Archive for the ‘sharepoint development’ Category

SharePoint 15 Arriving Early 2013 According to Leaked MS Roadmap

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

The next version of Office and SharePoint seem likely to land on servers in the first quarter of next year, making it SharePoint 2013, with a beta due this summer.

Sharing the News

Enterprises’ love of SharePoint seems to know no bounds, but the product has plenty of areas for improvement, often filled in by third-party apps, solutions, tweaks and various packages. While Microsoft is unlikely to tread on its partner’s toes, improvement was inevitable and it looks like we can expect a beta of SharePoint and 15 in the coming months.

The date matches the typical three-year cycle of Office products, but clears up any confusion with previous date estimates stretching into 2014.

sharepoint_release.jpg

With its track running parallel to Office and Exchange, the Microsoft business wizards are going to have a busy time of it getting everything ready for a group launch next year. For business users we start the inevitable worry about the upgrade cycle, with those on older (2007) editions of SharePoint probably holding off from the 2012 version.

What’s in the Pipe?

We have previously speculated on SharePoint integrating with Silverlight, but there are plenty of more pragmatic features. A new app store is the most likely feature to help tie in all those third-party products to help users create and buy packaged solutions. An educational module has been widely touted to help it access the huge learning sector. Finally, SharePoint Online is likely to happen, creating a cloud version.

With the product currently in a private beta, expect things to get a whole lot clearer when the summer general beta emerges. And let us know about any must-have feature it would take you to upgrade, or are you perfectly happy in your SharePoint 2010 (or earlier) environment?

Read More:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-development/sharepoint-15-arriving-early-2013-according-to-leaked-ms-roadmap-015162.php

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3 Reasons You Could Write Custom Code for SharePoint 2010

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

 

We’ve talked about why you should not write custom code for SharePoint 2010, now let’s consider the reasons why you should (or could) write custom code.

My recent article: 3 Reasons to Not Write Custom Code for SharePoint 2010 caused some debate both here on CMSWire, and further afield on the web. In it I discussed the key reasons that you shouldn’t be writing custom code for SharePoint. In a nutshell I argued:

   1. 90% of problems can be solved using out of the box functionality
   2. Writing custom code is not for the faint hearted or ill prepared
   3. Custom code imposes an unnecessary shelf life on your solution

RSSbus SharePoint Web Part

I concluded by saying it was wise to think twice before firing up Visual Studio. So what if you think twice and still want to write custom code? When is it appropriate? Well I think there are three clear areas where custom code is OK.

1. Branding and Design

Everyone wants to brand their Intranet. SharePoint systems are no different. I have argued before that branding is a balancing act and too much is a bad thing. But a sufficient level of branding can be perfectly sensible and can actually enhance a portal or Intranet. Making an Intranet on brand will give users a warm fuzzy feeling from that start. It can help tie the tool in with other systems and offer a uniform interface. It can present familiarity, and even corporate authority.

Extranets and such have an even stronger case for branding. Their use is typically by external staff, contractors or freelancers. Exposing these people to your brand can help build awareness, and can give direction over what a system is for and what it does.

Custom code to achieve these aims is fine. As stated, I would advise caution, and not treat your Intranet/Extranet as a website. I wouldn’t overly customise it, nor would I move too far away from the standard look and feel. But a custom master page or two, logos and background images, and maybe a custom navigation, can all work in the system’s favour.

2. Interfacing with Line of Business Systems (LOB)

A common use of SharePoint is as the ‘glue’ between multiple systems, an interface between existing line of business systems and newer SharePoint based functionality. These applications can be interfaced with in a number of ways. Friendly ‘out of the box’ ways include Excel and Access services, but particularly ‘business connectivity services’ (formally the ‘business data catalogue’) and its related web-parts. (Check out: 4 Ways to Integrate External Content with SharePoint 2010)

But sometimes custom code needs to be written to communicate with these systems. Maybe they are difficult to create connections to, or require custom web-parts to display their data and outputs. Maybe SharePoint is to act as a full read/write terminal to an old system. Business connectivity services will get you so far, but more complex requirements like these will require your own code.

Functionality such as this is often key to the success of portal or Intranet projects. If a slew of custom code is required to get the old back office talking to the new back office, then it may well be worth the investment. That is until you retire those systems and move the functionality naively into SharePoint.

3. The Limits of SharePoint

I’ll admit that sometimes you will hit the limits of what SharePoint can do. You need a web-part to read out the time in 13 different countries whilst displaying photos of the CEO’s holiday. Or more likely your client has some very bespoke business requirement that no one has yet solved. I would still strongly advise you consider solving 70% of their problem using out of the box functionality, if possible.

But we live in a far from perfect world. Sometimes clients demand it all, even when we know better, and custom code is the answer. Just promise me you’re not going to spend your time building yet another weather web-part. This problem has been solved, it’s called a ‘window’.

Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/3-reasons-you-could-write-custom-code-for-sharepoint-2010-009818.php

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Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portal Development

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is a versatile web-based collaboration and document management platform that can be used to build and host enterprise-level Internet and intranet sites and web applications. SharePoint supports many web features out of the box, significantly reducing the time required to get sites up and running. SharePoint web development Improves organizational efficiency, Provides comprehensive content management and enterprise search features, Accelerates shared business processes and Facilitates information sharing across geographical boundaries. As well as supporting enterprise-level Internet applications, SharePoint also provides a secure, scalable environment for team collaboration. Regardless of location, team members can be given password-protected access to SharePoint sites, enabling them to work together on tasks, projects, and documents. Site managers can coordinate site content and user activity. SharePoint makes it easy for Administrators to design, deploy, and administer their sites.

Microsoft Sharepoint services are built for the making the Information management more flexible and secure. Sharepoint products are the best options for the organization which are facing the issues like security of document and communication among the employees. Think of a situation were you are working with a word or an excel file, you and your docs alone, isolated for the rest of the organization. This is the scenario were you are on a client machine and the doc is local to the machine it self with no server. This situation is not good when you and your machine is the part of a big organization. Here you can find Microsoft Sharepoint the best to your help, to enable you be the part of enterprise office Server.

Microsoft Sharepoint has eliminated the Information Management, Access, Security, and Storage challenges and had made all this more flexible and secure for organizations. Sharepoint touches almost all aspect of information in the foam of documents, Communication, and reporting.

[...]

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http://technology.ezinemark.com/sharepoint-portal-development-31d4e723acf.html

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3 Reasons You Could Write Custom Code for SharePoint 2010

Friday, January 14th, 2011

 

We’ve talked about why you should not write custom code for SharePoint 2010, now let’s consider the reasons why you should (or could) write custom code.

My recent article: 3 Reasons to Not Write Custom Code for SharePoint 2010 caused some debate both here on CMSWire, and further afield on the web. In it I discussed the key reasons that you shouldn’t be writing custom code for SharePoint. In a nutshell I argued:

   1. 90% of problems can be solved using out of the box functionality
   2. Writing custom code is not for the faint hearted or ill prepared
   3. Custom code imposes an unnecessary shelf life on your solution

I concluded by saying it was wise to think twice before firing up Visual Studio. So what if you think twice and still want to write custom code? When is it appropriate? Well I think there are three clear areas where custom code is OK.

1. Branding and Design

Everyone wants to brand their Intranet. SharePoint systems are no different. I have argued before that branding is a balancing act and too much is a bad thing. But a sufficient level of branding can be perfectly sensible and can actually enhance a portal or Intranet. Making an Intranet on brand will give users a warm fuzzy feeling from that start. It can help tie the tool in with other systems and offer a uniform interface. It can present familiarity, and even corporate authority.

Extranets and such have an even stronger case for branding. Their use is typically by external staff, contractors or freelancers. Exposing these people to your brand can help build awareness, and can give direction over what a system is for and what it does.

Custom code to achieve these aims is fine. As stated, I would advise caution, and not treat your Intranet/Extranet as a website. I wouldn’t overly customise it, nor would I move too far away from the standard look and feel. But a custom master page or two, logos and background images, and maybe a custom navigation, can all work in the system’s favour.

2. Interfacing with Line of Business Systems (LOB)

A common use of SharePoint is as the ‘glue’ between multiple systems, an interface between existing line of business systems and newer SharePoint based functionality. These applications can be interfaced with in a number of ways. Friendly ‘out of the box’ ways include Excel and Access services, but particularly ‘business connectivity services’ (formally the ‘business data catalogue’) and its related web-parts. (Check out: 4 Ways to Integrate External Content with SharePoint 2010)

But sometimes custom code needs to be written to communicate with these systems. Maybe they are difficult to create connections to, or require custom web-parts to display their data and outputs. Maybe SharePoint is to act as a full read/write terminal to an old system. Business connectivity services will get you so far, but more complex requirements like these will require your own code.

Functionality such as this is often key to the success of portal or Intranet projects. If a slew of custom code is required to get the old back office talking to the new back office, then it may well be worth the investment. That is until you retire those systems and move the functionality naively into SharePoint.

3. The Limits of SharePoint

I’ll admit that sometimes you will hit the limits of what SharePoint can do. You need a web-part to read out the time in 13 different countries whilst displaying photos of the CEO’s holiday. Or more likely your client has some very bespoke business requirement that no one has yet solved. I would still strongly advise you consider solving 70% of their problem using out of the box functionality, if possible.

But we live in a far from perfect world. Sometimes clients demand it all, even when we know better, and custom code is the answer. Just promise me you’re not going to spend your time building yet another weather web-part. This problem has been solved, it’s called a ‘window’.

Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/3-reasons-you-could-write-custom-code-for-sharepoint-2010-009818.php

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5 Reasons Why SharePoint 2010 Will Revolutionize Your Organization

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

 

What if you can reduce cost and still provide the necessary tools to meet organizational needs? SharePoint 2010 (news, site) can do exactly that.

Don’t You Love It When …

    * You get a meeting invite with 20 massive attachments. Then after the meeting, action items fly back and forth via email with additional attachments.
    * You triumphantly win the game at work called “Whoever-saves-the-file-last-in-the-network-share-wins?”. This game also tests your memory skills by remembering that the file has to be saved in a location 18 folders deep.
    * You ask IT to build some system yet you get it when it’s too late. IT is so slammed these days that you’re so careful when you make such requests.

It’s Time For A Revolution! The days of email and network share collaboration are over. Down with the draconian IT institution! IT is so swamped these days that they can’t help you in a timely manner. Power to the people! What if you can be in charge of your technical destiny?
Join the SharePoint Revolution

SharePoint 2010 is the collaboration platform for the enterprise and the web, which addresses and enhances organizational collaboration needs around: Document Management, Collaboration, Reporting, Content Management, Records Management and Compliance (Additional reading: SharePoint 2010 Review: The New 6 Pillars of SharePoint).

Here are 5 reasons why SharePoint 2010 will revolutionize your organization:
1. Empower Individuals

It empowers users to build their own solutions, which traditionally they would rely on IT to do. Let’s walk down memory lane back in the early 90’s: How was a project manager able to have a centralized repository for project artifacts? They would have to send in a request to IT to provision a network share for the project or perhaps a website. Would the PM get one in a timely fashion?

With SharePoint 2010, not only can project managers provision their own project sites, they can build related solutions as well like dashboards, workflow automation and integration with existing tools and systems. The technical barrier to entry is relatively low. It builds on users’ existing skill set and familiarity with Microsoft Windows, Office and web-based technologies.
2. Delivers Relevant Information

With SharePoint 2010, corporate information can be better-organized and identified with enhanced metadata management features and powerful search.

In addition, the complete overhaul of My Sites in SharePoint 2010 takes personalization and social computing to a whole new level in the enterprise. It is a personal hub that allows you to interact with relevant content and people. Think Facebook for the enterprise.

Wouldn’t it be great if you found out that a colleague of yours in Asia that you rarely interact with just finished a similar project that you are about to start? How beneficial can it be if relevant information is delivered to you at the right time?

3. Supports Compliance Requirements

SharePoint 2010 has upgraded features for Records Management allowing for better management of organizational records from cradle to grave.

It can provide out-of-the-box solutions for industry-specific compliance such as Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), 21 CFR Part 11 and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).

4. Interoperability

A compelling benefit of SharePoint 2010 is its’ cross platform capability:

    * It has adopted the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) for cross browser compatibility. Read Maximizing SharePoint 2010 on a Mac + iPhone or iPod + iPad
    * Apart from Windows-based authentication, it can interface with various industry standard authentication mechanisms such as Open ID and OAuth.
    * It supports industry standard data interchange via Web Services, XML, ODBC, Connection Strings, etc. Interaction with varying data sources can be accomplished with SharePoint 2010 tools like Business Connectivity Services (BCS).

5. It’s All About The Benjamins

Taking a strategic assessment of your organization, step back and consider how much are you spending on licensing, support, training and maintenance of various tools like Content Management Systems, Document Management Systems, Reporting tools, Collaboration tools.

More importantly, what’s the cost of:

    * Users’ frustration over multiple tools?
    * Management not being able to aggregate and extract organizational information?
    * Relevant information is not available when needed?

What if you can reduce cost and still provide the necessary tools to meet organizational needs? SharePoint 2010 can do exactly that. As Ted Schadler of Forrester points out, “ … Microsoft has bundled in tools that you previously paid another vendor to provide. Storage, social tools, basic archiving, email filtering, etc. Add it all up, and the economics just make sense."

How real is the SharePoint revolution? It’s as real as 1000 people showing up wanting to learn about Sharepoint at a community-driven event last May 15 in Washington, DC on a nice Saturday.

Source: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/document-management/5-reasons-why-sharepoint-2010-will-revolutionize-your-organization-007629.php

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SharePoint Online: Leaving a smaller carbon footprint

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

By Caroline Marwitz

There’s a reason why Iceland, Russia, Latvia, and Canada are ranked as favorable countries for locating data centers—it’s cheaper to keep servers cool in a cool climate. Duh.  

Still, many small, midsized, and large companies run do-it-yourself data centers of various sizes, paying a chunk of money to cool their servers in regions with 100-degree heat and 90 percent humidity. Whether you think this is a) immoral, b) stupid, or c) the best we can do given our circumstances, the reality is, you’re not about to build a data center in Iceland, so you’re stuck.

Not so, says Microsoft, which, as you might have heard, has recently discovered and embraced The Cloud as its own long-lost offspring. Microsoft commissioned a study that compared the energy use and carbon emissions per user for Exchange Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM with their cloud-based equivalents: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Dynamics CRM Online.  

The cloud, of course, won. Here are the findings, according to Microsoft: “When small organizations (100 users) move to the cloud, the effective carbon footprint reduction could be up to a 90 percent savings by using a shared cloud environment instead of their own local servers. For large corporations, the savings are typically 30 percent or more in energy consumption and carbon emissions using cloud applications.”

Why? Basically, economies of scale rule—larger is cheaper and more efficient. The study offers four reasons:

1. Large operations enable better matching of server capacity to demand on an ongoing basis.

2. Large public cloud environments are able to serve millions of users at thousands of companies simultaneously on one massive shared infrastructure.

3. Cloud providers can make server capacity more efficient, thereby performing higher workloads with a smaller infrastructure footprint.

4. Cloud providers have the incentive and the means to design, build, and operate datacenters that use energy efficiently.

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Microsoft’s legal team finds solution to use emails with SharePoint 2010

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

Microsoft is continuing to strive for perfection with its SharePoint programs after the company’s legal team found it useful to be able to integrate their emails with the application.

The group will use Colligo’s Contributor V4.2 software after finding it easier to create emails in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 instead of saving them to the desktop and uploading them.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is the ideal collaborative platform for businesses and organisations, allowing them to share ideas through documents, blogs and wikis.

Firms can also add software, such as Contributor V4.2, to SharePoint to tailor it towards their business needs.

Nishan DeSilva, director of information management and compliance at Microsoft, told computing.co.uk as how the group came to the solution.

"The legal department began looking for an information management programme because it needed a simple way to bring emails into SharePoint, it came up with Colligo Contributor," he told the news provider.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 also provides an affordable collaborative platform as businesses only need to pay a monthly fee.

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Informative Graphics Adds New SharePoint 2010 Ties

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

By Stuart J. Johnston

Informative Graphics Corp. (IGC) is readying updates to its tools for viewing, collaborating on, and redacting documents which, among other additions, feature improved integration with Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

IGC will officially launch Brava Enterprise 7 and Redact-It Enterprise 7 next week, and plans to ship the updates in early November, an IGC spokesperson told InternetNews.com.

The company announced it was working on integration between its products and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) SharePoint 2010 last spring. SharePoint 2010 was released by Microsoft in mid-May, along with Office 2010.

"With SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight, administrators immediately increase usability for mobile users by offering high resolution, streamable views of documents and even CAD drawings," an IGC statement said at the time.

With Brava Enterprise 7, users have the ability to view almost all file formats in SharePoint. They can also use Brava’s viewer to view thumbnails as well as entire document previews right on search results pages.

Additionally, Brava Enterprise 7 highlights search terms in documents, as well as performing advanced searches from results pages. Finally, users can embed document viewers into pages using standard Web parts, according to an IGC statement released Wednesday.

"Brava [Enterprise 7] allows users to easily interact with documents anywhere, anytime using only their web browser. Brava adds key document-centric workflow actions including the ability to add stamps, create threaded discussions and other markups, publish documents to TIFF or PDF, and redact sensitive content and privacy information," the new statement continued.

Meanwhile, IGC is also readying its version 7 update to Redact-It for release. One key new feature enables document redaction to be incorporated into SharePoint workflows, while another lets users automatically search documents, including entire libraries of documents, for sensitive or privacy information.

Redact-It Enterprise 7 also adds pattern matching technology designed to automatically remove privacy data, the statement said.

Redact-It users can also clone document libraries, letting contributors access native files, while giving consumers of content access to the clones via PDF or IGC’s own secure format.

IGC is previewing Brava Enterprise 7 and Redact-It Enterprise 7 at the SPTechCon SharePoint conference in Boston this week.

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