By Splunk November 21, 2014
For about the last year, I’ve been working on an update to the Splunk App for SharePoint. But it isn’t the one you would expect. I’ve been working to open source the app. At the end of the day the best person to write an IT Operations app for Splunk is the person who is intimately involved in the running of the workload. Today, we are flicking the switch and opening up the project. We are allowing you to directly file bugs and feature requests; we are allowing you to submit code; and we are encouraging you to get involved in the project.
So, how can you do this. Firstly, you will want to have some sort of test environment. Most SharePoint admins I know have a small test SharePoint environment that gets used for new functionality. That is an ideal environment for this. You will want to download the Add-on for Microsoft SharePoint (it supports SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013) and get that implemented so that you have data flowing in. Don’t forget the Add-on for Microsoft Windows and other add-ons that may be appropriate to your environment (like SQL Server).
Now that you have data flowing in, you can download the Splunk App for SharePoint. We will be doing regular releases of the app and uploading them to Splunkbase. In fact, version 0.2.0 (that matches the TA-Microsoft_SharePoint v0.2.0 that was just released) will be uploaded today. However, that isn’t the bleeding edge. To get the bleeding edge, you will need to go to the source – in our case, that is https://github.com/splunk/splunk-app-sharepoint.
As is normal with open source projects, you will need to do a little more work in order to get this going. If you are just following the project, then you can download it as a ZIP file, unpack it and then build it. You will need a build system that has Java and ant installed. To build the project, just change into the same directory as the build.xml and run
ant dist
This will create the app distribution in the build/dist directory.
You can use our Issue Tracker if you want to file bugs or feature requests. We’ve also set up a Google Groups mailing list for discussion of the project.
What about making changes? Your first step is to fork the repository. Once you have forked the repository you can use the standard git tools to sync the repository to your local development machine and make changes.
What about contributing? First of all, we need to get the basics on contributing to a Splunk app out of the way. You can check out our Open Source page for information on contributing. Once that is out of the way, make changes, then issue a Pull Request back to us. We will review your changes and may contact you about them (it’s a good idea to discuss your merge request on the mailing list). Then, assuming all is in order, we will merge your changes into the master branch and they will be incorporated into the next release.
If you manage SharePoint and you have ever dreamed of what it would be like to have the perfect tool – now is your chance. Get involved and let’s make something awesome.