Architecture Overview

This chapter provides general information on important concepts used within MatchPoint Snow.

Please note that additional information regarding architecture and general concepts are also provided within the MatchPoint Snow Installation Guide and the Snowflake Developer Guide.

Physical Architecture

MatchPoint Snow is installed within one web application on a SharePoint 2016 environment. As such, it does not implement its own physical architecture concept; it uses the general concepts available for setup and configuration of a SharePoint farm. Therefore, please ensure that Microsoft best practices are implemented when designing a SharePoint environment for use with MatchPoint Snow. For more information, please refer to the following MSDN article: Capacity management and sizing for SharePoint Server 2013

MatchPoint Snow Physical Architecture
Figure 1: MatchPoint Snow Physical Architecture

Logical Architecture

Within the web application that uses MatchPoint Snow, different site collections are used:

  • one site collection is used as the MatchPoint Snow "admin" site
  • one site collection is used as the MatchPoint Snow "instance" site
  • one site collection is required for each installed / configured MatchPoint Snowflake
  • MatchPoint Snow workspace sites are created beneath a defined managed path
  • SharePoint user "my site" sites are created beneath a defined managed path

Apart from these site collections, MatchPoint Snow utilizes a number of SharePoint services, namely the following:

  • FAST Search
  • User Profile Store
  • Managed Metadata

Finally, MatchPoint Snow as an application is based on functionality provided by CYCL MatchPoint. Specifically, the following functionalities are used:

  • MatchPoint web parts and user controls
  • MatchPoint tags
  • MatchPoint provisioning templates
  • MatchPoint workspaces (incl. metadata and role management)

The following sections of this chapter provide information on site collections, SharePoint service applications and MatchPoint functionalities used within MatchPoint Snow.

Site Collections

The following sub-sections provide information on site collections used within MatchPoint Snow and their specific functionality.

Admin Site

MatchPoint Snow uses one site collection as an administrative site. Within that site, the following content is managed:

  • The metadata model for "business" tags is managed within various SharePoint Lists. For more information, please refer to Metadata Management.
  • All configuration files that are used within MatchPoint Snow are managed within a SharePoint document library. For more information, please refer to Configuration Files.

The MatchPoint Snow "admin" site is by definition identical with the MatchPoint instance administration site. For more information on the functionality of this site, please refer to the MatchPoint Technical Reference document.

Instance Site

This site collection provides an entry point for all users accessing the MatchPoint Snow installation. On that site, the following landing pages are available:

  • Timeline
  • Workspaces
  • Content
  • Users

Additionally, a customized search page allows advanced searches for content.

All pages available on the instance site are configured with MatchPoint web parts and user controls to provide the user interface for MatchPoint Snow. For more information, please refer to chapters Configuration Files and User Controls.

Snowflake Instance Sites

If an installation of MatchPoint Snow uses one or more instances of MatchPoint Snowflakes, each Snowflake will require a dedicated site collection that contains the user interface of that Snowflake.

More information on configuration and/or implementation of a custom MatchPoint Snowflake is available within the Snowflake Developer Guide.

Workspaces Sites

MatchPoint Snow uses the functionality of MatchPoint workspaces. Each workspace is a site collection created beneath a managed path on the web application. The site collection contains specific "workspace" functionality (i.e. user- and metadata management) and standard SharePoint lists (i.e. document libraries, task- and calendar lists).

My Site

MatchPoint Snow stores user-specific information on each user's my site. Specifically, this is functionality that leverages the 'social' functionalities of SharePoint (e.g. liking and following). MatchPoint Snow does not change any settings/functionalities of SharePoint my sites. It uses the out-of-the-box functionalities to provide a rich user experience by optimally aggregating information and displaying it at the 'right' place.

The My Site Host which is required for Snow can either be on a dedicated web application or on a site collection within the Snow web application.

SharePoint Service Applications

The following sub-sections provide information on the specific usage of service applications used within MatchPoint Snow.

Content displayed within the MatchPoint Snow "instance" site is often aggregated using the SharePoint FAST search service application. It is therefore required that SharePoint is configured with a search topology that meets the requirements of the farm regarding user load and performance.

The oob SharePoint search is generally not modified. However, a few custom managed properties are required. These are created during the installation process of either MatchPoint or MatchPoint Snow.

For more information, please refer to the corresponding documentation, namely the Installation Guide.

User Profile Store

MatchPoint Snow stores user specific installation on the user's my site. Also, MatchPoint Snow aggregates information about a user from the user's profile. Therefore, the SharePoint environment needs to be configured with a user profile store and a working synchronization job that fetches information on a user from the active directory.

The oob SharePoint user profile store is generally not modified. One specific user property is required. This is created during the installation process of MatchPoint.

For more information, please refer to the Installation Guide.

Managed Metadata

Some user-specific information (e.g. followed sites, documents users) are stored by SharePoint within a Managed Metadata service application. Therefore, such a service application has to be configured on the SharePoint farm. However, neither MatchPoint nor MatchPoint Snow require any specific functionality or configuration that goes beyond the oob SharePoint behavior.

MatchPoint

The following sub-sections provide information on the specific usage of the MatchPoint application framework within MatchPoint Snow.

Web Parts and User Controls

MatchPoint provides a set of generic web parts that allow displaying content to users within a SharePoint site. These web parts are configured with central configuration files. Within the MatchPoint Web Parts,ascx user controls can be used for rendering content.

FMatchPoint Snow extensively uses these Web Parts and user controls in order to implement the user interface. For more information, please refer to chapters Configuration Files and User Controls.

MatchPoint Tags

The MatchPoint workspaces used within MatchPoint Snow are enriched with metadata. This metadata can be both unmanaged metadata (i.e. text fields like "description") and managed metadata from a centralized taxonomy.

SharePoint provides the Managed Metadata service for this scenario. However, the functionality of the SharePoint terms is not sufficient for the application scenario within MatchPoint Snow: MatchPoint provides a mechanism that allows inheriting metadata to content up to site collection level, thus allowing the application of a metadata value to content (i.e. a document) by just uploading said document to the 'correct' location (i.e. a MatchPoint Snow workspace).

Using MatchPoint tags requires a Tagging Service Application to be installed and configured within the SharePoint farm. For more information, please refer to the Installation Guide.

Provisioning Templates

All workspaces used within MatchPoint Snow are based on a MatchPoint provisioning template. Provisioning templates provide similar functionality as oob SharePoint site definitions. Namely, the definition of SharePoint lists and document libraries, features etc. that are to be created/applied to each site that is created within the environment.

MatchPoint's provisioning templates provide the advantage that they are based on configuration files and therefore do not need to be specifically developed and deployed to the SharePoint farm.

Workspaces

All content within MatchPoint Snow is managed within a MatchPoint workspace. Workspaces correspond to business entities (i.e. a project) and therefore are a logical container for content related to business processes. MatchPoint Snow leverages this functionality and provides the following workspace types:

  • Project
  • Community
  • Team

Additional workspace types can be configured either within a separate MatchPoint Snowflake or within MatchPoint Snow itself. Please refer to Customizations and Extensions for more information.

Remote Workspaces

When MatchPoint Snow Hybrid solution is activated an additional workspace type is available:

  • Remote

The remote workspaces are being created on your connected SharePoint Online tenant. Its content will also be visible within MatchPoint Snow when SearchDataProvider is used.

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