Marc L's SharePoint and .NET Blog

SharePoint 2010 - Whats Hot - Part 2

Marc L — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:55:16 GMT

Lots more info coming from SharePoint 2010:

Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot

Very cool - “Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot” or “PowerPivot” for short is the new official name for project code named Gemini. PowerPivot consists of two components – PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010.

PowerPivot for Excel is a data analysis. Leveraging familiar Excel features, users can transform enormous quantities of data from virtually any source with incredible speed into meaningful information to get the answers they need in seconds.

PowerPivot for SharePoint enables end users to effortlessly and securely share their PowerPivot applications with others and work seamlessly in the browser using Excel Services.

Official PowerPivot site: http://www.powerpivot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/powerpivot
Twitter: http://twitter.com/powerpivot

http://blogs.msdn.com/gemini/archive/2009/10/20/introducing-powerpivot.aspx

Business Connectivity Services

The BCS Team (Business Connectivity Services – the replacement for the current BDC) have started up their blog. Whats worth noting is composite applications can be created simply using SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 with little or no code – impressive. Whats more impressive is the ability to use InfoPath to add business logic. Good idea to RSS because I think this may be a hot number.

http://blogs.msdn.com/bcs/

Access Services

Microsoft Access hits us with Services... called... wait for it.... Access Services. Access Services is a new SharePoint 2010 feature that allows users to create web databases in Access, host them on SharePoint and use the Reports and Forms, and available through a browser.

Check their blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/access/ (Another RSS) J

Check the Channel 9 video: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Access/Microsoft-Access-2010-Demo/

SharePoint Workspaces

The new Desktop Client application for SharePoint Server and provides automatic synchronization. It’s the new Groove – Check the team blog at : http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint_workspace_development_team/

Getting Started SharePoint 2010 Developer Resources

Now here’s a fantastic set of online training for developers to ramp up and start learning how much “easier” it is to develop applications for SharePoint:

Software developers can use the SharePoint 2010 business collaboration platform to build enterprise-class solutions for intranet portals and the web. Use these ten modules to get started with development for SharePoint 2010 using Visual Studio 2010. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee513147.aspx

Modules:

· Module 1: Getting Started: Building Web Parts in SharePoint 2010

· Module 2: What Developers Need to Know About SharePoint 2010

· Module 3: Building Blocks for Web Part Development in SharePoint 2010

· Module 4: Accessing SharePoint 2010 Data and Objects with Server-Side APIs

· Module 5: Accessing SharePoint 2010 Data and Objects with Client-Side APIs

· Module 6: Accessing External Data with Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010

· Module 7: Developing Business Processes with SharePoint 2010 Workflows

· Module 8: Creating Silverlight User Interfaces for SharePoint 2010 Solutions

· Module 9: Sandboxed Solutions for Web Parts in SharePoint 2010

· Module 10: Creating Dialog Boxes and Ribbon Controls for SharePoint 2010

There’s also the upgrade resource center at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee514557.aspx

Join the SharePoint 2010 Community

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee633451.aspx

Videos

Tom Rizzio on unveiling of SharePoint

Yesterday I wrote about the Keynote opening, well Tom Rizzo’s SharePoint’s Director shares some exciting news: http://media.nuveminc.net:8080/spc09/tom_rizzo.wmv

SPC 2009 Press Pass

More videos and interviews at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/sharepoint/Default.aspx

Building Solutions on SharePoint – Microsoft Showcase

Check the video online at

This is an absolutely brilliant site for knowledge sharing! And if not for this video, there are stacks more like http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/82b36ee0-af73-4901-ab23-92e6f7761544

Are you Ready for SP 2010? Can you upgrade?

SharePoint Joel has the info at http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=255

Mike Ferrara posted an article on CMS Wire that has a close look at what’s need for the upgrade http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/spc09-fundamentals-of-upgrading-to-sharepoint-2010-005826.php - I like the sounds of database attached upgrades

Mixed:

A very awesome summary roll up of sessions around BCS, Development and the new Services Application Architecture at http://community.zevenseas.com/Blogs/Daniel/default.aspx

Some SharePoint example sites shown at the opening of the SPC: http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/10/20/sharepoint-site-roundup-spc09.aspx

ECM for the Masses: How SharePoint 2010 Delivers On The Promise http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/spc09-ecm-for-the-masses-how-sharepoint-2010-delivers-on-the-promise-005823.php

Search

SharePoint 2010 Search Deep Dive http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/spc/archive/2009/10/20/sharepoint-conference-2009-sharepoint-2010-search-deep-dive.aspx

Enterprise Search

http://blog.sharepointproducts.com/archive/2009/10/21/spc09-day-2-–-an-intense-day-on-enterprise-search.aspx

New Search Functionality http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/oct09/10-19MSSharePointConf09PR.mspx

Document Management Improvements

http://edinkapic.blogspot.com/2009/10/spc09-document-management-improvements.html

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Till tomorrow...

MarcL

Welcoming SharePoint 2010 - Whats Hot - Part 1

Marc L — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:50:32 GMT

I've been trying to keep up to date with the latest coming from Vegas. Twitter has been on fire, newsgroups spreading the word, blogs heating up and just a lot of knowledge hitting the web. I realised I cant keep up :-)

So I've decided to keep a record of some of the most interesting and important pieces of information I've managed to read or get my hands on thats coming out of SP Conference 2009 - some are Microsoft and some from other sources.

So, whats the News coming out from Vegas? Well for starters, if you missed the official website, check it out SPC. Theres Steve Ballmer's keynote on-demand. Check that video out! Very cool!

The product is massive and each segment is its own world. Support for larger lists (lists can scale to tens of millions and archive hundreds of millions items). Document sets to closely model your related documents. Digital Asset Management under the WCM (Web Content Management) is new. Metadata based navigation is now available. SQL 2008 R2 + SharePoint 2010 will allow for storing of docs in remote blobs (RBS's) that could be recommended for deployments over 5 TB. Users can use Visio Services to visually create Workflows. SP 2010 Content Organizer can automatically move document storage location based on assigned metadata.

Records Management and Governance - Compliance across everything is supported. What a relief and it has multi-stage disposal and e-discovery.

Sites have the Office UI Ribbon, Office Client on the Web, SharePoint Workspace for offline content and Mobile enhancements.

The next version of Office for Mac will support SharePoint Integration - neat if you're a Mac!

Couple of websites resources:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx
Blog post on SP 2010 on the the Microsoft SharePoint Blog (A must read - check out the new services like BCS (Business Connectivity Services (2007 known as BDC), Access (Yes - MS-Access) Services, Folksonomy, Dev APIs and VS 2010, Easier ways of creating workflows, Insights include all the new BI Excel Services, Gemini and SQL Server, Viso and PerformancePoint Services. Some clever Fast Search and more connectors!!)
More on the WCM aspects and details of Whats New in Web Content Management
SharePoint 2010 Beta Developer Center
Official Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Beta Site in Action
SharePoint Designer 2010 Blog - Its all New
Videos on SharePoint 2010 - Building Solutions on SharePoint
New Service Application Architecture in SP 2010 - Wheres the SSP?
TechNet - SharePoint 2010 Beta (Great read before you install the Beta - Coming in November 2009)

Joel Oleson's YouTube video of Tom Rizzo

The "SharePoint Wheel" has evolved:

I came across a website, www.bink.nu that has links to Microsoft Download and provides some decent content for planning ahead for SP 2010 - Check tem out:

Enterprise Search Planning for SharePoint Server 2010

This model describes primary architecture design decisions for search environments.

Design Search for SharePoint Server 2010

This model describes the steps to determine a basic design for a SharePoint Server 2010 search architecture.

SharePoint Server 2010 Search Architecture

This model describes the physical and logical architecture components of the search system.

Getting started with BI in SharePoint Server 2010

Discusses the business intelligence tools available in SharePoint Server 2010

SharePoint Server 2010 Evaluation Guide

Introduction and overview of SharePoint Server 2010 for IT pros.

SharePoint Enterprise Search

Compares and contrasts search technologies in SharePoint 2010 Products

Topologies for SharePoint Server 2010

Describes common ways to build and scale farm topologies, including planning which servers to start services on.

Hosting Environments for SharePoint 2010 Products

Summarizes the support for hosting environments and illustrates common hosting architectures.

Services in SharePoint Products 2010

Describes and illustrates the services architecture, including and common ways to deploy services in your overall solution design.

Cross-farm Services in SharePoint 2010 Products

Illustrates how to deploy services across farms to provide centralized administration of services.

Upgrade planning poster

Describes requirements and considerations for planning to upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010

Upgrading services poster

You need to give special consideration to the issues involved when you upgrade services from the previous version of SharePoint Server.

Upgrade testing poster

To help ensure a smooth transition to SharePoint Server 2010, perform a trial upgrade to find issues likely to surface during the actual process.

Upgrade approaches poster

This model describes the three basic approaches to upgrading to SharePoint Server 2010: in-place, database attach, or a hybrid of the two.

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So until the next instalment... lots to read.

-- MarcL

Collaboration Platforms - Looks like Microsoft is strong on Strategy

Marc L — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:43:24 GMT

Recently came across a pretty interesting analysis published on Microsoft Press by Forrester Research Inc. The report is focused towards to Information and Knowledge Management Professionals and provides an insight into Collaboration Platforms for Q3 2009.

What I found worth talking about was that many of the products that were reviewed had much later version release date to that of SharePoint 2007 (Nov 2006) and still SharePoint exceeds their market share in content offering and strategy.

Also worth noting was that many vendors are entering the market of Collaborative Platforms from different avenues. Some traditional collaboration, while others from social networking (the new breed) and others content generators. So could be a pretty decent business offering if you can combine them into your fully fledged collaborative solution roadmap.

With IBM and Microsoft in the lead - it really boils down to Microsoft being the leader on strategy and very close to IBM leading on Content Offering for Q3 2009 - thats according to Forrester. So at this stage and less than a few months away from SharePoint 2010 hitting RTM - this only paints a picture of what we should expect this report to provide this time next year.

Cant wait! :-)

Click here and get the PDF

SharePoint Ignite 2010

Marc L — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:56:26 GMT

Some great news out from Microsoft if you're keen to get ready for SharePoint 2010 (and your a current SharePoint 2007 Microsoft Partner)!

SharePoint Ignite is an instructor led 5 day training session across a few countries (South Africa excluded).

There are both Dev and IT Pro tracks catered for - which seem quite cool. A web enabled "Virtual Ignite" should come soon they say - I cant wait for that one! :-) So put your nomination through - even if its for the Virtual event!!

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/topics/Pages/IgniteProgram4.aspx

Good luck on the nominations!

--- Marc

SharePoint Workflow completes with Stopped status

Marc L — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:39:56 GMT

Today I ran into a simple but time consuming problem where a basic list approval workflow created in SharePoint Designer enters a "Stopped" status when a non administrative user starts the workflow. No error message appeared in the Workflow History either - it just stopped.

What happens is that the workflow is initiated when a new item is created in the list. Very simply the workflow creates a task for a team and emails the users that are stored in a SharePoint Group. The creation of the workflow task and email sending to a SharePoint Group causes the workflow to enter a Stopped state.

After hitting my head on the table and checking the workflow a couple of times, it is important to note that due to the fact I'm sending emails to a SharePoint Group, I need to activate the have a Group Setting to allow Everyone to view membershiop of this group.

Fixing this is simple, go to your Site Settings | People and Groups, select the group you're using. On the Settings menu option for the Group click the Group Settings option and toggle the membership button to Everyone.

You're good to go!

---Marc

InformationWorker.co.za hits 1000 members

Marc L — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:11:35 GMT

Awesome drive at TechEd Africa has got our local SharePoint community www.informationworker.co.za site up to the 1000 member mark.

This is an awesome achievement - way to go IW team!!

--Marc

Information Worker Community at TechEd

Marc L — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:09:10 GMT

We're at TechEd 2009 this year in the Expo Hall by the Community Lounge.

Come through to visit, play Xbox/Guitar Hero, chat and drink. There are also cool prizes up for grabs if you leave behind your business card or tweet us at #tea09.

--Marc

SharePoint.Microsoft.com - How MS Did It

Marc L — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:26:56 GMT

Microsoft recently launched their new SharePoint marketing site on none other than SharePoint itself. Its jam packed with Silverlight and cool menus inlcuding something called a Hero Bar :-) along with Custom Page Layouts and Style Sheets with Targeted Audience content based on your skill level. Very cool indeed.

You can check the site out at

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx

and see how they did it at

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/06/18/how-we-did-it-sharepoint-microsoft-com.aspx

MarcL

Calculated Columns in SharePoint Lists

Marc L — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:55:39 GMT

Came across a great link that was created by the MCS guys in Norway regarding the Fuctions, Operations and Formulas for available for SharePoint calculated columns. If you need to perform a calculated field from other columns in the same list then here's your starting block:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/CH011711541033.aspx

SLABs Day!!

Marc L — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:25:53 GMT

Whow!! The first of the Information Worker (IW) SharePoint Labs (SLAB) Day went down today and in true style was something to remember. The SLAB day is free for anyone wanting to get some hands on SharePoint experience with a set of self paced labs and learn or share experiences. Todays labs are from the Micosoft PDC (Thanks to Johan) and everyone worked through some popular ones like developing web parts, content types, publishing features, event handlers, datasets, workflows and some others!

As it turns out - I just got home and haven't got the data cable for my camera so the pics will be up in a day or two.

Even on the day of the Super 14 semi finals rugby match the turnout overflowed into two computer training labs and people arrived from as far as PE to spend some time learning fancy stuff on SharePoint and sharing experiences!

Thanks to everyone who attended - hope it helped and please send us feedback so we can better the future SLABs!

Big thanks to Inobits for the very super cool computer facilities and toilets :-) 3fifteen for the geek brain food (pizzas) and of course Johan and Veronique from the IW team and all the peeps who attended! Rob for his help online at Information Worker for the event! :-)

The next one was planned towards the end of the year, but hey, we might have to do one sooner! :-) If you already have then cool, but if not make sure you're registered at IW so you'll get an email about the next up-coming events.

PS: Call back in a few days to check the photos!

Cheers!
Marc

Events Sponsors (Without them this aint possible)
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