So you heard the news: folders = bad in SharePoint land; but why? We have spent the last 20 years putting things in electronic folders, the past hundred putting them in real folders in real filing cabinets....so why does SharePoint come along and say "folders: the dodo was better"? Well, let's talk about the reason we had folders, why we have them now, how they work today, and what can be done to improve the situation.
Physical Folders
So uh, a long time ago...people used paper. Paper was this collection of ground up trees in a paste that is super flat and thin...when it dries, it's nifty to write on. Writing is when we use a semi-permanent or permanent utensil to make marks on this paper...we would write what we now type...don't worry, you won't need to remember this. When a bunch of this "paper" was used to gather information, they needed a way to organize it so that you could retrieve the information later (whenever someone asked or sued for it). They decided they would use thick paper and bend it in half to hold several pieces of thin paper inside it...we would then mark it with useful information so we would know what was inside it. We would stack these things called "folders" together, sometimes put them in big drawers called filing cabinets, and that was a great system till people realized that paper - being made of trees - was flammable and permeable by water....and, on top of that, it takes up a LOT of space. Introduce electronic folders.
Electronic folders
So, we fast forward to the stone age when computers first began. For a reference on how the first computers worked, google "The Flintstones" and try to find an old video that shows you this animated entertainment clip of life during this time. We decide that paper is a thing of the past and decide that typing is the way to go (hooray for lefties around the world! our handwriting is no longer an issue!). We type up papers, resumes, and all sorts of stuff. So, we have all these types of documents we type up for work, school, presentations, reports, etc...and the problem came back: how do we organize this stuff? We decided to transform a single, magical folder into the digital world where it replicated itself as the first virus to spread across the digital globe. People started putting documents in these digital folders to help "organize" information. Do you see the problem yet? Still bunches of folders, still bunches of stuff, still dealing with a mentally-deficient chimp's method of organizing documents and you aren't allowed to change its methods. People figured, "hey, this is digital...let's be bold and put folders INSIDE folders for better organization!" Oh yea, we were that dumb. So, going to find stuff really was just like regular folders: took forever and you were at the mercy of who (or what)ever setup your folder structure. We made really smart searching tools to let us peek inside folders faster, but the problem remained. Bring in Metadata.
Metadata
The first concept of metadata is quite cool: let's take all the important information ABOUT a document, and stick it somewhere so we look at THAT first instead of the folders. We look through a stack of metadata really fast, find the paper we want, and it tells us where to find that paper. You got it: a catalog system...you know, like libraries....the place where they would but books....which were collections of paper bound together and forced you to read ALL of it to find that perfect page....yea, no iTunes for book chapters or phrases :(. Anyway, this new metadata idea lets us keep our folders and all our stuff wherever - we just need to take a few notes about the document before we file it away in the black hole. Doctor's offices use this a lot - they have color codes, name codes, and tons of shorthand written everywhere...so much so that there's a job and training just to decipher it! The cool thing is, once you know the code, they would pack thousands of people's medical records into a space the size of your family room. We would use this on electronic documents to make searches "faster". Now comes SharePoint.
SharePoint
So, this metadata thing sounds cool, right? Well, what if you end up in a doctor's office that held 100,000 people's information? You'd still be looking at a lot of the same problem because you would have a LOT of metadata and THEN you'd have this massive mound of stuff to look through to find your document - even though you know where to look. So, the way to solve this? Instead of using folders - which HIDE information inside them till you look there - let's put everyone's information in giant stacks with the metadata sticking out on each document...and let's pretend that we can control gravity on each document so that, when we say we're looking for a purple tab, all the purples come together RIGHT in front of you. Nifty huh? That's what SharePoint wants to do for you. In 2007, they let you make folders. The only real reasons to make a folder are to separate stuff that needs unique security permissions (locked down folders) or if there's more than 5k items...then use folders to break down some of it into really big chunks...maybe.
The problem: most people didn't know about metadata and still made electronic folders. The SharePoint gods became disturbed and rained fire from Mount Despair on all such places - making them slow and difficult to use and making people forget that they do this everywhere else but SharePoint so that they complained to the Admins..err High Priests of SharePoint that they didn't do their job. So, the evangelists of SharePoint are now proclaiming the wrath of the gods on folders...please, don't use them so you won't be burned. You can choose not to believe in the SharePoint gods or the warnings of folders - but beware, SharePoint gods don't believe in folder athiests. Use COLUMNS to ask for important information about documents and items when they go into lists and libraries...have 3 or 4 columns instead of folders. You can search and filter by columns! You can find whatever the heck you want super fast! So, how has it changed in 2010? NONE! The only thing they did to make it easier on you folder lovers was to make it so that anything inside a folder got a special tag on it with a piece of metadata from the folder. This way, every item automatically has some metadata - so poo on you if you don't want metadata, it WILL be branded on every item! May the SharePoint gods smile on your learning; go, young padawan, and folder no more.
Helping regular people accomplish great things without programming using SharePoint, Office, and PowerShell.
Friday, October 29, 2010
InfoPath Tutorial updates
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to let you know that I've updated the Introduction and Part 1 of my InfoPath 2007 Tutorial. I'm sorry it took so long (over a year) to update them...work has been crazy and we've been learning so much about InfoPath and SharePoint 2007 that it's been scary...then we decided to push on to SharePoint 2010 so much of my time has been learning and planning on our 2010 setup. Once I finish my 2007 tutorial, I'm going to put out a series on InfoPath 2010 so that you will have something for either program. One thing I do have to say: you can use InfoPath 2010 to make 2007 browser forms...and dear Lord if you have the opportunity to do that...TAKE IT! There are a few major improvements in InfoPath 2010 that can be used to drastically cut the amount of time it takes to make a 2007 form. I look forward to releasing InfoPath Tutorial - Part 2 - Color Schemes and Controls next week.
InfoPath Tutorial - Part 1
I just wanted to let you know that I've updated the Introduction and Part 1 of my InfoPath 2007 Tutorial. I'm sorry it took so long (over a year) to update them...work has been crazy and we've been learning so much about InfoPath and SharePoint 2007 that it's been scary...then we decided to push on to SharePoint 2010 so much of my time has been learning and planning on our 2010 setup. Once I finish my 2007 tutorial, I'm going to put out a series on InfoPath 2010 so that you will have something for either program. One thing I do have to say: you can use InfoPath 2010 to make 2007 browser forms...and dear Lord if you have the opportunity to do that...TAKE IT! There are a few major improvements in InfoPath 2010 that can be used to drastically cut the amount of time it takes to make a 2007 form. I look forward to releasing InfoPath Tutorial - Part 2 - Color Schemes and Controls next week.
InfoPath Tutorial - Part 1
Thursday, October 28, 2010
InfoPath date calculations and date comparisons without code
If you have the unfortunate task of doing some date calculations within InfoPath, you may have already found out the fun news: InfoPath only gives you TWO functions dealing with date and time: addDays (which lets you add a certain number of days to a date) or addSeconds (which lets you add seconds to a dateTime field). This can be a little difficult when you intend on doing some calculations like adding a month to a specific date or subtracting a few days from a date to determine another day. Here's a few ways you can do date calculations:
1. Use addDays - the addDays function looks like this: addDays(insert_a_date_field_here,"type_the_number_of_days_to_add_here"). An example would look like: addDays(StartDate,"1") and this would add a single day to the Start Date field. Key thing to note - you can add negative numbers here to subtract a certain number of days. This can be useful in conditional formatting or data validation for greater than/less than comparisons (e.g. If DueDate field is less than [addDays(StartDate, "10")] then give the error message "Your due date is too soon; please set it for more than 10 days after the start date" in the data validation tooltip.
2. Use addSeconds in the same manner as addDays - this can be done for time issues like turning an item in by 5pm on a certain day. The reason this might be necessary is that, often, when calculating dates, the time assumed for a day is 12:00 AM on that day...so if you want a realistic time like 8am, you will need to use the addSeconds to give you a few hours...you'll just have to use a calculator to figure out how many seconds to add for so many hours/minutes.
3. Adding a month or year to a date: this is tricky but doable without code. What you have to do is a little behind-the-scenes work with the date field. Here's the steps:- Have your two date fields, the first one is where the user picks a day (we'll call it UserDate), the second one is for that day plus 2 months (DatePlus2).
- Create 4 text fields: temporaryDate, month, day, and year (you'll hide all these but I'm showing you them in the example)
- Use a rule to set the temporary date to the value of the UserDate.
- You'll notice that the format that it sets that field in looks like this: YYYY-MM-DD
- Now you get to use the dreaded substring-before and substring-after functions to pull out the year, month, and days. The idea of substring is that a "string" is a bunch of letters and numbers (like a sentence, word, whatever) and that you are getting a portion or less than the whole thing (like subtracting out a certain part of the string...substring). There are different types of substring-ing like looking before or after a certain symbol (like a slash or dash in our case) or substring a certain number of letters in (e.g. you have a Social Security number field that always starts with SS#...you could say you want to substring starting at the 4th letter and get the next 11 characters to get all the numbers and dashes for a social security number).
- Use a rule on the temporaryDate field to set the YEAR field to the following formula: substring-before((click Insert Field and choose temporaryDate), "-")...this will get all the characters before the first dash that it finds (so all the year numbers).
- Add another action to the rule on temporaryDate to set the MONTH field as the following formula: substring-before(substring-after((insert temporaryDate here), "-"),"-") This looks weird, but what it's going to do is substring after the dash (which grabs the MM-DD) and then substrings before the dash of what you grabbed (so it grabs MM since it's the only thing before the dash).
- Add another action to the rule on temporaryDate to set the DAY field as substring-after(substring-after((insert temporaryDate here), "-"),"-") This looks very similar to the Month one but it substrings after the first dash (so MM-DD is what we have) and then it substrings AFTER the dash this time (so it gets DD)
- Phew, almost done, you've now got the numbers in the month, day, and year fields for your day...all you need to do now is add to the month, day, or year field. The only problem is this: InfoPath thinks these fields are TEXT fields, not numbers, so if you try to just add 1 or 2 to the Month field, it's gonna laugh at you (because, as far as it knows, you're trying to add 2 to AA and it thinks you don't know how math works...seriously, it'll laugh at you). So, here's what you do:
- Add another action to the rule on temporaryDate to set the MONTH field to this formula: value((insert MONTH field here))+2 (or however many months you want to add to that month field). The value function will tell infopath that what you have in the MONTH field is really a number - so you can then do some math with it like adding a few months. The only hard part here is when you get toward the end of the year...you'll need to have another rule that checks to see if the month is greater than 12 and, if it is, subtract 12 from it but also add 1 to the year. Again, that's only if you are adding months...if you add to the year, then you won't have to worry about figuring out the month :)
- The final step: add another action to the rule for temporaryDate to set the DatePlus2 field to this formula: concat((insert YEAR field),"-",(insert MONTH field),"-",(insert DAY field)).
- Below are a couple of images showing the 3 rules I used here to first set the calculated date, second and third check to see if the month is over 12 and do different things based on what the number is. The reason I had 2 rules for that is that, if you subtract 12 from 13, you get 1...which is correct; however, InfoPath will want you to have "01" in the Month field instead of "1"...so I had to change what I say when I'm setting the calculated date field
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
SPTechCon collection of info
So here's the first of a couple of blogger posts that contain all of my live-blogging statements from the conference. This first set is from the Power User half-day session.
Wednesday October 20, 2010
BrendanHorner:
Hi, I'm Brendan and I'm a power user/site collection admin in the education industry. I've been working with SharePoint for a couple of years and and provided quite a bit of InfoPath support as well. I'll be taking classes to look at 2010 Power User info, business intelligence options, content types, data view webparts, governance, and more. My job is to focus on everything sharepoint up to coding - which is where I slam the breaks ^_^.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:11
BrendanHorner:
Sitting in the first session for my day - SP 2010 Power User with Joshua Haebets. This is a half-day session and should be interesting.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:21
BrendanHorner:
Hooray, conference rooms actually have power strips!! SPC09 Vegas - 0; SPTechCon Bostson - 1
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:24
BrendanHorner:
Most everyone in our class is running SharePoint 2007 and some are actually already on 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:33
BrendanHorner:
new site template available in 2010 - Group Work site, which includes calendars, whereabouts, phone call memo, task, documents, and the ability to see exchange calendars within sharepoint
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:36
BrendanHorner:
Several basic database templates are available in Access like the assets, contacts, issues, projects, and chartable template. You can also create your own using Access Services to take your database and convert it into a subsite for 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:38
BrendanHorner:
Things to consider on new sites: security, branding, logos, and navigation...these are listed under the "getting started" section on new team sites.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:38
BrendanHorner:
Note that SharePoint 2010 has a ribbon similar to office...hopefully you've seen this if you've seen 2010 demo'd anywhere
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:40
BrendanHorner:
Wiki pages in 2010 allow you to have more freedom where you place text, pictures, etc for your page layout whereas regular pages are more focused on picking specific layouts for your text
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:44
BrendanHorner:
For those who haven't dealt with it yet; there is a visual upgrade feature in 2010 that lets you keep your 2010 environment looking like 2007 and preview the updated look and feel
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:48
BrendanHorner:
Phone call memo on the new group site template allows you to collect and write memos but has a recipient field and a confidential field - if it's confidential, it is security trimmed so that only the recipients can view it. Kind of nifty for important phone calls that come in.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:54
BrendanHorner:
wiki wysiwyg allows you to add new pages just by typing the [[ like 2007 BUT, when you do, it will show you a list of all other pages in your library in a menu so you can just click the one you want!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:56
BrendanHorner:
Site usage reports in 2010 allow you to create custom usage reports instead of trying to hit the database directly (which is not supported in any way)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:03
BrendanHorner:
You can also get site usage reports emailed to you when certain conditions are met (basically a workflow)...pretty cool when you want to find things in your site that are used a lot
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:05
BrendanHorner:
You can block SharePoint designer at the site collection level in sharepoint 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:06
BrendanHorner:
There is a "check permissions" option to let you see what access a user or group has to the site when you are looking at permissions on a subsite, list, item, etc.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:10
BrendanHorner:
Site collections have a workflow dashboard to look at multiple workflows, where they are associated, and how many in-progress ones are working.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:13
BrendanHorner:
"2010 looks really cool for the first week" - Josh Haebets lol
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:14
BrendanHorner:
You can create a site theme in powerpoint and publish it to powerpoint (color scheme basically)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:15
BrendanHorner:
To create a theme in powerpoint - go to design, pick a simple theme, change the colors, File->Save As->Office theme file type. This will package all the theme info as a packaged file for upload. Go to the site settings, themes, click "upload document" and you'll be able to upload your theme.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:19
BrendanHorner:
(creating a theme in powerpoint can be done in '07 or '10)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:20
BrendanHorner:
2010 allows you to setup versioning on webparts and the ability to checkout and checkin. Personal web parts are not version controlled.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:22
BrendanHorner:
Zones are no longer needed for webparts...YAY!!!!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:22
BrendanHorner:
WARNING: if you have javascript/css in your content editor web parts, our speaker is saying that the new CEWP no longer lets you do that but it has to be migrated to the HTML form webpart...hope someone can speak to this
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:28
BrendanHorner:
Media webpart in SP2010 can play WMV, mp3, mp4
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:30
BrendanHorner:
2010 will let you, if you want, to update your mysite data and that information can be synced back to AD
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:32
BrendanHorner:
You can use managed metadata term stores to limit the job titles available for mysites and office locations and such
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:33
BrendanHorner:
New infopath form webpart similar to xml form webpart in 2007 lets you apply branding to blank infopath forms...honestly sure of its use unless it allows you to brand the site in SP and it auto-brand infopath forms...
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:36
BrendanHorner:
Lots of cool chart types for the charting webpart in 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:37
BrendanHorner:
You can publish microsoft project files directly to task lists in 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:41
BrendanHorner:
Media webpart will import videos from your computer into a library in sharepoint as a part of setting it up - makes it pretty easy to setup.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:44
BrendanHorner:
Outlook webparts will not work in SharePoint 2010 if you are using Exchange 2010...you will have to use SP2010 and exchange 2007 for those webparts to work correctly (authentication issue)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:45
BrendanHorner:
In theory, you could create really fun applications (whisper: games) in silverlight...which means they can be loaded into sharepoint in the silverlight webpart...I see recreational use :)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:47
BrendanHorner:
Webparts in 2010 will allow you to turn on auto refreshing as well as other AJAX options like enabling asynchronous loads, asyncrhonous updates, and a manual refresh button.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:48
BrendanHorner:
InfoPath form webpart lets you connect to an xsn file so that the form is loaded within the site instead of going to a separate page...great for relating static data on the page and a form itself.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:51
BrendanHorner:
Looks like you can add stuff to a wiki page like javascript/css/etc and an approval setup can be added to those pages...basically no need to add a CEWP/HTML form webpart to a wiki page.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:53
BrendanHorner:
Our session is about to hit a break; looking forward to continuing the liveblogging after we return.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:57
BrendanHorner:
To answer a comment from a user...from what it looks like, you can insert scripts/css within a wiki page if you click on the Edit HTML Source at the top-right of a 2010 wiki page. From there, the sky is the limit on what you do it seems.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:21
BrendanHorner:
InfoPath form webpart will allow you to setup closing options for the form so you can host a form within a page, get people to fill it out, they submit it, it "closes" the form by taking you back to a view or something
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:23
BrendanHorner:
2010 printing will strip out a lot of branding...great to print just what you want...possibly negative if you really wanted that look to show; give it a shot, see what prints and what doesn't in print preview
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:26
BrendanHorner:
If you haven't discerned this yet: pretty much EVERYTHING in sharepoint is a list :D
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:27
BrendanHorner:
you can setup validation information in a LIST....I'll let that sink in for a minute and listen for the cheers.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:28
BrendanHorner:
Managed Metadata...metadata = information about something instead of information in something (e.g. the size of a word document and its location, not what's actually said in the document). Managed metadata allows you to come up with your own list of attributes/metadata and its navigation at the site collection level.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:31
BrendanHorner:
Managed Metadata ends up being useful in searches to help you find specific items with a "keyword".
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:32
BrendanHorner:
Calendar improvements - UI improvements for dragging to alter an event and you can also do calendar overlays like Outlook 2007...SP 1, Entourage 0
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:34
BrendanHorner:
Validation settings with a list will act similar to an input mask in '07 - you setup the rules AND the message to display when you put something in wrong for that field. You can also upload documents via drag n drop (silverlight/ajax) and you can, if it is setup by the SP admin, have alerts go to your phone via SMS text message.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:35
BrendanHorner:
Office Web Apps will let you edit certain office documents in the browser - but it seems like it must be Office 2007 or 2010 documents. Also, in Word, you can co-author/edit a file because it locks things by the paragraph...you can work on one paragraph while someone else works on another and you can even see who it is if you are using Office Communication Server (Office Communicator).
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:43
BrendanHorner:
SharePoint 2010 allows you to customize list forms (like the new form) using InfoPath so you get a heck of a lot more power and control.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:43
BrendanHorner:
Why customize list forms? Change the name of a field on the page for end users, hide fields, enhance the appearance instead of using SP's default layout, and adding useful text on the page.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:45
BrendanHorner:
Additional form template type in InfoPath to accomplish changing list forms (in addition to browser form, client form, and managed/admin form). Custom list forms are used to create something quickly, taking info offline with SP Workspace, and filtering a list based on a person or group.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:48
BrendanHorner:
Managed terms for managed metadata can be centralized across site collections and even farms!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:59
BrendanHorner:
You can setup filters on the side of a page of a list using keyword filters (managed metadata terms)...pretty awesome feature.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:06
BrendanHorner:
Customizing list forms in infopath will let you add fields...hooray for no more SPD custom forms work!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:11
BrendanHorner:
(at least for me)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:11
BrendanHorner:
Custom list forms using InfoPath is in MOSS Standard and above
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:12
BrendanHorner:
There is a new view option available to create new views in SharePoint Designer instead of using the standard gui
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:13
BrendanHorner:
This new view option using SPD will let you use conditional formatting on rows and doing some nifty stuff...basically, it's a Data View Webpart...very nifty.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:16
BrendanHorner:
SharePoint Designer is now more than a design tool and it lets people manage sites, lists, permissions, workflows, etc. Some of that stuff was in '07 but harder to find. You can create columns and content types within SPD instead of needing the browser
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:18
BrendanHorner:
SharePoint Designer's homepage of a site will show you how much space is used on a site, look at subsites, and look at users/groups for permissions purposes.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:20
BrendanHorner:
You can use the Content Type hub in 2010 to share content types across sites/site collections. Great for custom columns that you want to make available across the board.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:23
BrendanHorner:
"You don't need to be scared of SharePoint Designer anymore" - awesome quote from our presenter. Please pass that on to managers everywhere
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:24
BrendanHorner:
Visio and workflows - allows you to visualize the workflows...great when you have a super-complex workflow right now...upgrade to 2010 and then look at it in visio
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:30
BrendanHorner:
You can save workflows done in one place and deploy it to production with minimal changes in 2010 SPD.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:32
BrendanHorner:
Great workflow actions in SPD 2010:
Lookup manager of user (via AD)
Log to history list
Do a calculation (enhanced)
Pause until date
Find interval between dates
Start approval task
Impersonate steps (take a specific step in a workflow and impersonate the workflow author)...this might be a tad scary but will be very useful for migrating items to secure locations and other similar actions
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:35
BrendanHorner:
One problem - impersonate someone who then leaves the company :)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:36
BrendanHorner:
This can be fixed using Service Accounts but it's rare to have one that users can use. The impersonation will impersonate the person who last edited/published the workflow.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:38
BrendanHorner:
You can now copy and modify out of the box workflows.....oh yea
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:39
BrendanHorner:
If you have a workflow that is almost complete but will require a developer to mess with something specific, you can export the workflow and give it to a developer to open and modify in Visual Studio.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:43
BrendanHorner:
I'm hungry.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:44
BrendanHorner:
You'll want to use custom lists for lookup values in a reusable workflow because you can simply recreate that list in another site and the lookup will work great.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:52
BrendanHorner:
To use Visio with Workflows, you must purchase Visio Premium
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:52
BrendanHorner:
You can create workflow conditions for approvals based on a % of users who approve that item instead of a specific number of approvers. Nifty
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:54
BrendanHorner:
You can set specific actions when a task expires and it even has an action to escalate a task to that user's manager (assuming that info is in there from AD)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:55
BrendanHorner:
Workflows can use lookup properties for a user's AD info (including custom properties)....basically the userprofileservice in a workflow....wow.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:56
BrendanHorner:
Initiation forms for workflows are DVWPs in SharePoint Foundation and InfoPath forms for MOSS. Both pretty powerful options for customizing the forms with validation, conditional formatting, etc.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 12:03
Wednesday October 20, 2010
BrendanHorner:
Hi, I'm Brendan and I'm a power user/site collection admin in the education industry. I've been working with SharePoint for a couple of years and and provided quite a bit of InfoPath support as well. I'll be taking classes to look at 2010 Power User info, business intelligence options, content types, data view webparts, governance, and more. My job is to focus on everything sharepoint up to coding - which is where I slam the breaks ^_^.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:11
BrendanHorner:
Sitting in the first session for my day - SP 2010 Power User with Joshua Haebets. This is a half-day session and should be interesting.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:21
BrendanHorner:
Hooray, conference rooms actually have power strips!! SPC09 Vegas - 0; SPTechCon Bostson - 1
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:24
BrendanHorner:
Most everyone in our class is running SharePoint 2007 and some are actually already on 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:33
BrendanHorner:
new site template available in 2010 - Group Work site, which includes calendars, whereabouts, phone call memo, task, documents, and the ability to see exchange calendars within sharepoint
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:36
BrendanHorner:
Several basic database templates are available in Access like the assets, contacts, issues, projects, and chartable template. You can also create your own using Access Services to take your database and convert it into a subsite for 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:38
BrendanHorner:
Things to consider on new sites: security, branding, logos, and navigation...these are listed under the "getting started" section on new team sites.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:38
BrendanHorner:
Note that SharePoint 2010 has a ribbon similar to office...hopefully you've seen this if you've seen 2010 demo'd anywhere
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:40
BrendanHorner:
Wiki pages in 2010 allow you to have more freedom where you place text, pictures, etc for your page layout whereas regular pages are more focused on picking specific layouts for your text
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:44
BrendanHorner:
For those who haven't dealt with it yet; there is a visual upgrade feature in 2010 that lets you keep your 2010 environment looking like 2007 and preview the updated look and feel
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:48
BrendanHorner:
Phone call memo on the new group site template allows you to collect and write memos but has a recipient field and a confidential field - if it's confidential, it is security trimmed so that only the recipients can view it. Kind of nifty for important phone calls that come in.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:54
BrendanHorner:
wiki wysiwyg allows you to add new pages just by typing the [[ like 2007 BUT, when you do, it will show you a list of all other pages in your library in a menu so you can just click the one you want!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 8:56
BrendanHorner:
Site usage reports in 2010 allow you to create custom usage reports instead of trying to hit the database directly (which is not supported in any way)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:03
BrendanHorner:
You can also get site usage reports emailed to you when certain conditions are met (basically a workflow)...pretty cool when you want to find things in your site that are used a lot
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:05
BrendanHorner:
You can block SharePoint designer at the site collection level in sharepoint 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:06
BrendanHorner:
There is a "check permissions" option to let you see what access a user or group has to the site when you are looking at permissions on a subsite, list, item, etc.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:10
BrendanHorner:
Site collections have a workflow dashboard to look at multiple workflows, where they are associated, and how many in-progress ones are working.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:13
BrendanHorner:
"2010 looks really cool for the first week" - Josh Haebets lol
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:14
BrendanHorner:
You can create a site theme in powerpoint and publish it to powerpoint (color scheme basically)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:15
BrendanHorner:
To create a theme in powerpoint - go to design, pick a simple theme, change the colors, File->Save As->Office theme file type. This will package all the theme info as a packaged file for upload. Go to the site settings, themes, click "upload document" and you'll be able to upload your theme.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:19
BrendanHorner:
(creating a theme in powerpoint can be done in '07 or '10)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:20
BrendanHorner:
2010 allows you to setup versioning on webparts and the ability to checkout and checkin. Personal web parts are not version controlled.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:22
BrendanHorner:
Zones are no longer needed for webparts...YAY!!!!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:22
BrendanHorner:
WARNING: if you have javascript/css in your content editor web parts, our speaker is saying that the new CEWP no longer lets you do that but it has to be migrated to the HTML form webpart...hope someone can speak to this
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:28
BrendanHorner:
Media webpart in SP2010 can play WMV, mp3, mp4
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:30
BrendanHorner:
2010 will let you, if you want, to update your mysite data and that information can be synced back to AD
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:32
BrendanHorner:
You can use managed metadata term stores to limit the job titles available for mysites and office locations and such
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:33
BrendanHorner:
New infopath form webpart similar to xml form webpart in 2007 lets you apply branding to blank infopath forms...honestly sure of its use unless it allows you to brand the site in SP and it auto-brand infopath forms...
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:36
BrendanHorner:
Lots of cool chart types for the charting webpart in 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:37
BrendanHorner:
You can publish microsoft project files directly to task lists in 2010
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:41
BrendanHorner:
Media webpart will import videos from your computer into a library in sharepoint as a part of setting it up - makes it pretty easy to setup.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:44
BrendanHorner:
Outlook webparts will not work in SharePoint 2010 if you are using Exchange 2010...you will have to use SP2010 and exchange 2007 for those webparts to work correctly (authentication issue)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:45
BrendanHorner:
In theory, you could create really fun applications (whisper: games) in silverlight...which means they can be loaded into sharepoint in the silverlight webpart...I see recreational use :)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:47
BrendanHorner:
Webparts in 2010 will allow you to turn on auto refreshing as well as other AJAX options like enabling asynchronous loads, asyncrhonous updates, and a manual refresh button.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:48
BrendanHorner:
InfoPath form webpart lets you connect to an xsn file so that the form is loaded within the site instead of going to a separate page...great for relating static data on the page and a form itself.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:51
BrendanHorner:
Looks like you can add stuff to a wiki page like javascript/css/etc and an approval setup can be added to those pages...basically no need to add a CEWP/HTML form webpart to a wiki page.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:53
BrendanHorner:
Our session is about to hit a break; looking forward to continuing the liveblogging after we return.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 9:57
BrendanHorner:
To answer a comment from a user...from what it looks like, you can insert scripts/css within a wiki page if you click on the Edit HTML Source at the top-right of a 2010 wiki page. From there, the sky is the limit on what you do it seems.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:21
BrendanHorner:
InfoPath form webpart will allow you to setup closing options for the form so you can host a form within a page, get people to fill it out, they submit it, it "closes" the form by taking you back to a view or something
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:23
BrendanHorner:
2010 printing will strip out a lot of branding...great to print just what you want...possibly negative if you really wanted that look to show; give it a shot, see what prints and what doesn't in print preview
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:26
BrendanHorner:
If you haven't discerned this yet: pretty much EVERYTHING in sharepoint is a list :D
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:27
BrendanHorner:
you can setup validation information in a LIST....I'll let that sink in for a minute and listen for the cheers.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:28
BrendanHorner:
Managed Metadata...metadata = information about something instead of information in something (e.g. the size of a word document and its location, not what's actually said in the document). Managed metadata allows you to come up with your own list of attributes/metadata and its navigation at the site collection level.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:31
BrendanHorner:
Managed Metadata ends up being useful in searches to help you find specific items with a "keyword".
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:32
BrendanHorner:
Calendar improvements - UI improvements for dragging to alter an event and you can also do calendar overlays like Outlook 2007...SP 1, Entourage 0
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:34
BrendanHorner:
Validation settings with a list will act similar to an input mask in '07 - you setup the rules AND the message to display when you put something in wrong for that field. You can also upload documents via drag n drop (silverlight/ajax) and you can, if it is setup by the SP admin, have alerts go to your phone via SMS text message.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:35
BrendanHorner:
Office Web Apps will let you edit certain office documents in the browser - but it seems like it must be Office 2007 or 2010 documents. Also, in Word, you can co-author/edit a file because it locks things by the paragraph...you can work on one paragraph while someone else works on another and you can even see who it is if you are using Office Communication Server (Office Communicator).
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:43
BrendanHorner:
SharePoint 2010 allows you to customize list forms (like the new form) using InfoPath so you get a heck of a lot more power and control.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:43
BrendanHorner:
Why customize list forms? Change the name of a field on the page for end users, hide fields, enhance the appearance instead of using SP's default layout, and adding useful text on the page.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:45
BrendanHorner:
Additional form template type in InfoPath to accomplish changing list forms (in addition to browser form, client form, and managed/admin form). Custom list forms are used to create something quickly, taking info offline with SP Workspace, and filtering a list based on a person or group.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:48
BrendanHorner:
Managed terms for managed metadata can be centralized across site collections and even farms!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 10:59
BrendanHorner:
You can setup filters on the side of a page of a list using keyword filters (managed metadata terms)...pretty awesome feature.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:06
BrendanHorner:
Customizing list forms in infopath will let you add fields...hooray for no more SPD custom forms work!
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:11
BrendanHorner:
(at least for me)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:11
BrendanHorner:
Custom list forms using InfoPath is in MOSS Standard and above
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:12
BrendanHorner:
There is a new view option available to create new views in SharePoint Designer instead of using the standard gui
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:13
BrendanHorner:
This new view option using SPD will let you use conditional formatting on rows and doing some nifty stuff...basically, it's a Data View Webpart...very nifty.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:16
BrendanHorner:
SharePoint Designer is now more than a design tool and it lets people manage sites, lists, permissions, workflows, etc. Some of that stuff was in '07 but harder to find. You can create columns and content types within SPD instead of needing the browser
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:18
BrendanHorner:
SharePoint Designer's homepage of a site will show you how much space is used on a site, look at subsites, and look at users/groups for permissions purposes.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:20
BrendanHorner:
You can use the Content Type hub in 2010 to share content types across sites/site collections. Great for custom columns that you want to make available across the board.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:23
BrendanHorner:
"You don't need to be scared of SharePoint Designer anymore" - awesome quote from our presenter. Please pass that on to managers everywhere
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:24
BrendanHorner:
Visio and workflows - allows you to visualize the workflows...great when you have a super-complex workflow right now...upgrade to 2010 and then look at it in visio
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:30
BrendanHorner:
You can save workflows done in one place and deploy it to production with minimal changes in 2010 SPD.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:32
BrendanHorner:
Great workflow actions in SPD 2010:
Lookup manager of user (via AD)
Log to history list
Do a calculation (enhanced)
Pause until date
Find interval between dates
Start approval task
Impersonate steps (take a specific step in a workflow and impersonate the workflow author)...this might be a tad scary but will be very useful for migrating items to secure locations and other similar actions
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:35
BrendanHorner:
One problem - impersonate someone who then leaves the company :)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:36
BrendanHorner:
This can be fixed using Service Accounts but it's rare to have one that users can use. The impersonation will impersonate the person who last edited/published the workflow.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:38
BrendanHorner:
You can now copy and modify out of the box workflows.....oh yea
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:39
BrendanHorner:
If you have a workflow that is almost complete but will require a developer to mess with something specific, you can export the workflow and give it to a developer to open and modify in Visual Studio.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:43
BrendanHorner:
I'm hungry.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:44
BrendanHorner:
You'll want to use custom lists for lookup values in a reusable workflow because you can simply recreate that list in another site and the lookup will work great.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:52
BrendanHorner:
To use Visio with Workflows, you must purchase Visio Premium
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:52
BrendanHorner:
You can create workflow conditions for approvals based on a % of users who approve that item instead of a specific number of approvers. Nifty
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:54
BrendanHorner:
You can set specific actions when a task expires and it even has an action to escalate a task to that user's manager (assuming that info is in there from AD)
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:55
BrendanHorner:
Workflows can use lookup properties for a user's AD info (including custom properties)....basically the userprofileservice in a workflow....wow.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 11:56
BrendanHorner:
Initiation forms for workflows are DVWPs in SharePoint Foundation and InfoPath forms for MOSS. Both pretty powerful options for customizing the forms with validation, conditional formatting, etc.
Wednesday October 20, 2010 12:03
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Live Blogging at SPTechCon Boston
I will be live blogging for EndUserSharePoint.com and/or tweeting the entire time at SPTechCon. I'm hoping to use this as a tool for notes and to communicate some of the findings with others as we get them in sessions. Hope I can catch many of you there.
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