As organizations look to migrate information from their existing environment of SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint 2010 to take advantage of the new functionalities, a component that must be considered is the popular Content Editor Web Part.

I frequently encounter pages that contain the Content Editor Web Part in SharePoint 2007 that do not always render correctly after the site has been upgraded to SharePoint 2010. The reason is that the way the Content Editor Web Part works in SharePoint 2010 has changed.

In previous versions of SharePoint (prior to 2010), a user could place custom HTML, Inline Styles and JavaScript in a SharePoint page using the Content Editor Web Part. However, no validation occurred when a user entered the customizations into the Content Editor, and users had the ability to enter content in the Content Editor Web Part that could potentially ruin the page. This was a prevalent issue by which many organizations were haunted. The governance around this Web part came into question.

The Content Editor Web Part in SharePoint 2010 was modified to correct some of these issues, so that it actually provided the ability to validate what a user could put into the Web part of the page. The content is not only validated when a user inputs content into the Content Editor directly, but it also has an effect on what happens when the page and its content are upgraded from SharePoint Server 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010. This has caused many organizations to recreate the content that was entered into a Content Editor Web Part because the SharePoint upgrade will modify the content inside the Web part and cause it not to render or function correctly.

Site owners must review the content that has been input into these Content Editor Web Parts to ensure that sites will look and function properly once their environment has been upgraded to minimize the effects of custom content in Content Editor Web Parts. This is just one of many items that could be affected by an upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010, but with a careful review of your custom content, your organization will be able to realize the benefits of your sound investment.

Dehun Benton is the Information Worker Practice Manager at SharePoint consulting firm EPC Group, headquartered in Houston.