Creating Business Modules (Version 4)

1. Introduction

2. Creating a new business module

3. Deleting a business module

   3.1. Using the Multiple Entities per Site Collection setting

4. Best practices

5. Notes

Business modules are at the very core of WorkPoint solutions. Business modules host the individual entities of WorkPoint solutions, e.g. Cases, Projects or Employees.

Business modules are SharePoint lists, which contain items pointing to individual entity sites. On these entity sites, users can store documents or other items,  set up appointments, create tasks, register risks, and much more.

Business module lists may also simply hold all necessary information themselves - an example of this is given in the image later in this introduction.

The following image shows the business module structure of the standard WorkPoint Project Management solution.

Examples of business modules in the image above are Companies, Projects, and Contacts.

This image exemplifies a structural hierarchy of business modules; The Companies module is at the top of the hierarchy, and the Projects- and Contacts modules are child modules of the Companies module. This serves multiple purposes, an example of which is with the use of mail merging and document templates.

The Companies and the Projects business modules hosts list items, which is what we refer to as "Entities". These entity list items contain meta data for the entity. Examples of these are the Project ID and title of a project, or a title and VAT number of a company.

In many cases, entities also contain links to associated entity sites. These sites are where documents, tasks, events and other items related to the individual entities are stored. Examples of these could be a Project site which contain documents for project descriptions, a project plan, as well as journalized e-mails and appointments related to the project.

In the example in the image, you will notice that the Contact entities do not link to entity sites. This is because in this setup, all contacts are simply list entries on the Contacts business module, as sites for contacts are not necessary. In this example, we simply need to store some meta data for contacts, such as name, address, and so on.

Note that the WorkPoint system automatically sets up navigation between business modules on the solution. On the solution, both the structural hierarchy of the business modules and navigation elements can be found in the "Home" side panel, which looks like the following:

WorkPoint also automatically created a set of so-called MyTools buttons on the business module, and on business module entity sites. These buttons are responsible for executing specified actions. You can read more about MyTools here.

Business modules can be created in the WorkPoint Administration:

1. In the WorkPoint Administration, on the front dashboard, or the  "Business Modules" page, click "Add new".

This opens the configuration page for the new business module:

2. Provide a title for the business module.
3. Optionally select a language for localization. Localization refers to SharePoint's ability to display information based on the preferred language of the user.
4. Provide a translation for the business module title.
5. Click the "+" button to add the localization.
6. In the "Entity name" field, provide the singular term for the business module title. Examples  could be the name "Complaint" for the title "Complaints", or the name "Company" for the title "Companies".
7. Optionally select a language for localization.
8. Provide a translation for the business module name.
9. Click the "+" button to add the localization.
10. Optionally select a template for the business module. Templates outfit business modules with predefined content, such as libraries for documents, e-mails and other types of lists. In this example, a template for complaints exists, so it was selected. Other options are:
    • None
    • Companies
    • Contacts
    • Projects
    • Cases
    • Complaints
    • Contracts
    • InternalCases
    • Subscriptions
    • Employees
11. Select if this module should use use cross module parenting. If this setting is enabled, the "Parent" field changes from a single-choice drop down menu to a field where multiple existing business modules can be selected. Entities on business modules using cross module parenting can have a parent from either one of the selected business modules.
12. If cross module parenting is not enabled, select another existing business module as parent for this one. Parent business modules are relevant in certain cases in the WorkPoint system, such as mail merging and templates. Creating parent-child relationships between business modules also makes it possible to quickly find entities related to each other, e.g. projects related to a specif company.
13. Provide a parent relation. Typically this is the entity name of the parent module.
14. Select whether this business module should use a business module scaling option. For now, the options are:
    • None: No scaling option will be used.
    • Partitioning: This option is also referred to as "Business module folder support" and helps scale WorkPoint for extremely large solutions. You can read more about this option in this article.
15. Optionally type in a group name. Group names are relevant for setups where entities are supposed to be able to be transferred between business modules. An example of this could be a Projects module, and a Projects Archive module, in which archived projects are moved to when getting assigned an archive stage. The Projects module and the Projects Archive module need to have the same Group name defined in this field.
16. The Default process selectors are used for selecting WorkPoint Automate processes to use in specific cases:
    • Default create entity process: Select a process to run in the generic locations in WorkPoint where an entity can be created.
    • Default edit entity process: Select a process to run in the generic locations in WorkPoint where an entity can be edited.
    • Default create entity relation process: Select a process to run in the generic locations in WorkPoint where a relation can be created.
    • Default edit entity relation process: Select a process to run in the generic locations in WorkPoint where a relation can be edited.
    • Default entity change stage process: Select a process to run in the generic locations in WorkPoint where the stage of an entity can be changed.
17. Select an icon for the business module.
18. Decide whether sites should be enabled for the business module. As previously explained in the introduction, sites are not always necessary. If that is the case, keep the "Sites enabled" checker off. In case sites are needed on the business module, enable the checker. This expands the page with the following options:

19. Select the type of site collection behavior for the business module. The different types available are:
    • Singe site collection (Single site collection to house all sites for this business module. Not recommended for business modules which will possible contain more than 500 entities. Also not supported for production environments, but can be useful for quick demoing or POCs.).
    • Multiple entities per site collection (With this option, entity sites will be created when needed with multiple individual sites located on different site collections. This is advantageous when creating business modules which will easily exceed 500 entities).
    • One site collection per entity (A site collection will be created for each entity added to this business module. Useful when entities could contain multiple child entities and possibly share security. Allows WorkPoint to scale to the extremes. Also makes it possible to groupify each entity, e.g. in relation to Teams Integration.).

A graphical representation of the distribution of entities using "Multiple entities per site collection" and "One site collection per entity" options can be seen below:

Note that if enabling sites for the business module, the WorkPoint system automatically generates a so-called Master Site for the business module. A Master Site is a template site which is used to define how subsequent sites on the business module should look. This includes which lists are on the sites, which web parts are set up and their configurations, site pages, among other things.

Sites may take a little while from being created to being available in the system. If you find yourself in the need to be able to quickly create sites for entities and be able to access and use them quickly, WorkPoint offers a feature called "Buffer sites". Buffer sites sets up a configurable amount of sites ready to be assigned to entities. This speeds up site creation, and can greatly help organizations who create entities with sites often. You can read more about Buffer Sites here.

20. Check "Automatic site creation" if you want the WorkPoint system to automatically create sites for entities created on this business module.
21. Click the "Save" button to create the business module.

The Business Module creation job is now queued, and will begin shortly. When running, a page displays the following:

Once the creation is complete, the new business module is ready for use, and can be inspected in the WorkPoint Administration:

22. We now click the "Home" button on the solution.

23. In the bottom of the left side menu, we click "Need help?".
24. In the pop-up, we select "Clear  WorkPoint 365 browser cache".

If for some reason, you wish to delete a business module from a WorkPoint solution, follow these steps:

30. Click the options button for the business module you wish to delete.
31. Click "Delete Module".

This opens the "Delete Business Module" page:

32. Check the "Delete entity sites" checker on if you also wish to delete all entity sites from the business module.

33. Click the "Delete" button to start the deletion process.

After the deletion, this confirmation message is shown:

Outlined below is a list of best practices with regards to business modules and design of your overall solution architecture design.

• Never use the Single Site site architecture option for production environments. It does not scale very well. Instead, consider the Multiple Entities per Site Collection or One Site Collection per Entity options.
• Use the Multiple Entities per Site Collection site architecture for scaling without the need of Office 365 Group features (e.g. Microsoft Teams).
• Keep in mind that a Multiple Entities per Site Collection solution is quicker to create and easier to maintain.
• The One Entity per Site Collection site architecture makes it possible to integrate to Microsoft Teams and other Office 365 Group centered services.
• In most cases, site architecture cannot be changed - plan in advance which architecture to utilize.
• Once business module has been created, it is a good idea to clear the WorkPoint 365 browser cache (Home menu -> Need help? --> Clear WorkPoint 365 browser cache)
• It is generally recommended to disable management of content types on the business module lists once created. This will prevent accidents where the content types (stages) of entities are manually changed by altering meta data on the list.

Note that when creating new business modules with sites enabled, the master sites does not inherit any of the custom site columns from the root site.