries.

• When to use lists v. libraries
• Create lists and libraries, customize settings
• Creating and modifying list and library views
• Creating and working with calculated columns
• Importing and Exporting data from lists and libraries 

·         Understand Web Parts. Should have detailed knowledge of and extensive experience with using all out of the box WSS and MOSS web parts to lay out and customize SharePoint pages. Should be able to quickly come up to speed on the use of custom web parts. Some of the most important SharePoint web parts you should already have experience with include:

• Content Editor, Summary Links and Content Query Web Parts
• Page Viewer, Form and Image Web Parts
• Use of Web Parts to expose lists and libraries
• Other commonly used SharePoint Web Parts
• Exporting and Importing Web Parts
• Targeting Audiences with Web Parts

·         Understand MOSS 2007 Publishing features

• Working with Pages document library
• Publishing workflow features

·         SharePoint Page Layout and Graphics. Should have experience with designing and implementing SharePoint pages, both with the SharePoint web UI, as well as editing/importing HTML, with a mix of text, graphics, links, etc. Have basic skills working with and modifying images. Have basic skills working with images in SharePoint: importing, integrating into pages, etc.

·         Other important required skills

• Designing and customizing navigation for sites and site collections
• Working with and customizing user management and permissions for sites and site collections
• Understanding and customizing site and site collection settings
• Understanding SharePoint search

That’s what I’m looking for, anyway. If you have these skills or if you know anybody that does, please let me know! You can post a comment here, or email me at richardk@imginc.com

There’s plenty of SharePoint work out there, so keep your chops up!