Productivity - SharePoint for End Users

10/20/2009

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Conference Live: Co-Authoring in Office 2010

OneNote

When changes have been made by one author, another author is able to view it within seconds afterwards.
It's highlighted in green and the page title is bold, just like Outlook bolds an unread email.
Even when multiple authors make changes to the same area such as adding a new row, merging takes care of integrating the changes appropriately.
You can search for changes based on a particular author.
Page versioning is supported and by turning it on, right-side tabs will display allowing you to step through the history allowing you to right-click and restore to a previous version.
Much easier to create a new notebook in a SharePoint site by utilizing previously accessed sites.
Simultaneous editing occurs the same between editing in OneNote and editing in the SharePoint site web application.

Word

Rich view of the document in the SharePoint web application without opening in the Word client, as well as the ability to edit.
When changes occur from another author, a bubble notification pops up alerting you of that and an icon in the status bar at the bottom appears allowing you to click on it and see the user and their profile details.
The paragraph being edited will show-up within the paragraph being edited with the user's name to the left. If you try to modify the same text, Word won't allow you to until the other user moves on.
Also along the bottom status, "Updates Available" will appear letting you know there are changes that have been made. By saving, the changes come through and are highlights so you know exactly what the changes are.
In the document Navigation (know as Document Map in 2007), the section that is being modified by another author will pop-up with their name.
Automatically populates with recent SharePoint sites to allow much more efficient saving of the document.

PowerPoint

Same as Word above, with the exception of editing which requires the client.
When modifications are made to the same item in a slide, users receive a notification alerting them of the conflict and allows them to review the changes. They can then decide to accept or reject.
Publish the slides to a presentation with a link so that people can view directly from the slideshow and not the edit mode.

Excel

Same as Word, including the ability to open and edit within the SharePoint web application, including tabbed spreadsheets.
A row of data entered by one user, other columns can be updated by another user.

Under the hood, a file is broken out into incremental units so when a change occurs, it is small enough to maintain high server performance as opposed to passing the entire file.

Sandra Tersteeg

Technolgy Business Consultant

Allyis, Inc. | www.allyis.com

Posted at 4:16 PM by | Category: Productivity; SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/19/2009

Stay in touch with the SharePoint Conference 2009

In addition to the liveblogging that's going on here and elsewhere, you can read about many of the SharePoint 2010 features in a blog post by Jeff Teper, SharePoint's corporate vice president, on the SharePoint Product Team blog.

He explains some broad thinking about this release, and describes 40 of its features. He released his post while more than 7,000 people are in Las Vegas this week to attend the Microsoft SharePoint Conference.

You can also watch a new SharePoint 2010 video about no-code solutions called Composite Applications on SharePoint 2010 as well as other videos on the GetStartedSharePoint channel.

Composite Applications on SharePoint 2010

To keep up with the conference, stay tuned for more posts on Get the Point and visit the Microsoft SharePoint Conference site, where you can view video highlights, including the conference prep (i.e. the "making of" SPC).

To track the conference on Twitter, follow the SharePoint Conference Twitter account and search for the the #SPC09 keyword (aka hashtag). You can also find a number of blog posts, videos, and other content from conference attendees.

Cheers,

Toni and Matt

SharePoint Content Team

Posted at 5:52 PM by | Category: Building Solutions; Productivity; Collaboration; SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

10/14/2009

Using SharePoint Designer Workflows to migrate data into SharePoint lists

by Rod Stagg, SharePoint Solutions Architect/Developer
http://www.rstagg.com

Overview

Recently our IT department embarked on a collaborative effort with a key business stakeholder to develop a standardized quoting and bidding solution. The solution is an interim solution (2 years) replacing a current set of processes (both manual and automated). We needed to develop the solution quickly and efficiently to address a current need.

The solution:

Take advantage of SharePoint’s collaboration and document sharing features and built-in workflow capabilities for lists and document libraries to provide a standardized workflow process and centralized repository for tracking and reporting purposes.

Example SharePoint Designer Workflow

The challenge:

Migrating historical data into existing SharePoint lists and libraries. A key requirement required migration of historical data into the new solution’s lists, document libraries, and ensure they function properly with existing SharePoint Designer workflows.

No Easy Button:

We quickly determined that importing the data into SharePoint as entirely new lists from either Excel or Access by itself was not a viable option given the approximately 100 fields involved that varied in type from one datasource to another.

The historical data was stored in Excel spreadsheets and Access databases. In one case 10,000+ records were stored in a single Access 2003 database.

Solution approach for migrating the data:

Use SharePoint Designer workflows to map the fields and import the data into existing lists.

Steps we took to manage the migration:

Import the existing historical data stored in Excel Spreadsheets directly into SharePoint as new temporary lists to be deleted when migration was complete.
Export the data stored in the Access databases directly to temporary lists in SharePoint using the export to Windows SharePoint Services feature.
Develop SharePoint Designer workflows for each temporary list and set the workflow to start manually and also whenever a list item is updated.
Add a custom column to each list to track whether an item had been migrated.
Add a workflow condition to check whether the item has already been migrated before starting the workflow i.e. if the custom migrated field equals “notmigrated” initiate the workflow.
Add actions to create a new list item in the destination list(s) for each desired field/value from the source temporary list.
Add a final step to the workflow to update the current item’s migrated field to “migrated” following the creation of the new list item preventing the workflow from looping endlessly.
Run an append query from Access to update the custom migrated field in each list item of the temporary list. This update initiates the workflows.
If necessary, develop a simple Windows application to append a specific field in every row of the temporary SharePoint list. In our case, Access was timing out for our large number of records.
We handled special cases for data mapping in code in specific cases where our historical data contained values not present in our new choice fields.
Monitor your source temporary lists and destination lists to ensure the workflow runs successfully.

Key Take-Aways:

Server Settings:
Depending on your server settings it may be necessary to update your server’s workflow settings to accommodate a large number of concurrent workflows. I changed the timeout to 25 minutes.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd441390.aspx

Create new list items rather than copying. Creating new list items in your workflows and providing the associated mappings turned out to be more reliable than copying list items.

Re-use workflows when possible.
We saved time by reusing the same SharePoint Designer workflow on another separate list by simply replacing the listid GUID in your workflows .xoml file

CreateItemActivity ListId="{}{[yourlistsid]}" x:Name="ID30" Overwrite="False" __Context="{ActivityBind ROOT,Path=__context

Use content-types:
When working with a large number of fields consider grouping into content types if appropriate. This is especially useful if you need the ability to easily filter based on the original datasource or want to provide a specialized form based on the originating datasource.

Manage list size:

For large number of data items consider using separate lists in your solution to limit the number of total list items in any one list to 5,000 or less.

Other Approaches we considered:

Develop the code in C# and use the SharePoint object model to both import/export the data to SharePoint and also provide the mapping of fields. Given the number of fields approached 100+ we determined handling everything in custom code was not the most efficient approach.

Use Access to import all of the Excel spreadsheets into the Access database and then create append queries in Access to append the data into the existing SharePoint lists. Seems like the obvious approach but after testing with a subset of the 100+ required fields we determined ensuring that each field/data type in Access was compatible with the corresponding fields/data type in the SharePoint lists was too time-consuming.

Also, possibly related to the large number of 10,000 records involved, the Access append query we used for testing frequently timed-out or locked-up before completing.

Posted at 11:26 AM by | Category: Collaboration; Lists and Libraries; Planning & Process; Productivity; Team Sites; Business Processes; Building Solutions | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

9/1/2009

Support end-user productivity with the Productivity Hub

If you’re looking to reduce training and support costs or drive end-user technology adoption in your organization, you might be interested in checking out the Productivity Hub.

Photo of home page of the Productivity Hub

The Productivity Hub is a downloadable SharePoint Server 2007 site collection that is pre-populated with over 300 pieces of content about Office programs (including SharePoint Server!). The content includes videos, documents, and PowerPoint slides. It’s a great solution for organizations that block Internet access—including access to Office Online — but want to support end-user technology needs.

In addition to offering end-user productivity resources, the Hub features training for "coaches," or power users internal to each customer. Coaches reduce the burden on training and helpdesk staff by adding another level of support.

Microsoft will provide quarterly content updates beginning August 2009. Future content additions for Windows 7 are planned. The Productivity Hub will eventually be upgraded to SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft will have a migration path for customers currently using the SharePoint Server 2007 Hub.

An online demo of the Productivity Hub is available, and you can download it directly from the Microsoft Download Center.

Laura

SharePoint End User Content Team

Posted at 1:22 PM by | Category: Productivity; Training | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (4)

8/21/2009

Latest report from Tinseltown (via Redmond, WA): Access 'n SharePoint heating up?

First heard Access 'n SharePoint were getting a little bit cozier back in 2003, but things didn't really start heating up until 2007. Lots of blanket coverage here (If you catch my drift). Can we say "bi-directional linking"? (wink, wink, nod, nod).

But this just in from the juicy-tidbits-grapevine, A sneak preview of coming attractions for 2010, wherein you'll find positively, steamy chatter about "SharePoint performance and offline," "Browser apps," and other hot items. Tsssss!

Speaking of celebrity blogs (Take that Arianna!), you should follow Clint Covington's blog. Heard from those in the know that he scoops the Access 'n SharePoint watch even before the Paparazzi do.

News flash! These tasty morsels are just in from the rumor mill: Synchronize with SharePoint under the hood, Code to refresh SharePoint Link Tables, and Access Runtime support for SharePoint Offline. Did I say "synchronize" and "refresh" in the same sentence? Oh my!

Be in Vegas in late October to catch more scoops that won't be staying in Vegas for long. Will chapel bells be ringing?

That's it for now from your roving romance reporter, Mark Gillis.

Ta Ta!

Posted at 11:28 AM by | Category: Building Solutions; Productivity; User Experience | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

7/7/2009

Reflections on the New Zealand SharePoint Conference

by Michael Sampson, The Michael Sampson Company
Author of Seamless Teamwork and SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration

The first SharePoint Conference in New Zealand took place last week in Wellington, on July 2-3. The conference was “community organized,” meaning that it was organized by volunteers, rather than by a commercial conference company. I attended as a speaker and delegate … and I was blown away by the quality of what Chan Kulathilake, Mark Orange and Debbie Ireland (all SharePoint MVPs in New Zealand) pulled off.

First, the quality of the speakers was top notch. There were numerous international speakers—Joel Oleson (ex-Microsoft, now at Quest Software), Steve Smith (Combined Knowledge), Erica Toelle (Seattle), Paul Culmsee (Seven Sigma Business Solutions, Australia), and others. The speakers—both international and local—addressed the technology of SharePoint, along with the business aspects. It was a well-balanced conference in terms of content, and there was always a session that I wanted to attend. A couple of other people that I spoke with said how much they enjoyed the “voice of the customer” stream, featuring local case studies about how firms here are using SharePoint.

Second, the number of attendees was outstanding. I have been to commercially organized conferences in Wellington that have struggled to pull in 20 paying delegates; the SharePoint conference last week had over 300 people. There was a real buzz in the sessions I attended, and during the breaks in the exhibition hall. The price for the conference obviously made a difference in attendee numbers—NZ$500 (about US$300) for the two days.

Third, the conference showed me that SharePoint is maturing. I have been talking about the importance of an end-user focus with SharePoint for over 2 years, and I met people at the conference that are saying the same thing—Steve Smith with his end-user adoption framework, Paul Culmsee with his consulting work around SharePoint, and Erica Toelle with her comments on managing change. This bodes well for the future of SharePoint—as the focus shifts off having a nice shiny technical implementation, and increasingly focuses on getting a business return. While a balance is needed between the two, there is such a need for the user and business focus to increase.

All-in-all, it was a fantastic couple of days. I look forward to the 2010 conference in New Zealand—and hopefully you can come too!

Posted at 5:27 PM by | Category: Collaboration; Productivity; People Wrangling | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

6/23/2009

Use SharePoint and Silverlight to display a summary of SharePoint blog posts on any site page

by Rod Stagg, SharePoint Solutions Architect/Developer
http://www.rstagg.com | Allyis Inc., Kirkland, Wa

Overview:

We have been investigating ways on our intranet at Allyis to surface information via a more automatic and less manual process through various features and also to implement multiple ways for discovering data/information across the site. One area in particular we have been looking for improvement has been to increase the discoverability of our leadership blogs and encourage employees throughout our organization to blog as as way to increase collaboration and information sharing.

As a way to address these efforts we recently developed and deployed a suite of web-parts (one of which we call the BlogRollUp web-part) which displays details on the most recent post made to any of our SharePoint blogs. The web-part can be added to any site page, configured to point to a specific blog, and uploaded into the web-part gallery for others to use as well.

Single Post Version

Multi-Post Version

Features:

Displays blog title as a hyperlink to the original full post.

Displays the first 215 characters of the post body as an excerpt.

Displays an image for the blogger or blog.

Displays the post's category as a hyperlink to view all similiar posts.

Displays the number of comments as a hyperlink to the comments page.

Displays an alert icon hyperlinked to the blog's alert page.

Highlights background on mouseover.

Users can configure the web-part settings.

Can be deployed across site collections.

Technical Approach:

The user-interface was designed and developed entirely using Microsoft Expression Blend, Silverlight, and Visual Studio 2008.
Custom SharePoint web-part to host the Silverlight application which allow users to configure which blog, blogger image, and alerts link from the web-part properties pane directly.
The Silverlight application code uses the initParams provided from the webpart or HTML test page and the URL protocol to access the blog's post list directly.
The web-part can be configured once and easily exported from and imported to the webpart gallery and added to any site page on any site collection.
The Silverlight application was deployed into a SharePoint document library for ease of future updates.

Advantages of using Silverlight over a DataView Web-Part for instance include more portability, more rich user experience, and able to migrate to new sites/hardware easily.

Can be added to any site page on any site collection easily by the user without a developer or SharePoint Designer involved.
Can be easily deployed on our customer’s SharePoint sites and do not require a substantial effort to migrate to new hardware.
A more rich UI is possible using Silverlight and development is simplified using Visual Studio and C#.
The project files (.xap) developed in Silverlight are stored in standard SharePoint libraries and can be updated without the need for IT to be involved.

Deployment Methods:

Deployment using only a document library and a content editor web-part without the need to install server-side code and as such administrative access typically not required.

Download the Visual Studio solution .zip and extract the files.

Download BlogRollUp.zip

Create a folder named ClientBin in a SharePoint document library to store the Silverlight application.
Locate the BlogRollUp_Web\ClientBin\BlogRollUp.xap file and copy into your new ClientBin folder
Locate the BlogRollUpTestPage.html, update the initParams to use the settings for your particular blog including siteurl, imagepath, listid, and alerturl.
Copy the updated BlogRollUpTestPage.html file to the root of your new document library.
On a site page add a content editor web-part and reference the BlogRollUpTestPage.html file inside an iframe.
Export the now pre-configured web-part to your desktop and upload back into the webpart gallery with an appropriate name identifying the BlogRollUp webpart so other users can add to their site pages without having to configure themselves.

Deployment using the custom web-part where server-side code is installed via the .wsp solution file for the webpart and typically requiring administrative access

Download the Visual Studio solution .zip and extract the files.

Download BlogRollUp.zip

Create a folder named ClientBin in a SharePoint document library to store the Silverlight application.
Locate the BlogRollUp_Web\ClientBin\BlogRollUp.xap file and copy into your new ClientBin folder.
Download the .wsp solution file

DownLoad BlogRollUpWP.wsp

Install the provided .wsp solution file via stsadm -addsolution
Activate the solution from SharePoint Central Administration or stsadm -activatefeature
Upload the provided webpart .dwp file into your web-part gallery via site setting, web parts.
Add the web-part to a site page, update the Silverlight web-part settings section with the appropriate .XAP fullpath, siteurl, imagepath, listid, and alerturl for your particular blog
Export the now pre-configured web-part to your desktop and upload back into the webpart gallery with an appropriate name identifying the blogrollup webpart so other users can add to thier site pages without having to configure themselves.

Summary:

This is just one way of displaying some pertinent details on recent posts from the blogs dispersed throughout the intranet while also making it easy for users to add to any site page. Using Silverlight allows .NET developers to develop rich UI in Expression and Visual Studio and store the .xap files in SharePoint document libraries for future updates.

Posted at 11:15 AM by | Category: Collaboration; Silverlight; Web Parts; Lists and Libraries; Productivity; Publishing; Social Networking | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (11)

6/15/2009

Updating Metadata on Files in SharePoint: Low Cost, High Reward

by Mike Doane

Ascentium | www.ascentium.com

Once documents are in SharePoint libraries, there’s always going to be a need to update metadata, whether it’s because the original author didn’t apply metadata correctly, or there’s a need to add new metadata. Finding documents is a high priority for all clients we work with, but many don’t have the resources or big budgets to do the work manually with their dwindling resources.

We see this scenario all the time with clients: one person (who may no longer work for the company) created a template for a Word doc, and someone borrowed it and started working on a new doc, etc. The original author’s name is still in the Properties field, so it appears that s/he has written half the company’s documents. I’m exaggerating, yes, but the story rings true with many customers who laugh at that scenario.

So, once docs are in place, yes, you can go to Spreadsheet view and make changes, but a much easier and more comprehensive way to do this is to use DocKIT’s “Apply metadata to documents from metadata file” feature, which basically works like the migration tool, except that it simply updates the metadata already attached to the documents in SharePoint.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1 – Review documents to be changed in your SharePoint site. Below I’ve identified five documents that need a metadata “refresh”.

Step 2 - Create a spreadsheet with the URL of the documents you want to change (see above) and the new metadata in columns that match the Site Column names/values in the SharePoint site. Below you can see that I’m going to make changes in Profession, Professional Organization and Author.

Step 3 – Start DocKIT and use the Apply metadata to documents from metadata file (the Excel file above) option.

Step 4 – Make sure to identify what columns you want to change.

Step 5 – Run the Wizard to update the metadata. When DocKIT is done, the metadata are updated and ready to be indexed for search. Old author names are gone, new metadata are in place.

Step 6 – Create Views to take advantage of the new metadata. For example, you cold sort a View by Professional Organization.

Hope this makes sense! Post a comment if you need more explanation. The idea works great if you’ve got a lot of old metadata (or NO metadata) on documents that you want to update, and if you don’t have a lot of time/resources to do it manually by hand.

There are a lot of other uses for the tool, but those are some we’ve done with clients so far. Thanks for reading.

Posted at 1:02 PM by | Category: Productivity; Search ; User Experience; Compliance | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (9)

5/8/2009

Saving Money with SharePoint? - Friday Cool Content

These are challenging economic times, that's for sure. And businesses are certainly trying to find ways to be more productive and profitable. Microsoft has many case studies that show how companies, large and small, are using SharePoint in their business. There is a specific site on Microsoft.com that shows you how businesses are saving money using SharePoint by establishing more efficient infrastructure, reducing time for application development, delivering positive operational impact, and improving employee productivity. Select the link below to look at these case studies.

Office SharePoint Server Helps Customers Save Money

Have a great weekend!

--Cris

Posted at 11:29 AM by | Category: Productivity; Planning & Process; Business Processes | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/4/2009

Using SharePoint to make business decisions

If your work is anything like mine, then you probably need to look at business information a little more closely, review new data points, and share business information you didn’t have to prepare before. Lots of people are talking about the importance of business intelligence in this economic climate. Now, business intelligence might seem like some sort of complex job responsibility, but you probably already use data of some sort to make business decisions and share that information with colleagues and management, and that means you’re already doing business intelligence!

If you’re being asked to use business data to make better, faster, and more relevant decisions; proactively share business data with colleagues and management; or monitor and report on the performance of your team or organization, come check out the new Business Intelligence page on Office Online to learn how the technologies you have today can enable people at all levels of a business make better decisions. The new Business Intelligence page on Office Online can help to get you started using Excel as a front end to analyze data, SharePoint Server to share business data with colleagues, and PerformancePoint Server to monitor and analyze performance.

And some of you might ask, what is PerformancePoint Server? If you haven’t seen PerformancePoint in action, check out this virtual lab for creating a corporate performance dashboard that publishes to SharePoint. But wait, there’s more! As of April 1, SharePoint Server customers with software assurance can now get PerformancePoint Server for free! To see if you qualify, visit PerformancePoint Integration with SharePoint.

Sharon Meramore

SharePoint End-User Content Team

Posted at 9:23 AM by | Category: Business Intelligence; Business Processes; Productivity | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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