Joel Oleson (ex SharePoint product team) is coming to Australia in July. He has organised two morning sessions with local SharePoint experts, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne. I will be sitting in on Joel’s session in Melbourne and will also be hanging around as a panel expert.
“Joel is a senior product manager and SharePoint evangelist at Quest where he is responsible for product direction and strategy. He is well known in the SharePoint community as an enthusiastic trainer, evangelist and architect and he maintains a popular blog. Prior to Quest, Joel worked at Microsoft and was a part of the first Microsoft global deployment of SharePoint. During his Microsoft tenure Joel helped various customers achieve the critical governance they needed to upgrade and achieve scale with SharePoint 2007. He would later design the extranet and hosted SharePoint deployments. http://www.sharepointjoel.com”
Keynote:
- 10 Steps to successful SharePoint Deployments, Joel Oleson
- Preparing to upgrade to SharePoint 2010 today, Joel Oleson
Sydney Guest Speakers:
- Email integration , storage and management in SharePoint, Kathy Hughes
- TBC, Adam Cogan
- Demo – SharePoint customisation and application development, John Ackery
Melbourne Guest Speakers:
- Configure, Customise, Code, Elaine van Bergen
- Demo – SharePoint customisation and application development, John Ackery
Plus, you can learn tips and best practices to help you overcome your most difficult SharePoint challenges during a panel discussion with SharePoint experts and bloggers.
Space is limited so reserve your seat now!
How cold is it at the moment....brrrr! Luckily Tech Ed Australia 2009 will be on the Gold Coast this year bring on the sunshine baby.
If I can manage to get off the beach and into the auditorium, this year I will be co-presenting a session with Lee Hickin on the differences between SharePoint on-premise and SharePoint Online part of the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). During the session we hope to provide the following information;
- Learn SharePoint customisation techniques that will work in BPOS or on-premise
- Describe provisioning options for SharePoint – in-house, hosted, cloud
- Understand pros/cons for each model
- Demonstrate SharePoint designer and Office customisations to SharePoint
In order to make the session a little more interesting we would like to get some participation from the community so we are going to run a little competition. We are going to get several community members to create a highly customised and funky SharePoint Online site which will be reviewed for originality, style, design and also what features from the online platform have been utilised.
The winner of the competition will get to present their solution on stage during our session as well as getting a prize. If you are interested in getting involved please register through the call for content as described on Andrew Coate’s blog.
Lee and I will work thru the list of people who register thru the Call For Content tool and let the eligible people know how to access their SharePoint Online site to start customising. I am looking forward to seeing some really interesting sites come out of this.
The SharePoint product team has posted an article on an issue found after installing SharePoint Server 2007 SP2.
We take product quality seriously and make every effort to avoid and resolve issues that adversely impact our customers. Unfortunately, we have recently discovered a bug with Service Pack 2 (SP2) that affects all customers that have deployed it for SharePoint Server 2007.
During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.
We are working to release a hotfix to automatically fix this issue. A manual work-around is currently available and involves customers re-entering their Product ID number (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration. For more information and detailed steps please read this KB article. (The KB link is not currently active, it will be available within the next 48hrs)
We want to assure our customers that this issue does not impact data integrity or their SharePoint deployment in any other way.
For your convenience, below are some answers to questions that you may have and we will update this blog post with a link to the hotfix as soon as it’s available.
Tech Ed North America 2009 kicked off today, where Microsoft extended its first invitations into the Office 2010 Technical Preview and demoed Office 2010 onstage at the first major event since PDC.
- Registrations began for the Office 2010 Technical Preview program. Attendees will get the first opportunity to opt-in at Teched to the invitation-only Office 2010 Technical Preview program which will launch in July. (Office client only)
- IT Professional Community viral site launched. IT Pros, and others, can sign up to be on a “waiting list” for the Technical Preview program at www.office2010themovie.com.
- System Requirements announced. Preliminary system requirements for Office 2010 were shared today and can be found here.
- Outlook 2010 demoed for the first time onstage! Bill Veghte, SVP of Windows, got the conference underway with a message to IT Pros and developers including a demo that featured Outlook 2010 working with Exchange 2010. Click here to see the keynote.
“Office 2010 will help you do more with less, stay competitive, and prepare for the future by providing IT with a flexible platform and end users with tools to more effectively work together to bring ideas to life across the PC, phone, and browser. We’ve barely just begun to share the upcoming innovation with the world, but every step we take to prepare our customers for this game-changing release is an important one.”, Takeshi Numoto, CVP Microsoft Office
![clip_image002[4]](http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/williamcornwill/WindowsLiveWriter/Saveupto80offthepriceofexamsforMCPs_9312/clip_image002%5B4%5D_1.jpg "clip_image002[4]")
MS Learning is taking up to 80 per cent off the exam price for Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP) who have not attained a new Microsoft Certification Credential since 1 July, 2007. Until 30 June, MCPs are eligible for a Microsoft Certification exam at the reduced price of US$25. So it is time to up-skill with new Microsoft technologies and stay ahead in today’s market! Check out the website for terms, conditions and more information.
During a recent chat with Andy Neumann and Elaine van Bergen at OBS, they told me about a National SharePoint Survey that OBS, Nintex and i5 are sponsoring. Below are the details of how to respond and enter the draw to win an Acer notebook computer or V8 race experience. I think the I would take the V8 experience if I was to win. :)
They also told me that they were only looking for Australian Customers that use SharePoint to respond and preferably not partners, etc…
This is an independent survey being conducted to get a glimpse into the adoption and usage of Microsoft Office SharePoint products and technologies within Australia.
The survey has been designed to ensure we are respectful of your time, no questions are mandatory, the majority of the questions are multiple choice, and the path of questions is customized based on your responses. In total there are fourteen questions.
Enter the survey at www.sharepointsurvey.com
You are welcome to forward this survey link to your business or IT professional colleagues who use Microsoft SharePoint so they can partake.
The survey will close for participation on Friday 8th May, 2009.
Thank you in advance for your participation.
The National SharePoint Survey is Proudly Sponsored by –
*This is a game of chance and one winner will be drawn randomly by the promoter following the closing of survey on 8th May, 2009. The drawing of the winner is final and the promoter will contact winner by email and/or phone to advise them of their win. If repeated attempts to contact winner fail the promoter reserves the right to draw another winner.
Overnight the product team released SP2 for WSS v3 and MOSS 2007. After installing this service pack, SharePoint customers can benefit from performance, stability and availability improvements. IE8 is also put into level 1 support.
In addition, SP2 introduces a new stsadm operation preupgradecheck (also known as the Upgrade Checker) to check if the farm can be upgraded to SharePoint 2010. It is very important for existing SharePoint customers to go to SP2 since it “could” be one of the requirements to upgrade to SharePoint 2010. :)
The SP2 is a cumulative update and includes all the fixes prior to SP2 in addition to the improvements mentioned above.
Also something to note, there are no plans for an official MOSS slipstream build with SP2. An official slipstream guide will be provided so customers can create their own slipstream build based on their patch needs. WSS with SP2 slipstream builds are provided on download center.
Call to Action
Since Service Pack 2 improves performance, stability and availability for SharePoint server farm, and it is also could be a requirement to upgrade to SharePoint 2010, I encourage everyone to start planning to apply Service Pack 2 on their server farm.
KB Article Links
Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953338
Description of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953334
Download Links
Service Pack 2 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, x86 & x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B&displaylang=en
Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007, x86 & x64
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082&displaylang=en
Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog
For more information including installation steps and benefits, check out the posting on the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog Announcing Service Pack 2 for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Microsoft’s immediate strategy around accessibility from a SharePoint platform perspective revolves around a joint venture with HiSoftware, a specialist accessibility partner.
On Monday, March 9, 2009, HiSoftware announced the release of the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) v2.0. The AKS v2.0 incorporates feedback from customers and partners and follows on from the AKS v1.0 and v1.1 which have been downloaded by over 4000 organizations in 50 countries. The AKS v2.0 provides an accessibility framework for SharePoint and is designed to significantly reduce the level of effort and knowledge needed to improve the accessibility of SharePoint based sites and applications.
“The AKS will deliver a kit that can significantly reduce the time, knowledge, and effort required to implement a SharePoint-based Web site that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints, which are collectively known as WCAG 1.0 AA. The AKS can also be used to address the exceptions that have been identified in the U.S. government’s Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT documents for MOSS 2007.”, HiSoftware website.
In addition to the release of the AKS v2.0, HiSoftware have also released the Accessible Rich Text Editor for SharePoint.
“HiSoftware aRTE™ is a lightweight text editor for SharePoint MOSS / WSS designed to help the user make more accessible Web content. It incorporates many of the common features from desktop editors like Microsoft Word and Telerik. With aRTE™ a user can write text, format text, create tables and much more. The editor is installed on a SharePoint server and requires no changes to the browser or user agent. aRTE™ is extremely configurable and its functions are customized by the developer or system administrator. Through a licensing and support agreement with Microsoft, HiSoftware aRTE™ will be available for download at no charge for use in a SharePoint environment of MOSS and WSS.”, HiSoftware website.
Canberra SharePoint User Group
Wednesday 18th March 2009 at 17:30 – 19:30 – Microsoft Level 2, 44 Sydney Avenue, Barton
InfoPath vs Lists
The user group will discuss the pros and cons of both data entry methods supported natively by SharePoint and compare them.
Scanning to SharePoint
While Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has most of the ingredients needed to automate paper-based business processes, it has no out-of-the-box support for handling paper.
The "Dark Blue Duck Scanning Enabler" products helps developers do it all. With it, SharePoint Developers are able to create Solutions that handle paper in just about any way imaginable.
This means that if you know how to develop SharePoint Solutions you already know how to automate your paper-based business processes.
In 20 minutes Neil Haddley from Dark Blue Duck will show you how it’s done.
K2 blackpoint
K2 is one of the leading vendors of workflow platforms in the market and recently they have announced K2 blackpoint, their SharePoint specific workflow platform.
If you are looking for manageable, easy to design workflow capabilities that go beyond what MOSS or SharePoint Designer offers without writing code, you need K2 blackpoint.
This session will consider some of the key challenges you face when implementing human to human and human to system workflow within an organisation. It will look at the out-of-the-box options for implementing workflows in SharePoint and then show how K2 blackpoint can improve this experience for companies that need to get more out of their workflow dependent applications.
You will see an application built with K2 Studio, an Office-style process designer, using SharePoint-specific task wizards and integration with InfoPath Forms Services.
Learn how K2 blackpoint can be used to build workflows and process-driven applications quickly - without code and without complexity.
MOSSIG – Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group
Wednesday 25th March 2009 at 17:30 – 19:00 – Microsoft Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank
K2 blackpoint in black and white
Jay Srikantha is ex-K2 and a K2 insider. He presented K2 at the workflow forum at MOSSIG last year and is now back to talk about K2’s recently released K2 blackpoint product.
Jey will demonstrate K2 blackpoint and the key value propositions of this product for SharePoint users. He will also give you his take on blackpoint as a user of this product since the early beta releases.
Perth SharePoint User Group
Wednesday 25th March 2009 at 17:30 – 18:30 – Microsoft Level 14, QV1, St Georges Terrace, Perth
SharePoint Development with Unit Testing
Jeremy Thake will be presenting the current movements towards integrating Unit Testing with SharePoint Development. He will show how Unit Testing Frameworks and Mocking Tools can be used to reduce dependencies within Unit Tests when writing SharePoint dependent code. Note that this will not be a 101 Unit Testing presentation and assumptions are made that you a familiar with the Unit Testing approach.
Adelaide SharePoint User Group
Monday 30th March 2009 at 17:30 – 19:45 – Microsoft Level 2, Westpac House, King William Street, Adelaide
Windows Server 2008 R2 – Technical Overview
In this session, Jeff Alexander, we’ll provide a technical update on the Windows Server 2008 R2 beta. Technologies covered include Virtualization and in particular Hyper-V with Live Migration; new management features such as PowerShell 2.0; new Web workload features and how R2 is a solid foundation for your enterprise with new features such as DirectAccess and BranchCache. There will be several demo’s in this session to give you a hands-on look at some of these new and exciting features.
Windows 7 – An Update for IT Pro’s
The Windows 7 beta is here and everyone’s talking about it. In this session, Jeff Alexander, will discuss what Windows 7 means for the IT Pro and enterprises and mid-market customers in general. Technologies covered include DirectAccess, BranchCache, Federated Search, Bitlocker to Go and the ways in which Windows 7 streamlines PC management. Demo’s include DirectAccess, BranchCache, Bitlocker to Go, User Account Control changes and many of the management changes.
For more information on your local SharePoint User Group in Australia, check out the SharePoint user groups website.
Arpan Shah just announced during our last session at TR8 the upcoming SharePoint Conference to be held in Las Vegas 19-22 Oct 2009 (
http://www.mssharepointconference.com). This will be the premium conference for content pertaining to SharePoint 14 and will be a must attend conference.
Last week the SharePoint Designer Team posted an excellent article on the options available to lock particular Designer functionality from certain users. Quite often I am ask by my customer how to lock down SharePoint Designer to allow users to open a site and create workflows but not allow them to customise the look and feel (master pages). Now I have a comprehensive article that I can point them to.
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2008/11/25/locking-down-sharepoint-designer.aspx
At the recent TechEd in Sydney Craig Harrowfield and I gave a presentation on enhancing the user interface (UI) and experience (UX) of SharePoint by using Microsoft’s Silverlight 2.0 technology. During the demonstration we focussed on Silverlight 2 Beta 2.
Yesterday Microsoft announced the long awaited availability of Silverlight 2 to all consumers Worldwide. Many of my customers and partners already take advantage of Silverlight’s benefits to deliver truly amazing and differentiated Web experiences for their customers – ranging from HD video, unparalleled animation and interactivity via Deep Zoom, and the programming possibilities using the power of .NET technology in Silverlight, including rich integration potential with SharePoint. In addition, many customers and partners are taking advantage of our world class and cost-effective video streaming (http://silverlight.live.com/), application delivery, and developer and designer tools to create great user experiences on Silverlight. We are also enabling third party tools and servers to provide the same services for Silverlight.
“During the 17 days of the recent 2008 Beijing Olympics, NBC delivered a Web experience powered by Silverlight resulting in more than 50 million unique visitors, 1.3 billion page views, 70 million video streams, and 600 million minutes of video watched. More importantly, it increased the average session time on the site from 3 minutes to 27 minutes, helping NBCOlympics break almost every other digital/Web record out there! Silverlight offers you the same opportunity to tell the unique story of your product to customers, to connect with them, to provide value to them, to differentiate yourself from the rest.”, S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President, Developer Device Management
We are seeing unprecedented momentum as well. Several high-profile customers like CBS College Sports, Hard Rock International, Blockbuster, AOL, Toyota, and Home Shopping Network have built next generation experiences using Silverlight.
For more information on Silverlight or to download Silverlight 2 visit http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight.
This morning I sat the 70-630: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Configuring exam and passed with a score of 876 (only needed 700 to pass). I was a little anxious about sitting it, even though I believed I knew the material, this was my first Microsoft exam and those that know me know that “I hate exams!”.
The process was very smooth and much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. The exam time allocated was 2 hours 30 minutes and it took me a little of 50 minutes to complete.
If you work with SharePoint or even if you know how to spell MOSS, you should sit this exam. Not only will you be able to confirm your knowledge, you will also assist your employer by being certified.
The Document Information Panel is a feature of Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint. This feature is designed to allow users to enter information about the document they are working in. This information can then be used as live fields throughout the document and can even be delivered and synchronised to SharePoint as metadata columns to assist in content classification and retrieval.
Tomorrow night at this months MOSSIG (Microsoft Office System Special Interest Group) meeting, I will be discussing the Document Information Panel and how it can be customised without code and integrated into SharePoint by using Content Types. This is an open event and anyone is welcome to attend, I just ask that you send an email to register@mossig.net to assist in determine correct catering.
This is an extract from this months MOSSIG newsletter about my session.
In addition, Ed Richard will also be presenting at the meeting on "Increasing business productivity by making good use of OpenXML, SharePoint Events and Word Content Controls".
