Conference, End User, General Knowledge, Mark Miller, SharePoint Saturday

Learn SharePoint in 230 Sessions or More

July 29, 2011 admin 1 Comment

I started looking over the sessions for SharePoint Saturday - The Conference, and was just floored. As an exercise, I tried to read all the session names, and couldn’t get through the entire list. I’m putting them here so you can look and suggest various ways we can setup filters and organization to make it easier for people to find sessions they like.

What columns would you filter if you were creating the session program? Help us out!

"It Depends" - The Definitive Guide to Architecting SharePoint
"It Takes a Village" - The Human Cost of SharePoint
"What’s in it for me?" User Adoption & Employee Engagement Strategies for Enterprise Social Computing Projects
“Caching-In” for SharePoint Performance
10 Can’t Fail Techniques for Increasing SharePoint Adoption
2010 Service Applications
2010 Upgrade and Migration options
3 Key Components to Leverage SharePoint As An Enterprise Innovation Platform
6 Ways to take your SharePoint development to the Next Level
9 Ways to Become a (SharePoint) Rock Star
A Noble, Logical Diagram: SharePoint & the Power of a Global Platform
Access 2010 Integration with SharePoint 2010
Adoption is Hard? OR Adoption is hardly ever addressed?
An introduction to SharePoint 2010 Lists & Libraries
Application Lifecycle Management in SharePoint 2010
Application Pages are Lame! Building ASP.NET Apps for SharePoint
Applied PowerShell: PowerShell for the SharePoint Server Administrator
Architecting Records Management Solutions on SharePoint 2010
Are you who you say you are? SharePoint Authentication and Authorization
Assess Your SharePoint Maturity With The SharePoint Maturity Model
Assessing Social Business Evolution And Maturity
Best Practices for Managing an Effective SharePoint Team
Better Together – Sharepoint and DoD 5015.2 Certified ECM technologies provide defensible Records Management and eDiscovery strategies
Beyond Approval: Intro to Creating Custom Workflow Actions
BI to SharePoint: What a Business Analyst/PM/IT Pro Lite Needs to Know
Big Data Reality: Fueling SharePoint Growth Worldwide
Boost the Performance of SharePoint Today!
Branding – A beginners guide
Branding SharePoint 2010 for Your Business
Breaking down the SharePoint IA Silos
Building a Fully Branded SharePoint Website
Building a Solution Brick by Brick
Building BI solutions using Performance Point Services in SharePoint 2010
Building Business Solutions with InfoPath and Workflows
Building Pluggable Workflow Services in SharePoint 2010
Building the Perfect SharePoint Farm
Business Connectivity Services - How to Architect a Safe and Secure BCS Environment
Business Connectivity Services Explained by Example
Claims Based Authentication in SharePoint 2010: Integrating Forms Based & NTLM Providers
Client Object Model in SharePoint 2010
Cloud Based SharePoint. For Real?
Cloudy with a Chance of SharePoint
Congratulations, You’re THE SharePoint Person in Charge
Content is King - Enterprise Content Management in SharePoint 2010
Controlling your SharePoint Chaos
Create a Free Weather RSS Web Part Using SharePoint Designer 2010
Creating a Custom Gatherer for the SharePoint Activity Feed
Creating an Effective and Highly Developed Learning Gateway for Education with SharePoint 2007 and 2010
Creating Custom Forms in WSS with jQuery and SPServices
Creating Enterprise Class Applications in SharePoint 2010 without Writing Code
Creating Simple Dashboards Using Out of the Box Web Part
Customer Stories: Reaping the Benefits of Microsoft Project Management Solutions
Customize your Layouts pages in SharePoint 2010
Customizing forms with SharePoint Designer 2007
Data Visualization made easier in SharePoint 2010
Deep Dive into Feature Versioning in SharePoint 2010
Design a Dashboard in a Dash
Design patterns using XSL to generate web part user interfaces
Developing Custom Service Applications - When, Why and How
Developing for Office 365
Developing on Office 365
Developing Reusable Workflow Features
Developing SilverLight Applications for SharePoint
Dispelling the Myths behind SharePoint Deployment Planning Services
Docs without Folders – Organizing Documents with Content Types & Metadata
Document Sets - More than Just Folders
Does Size Matter? SharePoint’s Value in a Small Company on a Shoestring Budget
Driving User Adoption – How governance, training, and social networking create change in an organization
ECM from a Developer’s Perspective
Effective Requirements Gathering Workshops – How to organize and run them
Encourage! Educate! Engage! Build Excitement and Community in the Workplace!
Enforce Governance by Automating Site Provisioning
Enterprise Content Management using SharePoint 2010
Enterprise Ontology and Taxonomy: Beyond the $50 words
Epic SharePoint Battle: HTML 5 vs SilverLight 5
Exploring the Benefits of Business Connectivity Services
Extending the Data View Web Part
Facilitated Thinking Environments in Sharepoint 2010
Feature Stapling - Add Functionality to Site Templates
Federal Business Development and Opportunity Capture using SharePoint
Follow the Yellow Brick Road to SharePoint Mastery
From Power User to World Class SharePoint Administrator in 75 minutes Or Less!
Getting the Most from User Profiles
Getting the Most out of PerformancePoint Services 2010
Getting the most out of SharePoint Search
Governance 101
How BCS Saved My Marriage
How the client object model saved the day?
How we built NothingButSharePoint.com on SharePoint 2010
If You Build It They WILL Come - A Decade of SharePoint Adoption Best Practices
If you built it, they WILL come: Best Practices for User Adoption with SharePoint Solutions
Implementing Service Management (ITIL) using SharePoint
Implementing SharePoint - A Project Manager’s How-To
In the Trench Experiences with Sadie Van Buren’s SharePoint Maturity Model
Information Architecture and Enterprise Search: Better Together
Innovation @ Microsoft
Integrating SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio Lightswitch
Integrating SSRS 2008R2 with SharePoint 2010
Intranet Design (or Redesign)
Introduction to the SharePoint 2010 Client Object Model
Invent the Future by Reinventing SharePoint…NOW!
Is Your SharePoint Really Healthy? What’s the Right Prescription?
JPoint (jQuery + SharePoint): Hottest Buzz Ever!
Just Freakin’ Work! Overcoming Hurdles and Avoiding Pain in SharePoint Custom Development
Lessons Learned for SharePoint and Program Management: Planning and Implementing a PMIS for a Federal PMO
Let’s Migrate!
Leverage Search and Customize to your Brand within SharePoint 2010
LINQ to SharePoint 2010
Looking Under the Hood: How Your Metadata Strategy Impacts Everything You Do
Make Your Developers Love You! (aka SharePoint 2010 ALM for Dev Managers)
Making Sharepoint 2010 and Office 2010 bend to your will
Making SharePoint Sites That Don’t Look Like SharePoint Sites
Managed Meta Data Service – Using Term store in the real world beyond the taxonomy and tagging.
Managed Metadata – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Managed Metadata for SharePoint 2010 - How to use it, for what and when
Management and Governance of Multi-Tenant SharePoint Environments
Managing Electronic Records within Microsoft SharePoint 2010, including DoD 5015.2
Managing Information Governance within SharePoint 2010 without alienating users
Mastering SharePoint Migration Planning
Metalogix Software
Migrating Between a File Share and SharePoint
Migrating from File Systems to SharePoint (5 step process)
Migrating from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2010. Are you ready?
Migrating to Office 365
Mind to Matter: A way to model how you work in SharePoint
Moving to 2010 - Real-World Business Considerations
New to SharePoint: Influencer to Leadership Perspective on Getting SharePoint in Your Org
Office 365 – SharePoint Online Out-of-the-(Sand)Box
Office 365 Deployment Strategies
Office 365, Does it Work in a Leap Year?
Office Apps and SharePoint Apps – Client and Server Connected
Paper is Just Another Content Type in SharePoint - Showing How SharePoint and Paper Work Together
Planning and Configuring Extranets in SharePoint 2010
Planning Applications/Solutions on SharePoint
PowerPivot Security and Architecture: Strengths and Weaknesses
Practical Approach to SharePoint Intranet Governance
Practical Powershell for SharePoint
Practical Tips to Increase SharePoint Adoption
Real World Business Workflow with SharePoint Designer 2010
Real world claims in ADFS and SharePoint 2010
Real World SharePoint
Records Management 2010 – What to think about?
Relational Productivity Applications: SharePoint 2010 and Dynamics CRM 2011
Reporting in SharePoint 2010 with TFS 2010 and SQL Reporting Services 2008 - Bringing it all together
Requirements Management: From Vision to Mission to Success
Saving SharePoint
Scaling your SharePoint 2010 Architecture from 150 to 150,000 users
Search – If a child can’t use it, you’re not doing it right
Secrets of Generating Buy-In for Enterprise SharePoint Projects
Securing the SharePoint Platform
See Beyond The Numbers: Data Visualization and Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010
Selecting and Protecting the Right SharePoint Backup Targets
Setting up Kerberos configuration in a SharePoint farm
SharePoint & jQuery – What I wish I would have known when I started
SharePoint 2010 – Let’s Automate This Process
SharePoint 2010 and Office Web Applications
SharePoint 2010 Branding Basics
SharePoint 2010 Branding for the Masses
SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence Features
SharePoint 2010 Extranets and Authentication: How will SharePoint 2010 connect you to your partners?
SharePoint 2010 Feature and Solution Development With Visual Studio 2010
SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 – What’s New and Should I Install It?
SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management (WCM) Obstacles
SharePoint Administration 101
SharePoint and Evernote Integration
SharePoint and Forefront UAG
SharePoint and Windows Azure Development
SharePoint and Workflow - What’s new in 2010
SharePoint as a Business Laboratory
SharePoint as an Application Development Platform
SharePoint as an Enterprise Service Offering in Today’s Cloudy, Fragmented, Marketplace-Driven Environment
SharePoint Branding 101
SharePoint Data Security best practices
SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS) how to maximize the services you already paid for
SharePoint Designer Workflows - No Code Solutions
SharePoint Development 101
SharePoint Federation: Leveraging ADFSv2 and Claims Based Authentication to integrate with Partners as an Identity or Service Provider
SharePoint for ASP.NET Developers
SharePoint for DotCom Sites
SharePoint for Nonprofits - Top Contributing Factors of a Successful SharePoint Deployment
SharePoint Goes Public — SharePoint for Internet Sites
SharePoint Governance - The Art of the Possible
SharePoint Governance: Three Things Every Organization Needs to Know
SharePoint IA Design 101
SharePoint in a Distributed Enterprise
SharePoint in the State Government Agency
SharePoint Multi-Tenancy - Best Practices
SharePoint Natural Disasters "Notes from the Field"
SharePoint on a Diet, Developing for Mobile
SharePoint Social Targeting – Getting the Right Information to the Right People
SharePoint Street Smart – Delivering Content to Mobile Devices & Tablets
SharePoint To Go – Taking SharePoint Beyond The Desktop
SharePoint: Enabling the Business of Diplomacy
SharPoint 2010 and Your DR Plan: New Capabilities, New Possibilities!
So you want to implement SharePoint in your organization… What now?
So You Want Your Name in Print
Social Apps for SharePoint: Communities, Videos, Activity Streams, Questions and Answers, Ideation, and Badging
Solving Tough Microsoft SharePoint Records Management Compliance Challenges
Starting your Proposal Resource Center in SharePoint
Stepping into Social Computing with SharePoint
SurfRay
Take your SharePoint solutions to the cloud
Taming the Beast: A SharePoint Survival Guide for the Server Administrator
Teaching SharePoint
Ten Things You Need to Know About Office 365
The Best Practices and Pain Points of Implementing SharePoint Training
The Connection Between Metadata, Social Tools, and Personal Productivity
The Executive Perspective: Top 7 Things You Must Consider for SharePoint 2010
The Real Cost of SharePoint
The SharePoint BI tools and their use: Making Sense of it All
The Steps to Effective SharePoint Governance
Thinking More Broadly About SharePoint
Tips and Tricks for Every Phase of SharePoint Migration
To BLOB or Not to BLOB? Storage Optimization Demystified
Together Forever – Project Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010
Top Down User Adoption: Cycle of Vision, Resistance, Whining, Babysitting and Ultimate Success
Top Five SharePoint Surprises
Tracking & Managing Physical Items with SharePoint
Train the Trainer- Site Manager Training Workshop
Twin-Soft Corporation
Understanding Sandbox Solutions
Understanding Your FAST Search 2010 for SharePoint Application Topology
Upgrading and Migration, lessons from the trenches
Users, Profiles, and MySites: Managing a Changing SharePoint User Population
Using SharePoint Designer 2010 and SQL Stored Procedures to View Data
Using SharePoint to Implement Knowledge Management Solutions
Using SharePoint to Improve Project Delivery – Raising the Bar on PM Best Practices
Utilizing COBIT Principles for the Deployment and Governance of SharePoint 2010
We’ve Got SharePoint…Now What!?!?!
Web Services and Service Applications – SharePoint as Middleware
What You Need to Know about Office 365 and SharePoint Online
What’s new is SharePoint Designer 2010
Why Settle for Less? In One Fell Swoop, Learn How to Unleash the Power of SharePoint, Create a Near Immediate Win for Everyone and Drive Fanatical User Adoption
Why Your SharePoint Search Sucks
Wrapping Your Head Around the SharePoint Beast - What Every Beginning Developer Needs to Know
Write it Down! - Documenting your SharePoint Projects
Zen and the Art of SharePoint Troubleshooting

Not much else I can say. I’ve never seen anything like this for $39. The value proposition on this conference is not to be missed.

Reserve your seat now

2007, 2010, Debbie Ireland, End User, MOSS, Productivity Tips for SharePoint Users, Reporting, Site Manager/Power User, WSS

Productivity Tips for SharePoint Users - 10 - Reporting

July 29, 2011 admin

I recently worked on a presentation that resulted in demonstrations of the TOP 10 Productivity Tips for SharePoint Users (Number one being the highest rated). This is the second of 12 posts (including an introduction and summary). You can read the series introduction here.

Reporting was the Capability, but this could include things like KPI Dashboards, Reporting Services, Performance Point and most definitely External Lists.

The Productivity Tip was providing the Right Information, at the Right Place at the Right Time - Key Points:

The Right Information - aggregated, seen alongside other relevant data, so getting information from various other source systems, and displaying within the one SharePoint portal
The Right Place - single log on to read only (or updateable) information - without the user needing to access multiple areas to find the data they need for decision making. ALSO on line, so accessible from anywhere
The Right Time - refreshable on the screen, so current - no need to wait on people providing reports, or emails - it is there, when the user is ready to look at it.

The Demonstration includes the use of external lists displayed in a project site, but updated from other systems - eg SQL DB, HR systems, Custom apps. We also looked at the capability of Performance Point and the decomposition tree to drill down on graphs and visual data, to see the kind of information at a granular level.

The CRAP (Computerised Records for Attractive People) System, by Paul Culmsee was discussed - an excellent series of 5 minute vids here for viewing - these are specifically around simple ways to integrate Reporting Systems.

Overall the Productivity gains come in quick and powerful results with a lot less investment.

Conference, End User, General Knowledge, Mark Miller, SharePoint Saturday

SharePoint Saturday The Conference Workshop Schedule- Registration Open

July 28, 2011 admin

I get a lot of people who tell me they can’t afford to attend conferences because their employers won’t pay for it and they don’t want to come out of pocket. Well now there’s an alternative. The SharePoint Saturday team in Washington DC are putting on a three day conference, August 11 - 13, 2011, SharePoint Saturday - The Conference. Total cost to you? $39. That’s right, I’m not missing a decimal. $39. Here are some of the 1/2 day and full day workshops you can choose from:

This is just a taste of the sessions to choose from. There are over 280 session total. I’m bringing the family for the week and hope to see you there. Please help us spread the word. You can read details about the event, and then register here.

2007, 2010, Adoption, End User, General Knowledge, Governance, Lynn Warneke, MOSS, Project Management, Top 10 Tips for Success with SharePoint, WSS

Top 10 Tips for Success with SharePoint: #6B

July 28, 2011 admin

Deft Design Delivers Dividends!

Part B of a two-parter that starts here at Part A.

Part B: To Brand or Not To Brand SharePoint? … Why is This The Question?

Bringing up this topic always seems to invite strong opinions for, but mainly against, however I’m feeling game today…

Before we go on, let me just take a moment to define branding, because various conversations over the years have made me aware this term can mislead and confuse business clients; or anyone, really, who doesn’t spend their lives thinking about such things.

So that single word “branding” does not just mean christening your SharePoint site with its very own name, but also and more so customising SharePoint’s user interface. Now, that innocuous little phrase can in itself conceal plenty of devilish detail. SharePoint user interface customisation can be relatively simple and low cost – displaying your own logo and banner, and maybe changing the standard fonts and colours via a SharePoint theme. But it can also be comprehensive, potentially complex and high cost – e.g. altering the look of web parts, adding tabs to a page, replacing the out of the box global navigation with custom mega-menus, creating new templates to modify the layout of page elements, adding a common footer, etc. At that end of the spectrum, it absolutely necessitates more-than-basic SharePoint Designer knowledge and skills, and CSS expertise. It might require jQuery (SharePoint Blu-tack, Paul calls this: http://www.cleverworkarounds.com/2009/02/27/jquery-sharepoint-blu-tack/ And Jeremy calls it a BandAid: http://wss.made4the.net/archive/2009/02/23/jquery-the-sharepoint-band-aid.aspx ), JavaScript skills and more. “Branding” then becomes something more akin to development. Go forth with your eyes wide open, sufficient budget, governance at the back of your mind, and I would strongly advise, call the experts in:

Back on Topic – To Brand or Not To Brand, That Is The Question…

Organisations brand to:

Stand out from the crowd
Establish their credibility
Deliver a message
Appeal to a target audience
Motivate, facilitate and expedite a purchase or other ‘transaction’
Cement the target’s loyalty and keep ’em coming back for more (aka a ‘sticky’ experience)

If you’re deploying SharePoint for your organisation’s website, you’re probably in for an extensive custom branding exercise. You’ll want a unique look and feel that encapsulates and promotes your organisation’s brand and – I’m pretty certain of myself here – you won’t be able to achieve that with the out of the box SharePoint interface, not the 2010 version and definitely not 2007. It’s not you, it’s SharePoint

However, all the preceding bullet points are, to a greater or lesser extent, as true of internal systems these days as they are of public facing websites. Increasingly, in this overtly designed and packaged world we affluent Westerners enjoy, employees expect aesthetically appealing and user-friendly experiences of their company systems, as much if not more than they do of their website transactions (for example they usually – or they should – spend more of their working hours on their company Intranet or Collaboration environment than online banking or grocery shopping).

Accordingly, I think Microsoft expects you to brand SharePoint to suit, and that’s why the 2010 user interface is so bland out of the box. I approach it as a sort-of canvas, not the final artwork. Sadalit Van Buren is talking about customization generally here, but her point applies rather well to SharePoint branding:

For some visual evidence, take a look at the Step Two Designs post Make SharePoint Intranets Beautiful at http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/make-sharepoint-intranets-beautiful/

Now remember I did say design, not window dressing. I don’t advocate pretty colours and font tweaking for the sake of it. I advocate thoughtful, user-centred, evidence-based design decisions that support IA and usability objectives. I believe that SharePoint branding in this context greatly encourages user engagement and facilitates user adoption.

For example:

If you are deploying more than one Site Collection – this is a common design decision for internal solutions built on SharePoint – then navigation out of the box between Site Collections is clunky if I’m being generous, and almost non-existent if I’m not. You really should put some branding budget and effort aside to address this.
Is your SharePoint implementation made up of multiple functional components, such as an authoritative Intranet, a work-in-progress collaboration environment for teams, and for projects, and maybe another for internal+external collaboration, an enterprise document management centre, a records archive, etc.? Then consider the degree to which unique colours and other visual cues help users establish their whereabouts easily and encourage them to perform the correct functions and actions in the correct place. Otherwise, to the user, your SharePoint platform might be a huge, undifferentiated homogenous environment in which they are easily lost and quickly confused.

So, How Do You Do It?

See my post on SharePoint Branding 101 with many useful links for getting started, including some to SharePoint site galleries for inspiration.

Hire an expert web designer with demonstrable skills and experience branding SharePoint. They’re an extremely rare beast, in Australia at least, so another option is to engage a SharePoint expert who is experienced in communicating with and directing web designers on SharePoint branding idiosyncrasies and insist they make beautiful music together.

See my previous post ranting against extensive customisation/development though, and do not go too far. As always, get the balance right and do worry yourself sick about long term governance. Yes more on that fun topic later.

Summing Up:

Don’t think of SharePoint branding as mere window dressing – done well, it aids the user experience and encourages engagement and adoption
Then if the question is: Do we brand our SharePoint platform? My answer is yes.

2007, 2010, Andreas Glaser, Developer, MOSS, SharePoint, WSS

10 Things you can do today to stay up-to-date with SharePoint forever

July 28, 2011 admin 7 Comments

These days people spend so much time on the internet looking for information that is valuable to them that they never take the time to do the things that would be really great for their information research. Here is a list of 10 things that you can do, today, that will keep you up to date with SharePoint forever.

Let’s get it on…

Tip #1: Get MSDN and TechNet RSS feeds in your RSS reader (10 minutes)

Depending on your job description you might be either interested in TechNet content or MSDN content. In both cases I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed and that you keep the feeds in folders.

This way you don’t need to remember everything that comes with the feed. Just remember that you have saved the feed and search for a keyword if you need it.

I only read a few of them if they arrive… the other ones I read on demand.

Here are the RSS feeds of newly published TechNet content:

Unfortunately the MSDN library newly published content for SharePoint developers has no RSS feed. Only the SharePoint developer center has one which I think doesn’t include the updates from the MSDN library:

Tip #2: Find SharePoint blogs and get their RSS feed (1 hour)

Today there are so many bloggers it’s hard to find the ones who post content which is important to you. In order to spend less time I use the following methods to find blogs where I subscribe to the RSS feed:

Search for keywords like SharePoint 2010 branding…
Usually the search for SharePoint problems takes you to blogs with solutions and other great content…
If you follow Twitter users they usually have a blog… just see tip #7 for more details…
Start with the usual “suspects”: Joel Oleson, Andrew Connell…

Tip #3: Check the Microsoft Download Center (5 minutes)

There are a lot of downloads by Microsoft like white paper, SDKs, templates or applications. The Microsoft Download Center allows you to search for Microsoft downloads where you can filter and sort the results:

Unfortunately there is no RSS feed but you can check once or twice a week for new downloads. You can bookmark your search since the search query, the filter and the sorting order are stored in URL parameters.

Note: If your URL doesn’t update with the chosen filter try to sort in a different order as the filter is also applied to the URL as a parameter.

Tip #4: Get the RSS feed for MSDN Subscriber Downloads (5 minutes)

If you or your company owns an MSDN subscription you can download Microsoft software for your development based on your license:

Fortunately new subscriber downloads are offered by a RSS feed:

RSS Feed | MSDN Subscriber Downloads

Tip #5: Get an account at MSDN Forums (10 minutes)

There are so many MSDN forums and even more experts answering questions regarding all products Microsoft offers (I think).

You can use your Windows Live ID to sign into the forums where you can add a forum to your list, set alerts or just watch the newest posts (SharePoint 2010 Forums).

You cannot only ask question you can also take a look at the discussions and learn from the existing members.

Tip #6: Get the RSS feed for KB articles with KBAlertz (10 minutes)

Wouldn’t it be awesome to get the newest KB articles sorted by product by an RSS feed? Well you can with KBAlertz.com. You can save the feed in folders where you can filter them by keywords:

Note: Unfortunately although the KB articles are updated the RSS feed wasn’t updated for a while. I hope this is will be repaired…

Tip #7: Get your own Twitter account and look for people to follow (1 hour)

A lot of bloggers now have Twitter accounts where they announce new blog posts or other things related to SharePoint.

My intention is to follow only people who post stuff related to my work and who doesn’t post personal stuff. Not all people post SharePoint related stuff, the things you are interested in or they post too much personal content. Just take a look at the persons tweets and you will know how often they update their stuff and what it’s about:

This is the Twitter client I use:

Twhirl

Get your own Twitter account:

Get your own account at Twitter

You can follow me on Twitter:

@SPTutorial

Here are the people I like to listen to (the list isn’t complete and there are a lot more people worth following):

@SharePoint, @joeloleson, @andrewconnell, @Harbars, @ChrisO_Brien, @jthake, @wictor, @benjaminathawes

Note: If you don’t know whom to follow you can search Twitter for tags used by people who post SharePoint related stuff: #SP2010 or #SharePoint.

Tip #8: Let you invite to Google+ and build SharePoint circles (1 hour)

Join us at Goolgle+ since it seems to be a (the) new place where people share their content. It’s the same as Twitter so just take a look at a persons posts and you will see if it’s interesting for you or not.

If you need to find people talking about SharePoint you can take a look at the circles people have… often you find people connected because of a topic like SharePoint or just because they are friends.

Tip #9: Less is more so review your information sources (30 minutes)

Sometimes people aren’t up-to-date since they have so much information available that they can’t keep up with the flood. Review the feeds and tweets you get and remove information which you don’t need. This doesn’t mean that the content is bad. It just means that you don’t need it right now.

Another alternative is to store content in folders. If you need to find something you can use the search to filter its contents.

Tip #10: Please share this post and leave a comment (1 minute)

I’m sure this post isn’t complete… please leave a comment so I can add additional tips or share the post with the buttons at the top of the post so that someone else can make useful additions

2007, 2010, Dave Coleman, End User, MOSS, Security, Site Manager/Power User, Tips and Tricks, WSS

How to allow anonymous users to comment on a SharePoint 2010 blog

July 28, 2011 admin 30 Comments

We run anonymous SharePoint websites but have never setup an anonymous SharePoint blog. Fortunately those nice people at FPweb have given me a subscription to one of their SharePoint foundation plans. Now, I am a diehard WordPress blogger but I do think it is time to start using the platform that I blog about so earlier this year I started setting up my SharePoint blog which can be found at http://davecoleman.sharepointspace.com/blog/default.aspx a temporary name at the moment but give me time.

So the first post went up and luckily I was tweeted by Geraint Pugh saying that he could not comment. After much head scratching I managed to find the solution so read on for the how to-

First step from the site actions drop down choose view all site content

Click on the comments list and choose list from the ribbon

Next click on List permissions as shown below

You will then need to stop inheriting permissions for this list

Once you have broken inheritance, your view on the ribbon will change as illustrated below. You will need to click on anonymous access

Once clicked you will be presented with the dialogue box below and you will have to change the settings to allow Add Items – Add items to lists. This will enable your readers to post comments on your new shiny SharePoint Blog.

2007, 2010, Data View Web Part, End User, MOSS, SharePoint Designer, Site Manager/Power User, Ved Mishra, WSS

SharePoint Designer is very slow? Follow these practices to make your life easier

July 27, 2011 admin 1 Comment

Many of us (rather all folks in SharePoint development) encounter SharePoint Designer’s (SPD) slowness irrespective of the environment they are working on.

SharePoint designer is a terrific free tool (SHAREPOINT DESIGNER 2007 IS NOW FREE!) to work with SharePoint Pages. It provides a great amount of features you can use to build/edit SharePoint sites in IT-managed environments. You don’t need to be dependent on a deployment team for accessing servers and deployment of web parts. You can use the great unsung hero Data View Web Part as well as Silverlight Web Parts (will publish details in next blogs) to do almost anything without any involvement in deploying components on the servers.

But when you open SharePoint Designer and start using these features, the painful slowness of this tool makes you frustrated and you wonder about its usability. You start blaming Microsoft for this tool. Well, Microsoft is too big to answer to anyone. So instead of pondering, you can adhere to the following practices to make your life easier.

1. Load the page in code view. It takes fewer resources and loads faster. Once code view is loaded completely, then you can switch to design/split view if need be. But try to stay in code view whenever possible.

2. Open only necessary windows/applications on your computer. Close the mail client (a little harsh) if possible. The idea is to free up more CPU time and memory for SPDESIGN.exe (SharePoint Designer process EXE). Don’t click randomly and confuse SPD with a barrage of SOAP requests. Click once and wait for it to respond. It is like browsing the Internet or watching streamed video over a slow network. Free stuff must come with some patience.

3. Restart SharePoint Designer often. This will avoid the ‘out of memory’ issue. Save your work and close all designer windows before you head out for lunch.

4. A RAM higher than 3 GB is preferable. I use SPD on two computers in the same network. One with 2 GB while the other is 4 GB. And, I can feel the difference in SPD performance.

5. Work off SharePoint Designer if possible. Export the page to your hard disk (File menu – Export – File). Open the files saved in your hard disk with SharePoint designer, make updates and then override the page using your browser or SharePoint Designer. Although, you may not be able to leverage features of SharePoint Designer, this trick comes in quite handy when SharePoint Designer hangs every time you try to open the page.

6. When working with a large list in DVWP, check the checkbox under ‘Common Task Pane’ which says ‘Show with sample data”. This loads just 5 sample items instead of the complete data from data source. Also, make sure you have unchecked ‘Show data values’ at the bottom of Data Sources pane.

7. Make sure you don’t have any closed web parts on the page. Even if you close the web parts on the page, it renders in SharePoint Designer when you load that page and contributes to more delays. Make sure, you go to theWeb Part maintenance page ([site page url]?contents=1 in the browser) and delete them.

8. The efficient way to work with Data View Web Parts (DVWP) would be one DVWP on one page during development. For example, you are working on DVWP ‘A’ which should finally reside on a page where there are other DVWP’s already present. Don’t edit that particular page and work on DVWP ‘A’. Create a new blank web part page and complete developing the DVWP ‘A’ there. Once that is complete, export that web part using your browser and import https://nothingbutsharepoint.com/wp-content/themes/o4o206sb2smakbz7yz377r74961/files/2011/it on the final page. you can then delete dvwp ‘A’ from your development page and use that page for some other DVWP development (instead of creating another page).

9. Turn off ‘Style Application’ or any toolbar which you are currently not using. You can turn it on again when you need them. Go to View menuToolbars and uncheck any toolbar option which you are not using. Uncheck ‘Quick Tag Selector’ under View menu. I normally even turn off the folder list pane. I keep just the code view pane open when I am working on a master page and page layouts. While working with Data View Web Parts, I just keep Code view (or Split view when necessary) and Data Sources panes open.

I hope these tips help make your SharePoint Designer life a little bit easier.

2007, 2010, Best Practices, Content Types, Developer, MOSS, Waldek Mastykarz, WSS

Using SPContext.Current is no guarantee for great performance

July 27, 2011 admin 1 Comment

It is a common best practice, while working with the SharePoint server API, to always use context objects whenever possible. Because they have been already instantiated by SharePoint itself, reusing context data doesn’t cause additional calls to the database and allows you to create good performing solutions. However, just because you use SPContext.Current in your code, doesn’t mean your solution is built properly.

An easy example of how things can go wrong

Imagine the following scenario. You have a Page Library with some Publishing Pages in it that you provisioned together with your Web Template. Every page has a column called MetaDescription. You were given the task of generating a meta description tag in the head section containing the contents of the MetaDescription column.

To include the value of the MetaDescription column as a meta tag in your page you created a custom control and added it to the head section of the page in the Master Page. The code of the custom control might resemble the following snippet:

public class MetaDescription : Control { 
    protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { 
        string description = null; 
        using (new SPMonitoredScope("Load Meta Description")) { 
            description = SPContext.Current.ListItem["MetaDescription"] as string; 
        } 
        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(description)) { 
            writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Name, "description"); 
            writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Content, description); 
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Meta); 
            writer.RenderEndTag(); 
        } 
    } 
}

public class MetaDescription : Control {

protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) {

string description = null;

using (new SPMonitoredScope("Load Meta Description")) {

description = SPContext.Current.ListItem["MetaDescription"] as string;

}

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(description)) {

writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Name, "description");

writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Content, description);

writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Meta);

writer.RenderEndTag();

}

When you refresh the page and view the HTML source, you should see the meta description tag rendered – just as expected. There is however one thing behind the scenes that isn’t working as expected.

If you take a closer look at the ULS log while loading your page you will see the following warning:

How come an additional roundtrip is being caused in spite of the fact that we are using the SPContext.Current.ListItem in our code?

Under the hood

It turns out that whenever you request a Publishing Page, SharePoint will preload the data from that page so that you can retrieve it quickly without causing extra calls to the database. In this process SharePoint uses information about the Content Type of the requested Publishing Page. The content of every column that belongs to that Content Type is being preloaded for quick retrieval.

However, if you try to load data from outside the Content Type SharePoint will need to make additional roundtrip to the database to retrieve that data. If you measure the time required to display the data that hasn’t been preloaded you can easily see how big the performance impact is.

A common reason for causing additional roundtrips to the database is when you don’t bind your custom Content Type to the List prior to creating a Publishing Page or you don’t set explicitly the Content Type while provisioning Publishing Pages declaratively. Although the page will be created, if you take a closer look at its Content Type you will see that it’s using the standard Page Content Type rather than your custom Content Type.

The Solution

To avoid additional roundtrips to the Content Database, when working with context data you should ensure that all the data is available within the Content Type of the context page and that the page is using the right Content Type. When provisioning Publishing Pages you should always ensure that the Content Type has been bound to the list. To verify that everything is working as expected you should check the ULS log regularly during the development process to make sure no additional roundtrips to the database are being caused.

2007, 2010, Debbie Ireland, End User, General Knowledge, MOSS, Productivity Tips for SharePoint Users, WSS

Productivity Tips for SharePoint Users: Background 1/12

July 27, 2011 admin

Over the past month or so, I worked on a presentation that resulted in demonstrations of the TOP 10 Productivity Tips for SharePoint Users. I will cover this in a series of blog posts..this one as the introduction, then each of the 10 tips, and finally a summary of feedback from people who have seen it, or read this! - so this is 1/12!

The preso, was something that started with asking a good number of my SharePoint colleagues for their TOP three tips, what they believed contributed to improvement of productivity. The rules : Simple but Effective.

So a big thank you, to a huge number of people who contributed ideas, and points. I won’t list them all, although I displayed many of their photos, on the preso slides - it was awesome to see the collaboration from everyone towards this and the time they took to respond was most appreciated. This is what we discussed….

What are the TOP THREE things you have seen, that shows how SharePoint improves Productivity?

These can be simple – but effective ways you think users USE SharePoint most– they could be the MOST frequently used part of your intranet, internet or team site – how SharePoint revolutionizes and improves certain things you do – some cool webpart you have seen on a site, anything…what do you do in SharePoint that helps save time, work smarter, improve efficiencies…

By the way - I would welcome any more TIPS - please email me, or add comments to this blog!

I then collated all the feedback into segments, which helped derive the TOP 10 - of course there could have been more easily added, and the order would definitely change for some…but overall, the responses were similar enough in content, to build into 10, and they all pointed out similar things…

Productivity was about

Working together on stuff
Using more of what you have
Finding Stuff!

It was not about

Complex Solutions
Not specifically about Document Management….

I also have to reference Dr Nitin Paranjape, an Office MVP, whose preso I watched, about Office Productivity, as I really liked his term "Translating Technology into Business Benefit!" He also spoke of the huge number of icons within Office applications, and the very few that users, actually use!

The same is true of SharePoint - the interesting things here…..is it’s because they are not needed? or not Known about??? - in the majority of cases "not known about" is more likely…given lack of training or knowledge in the apps, and how they can work for you.

So the session was then broken into the 10 tips (Number one being the highest rated) - I do have to admit, I had to reorder some, to make the demo work - especially when presented to a VERY Business (sometimes not SharePoint Users) audience- but I am now using this to demo to execs and so forth, on the benefits of SharePoint in relation to how it affects productivity!

For the sessions I did at user groups recently, I asked the audience to provide feedback, on their order (of priority of the tips), their effectiveness rating of each of the tips and ALSO any new ones - I will collate and report on these in the final blog!

I also did this preso, at the Mindjet Productivity Tour in Australia - see here. I will include a section on Mindjet and SharePoint throughout these posts

Each tip will be framed up as follows:

This shows the SharePoint feature that is being demonstrated for each tip.

This is the associated tip..

And then there was a demonstration, of the specific examples related to the tip, which showed WHY it enhances productivity…which I will explain through each post…

….so keep an eye on this post, and I will tweet (@debbieireland) whenever I get around to loading the next one……

And again, any feedback appreciated!

2007, 2010, Adoption, Deployment, End User, General Knowledge, Justin Butcher, MOSS, WSS

Why You Should Upgrade To SharePoint 2010

July 26, 2011 admin 1 Comment

Microsoft SharePoint has been around since 2001 and is one of the top business collaboration resources around. However, it wasn’t until the SharePoint 2007 (known as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or MOSS 2007) release that businesses really started to harness the power of online collaboration. The latest SharePoint 2010 version goes even further and offers sought after services straight out of the box.

So what is actually the difference between SharePoint 2007 and 2010? Well what a difference three years makes. This post looks at the key differences between SharePoint 2007 and the latest 2010 release and why SharePoint 2010 is widely considered to be what SharePoint 2007 should have been but wasn’t!

Improving social networking capability

A lot has changed in the World since 2007 and one of the biggest is the online explosion of social networking websites. SharePoint 2010 has dramatically improved its capability in this arena with the addition of personal blogs, tagging and activity feeds within its social networking sites - MySites.

Wiki and blog integration in MOSS 2007 wasn’t great and was widely panned by experts for not being user friendly. Usability has been a key focus for SharePoint 2010 and as a result this has been dramatically improved.

Similarly, community interaction within SharePoint 2007 was pretty poor and has been given a makeover with user interfaces similar to Facebook profile pages. SharePoint 2010 has also added keyword tagging so that content can be found quicker.

SharePoint 2010 is even following in Twitters footsteps by adding micro blogging and activity feeds into the service.

Working offline

SharePoint 2010 makes up some ground on the likes of Lotus Notes with SharePoint Workspace. Workspace makes SharePoint libraries, lists and forms accessible offline. This is a huge step forward and helps to improve the productivity and efficiency of the users.

Better connection to line-of-business data

Previous versions of SharePoint have had difficulties when trying the access enterprise software systems. Microsoft has made significant improvements to integrate more business data in SharePoint 2010 by using its BCS (Business Connectivity Services) suite.

A recent Forrester report cited that the BCS helps make SharePoint 2010 the "connective tissue that bridges line-of-business systems and knowledge worker systems". The previous iteration of BCS, called BDC (Business Data Catalog), could bring only line-of-business data into SharePoint. BCS will provide both read and write access between business applications and SharePoint 2010.

Developing SharePoint Apps

Improvements to the design tool SharePoint Designer means that developers will need to deal less with coding. Tighter integration between Visual Studio and SharePoint, and built-in support for Silverlight is a great improvement on its predecessor MOSS 2007.

Sharepoint 2010 For Improved Efficiency And Improved Return On Investment

Most businesses which have upgraded to Sharepoint 2010 are finding that the productivity improvements and new developer toolsets provided for SharePoint 2010 enables faster development and greater efficiency which allows for the creation of higher quality solutions, with less defects and deployment issues. This will in turn lead to a lower overall development cost, reduced total solution cost, and provide a larger return on investment for businesses.

Justin Butcher is a marketing executive and copywriter for MSM Software, a leading UK Sharepoint consultant.

NothingButSharePoint.com

Monthly Archives: July 2011