SharePoint Saturday Cincinnati is ... well this Saturday!

 

Cincinnati’s first SharePoint Saturday is in three days! Are you registered yet? If not, go here now: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/cincinnati/default.aspx

With twenty different presentations you can’t miss!

 

I will be giving two presentations:

  SharePoint Governance... It may not be what you think it is...

and

  SharePoint 2007, 2010 and Office 365 for Site Owners and Power Users

 

 

                                Tweet it! (#SPSCincinnati)

                                     Blog it!

                                         Be there! 

                                             and Learn!

                                                                and remember… it’s FREE!

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SharePoint Online Service Update – Cool things coming to Office 365/SharePoint Online!

 

See here for details:

http://www.office365blog.co.uk/2011/10/important-information-for-coming.html

 

BCS!

SharePoint Online will now have BCS! The lack of BCS is a real problem for many people wanting to try out the “cloud” and especially when the only custom code is via a sandbox solution.  But sadly, this is for Enterprise (“E” plan) subscriptions only.

 

Windows Phone 7 "Mango”  (the latest update to Windows 7 Phone) connectivity!

This gives access to Windows 7 Phones to SharePoint lists and libraries. This is for both “E” and “P” plans.

 

Recycle Bin: deleted site self-recovery

SharePoint 2010 got this with Service Pack 1. Now SharePoint online users can “undelete” a site!

 

Browser support for Internet Explorer 9

Now who would of  thunk of that?

 

Browser support: Chrome

Welcome Google!

 

 

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SharePoint: Create an Alert from Anywhere

 

Users typically create an alert from a list’s ribbon or an item’s dropdown or ribbon. Regardless of where they click they get directed to /_layouts/SubNew.aspx, which is the Alert creation page. (Would you have guessed that a page named SubNew was used to create alerts?) As long as you know how to setup (or copy) this URL you can create a link to create an Alert from anywhere.

In this article we will see how to:

• Create our own links to create a new Alert
• Add these links to pages
• Add these links to Quick Launch
• Display the Alert page in a dialog box

 

Alert URLs

The URL to SubNew looks like this for a list or library level alert:

http://intranet/sites/Training/_layouts/SubNew.aspx?List=%7BE7735F69%2D5542%2D4B8F%2D9426%2DD7757EAFABD9%7D&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fintranet%2Fsites%2FTraining%2FShared%2520Documents%2FForms%2FAllItems%2Easpx&IsDlg=1

And like this for an item or document level alert:

http://intranet/sites/Training/_layouts/SubNew.aspx?List={E7735F69-5542-4B8F-9426-D7757EAFABD9}&ID=1&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fintranet%2Fsites%2FTraining%2FShared%2520Documents%2FForms%2FAllItems%2Easpx&IsDlg=1

http://intranet/sites/training	the path to your site
?list=	The Globally Unique ID (GUID) for the list or library (See below)
&Source	Optional – if provided, the user will be redirected to this page when the OK or Cancel button is clicked in the Alert page. (Ignored with used with &IsDlg=1)
?ID=	The internal ID for the list item or document (See below)
&IsDlg=1	2010 only – used to hide the navigation parts of the master page when a page is displayed as a dialog box (See below)

 

Notes:

List GUID: Each list and library in SharePoint (actually, just about every object in SharePoint) has a unique ID based on a GUID. This ID can be found in may URLs (example: List Settings or Library Settings) and can also be found by using PowerShell, the SharePoint API or tools like this or this.

SharePoint is not consistent in the formatting of a GUID. In some cases all of the letters must be lower case, in others they must be uppercase and in some it does not matter. As you can see in the two examples above, the GUID is sometimes escaped and sometimes is plain text. In the Alerts URL it does not seem to matter which form is used.

     Escaped:   %7BE7735F69%2D5542%2D4B8F%2D9426%2DD7757EAFABD9%7D

     Not escaped:   {E7735F69-5542-4B8F-9426-D7757EAFABD9}

List item ID: Every list item has a unique integer ID. This ID unique to the list and is never reused in the same list. (Add items 1, 2 and 3, then delete 2 and add one more. The new one will be 4. 2 will never be reused.) You can display the ID by simply adding the ID column to a view.

IsDlg: Setting this to 1 does not make the page display as a dialog, rather it tells the master page to hide most navigation elements. You can test this by going to just about any page other than your Home.aspx page and adding ?IsDlg=1 or &IsDlg=1 to the end of the URL.

http://intranet/sites/Training/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?IsDlg=1

See here for more about IsDlg and even how to display dialog boxes from Quick Launch.

 

Adding an Alert URL to a page

Using a SharePoint Rich Text editor (in a Wiki home page (home.aspx), a Content Editor Web Part or a Rich Text multiline column in a list) just click the Insert tab of the ribbon, click Link and paste in the URL for the Alert.

    

 

Adding an Alert directly to HTML:

Create an anchor tag (<A>) and add the URL for the alert. Example:

<a href="http://intranet/sites/Training/_layouts/SubNew.aspx?List={E7735F69-5542-4B8F-9426-D7757EAFABD9}&ID=1&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fintranet%2Fsites%2FTraining%2FShared%2520Documents%2FForms%2FAllItems%2Easpx"> Alert me! </a>

Note: Do not include the “&IsDlg'=1” unless you will displaying the alert page as a 2010 dialog box.

 

Adding an Alert to Quick Launch (or a Links list)

Too easy… just an a new link to Quick Launch using the URL copied from the Alert page.

 

Adding an Alert to Quick Launch (or a Links list) that displays as a SharePoint 2010 dialog box

See this article for more details and examples of SharePoint 2010 dialog boxes: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2010/12/sharepoint-opening-2010-dialog-box-from.html

You will need to combine some JavaScript for the dialog box with the Alert’s URL to create the Quick Launch link. The following must be typed as all one line! Also note the use of single quotes (‘) around the URL.

JavaScript:var options=SP.UI.$create_DialogOptions();
options.url='/sites/Training/_layouts/SubNew.aspx?List=%7BE7735F69%2D5542%2D4B8F%2D9426%2DD7757EAFABD9%7D';
options.height = 400;
void(SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog(options))

Notes:

• Set options.url to your Alert URL, but remove the &Source= section (unless you want to send the user to a new page after creating the alert)
   
• If the alert page is in the same site collection, set options.url to a relative address:
    relative:     /sites/Training/_layouts/SubNew.aspx?List
    absolute:  http://intranet/sites/Training/_layouts/SubNew.aspx?List
   
• Quick Launch has a limit of 255 characters for the URL. To save space:
• Use relative URLs
• Do not use “&Source=” when using “&IsDlg”  (Ignored with used with &IsDlg=1)
• Use an un-escaped version of the GUID
   
• You can set the options.height and options.width to what ever looks best.

   

 

The results:

   

 

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SharePoint 2010 Book Recommendations

I have not created a book list in quite a while and needed to put together an updated SharePoint 2010 book list for the folks who attend my classes. This list is not complete and unless otherwise noted only contains books I have personally reviewed.

Let me know of there are any other books you think I should review and possibly add to this list…

 

 

Categories of books below:

• SharePoint 2010- “the big picture” / overview / understanding
• SharePoint 2010 End Users / Site Owners / Power Users
• SharePoint 2010 Administrator
• SharePoint 2010 Developer
• SharePoint 2010 Governance

 

SharePoint 2010 - “the big picture” / overview / understanding

Essential SharePoint 2010: Overview, Governance, and Planning (Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series)
This book is for anyone wanting to find out what SharePoint can do. It's sometimes described as the book to give to your manager who knows nothing about SharePoint and wants to know what it can do while not having to learn every detail about how to do it.

 

SharePoint 2010 End Users / Site Owners / Power Users

SharePoint End User

SharePoint 2010 How-To

Click here for my review of this book.

 

SharePoint Workflows

SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Action

Includes both SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio workflow topics.

 

SharePoint Designer

Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Step by Step (Step by Step (Microsoft))

 

SharePoint Branding and Customization

My book of course!

SharePoint 2007 and 2010 Customization for the Site Owner

This book is designed to get you started in customizing your SharePoint site with the tools you have readily at hand. This book has complete copy and paste solutions, and it also shows how each solution was crafted and how it works. After working through a few of the customizations and picking up some basic skills, you can start to figure out how SharePoint has been put together and start creating your own customizations.

SharePoint 2010 branding in practice: a guide for web developers

Click here for my review of this book.

 

SharePoint and InfoPath

Designing Forms for SharePoint and InfoPath: Using InfoPath Designer 2010 (2nd Edition) (Microsoft .NET Development Series)

 

SharePoint 2010 Administrator

These include books for everyday use and for certification prep.

(1) = I supply this book with my “SharePoint 2010 Certification Bootcamp for Administrators” class.

SharePoint Administration

Mastering Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 (1)

Click here for my review of this book.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administrator's Companion (1)

Essential SharePoint 2010: Overview, Governance, and Planning (Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series)  (1)
This book is for anyone wanting to find out what SharePoint can do. It's sometimes described as the book to give to your manager who knows nothing about SharePoint and wants to know what it can do while not having to learn every detail about how to do it.

 

SharePoint and PowerShell

Automating SharePoint 2010 with Windows PowerShell 2.0

Excellent book! Over 700 pages on both PowerShell for SharePoint and "got to knows" about administration. If you are building multiple farms, finding yourself doing the same thing over and over again, or creating a scripts for a disaster recovery plan, then you need this book!

 

 

SharePoint 2010 Developer

These include books for everyday use and for certification prep.

(2) = I supply this book with my “SharePoint 2010 Certification Bootcamp for Developers” class.

SharePoint Development

SharePoint 2010 Development with Visual Studio 2010 (Microsoft .NET Development Series) (2)

Professional SharePoint 2010 Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) (2)

Inside Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (2)

 

SharePoint Workflows

SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Action (2)

Includes both SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio workflow topics.

SharePoint Governance

SharePoint Deployment and Governance Using COBIT 4.1: A Practical Approach

Click here to read an excerpt of this book on TechNet.

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