Steve Caravajal's Ramblings

SharePoint 2010 Resources

Well the flood gates were opened last week at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. It was a great week. I’ve gotten a number of questions about resources so I thought I would share some of the ones I think are valuable. Your list may be different so if you have a favorite one not on the list below send it to me and I’ll add it (maybe). The list below is in no particular order. As time goes on, this list will definitely get longer.

SharePoint 2010 Web site. The site should definitely be bookmarked. This is the “all-up” site for SharePoint 2010, and therefore should be your one-stop shop for new information. One thing to note, check out the upper right-hand corner of the home page; this site is running on SharePoint 2010 beta. Yes, you heard me…well you read me anyway; it is running on SP2010 beta. What do you think about that level of confidence! Also, make sure to install the Silverlight v3 player. That’s right, we are up to v3 and getting better and more powerful with each version.

The Forrester Wave: Collaboration Platforms Q3’09

Microsoft and SharePoint continues to one of the very few leaders in this platform.

The Microsoft SharePoint Product Team Blog

Specifically, you will want to check out this post and this one.

Paul Andrew’s Blog

This is focused on SharePoint development, so if you’re not a developer then no need to go here but if you are then Paul leads this effort on the product team. One post you definitely should check out is this one, which is a summary of developer resources.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Center

Stay tuned, we have a lot to talk about.

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Silverlight v3

SL3 has RTMed and Laurence Moroney continues his SL series that will update your skills. It’s based on the SL beta but it’s still valuable. I suggest you browse at your local bookstore with your favorite mocha at your side and see if it meets your needs. For those that are interested, there is a free downloadable copy that discusses only the new features (sorry, not the whole book). You can download it here. I recco the free download to get up to speed on the new features.

For those not yet on SL2, here is a developer book I highly recommend:

For the SharePoint developer, here is a great book by Steve and Paul. I’m told there won’t be an SL3 version, but maybe SL4????

Happy reading.

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SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peeks Available

There is a new addition to the MOSS Web site on Microsoft.com today. You should go check it out…but if you would like to see it I”ve captured a snapshot of it below.

You can also go directly to the SharePoint 2010 info using this link:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx

There are 3 videos you can check out that will give you some insight into the next version of SharePoint. It’s a very exciting time and the new version is going to be awesome. Oh, also make sure you register for the SharePoint Conference 2009 happening in October…hope to see you there!

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Getting Ready to Buy a Netbook?

If so, you might want to check out:

Top 6 Things to Consider Before Buying a Small Notebook PC

I like both of these: ASUS Eee 1000HE and the HP 2140 mini.

Let me know your favorites.

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New Silverlight-Based STSADM Reference

Looking for a specific STSADM command? If so, you can find it here for WSS and here for MOSS.

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SharePoint 2007 Reader’s Choice Award Winner

More than 8000 readers of the magazine ASP.NETPro voted MOSS the best Content Management System.

Rock on!

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SharePoint Customization, Development and Governance

SharePoint Designer

No it’s not an April fools joke and yes as of April 2, 2009, SharePoint Designer 2007 is available as a free download. General SharePoint Designer info can be found here. This eliminates any cost issue associated with providing users the necessary tools for site customization and is a great opportunity for those companies that need to customize SharePoint sites as part of their enterprise plans. But it also emphasizes the need for defining site customization governance.

So, as part of maintaining control, how do I “lock down” SPD use? This is a very common question.  There are two resources that should be required reading for all SharePoint admins and any business users that are site owners:

How to prevent SharePoint Designer 2007 users from changing a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site or a SharePoint Server 2007 site

Locking Down SharePoint Designer

Many new awesome features are on tap for the next version of SharePoint Designer so stay tuned.

Visual Studio 2010

Soma’s blog gave a good introduction to what’s coming in VS2010 with regard to SharePoint development:

In Visual Studio 2010, we’re going to expand SharePoint support in two key areas. First, Visual Studio 2010 will deliver a broad set of project templates, designers, and deployment infrastructure that will make any .NET developer instantly more productive on the SharePoint platform. Second, we are exposing an extensibility API that will continue to foster the ecosystem of third party developers who create development tools and technologies.

Visual Studio 2010 will come with a broad set of project and items templates. You’ll be able to use these to quickly create or update SharePoint elements such as list definitions, list instances, site definitions, workflows, event receivers, Business Data Catalog models, and content types.

There were also several presentations at MIX09 discussing the SharePoint development experience. If you missed MIX, then you can check out the recorded presentations here, at least for awhile, not sure how long they will be available. Make sure to check out the keynotes, they will give you a good overview of what’s coming.

Expression Blend v3

Also at MIX, it was announced that the next version of Expression (v3) will have SharePoint integration so designers familiar with the Expression tool can apply these skills to SP design. I’ve gotten a number of questions from folks asking why is there another design tool for SharePoint? Is SharePoint Designer going away? No, SPD is not going away. You should read this is part of the heavy commitment for making the SharePoint design, customization and development experience the best it can be with the tools you are the most familiar. As EXv3 gets closer, there will be more information on the specifics.

So, the SharePoint design, customization and development experience is only getting better and the gaps in the tool sets that exist today are being filled. It’s an awesome time to be working with a great product, especially since we are on the verge of a new release.

Governance

As part of my governance discussions, I include 2 topics of relevance here:

1. Custom Artifacts (eg custom Web parts, custom workflows, etc.)

2. Customization vs Development (aka SharePoint Designer vs Visual Studio)

These are critical discussion points for any organization that is going to use SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio as part of their tools for meeting their design requirements.

Now I know that governance is definitely not a favorite topic and it can be overwhelming, but defining the customization and development requirements and how they will be delivered BEFORE you deploy is extremely important. Only bite off the necessary governance chunks that are absolutely necessary and then add more over time; this makes the whole process more successful.

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A New Book on the BDC

The authors behind the the awesome BDC MetaMan tool have written a book:

SharePoint 2007 Developer's Guide to Business Data Catalog

A got my hands on an early copy via the MEAP and I’m about 3/4 through. If you're new to the BDC, it will be a great reference and it will get you up to speed ASAP. If you have been working with the BDC for awhile now, then it will be a complete resource you can refer to as necessary. Either way, it’s definitely worth a look, it’s the only book on the market dedicated to the BDC.

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SharePoint Developers and Visual Studio 10

Some really great news for SharePoint developers along the tools front. Check out Soma’s blog for a good summary of what’s coming.

Sharepoint tools support in Visual Studio

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SharePoint Deployment and Install Guide

My good buddy Shane and friends at SharePoint911.com have written a great paper:

Administrator’s Guide of Topics to Consider before Deployment

If you just learning SharePoint because your company has decided to deploy….yes you know who you are…..then this paper is for you. It is a great introduction to all things you need to know to get up speed quickly.

So, don’t you dare run setup.exe before reading this!

Also, I was fortunate enough to spend all last week with Shane co-teaching the Professional SharePoint Server 2007 Administration course to 28 folks in the Columbus, OH area. It was great fun. We put this together as an “invite-only” offering with the help from Jeff Warnat (Microsoft SharePoint Strategist) and Microsoft, and it was hosted at the Microsoft office.

If you have a chance to take the course you gotta do it.

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PRISM: Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight

You say, “what are composite applications?” Good question. Generally, a composite application is an application built by combining multiple existing functions into a new application. Functionality can be a part of other applications, or an entire application can be utilized.

The Composite Client Application Guidance is designed to help you build composite applications that utilize Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight.

Included in this release:

· Composite Application Library

· Reference Implementation (Stock Traders application in WPF and Silverlight)

· Quick starts (9)

· How-Tos (26) and

· Lots of documentation for everything you want to know about UI patterns  and client architectures

PRISM

Prism: patterns & practices Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight site.

Books

Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2.0, 2nd Edition

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SharePoint is getting even more powerful!! Welcome PerformancePoint Services!

Some very exciting news was announced yesterday. SharePoint’s mission has always been to provide collaboration to the masses. Collaboration in the broadest sense has meant business intelligence capability with Excel integration, Excel Services, KPIs, Report Center, etc.

Well, as of yesterday, collaboration to the masses now also includes BI for the masses with the inclusion of PerformancePoint Services. Yep, that’s right! The next version of SharePoint (aka SharePoint14) will include PerformancePoint Services. You say you can’t wait till SharePoint14, well you might not have to, read on…

This is an update to our Business Intelligence roadmap. This will greatly facilitate delivering BI to everyone in the organization.

Specifically, this includes consolidating the scorecard, dashboard, and analytic functionality from PerformancePoint Server into SharePoint Server Enterprise as PerformancePoint Services.

PerformancePoint Services will be a license entitlement for SharePoint Server 2007 ECAL customers with Software Assurance. This means that customers who want to deploy PerformancePoint can do so today at no additional cost. Yep, you read that right.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 will no longer be available as a standalone item after April 1, 2009.

For more info,

Microsoft Business Intelligence strategy update and SharePoint

Microsoft Business Intelligence

The BI Blog

Business Intelligence with Microsoft® Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

For me, this is a very exciting announcement, specifically for two reasons:

1. For a lot of my customers, BI is something that they want to do, but many find it cost prohibitive and some have it siloed within the organization so that only a few have access. There are likely many other reasons but the end result is a less than successful implementation and utilization. They now don’t have to worry about buying a separate BI point solution that doesn’t integrate very well. They already have their enterprise portal and collaboration environment in MOSS, and now they’ll have excellent BI as well.

2. A lot of customers are very interested in a few of the ECAL features, but not enough to push them to pay the additional licensing costs. With the ECAL now including PPS, this will definitely rock their world, IMHO, and enable even greater collaboration capability.

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SharePoint Intranets are among the Best

Jakob Nielsen has just released his report describing the top 10 best intranet sites worldwide for 2009. He is internationally recognized as one of the best Web Usability experts. His report has quite a bit of great information so make sure you check it out.

A blurb from the report:

“In total, the 10 winners were built on 26 different products — substantially fewer than the 41 used in 2008 or the 49 used in 2007. Most impressively, fully half of the winning intranets used SharePoint, especially the recent MOSS platform (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007). As the following chart shows, SharePoint use has grown dramatically in recent years. This is particularly impressive given that, from 2003–2006, the winning intranets didn't use earlier versions of SharePoint at all.”

The winners of the award for 10 best-designed intranets for 2009 are:

• Altran, a large engineering and innovation consultancy (France)
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a developer of computer and graphics processors (USA)
• BASF SE, the world's leading chemical manufacturing company (Germany)
• COWI Group A/S, a consulting group focusing on engineering, environmental science, and economics (Denmark)
• Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), a global professional services network providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services (a Global member organization)
• Environmental Resource Management (ERM), one of the world's leading providers of environmental consulting services (Global)
• HSBC Bank Brazil (Brazil)
• Kaupthing Bank (Iceland)
• L.L.Bean, a vendor of apparel and outdoor equipment (USA)
• McKesson Corporation, a large provider of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health care information technologies (USA)

SharePoint keeps rocking the world….

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Windows Live going Social....

Social Networking will continue to create a lot of watercooler talk and executive discussions in 2009, with more and more companies applying Web 2.0 tool in the Enterprise. I've seen tremendous interest in the last 6-9 months in this topic with the customers that I speak with. A lot is happening in the blogsphere and it's becoming more difficult to keep up with all the chatter. Here is a new announcement you many not of heard:

Is Microsoft Biting Its Own Hand with Windows Live?

Microsoft will add Facebook-like features to Windows Live over the next few months. How will Microsoft business partner feel about this?

"...Microsoft announced yesterday that it would empower its Windows Live portal with social networking features starting sometime next year. With Windows Live getting more social, 283 million Hotmail users are prone to become part of the world's largest social network..."

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SharePoint and Commerce Server Integration

There is a set of excellent blog posts that will tell you most of what you need to know if you are considering Commerce Server 2007.

Wrap-Up: Commerce Server 2007 Architecture Series

Well, as you might expect, Commerce Server 2009 is just on the horizon and a CTP has been released in December.

Announcement: Commerce Server 2009 & December CTP Availability

One of the CS2009 features that I'm planning to check out is SharePoint Commerce Services. Here are a few blurbs from the announcement:

"Commerce Server 2009 delivers the ability to increase your business reach by making it possible to sell via multiple channels using an out-of-the-box shopping site, SharePoint Commerce Services.

...The new out-of-the-box shopping site leverages SharePoint Commerce Services, which provides a gallery of ASP.NET 3.5 Web Parts, a comprehensive e-commerce shopping feature-set, and technology integration between Commerce Server and SharePoint technologies.

...Complete out-of-the-box e-commerce shopping site in SharePoint with new search functionality, new shopping features, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) content management and design experiences. This helps to facilitate rapid assembly and maintenance of e-commerce Web sites by business users and creative professionals."

This sounds pretty cool and fills an e-commerce gap SharePoint has today that several of my customers want.

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