9/29/2011

SharePoint User Group Meetings!

 

Cincinnati SharePoint User Group

October 3rd, 2011

Details, directions… www.CincinnatiSPUG.org

October's Presentation

Presentation Abstract

Curious what happens when SharePoint process management meets Mad Lib? Want to find out?  This very unique demonstration, presented by Jason Keller: Sr Consultant of TekDog Inc., will give you an easy-to-follow walkthrough on how to quickly automate business processes in SharePoint 2010 using a Workflow tool and – you guessed it! – while implementing the entire workflow using your Mad Lib suggestions!
Whether you’re thinking of trying out some new software for your company, or maybe you’ve just been struggling with a few growing business management issues, the presentation would provide an option you a SharePoint Workflow solution.

Speaker Bio

Jason Keller currently serves as the President of TekDog Inc. Jason has been working with Microsoft SharePoint since 2001 and has worked as a Technical instructor, Business Analyst, SharePoint Consultant, Project Manager and Solutions Architect on SharePoint Projects.
Jason also specializes in Business Process Automation and works on a daily basis with clients to understand their business needs to architect SharePoint and Workflow solutions.

 

Dayton SharePoint User Group

October 11th, 2011

Details, directions… http://www.dayspug.org/SitePages/Home.aspx

Topic: Records Management within SharePoint

Adam Solzsmon is currently a Practice Consultant with Ascendum Solutions in Blue Ash, Ohio

Adam Solzsmon has been a working with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as well as SharePoint 2010 products for multiple clients in the heartland district for over 3 years. Adam worked as a full time SharePoint Administrator/Educator for a Fortune 500 meidical products and equipment supplier with one of the 10 largest SharePoint installations in the Eastern United States. Adam has also been and is currently a consultant who has experience working closely with client users to gather requirements, make recommendations and build out solutions based on their needs.

9/19/2011

Do want to explore SharePoint 2010?

 

Would you like to explore SharePoint 2010, but don’t want to build your own SharePoint server? A year or two ago I would have told you to build your own servers, or download the Information Worker evaluation virtual hard disk.

There’s a third option that will serve the needs of many of the curious… Office 365. Just go here and sign up for a demo account and explore away for thirty days!

 

Three options…

1) Signup for a SharePoint / Office 365 demo (free for 30 days)

You will get access to SharePoint from the point of view of a Site Collection Administrator and be able to create Site Collections, Sites, Lists, Libraries and even create and upload Visual Studio sandboxed solutions.
 

2) Download the 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine from here

You will get a full SharePoint Enterprise Edition, FAST search, Office 2010, Visual Studio 2010, Lync server, SQL server and a whole lot of other stuff! You will need a server running HyperV or a PC running Virtual Box.
 

3) Build your own server or virtual machines using the 180 day evaluation copies of SharePoint, Windows, SQL, Office, Visual Studio, etc.

You'll both learn how to build SharePoint farms and how to use all of the tools.

9/18/2011

SharePoint 2010 Developer’s Certification Boot Camp!

 

One week to go! Two month’s ago MAX Technical Training and I put together a 6 day, 11 hours per day, SharePoint administrator’s certification boot camp (MA-1071). It was so much fun that we decided to do it again, but for developers this time. A week from now we will deliver a certification boot camp for developers (MA-1072).

 

Here’s what’s included in the boot camp:

  • Microsoft Official SharePoint Courseware for:
    • Course 10175 - Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Application Development
    • Course 10232 - Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Applications

      Two five days classes in one week!
       
  • Exam Vouchers for:
    • Exam 70-573: Technical Specialist: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development
    • Exam 70-576: IT Professional: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications
       
  • Books, books, books:
    • Essentials SP 2010    ISBN – 0321700759
    • SharePoint 2010 Development & Visual Studio 2010 (MS .NET Development Series)    ISBN- 0321718313
    • Inside Microsoft SharePoint 2010     ISBN – 0735627460
    • SharePoint 2010 Dev Pro     ISBN – 0470529423
    • SharePoint 2010 Workflows in Action     ISBN – 9781935182719
       
  • Some cool toys (maybe a helicopter!)  
     
  • Breakfast and lunch every day and all of the coffee and snacks needed to keep you going for 11 hours a day!
     
  • And a whole lot of learning, lecture and hands-on labs!

There’s still time to register!  Just click here…

 

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The SharePoint 2010 Information Work VHD has been updated

 

Updated SharePoint Evaluation VHD

 

Last week in a SharePoint class I did a web search to show the class where they could download the SharePoint 2010 Information Worker evaluation virtual disk image. All I got was the “bad link” page at Microsoft. Turns out Microsoft was just releasing an updated image! Here’s the current URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27417

(Be sure to read the notes at the end about the 180 day expire and the “re-arm” steps.)

 

There used to be two server images:

   A – SharePoint and all of the goodies like Office, SharePoint Designer, FAST search, etc

   B – Exchange Server 2010  (with over 200 demo users!)

Now there’s a third image:

   C – Lync Server 2010

Looks like there about 27 GB there if you down load everything! It’s about 16 GB if you just download the A image.

 

Everything has been updated to the latest service packs:

  Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
  Office SP1
  SharePoint SP1's
  Exchange Server 2010 SP1
  Project Server SP1

 

So… start downloading!

 

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9/06/2011

SharePoint 2010: Changes to HTML with Service Pack 1

Hacking around SharePoint’s HTML, CSS and JavaScript is both fun and a powerful way to enhance SharePoint without deploying custom code to the web servers. I call it “hacking” as Microsoft never intended for us to know or care about what’s behind the browser. While it’s rare for a Service Pack to change the HTML delivered to the browser, SP1 did change the JavaScript library used for the Calendar.

Service Pack 1 broke my color coded calendar code. (http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2010/06/sharepoint-2010-color-coded-calendars.html). The fix is a simple edit, just change SP.UI.ApplicationPages.CalendarNotify.$4a to SP.UI.ApplicationPages.CalendarNotify.$4b.

 

I am still going through my SP 2010 customizations, but so far, the color coded calendar is only one that SP1 broke.

 

Do you know of other changes?

If you have found other SP 1 changes that might impact client side customizations, please post them as a comment below!

 

Do you have SP 1?

A quick test is now possible due to the change to the calendar JavaScript. Just navigate to a calendar view and enter the following in the browser’s address bar:

            javascript:alert(SP.UI.ApplicationPages.CalendarNotify.$4a)

image

If you get a popup showing “undefined”, then you have SP 1 (or later). If you see code, then you have a pre-SP1 installation.

 image

 

 

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9/04/2011

Slides and additional info from my SharePoint Saturday Columbus presentation

 

SharePoint 2007 & 2010 (and Office 365!) Customization for Site Owners

 

Here’s the PDF of the slides from my presentation for SharePoint Saturday Columbus (8/20/11): download it

 

More from the book…

 

Much of the background for this presentation is from my book “SharePoint 2007 and 2010 Customization for the Site Owner”. There you can find more on:

  • The basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery for SharePoint customization
  • How to undo SharePoint Designer customizations
  • Detailed steps to customize the 2007 site title and the 2010 title and crumb trail
  • Convert Quick Launch into a pop-out or accordion menu
  • Expanded versions of the blog articles listed below…

 

More from the blog…


Some of the content from the presentation is from past blog articles that include more detail:

 

See ya at SharePoint Saturday Cincinnati!

 

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8/24/2011

SharePoint 2010: Replace the I Like It and the Tags and Notes icons

 

Don’t like the little smiley face icons in the 2010 ribbon?

    image

Change it: (hopefully to something better looking)

    image

 

Option 1:

If you have access to the web servers, you could edit the /Layouts/images/mossfgimg.png image:

image

(I rotated it 90 degrees to take up less space here.)

Editing the file on the server is a bad practice for a number of reasons.

Option 2:

Add a CSS style to your master page.

 

Steps:

  1. Create two 32 pixel by 32 pixel replacement icons 
      Mine are a bit ugly….
           image      image
     
  2. Upload the icons to a SharePoint library (or if you have access to the web servers, to the layouts/images folder)
     
  3. Add the new CSS below to your master page somewhere after where SharePoint loads its CSS:

    <SharePoint:CssLink runat="server" Version="4"/>
    <SharePoint:Theme runat="server"/>
    <style>
        your custom CSS goes here
    </style>

The CSS:

<style>

  #AddQuickTag_ctl00_ctl35 span span img
  {
    display:none;
  }

  #AddQuickTag_ctl00_ctl35 span:first-child 
  {
    background-image:url('/sites/yoursite/yourlibrary/img1.jpg')    
  }

  #TagsAndNotes_ctl00_ctl35 span span img
  {
    display:none;
  }

  #TagsAndNotes_ctl00_ctl35 span:first-child 
  {
    background-image:url('/sites/yoursite/yourlibrary/img2.jpg')    
  }

</style>

 

 

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8/21/2011

Excel Services and Chart Web Part Error

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Edition

 

image

 

“An unexpected error has occurred.”

 

Here’s a great error message from the SharePoint 2010 Chart Web Part when attempting to connect to an Excel Services published workbook:

image

To add to the fun, the correlation ID does not show up in my Event log or the SharePoint logs.

 

Here’s the steps to reproduce:

  1. Create an Excel file
  2. Publish it to a library
  3. Add a Chart Web Part to a page
  4. Click Data and Appearance
  5. Click Connect Chart To Data
  6. Click Connect to Excel Services
  7. Enter the path to the published file and the range of cells to use
    clip_image002
  8. Click Next
  9. ERROR!

The problem?

The chart required each column to have a heading. My Excel file did not have a heading in A1:
image

The fix? 

Type something in cell A1… I.e. add a heading for each column:

image

 

Looks like a great opportunity for a better error message!

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8/19/2011

SharePoint Saturday Columbus

 

Last chance reminder! SharePoint Saturday Columbus is tomorrow! If you have not signed up already, it may be full. If you aren’t going and you have signed up, give your ticket to someone else! It will be too good to miss… 30 speakers, 30 topics, lots of networking and cool door prizes!

I’ll be speaking on “SharePoint 2007 and 2010 Customization for Site Owners”. This is an updated version of the presentation I did last year in Columbus. I’ll show you how to easily customize SharePoint without using Visual Studio, custom code or server deployments. And… I have a couple copies of my book to give away, one or two in my session and one or two at the big drawing at the end of the day.

 

 

Don’t forget Cincinnati!

SharePoint Saturday Cincinnati - Saturday, October 29th

 

 

 

 

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8/18/2011

Access Services – Simple problem, simple fix

 

Access Services – An error has occurred…

 

I “thought” I had everything setup in my test environment that was needed to support Access Services. Then I created a new site based on the “Issues Web Database” template… and got this:

image

 

“An error has occurred”, now there is a useful error message! No question about the cause there! Clicking around the site got me these useful popups:

image

 

Nothing in the Windows Event logs about Access Services. No SharePoint 2010 Correlation ID displayed anywhere. Nothing in the SharePoint logs with the words “Access” or “issues”.

 

The Problem?

 

A bit embarrassing… Access Services was not started.

image 

 

Started the service, and everything worked!

 

I nominate this error message…

as a classic….

    image

 

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