Just Another Blog

MOSS 2007 BDC Search Scope - Tricks for young players

JohnHODG — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:52:00 GMT

I was recently demonstrating MOSS (level 200) to a customer and there was a lot of interest in the Business Data Catalogue (BDC). Without previously preparing a detailed demonstration I was asked to explain and walk them through how they could create a Search Scope against the data being indexed in the BDC.

Fortunately I had a sample BDC installed and functional and continued the now increasingly high risk demo. I stumbled around in the Search Scope settings of the Site Collection trying to create a scope with a rule that only included BDC data; however it is not possible to create a new rule from within the Site Collection scopes that use the BDC, where a Shared Scope has not been previously configured.

To create a rule that includes the BDC you must first create a Shared Scope from the Shared Service Provider search settings; depicted below. This Shared Scope can then be leveraged by rules associated to scopes created in the Site Collection Search Scopes. Make sense?

The second image below also shows how you can optionally have an additional tab in Search Centre that only returns results from your custom Scope. Cool!

MOSS Search Result Removal

JohnHODG — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:00:18 GMT

Angus and I were trying to determine if results can be removed immediately from SharePoint Search results by adding crawl rules and it seems this is possible and it would appear to be immediate:

How Microsoft Deployed and Architected MOSS & WSS 2007

JohnHODG — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:00:11 GMT

A good discussion about our SharePoint deployment at Microsoft.

"Michael Murphy interviews Sean Livingston about how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 were deployed internally at Microsoft. In this episode they discuss challenges faced, the architecture, design decisions, lessons learned, and planning that went into the upgrade and rollout of Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. Plus we bring you interviews from the recent New York City Launch Tour 2007 event."

TechNetRadio-070123.wma

MOSS Downloadable RTM SDK

JohnHODG — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 05:05:32 GMT

Enough said...

MOSS 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en

WSS

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&displaylang=en

Hidden Office usability features - The Research Pane

JohnHODG — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:39:00 GMT

Summary: Press ALT and at the same time click on a word when in Outlook or Word etc...

I now use Office 2007 but I sometimes take for granted some of the cool innovation introduced in Office 2003 like the Research Pane. However it is safe to say not a lot of people know how to access it.

The Research pane is accessible in Office 2003/2007 and in Internet Explorer and really opens a channel to resources about information you are currently creating or working with. Its a task pane that opens to the right of you're work space, although in IE it opens on the left; go figure. These resources can be those supplied by Microsoft, 3rd parties like Factiva or those created by an organsitation and exposed only internally or externally to the world at large. Moreover the search web service in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Office SharePoint Server both conform to the Research web service format and hence can be registered as a provider through the Research Options. Sweet...

I use the Research pane quite often; today I was creating an email and I needed to look up a word. I wasn't sure it was the right word to use in the context I was using it, so I simply clicked ALT whilst clicking the word and the Research pane showed up and provided the alternatives I was looking for. Too easy.

I take this tool for granted but how many others wouldn't even know this huge time saver is available to them?

I have the Research Pane configured for Dictionary, Thesaurus and Intranet only but you can add additional services via the Research options at the bottom of the Research Pane. They even have Parental controls.

If you want to build one this is the place to start. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905529.aspx

I really like some of the suggestions in the comments of this blog too by Dave Burke.

http://dbvt.com/blog/archive/2006/10/26/An-aid-to-IE7-Assimilation_3A00_-the-Research-Task-Pane.aspx

The Research Pane in all its glory.

Citrix Presentation Server for SharePoint

JohnHODG — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:43:00 GMT

I must say the Citrix Web integration for SharePoint is very clever...

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/demo.asp

It really provides an easy to use and central launching pad for all the users applications from a SharePoint site. This demonstration also highlights cross platform integration opportunities with the Mac to ensure a common user experience.

Obviously this all comes at a price when purchasing the Citrix tools but when you consider the improved user experience when working with large documents (especially with limited bandwidth) used by some of our customers there is substantial upside and a clear value proposition (especially here in Australia in remote areas).

Anyone have any real world experience integrating Citrix with SharePoint as demonstrated?

John Hodgson

SharePoint V3 Templates for VS.Net

JohnHODG — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:32:00 GMT

Have you guys tried the new CTP builds of the SharePoint V3 templates for VS.Net?

They are pretty amazing...you literally start a new Web Part project, compile then deploy. All from within VS.Net 2005.

Add a web part to a page and presto; you just built and deployed a webpart; big step forward in terms of approachability...

I also noticed it deploys a solution file so suspect all Web Front End servers in a development farm would end up with the Web Part...nice.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=19f21e5e-b715-4f0c-b959-8c6dcbdc1057&DisplayLang=en

TIP: Improving the Vista Start Menu

JohnHODG — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 16:12:00 GMT

We all love the new search feature built right into the Start Menu in Vista right? But I prefer not to have to search for something if I don’t have to.

So instead of doing searches for your favourite programs just extend the Start Menu to accommodate your most used applications.

Right click on the Start Menu and select properties -> click the customise button.

Now change the setting:

“Number of recent programs to display”

I crank it up to 20 and this seems to fill my screen quite well and allow me much quicker access to programs that I use regularly.

Certainly one of the first things I do when I install a new build of Vista.

A Wireless Media Centre Keyboard that works--finally!

JohnHODG — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:05:00 GMT

So after trying about 5 wireless keyboards over the last 18 months I think I have found one that lives up to my expectations; albeit not that sexy or stylish.

I tried the Microsoft Media Center Keyboard but could not deal with the pokey little mouse control, otherwise it was a great looking keyboard. See my ealier comments.

and I also tried two Globlink Wireless Keyboards as pictured below.

But they both fall short for a number of reasons, but mainly due to erractic connectivity which makes them unreliable and frustrating to use on a regular basis.

So I spotted this new wireless keyboard from Shintaro which just works and has a great feel about it with one hand or two, including a nice big rollerball mouse control that is surprisingly accurate and affective when sitting on the lounge. Not to mention a trigger (XBOX controller style) on the right side of the keyboard which means you can use the mouse and make selections with one hand; nice. Of course with two hands you can use the left and right mouse buttons on the left side of the keyboard.

But that's not all; again in a trigger style fashion there is a scroll wheel on the left front of the keyboard when using it with two hands. Makes it easy to surf the web from the lounge or read long documents. The quick access keys are nice too but generally I do not use these no matter what the keyboard.

If there is one thing I like the most about this keyboard it is the fact that it connects and starts working quickly and every keypress and mouse movement gets to the computer; unlike the other wireless keyboards I have used.

Shintaro

Just out of interest I came across another keyboard very similar to the Shintaro in many respects.

Can-tech

Customising the Office 2007 Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)

JohnHODG — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 10:20:00 GMT

I was recently demoing the Office 2007 clients and talking about all the new innovations in this release; one in particular was the Quick Access Toolbar that presents itself in Ribbon enabled applications (for all there is to know about the Ribbon see Jensens blog). The QAT looks like this:

It's that section to the right of the Office Menu above the Home tab. A user can manually add extra regularly used buttons or Groups to this area to allow quick access if using the tabs is too many clicks for a particular command. The QAT can also be configured to be located below the Ribbon. See Jensens blog.

During this demo the customer asks:

"Can the QAT be customised and standardised across the enterprise?"

Great question, shame we didn't have an answer for it on the spot. Surprised no one has asked before actually. Sure I assumed we allowed this in some way and I guessed it would be through XML but was not absolutely sure where or how the customisation could be made. As it turns out the QAT can be customised per Ribbon application/per user or per document.

This means you could deploy Office with a standard set of QAT buttons and groups across the company or simply target certain templates across the organisation.

This is where you will find per application/per user QAT customisations for a particular user and you could target the All Users profile to affect all users of the PC:

Here you can see the packaged customisations when made to a particular document or template; this is the DOCX package extracted.

The customisation creates a UserCustomization folder in the package. This contains a CustomUI.xml file with the associated changes.

So once you have some understanding of the structure of the XML used for ribbon definition you can create your own document or application scoped customisations to the QAT. Of course there is a growing number of tools on OpenXMLDeveloper.org to help you generate and validate this XML like the CustomUI Editor Tool.