National and local health care providers alike have flocked to SharePoint recently to help them drive down costs and gain efficiencies.  If you name a health care provider, there is a good chance that they are running MOSS 2007 to securely collaborate on HIPAA data.  I think you will find that within the next year or so, many will move to either a mixed on-premise or fully hosted SharePoint infrastructure model.  This movement will gain further momentum with the impending launch of hosted SharePoint Server 2010 this spring, provided by Fpweb.net.

We already have a large number of major health care providers such as St.  Jude Medical running on hosted MOSS 2007.  Many are interested in moving to SharePoint 2010 and our SharePoint Consultants are starting to discuss their migration and upgrade strategy.

How is the health care industry using SharePoint?

Real world solutions that we have seen recently include process workflows capturing paper or signatures to be filed in a document library on SharePoint, so everything is digital and searchable.  Think of a doctor’s office with the volumes of paper documents that are created daily.  Every piece of paper can be scanned directly into SharePoint with the numerous ECM solutions on the market today.

Now, health care workers can also capture signatures too.  I recently saw this demo’d and was surprised at how well it works.  The final phase of SharePoint in the health care industry involves electronic forms being filled out either online or offline (3rd party in MOSS 07, native in SharePoint 2010) and moving the information right into SharePoint to kick off alerts or flow to wherever or whoever needs it next.

Hosted SharePoint MOSS 2007 is an ideal solution for health care providers of all sizes.  With the incredible enhanced functionality coming up from a SharePoint 2010 hosting provider like Fpweb.net, SharePoint will continue to serve the health care industry well.  After all, it’s no longer just a collaboration or document storage tool, but a platform yielding significant ROI to all lines of business.

As the dust continues to settle in Haiti, brave folks from all over the world are doing everything they can to come together to help Haiti rebuild.  Tragically, the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake has demonstrated how important it is to have access to crucial information on hand at all times.   Right now, as the country is still sifting through the rubble, there is a dire need to deliver the right information quickly and manage it efficiently (a common thread present in any disaster situation).  Microsoft SharePoint, an ideal disaster recovery tool, can help out immensely with its quick anytime access to pertinent information for those who need it.

It worked after Hurricane Katrina – it can work now.

SharePoint’s life saving role in the relief efforts of scorched earth scenarios like Haiti is relatively new to worldwide emergency response teams.  SharePoint (then WSS v2) made its first relief effort appearance after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005.  First responders quickly put SharePoint in action to restore the ravaged New Orleans and Gulf coast, relying heavily on its tools to establish order from chaos, getting processes flowing again and coordinating recovery efforts.

With any devastating disaster, it’s hard for many of us who aren’t there to realize just how much damage has been done.  In the case of Hurricane Katrina, we had a Fpweb.net hosted SharePoint customer who was a former Green Beret, using our SharePoint hosting to organize his military consulting resources while in the Middle East.  He was flown home to secure New Orleans shortly after the hurricane.

Upon arrival in New Orleans, he called me on a sat phone and said it was the worst thing he’d ever seen.  That’s saying a lot for a special ops guy with Middle East and Asian tours under his belt.  We chatted for a long time.  The more he told me, the more depressed I became until it dawned on me why he had called.  This gentleman knew all about the power of SharePoint, a blessing in disguise for those folks who were affected.

New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast affected by Katrina needed SharePoint – and they needed it now.  First responders couldn’t talk to each other, collaborate or share any crucial documents.   Local government was gone and they needed a place to do business.  “Why not SharePoint?” he said.  “It has everything needed for the Katrina folks.” I wholeheartedly agreed and he raised it up the flag pole with the Red Cross and in Washington DC.  Before long we were dolling out SharePoint sites to first responders, local businesses, judicial systems, state government agencies, schools, churches, utilities and even the local Microsoft office.

Just like it helped in New Orleans, SharePoint has the power to help Haiti.  Wherever or however you’re helping Haiti get back on its feet, let us know if a free Fpweb.net SharePoint site can help.  We’d be pleased to lend a hand.

Issue:  Trying to run reports from SharePoint 2010 Access Services databases returns error statements.

Solution:  Use the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP with Reporting Services in SharePoint Integration mode, then install the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP Reporting Services add-in and follow the steps below.

1. Configure Reporting Services
   1. Go to central administration
      1. Go to general application settings
         1. Reporting Services section
2. Add a report server to the integration
3. Perform the reporting services integration
   1. It is not necessary to set server defaults or change the report processing time to unlimited. (I originally did this, but discovered it’s not needed.)
4. Next, go into
   C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer\rsreportserver.config
   1. Remove the comment markers (<!-- -->) off of the Data Extension for ADS.
      <Extension Name="ADS" Type="Microsoft.Office.Access.Reports.DataProcessing.AdsConnection, Microsoft.Office.Access.Server.DataServer, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=Neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"/>
5. Once the comments were removed from the ADS extension, the SQL reports began working immediately.

Hope this helps some of you out there poking around in SharePoint 2010!

Every wonder what’s buzzing through the minds that make up your company? Creating a survey using SharePoint is a quick and easy way to find out.

Creating a SharePoint survey:

1. Click Site Actions on the far right.
2. A drop down box will appear. Select Create.
3. Under Tracking, click Survey.
4. Fill out the form according to your preferences and click Next.
5. Now it’s time to add questions. Select the question type and settings and click Next Question.
6. When you’ve entered all questions, click Finish.

You’ve finished creating your SharePoint survey, yet there are a few things that you wished you would have added. Wish no more! Here’s how to add questions to an existing survey.

Adding Questions to an Existing SharePoint Survey:

1. Navigate to the survey to which you wish to add questions.
2. Click Settings.
3. A drop down box will appear, click Survey Settings.
4. Under Questions, click Add a question.
5. Select the question type and settings and click Next Question.
6. When you’ve entered all questions, click Finish.

Survey finished and needing a little modification? Change it in only 5 steps.

Changing an Existing Survey:

1. Navigate to the survey you wish to modify.
2. Click Settings.
3. A drop down box will appear, click Survey Settings.
4. From this page, select the survey setting you wish to change.
5. Make the changes and click OK.

The diversity within the SharePoint community has always piqued our interest.  After all, there are millions and millions of SharePoint users across the globe.  Here at Fpweb.net, we have over 1,000,000 users ourselves.  We’ve got hosted SharePoint clients ranging from a one-man shop selling vases to some of the top dogs in fortune 500 companies and government agencies around the World.

This is your chance to let us and the SharePoint World know a little more about you and your business.  Send us a picture and cool blurb about how you use Fpweb.net hosted SharePoint or the impact that our SharePoint hosting services has had on your business.  Your testimonial could appear in the next swanky edition of the Frontier, along with an entry on our official blog, For What I.T.’s Worth.

Rest assured these glowing reviews will not go to our heads.  We’ll still be the same company we’ve always been since we started hosting SharePoint way back in 1999, always striving to be the best SharePoint hosting company out there.

Interested? Send your story to marketing@fpweb.net for your time to shine.  After all, a little free publicity never hurt anyone!

The Fpweb.net crew has just returned from yet another exciting SharePoint Conference, this time in the fantastic city of San Francisco.  The first night in our new temporary stomping ground came wrought with excitement, as we hosted a dinner for some of the SPTechCon speakers, including @sharepointjoel, Mark Miller (@eusp), @wonderlaura and more.  The party started with a libation and laughter filled joyride through the city on a chauffeured luxury bus, followed by a tasty dinner at one of San Francisco’s best restaurants, Wolfgang Puck’s very own Town Hall.  We relished the opportunity to rest our travel weary bones and bask in the surrounding SharePoint greatness.  I can’t think of a better way to cap off our first night in the Golden Gate City! Check out some of the pictures from the dinner at Town Hall Restauarant.

The next morning, we arrived in the hotel’s lobby with a new mountain to climb –constructing our new 10’x10’ booth.  We all listened when Mom told us “…if you want something done right, do it yourself” (plus there was no way we could afford to hire booth builders after dinner the night before) – so we got out the tools and stared at the blueprints.   Our logic told us that putting together this new booth would take about half as long as the construction of the 10’ by 20’ showstopper we had at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Vegas (SPC09).   However, about a third of the way through, it looked as though we had significantly overestimated our talent with a screwdriver.  The good news is our persistence paid off; the booth looked snazzy and we finished just in time.

As the exhibit hall opened, the swag started flying.  The reviews were in from Vegas and we had folks stopping by just to tell us that everyone from Great Uncle Melvin to Mr.  Whiskers, the neighbor’s cat, loved the light up glitter balls we gave away.  Word to the wise, though; we heard a lot of stories about them being confiscated from carryon luggage, so remember to pack yours with your checked luggage.  Another lesson learned! We anticipated the glitter ball rush, so we arrived with an abundance of boxes.  However, by the end of the show, we were completely tapped out.  To those of you who haven’t been able to get your hands on an Fpweb.net light up glitter ball, our apologies.  We’ll have the next batch at the SharePointPro Summit in Las Vegas in March!

For more information on where we’ll be next, follow us on twitter (@fpweb) or give us a call at 866.780.4678.

The top question we were asked at the booth, besides ‘where can I get one of those light up glitter balls’ was how SharePoint hosting from Fpweb.net holds up against Microsoft’s BPOS.  After a bit of deep pondering, we came up with this little treasure trove of insight.

Microsoft’s BPOS – also known as “SharePoint Online” offering is like a huge ship of Titanic proportions.  With a ship this big, flexibility is not an option and change doesn’t come easy.  BPOS is great if you’re a small startup that needs Exchange and live meeting.  However, if the previous sentence doesn’t describe you, prepare to get a watered down, out of the box solution that remains the same, regardless of how your business evolves.

• BPOS is beneficial if you’re in one of two ranks- small business or huge enterprise (20,000+ minimum).  
• Just like on a cruise, you’re on their schedule meaning you have to use it according to their set of restrictive rules… and believe us – BPOS has plenty of limits on functionality.  
• BPOS will let you host your extranet or public facing site outside of your network, so CALs will not be required.  However, it doesn’t offer critical SharePoint functions like Active Directory integration or 3rd party web parts.  Yes, you heard right – NO AD INTEGRATION.  
• Microsoft is an expert at developing SharePoint, but only have two years of hosting experience under their belt.  How fast will they respond when a problem looms in the horizon like a hidden iceberg?

Hosting SharePoint with Fpweb.net is more like a fleet of sleek speed boats.  Each customer has their own zippy Baja 35 Outlaw, giving you the power to steer your own course.

• We put you in the driver’s seat with full server control, the power to customize and the ability to add third party web parts.
• Critical SharePoint functions like Active Directory, anonymous user access, and custom domain names are supported.  
• Our dedicated MOSS hosting solutions can be created for any number of users.  There are no additional fees with our unlimited user account creation.  
• The convenient online ticket system lets us know what you need immediately so we can start helping.
• We don’t moonlight in SharePoint.  With over ten years experience, it’s our main game, our bread and butter, our livelihood.  So far, we’ve had over 1,000,000 users in 80 countries jump on board with us.   Shouldn’t you?

As the first company to ever to host SharePoint, we’ve got so much SharePoint wisdom we’re actually pointing out flaws in SharePoint 2010 to help Microsoft prepare for the public release.  While their focus has shifted to playing catch up, ours remains the same – making sure that your hosted SharePoint environment is in tip top shape and running to up speed.  After all, it’s our goal to make sure that hosting your SharePoint site with us is smooth sailing.

After a lot of conversation and a little bit of wine, it was time for a boisterous bus ride back to the hotel to get ready for the first day of SPTechCon. While the weather outside was just a tad bit chilly, the mood of the whole evening was nothing but warm and friendly. Thanks to everyone who came and we hope to see you again soon!

“Mac to Exchange” … “Come in Exchange, do you read me?”

Getting a shiny new Mac to connect to Microsoft Exchange is simple, as it should be right?  Apple prides itself on “It just works.”, so it should just work without a lot of complicated setup.  Lucky for us, talking to Exchange does just work, especially when talking to it from Snow Leopard, OS X 10.6.

Connect to Exchange using Entourage 2008

For those of you using OS X 10.5, or earlier, or just want to stick with the Microsoft Office stack of tools, Entourage is your best option. Setting up Entourage is very simple.

1. From the “Entourage” menu, select “Account Settings…”
   1. 

2. Click “Add” and then choose “Exchange…”
   1. 

3. Enter your e-mail address, put a check mark next to “My account is on an Exchange server” and click “Configure Account Manually”.
   1. 

4. Give your account a meaningful name, and complete the rest of the form.
   1. 

5. Click “OK” and the new account will appear in the list.
   1. 

6. Close the “Accounts” window and your inbox on your new account will appear if all the settings are correct.
   1. 

Connect to Exchange using Apple Mail

For those of you using Snow Leopard, OS X 10.6, Apple Mail can natively speak with Exchange. Using Mail, iCal and Address Book, you can interact with your Exchange information in a more native manner.

The first time you open Apple Mail it collects some information about your mail account. If you already use Apple Mail for another account, you can add a new one by clicking the “File” menu and then selecting “Add Account…”.

1. Enter your full name, email address, password and click “Continue”.
   1. 

2. Select the account type of “Exchange 2007” and fill in the rest of the information as asked.
   1. 

3. You can confirm your settings, and click “Create”
   1. 

4. And there you go…Your inbox comes pouring down.
   1. 

5. In addition to email, iCal and Address Book give you access to your Exchange contacts and calendar.
   1. 

So let’s identify the versions and talk about a few discoveries we have made getting our hosted SharePoint 2010 offering ready for you.

How does existing SharePoint licensing transfer to 2010?

The first thing to do is talk about existing licensing and how it corresponds to the 2010 versions.   Currently, SharePoint 2007 has 2 flavors: Windows SharePoint Services (WSS v3) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.  WSS v3 comes free with Windows Server and is essentially a small business collaboration tool.  MOSS is relatively expensive but robust and serves the Enterprise customer well.   Both products are stabile.  So currently you are either a small business using WSS or an Enterprise using MOSS.  To keep things simple, repeat after me.

1. WSS = SharePoint Foundation Server
2. MOSS = SharePoint Server 2010

SharePoint Foundation vs. SharePoint Server 2010

SharePoint Foundation Server is a subset of SharePoint Server 2010 just like WSS is a subset of MOSS.   Now, let’s start complicating things.   SharePoint Server 2010 has many key features or versions.  You can turn them on or off.  Fpweb.net customers will be able to choose from a menu of features (versions) and add functionality to their site on-demand.  Let’s formally identify all the “flavors” of SharePoint 2010 so we all know what we’re dealing with.

SharePoint Foundation 2010

The “starting point” for SharePoint:  Microsoft SharePoint Foundation requires a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 OS with SP2 or later.  Fpweb.net will have a Foundation server offering which will meet our small business customer needs.  And yes, there is a migration path from WSS v3 to Foundation.  Hopefully it’s a tad less messy than V2 to V3 was back in the day.

SharePoint Server 2010

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 adds collaboration features to the Foundation edition that allows it to tie into data repositories outside of SharePoint (including Lotus Notes). SharePoint Server 2010 also adds more management features and supports more users.   Thankfully, there is also a migration path from MOSS 07 to SharePoint Server 2010.  Disclaimer: Depending on how much customization you have in your hosted MOSS 07 environment, your path may have a few more potholes than the average Joe.

Cool new features in SharePoint Server 2010

FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint
Takes SharePoint Server 2010 search and turbocharges it with high-end search technology Microsoft acquired when it bought FAST Technologies for $1.23 billion (lunch money for MS) in January, 2008.  FAST for SharePoint 2010 includes contextual search (such as recognizing departments or geographies), ability to tag Metadata to unstructured content and more scalability.

If FAST search server is too rich for your blood, Microsoft will be releasing options for the enterprise to use Search Server 2010 and Search Server Express 2010.  Speed kills, but you will pay for it if you need it.

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites
Both editions can be run on-premise or by a SharePoint Hosting Provider like Fpweb.net.

1. Standard Edition:  For SMBs looking to create Internet (www) or Extranet (partner) sites using the standard features of SharePoint Server 2010.
2. Enterprise Edition:  Similar to Standard Edition, but with more scalability and management functions.  We’ll be talking much more about the new features in Enterprise SharePoint Server 2010 in another blog.

SharePoint Online vs. Fpweb.net SharePoint Hosting

SharePoint Online (commonly referred to as “BPOS”) is one of two cloud versions of SharePoint from Microsoft.  Note that BPOS is limited functionality hosted SharePoint packaged with hosted Exchange.  Microsoft counts more than 1 million organizations that are using some version of hosted SharePoint, which is only about 20% of the companies using SharePoint.  There seems to be a lot of companies wasting money with huge upfront capital outlays and server maintenance costs.

SharePoint Online for Internet Sites
The second cloud version of SharePoint hosting from Microsoft.  This offering will allow customers to host their extranet or public-facing site outside their network.  Typically good things since most IT folks don’t want the security exposure of a partner or www site.  Microsoft says that these options will be half the price as on-premise SharePoint because Microsoft will not require CAL licenses.  However, Microsoft BPOS does not support critical SharePoint functions like Active Directory integration or 3rd party web parts.  A full-service SharePoint Hosting provider like Fpweb.net… does.

Hosted SharePoint from Fpweb.net
Fpweb.net hosts more SharePoint sites than all other providers combined, including Microsoft.  We are leading the way in hosted SharePoint 2010 research.   Look for a 2010 offering well in advance of Release to Manufacturing (RTM).  Key differences between Fpweb.net and everyone else include:  Full server control, 3rd party web part support, secure VPN access, AD integration, SharePoint apps in the cloud and a deep bench of SharePoint experts ready to help.

What about SharePoint 2010 Licensing?

The SharePoint 2010 CAL will come in two flavors.  The standard CAL is a client that has the basics of what you would expect, and the enterprise CAL is the fatter client that adds analytics, hooks into Web services as well as Microsoft’s other office clients.  It’s still too early to say if pricing will be similar or even less expensive than SharePoint 2007 CAL pricing.

Sounds great! Should be easy enough, right?

Wrong.  SharePoint 2010 is really cool and super powerful.  There is no denying it is a Pujols-size upgrade from 2007 (yes, I said Pujols-GO CARDS!).   But when you lift up the hood to view the 301 engine, you will find Redmond has dropped in a 427 (I like to think of it as a modern Shelby Cobra;  Blue with white racing stripe of course).   Except this Shelby has been modified and fully computer controlled – Microsoft Certified gear heads only, no weekend hacks like me, please.  So be warned that if you take SharePoint Server 2010 on-premise, get ready to deal with about 10x the complexity compared to the SharePoint 2007 environment.  With that in mind here are some things you may find interesting.

Ten things you need to know about SharePoint Server 2010

1. Previous versions of Microsoft Office are supported.
2. Via the new Office 2010 Backstage user interface, you can access and search tags and notes used in documents.
3. Office Web apps embedded in SharePoint sites let you edit Office content from a browser.
4. The personal My Site feature includes a Silverlight-based organization browser.
5. Libraries should scale to tens of millions items – and archives to hundreds of millions documents.
6. Document Sets let you manage content using a single workflow or metadata, thus better addressing governance and records management.
7. Identity management improvements include faster updates between SharePoint and directory services, including LDAP servers and third-party applications.
8. New SharePoint APIs include those for AJAX, Silverlight, and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ).
9. There’s far superior disaster recovery, including new backup and restore functions.
10. A SharePoint version specific for Internet sites will be available when the product ships next year and and an even more affordable version is available via SPLA licensing from SharePoint hosters like Fpweb.net.

As always, thanks for reading.  I hope you got a few useful SharePoint nuggets.