One of the things I have learnt is give people reasons to go to SharePoint and this will help with your user adoption strategy. I have written before about ways to achieve this but I thought I would share one solution that we use.

The unread email is a simple web part that you configure to look at either an on premise exchange server or a hosted exchange for example Office 365 or for educational organizations Live@EDU. It simply sits on your SharePoint site and shows how many unread emails a user has in their Exchange inbox and a click on the icon takes them straight to their mailbox. You can see an example below and also a mock-up of our Metro style unread email icon. Simple but effective and also works with SharePoint 2007 as well as 2010.

Technorati Tags: Solutions, Unread email

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As my new years resolution was to blog more and also send out more SharePoint Newsletters, here’s the first part fulfilled! For this installment, I thought I would take the opportunity to impart a bit of information about our new compliance solution called DocRead for SharePoint. DocRead is primarily a compliance solution for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 that distributes policies to teams of users and enables them to explicitly acknowledge that they’ve read and confirmed it. Although the major use of DocRead is for regulatory compliance, in reality, DocRead can request that any type of document (e.g. web page, pdf, office doc, etc), be read by a specified dead-line. This means it can be used in many scenarios, for example it would be very easy for a teacher to request that the children in their class read various homework assignments that have been uploaded into a document library. (This obviously assumes the school is using SharePoint).

DocRead operates by automatically creating time limited reading assignments to users determined by their membership in preconfigured groups or audiences. Users are notified via email when new reading tasks are created and also as they are completed or become overdue. Users can simply track their assignments via provided SharePoint web parts or by browsing to document libraries where they will clearly see which documents, from that library, they are required to read.

Features in DocRead:

• Allows users to confirm that they have read a document or web page.
• DocRead uses Smart Move, which detects when a user joins or leaves a group or audience. DocRead is able to utilise Smart Move to ensure that your users only ever receive the correct reading tasks. This is ideal for New Starters, as an example.
• Notifies users of how much time they have to read a document or SharePoint web page.
• Keeps a record of when users confirmed readership.
• Users can easily track their reading assignments.
• Provides detailed reading reports and statistics, so it’s easy to find the delinquent users who don’t read!
• Works with SharePoint 2007, 2010.
• Can easily be attached to any existing SharePoint site.
• Reading certificates are automatically issued and securely stored.
• Works seamlessly with SharePoint workflow so policies can be approved before being distributed.
• Via the DocRead web parts, it’s possible to put a user’s reading list on any web part page. (e.g a MySite)
• DocRead can be attached to any document that can be added into a SharePoint document library (web pages, PDF, office doc, video, audio, etc)

To find out more, why not view our Webcasts and Screenshots, or visit the DocRead product site.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint

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This post originally appeared on the question mark blog http://www.questionmark.com/us/index.aspx

Dave is a Microsoft MVP and has been working with SharePoint in education for nearly a decade. I talked to him about why people choose SharePoint as a learning platform in schools, colleges and universities.

Dave, what is your background in SharePoint?

I’ve been using SharePoint since 2003. So we’re quite mature with the platform. I played around previously with SharePoint 2001 as well. That was unusual, shall we say!

Do you work for the school or for an independent company?

I actually work in the school, I’m employed by the school, but we have a SharePoint consultancy business inside the school. So we go out to counties, school districts in the US, individual schools and colleges as well as amalgamation of schools. We consult with them what they need and put it in from the ground up, so right from installing a server, setting up SQL, configuring SharePoint – you name it, we do it. I’m busy!

Do you think SharePoint is viable as a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)?

I prefer the term learning platform. “VLE” is quite an old term now, and if you were to ask five people in a room what VLE is, you’ll probably get 5 different answers. It could be Moodle , it could be Blackboard, and it could be SharePoint with the SharePoint Learning Kit on. SharePoint is a good managed learning platform; students can seek their resources and find them easily. The other good thing about SharePoint is the pricing, it’s reasonably cheap, it’s not give-it-away but it’s reasonably cheap. For schools, it’s a no-brainer decision … and colleges and universities it’s seriously worth considering.

What is the key advantage of SharePoint for a school or college?

Not only the price, but also the flexibility of the platform as well. So that’s really the key driver. For example we have SharePoint as our managed learning platform, our learning platform but also as our website as well.

SharePoint is also very supportable. One of the issues that I would say with Moodle is that very commonly if you put it in a secondary school environment, it always tends to be run by one guy or one lady. If they leave, you’ve got nothing. But with SharePoint, if the person supporting it leaves, you can put someone else in. Or you can find support from elsewhere. This ease of support is another key driver – we know that Microsoft will support SharePoint into the future.

Do you see increasing interest in colleges and universities in SharePoint?

Ray Fleming of Microsoft has been blogging interestingly about the dissatisfaction with existing Higher Education learning management platforms. And we’re currently talking with two universities about deploying SharePoint – taking out their installation of Blackboard and replacing with SharePoint. So yes, I’m seeing some real experience of universities moving to SharePoint. One of our projects is with Bournemouth Arts University (see here for more information). As well as replacing Blackboard with SharePoint, one of the key things is that they have an extranet, an intranet and a website, and what we’ll end up doing is amalgamate them all into one platform. From a management point of view, it makes it a lot simpler.  SharePoint offers huge flexibility.

How much adoption do you see of the SharePoint Learning Kit?

The actual adoption has been quite small in our experience.  Microsoft do make it available as a community resource. We’re agnostic on it, where we come from is we tend to try to be as agnostic as possible. I’m a great supporter of SharePoint for what it does. But as a learning platform, if anyone wants to deploy Moodle or another system next to SharePoint, that’s fine. One of the projects we’re doing at the moment is actually putting in locally hosted WordPress in conjunction with SharePoint. The blogging capabilities of WordPress are actually far superior to those of SharePoint. From our perspective, we’re not putting anything down anyone’s throat.

If a university or college is looking for a long term learning platform, do you think SharePoint is a viable option?

Absolutely, we get contacts from universities and colleges all over the world, asking the same question.  SharePoint is a very, very flexible and viable option. You can use it as a CRM, as a content management system, to host your website, to host department sites, you can do that; it’s so flexible. That is one of the key drivers for the success of SharePoint, its flexibility.

Do you think Office 365 will impact on how widely SharePoint is used?

There are some limitations at the moment. If you host your own servers, you can install your own web parts. But on Office 365, you can’t put on anything that involves complex code. As a document repository system, I think 365 has legs. But for a full education system, the limitation on installing your own web parts is going to limit it for some users.

How do people put assessments inside SharePoint?

In a school environment, pupils are assessed continually throughout their school career. We expose that data through SharePoint, and SharePoint is really useful for this. It’s also possible to deliver assessments within SharePoint – you can use the SharePoint Learning Kit, you could make it available as a document that people download and email it back, or you can use add-on programs.

Questionmark (www.questionmark.com) provide software for tests and quizzes online that fits into SharePoint.

That’s good information to know from our perspective

Do you see a growing trend that people are going to deploy SharePoint in place of other learning platforms?

What I can tell you is that SharePoint implementations are getting bigger. We’re working on one at the moment that has 150,000 seats (a SharePoint project for Bucks County Council). And also we’re starting to talk to another organization with 500,000 students in their area who want a learning platform for all schools in their area.

We are starting to see universities and colleges being interested. Maybe there is an impact as kids start to experience SharePoint and then go to colleges and universities and wonder why the student-facing capabilities they are used to aren’t there? SharePoint use is definitely growing.

What advice would you give to someone in education on getting started with SharePoint?

The best advice I’d give anyone is that there’s a free product called SharePoint Foundation.  Download this, put it on a computer, doesn’t have to be a server and use it. See if you like it, expose it to a few of your colleagues. There are no licensing costs; apart from the cost of Windows, SharePoint Foundation is free. And try small scale and build up. Do not leap in at the deep end, start small and work up. Expose it to a few of your colleagues, and not the ones you’d know would work with it, but expose it to some of the ones who you know will be cynical about a managed learning environment. And get feedback and then make your decision from that point.

Do you think SharePoint 2010 is making a difference with its improved user interface?

Absolutely. And having cut-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note available with SharePoint makes a big difference too. So you click a Word document in SharePoint and it opens up in the browser and you can edit it. That’s got to be a winner.

You’ve got to be careful about being too much of a SharePoint enthusiast, for instance WordPress is better for blogging, so we try to be agnostic. But for many educational needs, it’s a very appropriate system.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint

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I have been using Office 365 since the beta and we also purchased an E1 subscription on its release but it was only today that I finally got around to taking a look at My site and configuring my profile this is partly to do with my using Harmon.ie but more about that later. So I was very surprised to find that there was no link available to change my profile picture OOTB out of the box or should that be OOTC out of the cloud! Well a bit of digging around provided me with the answer so I thought I would share it with others through the blog. As you can see from the image below there is no link to change the profile picture

To enable this feature you need to go to your Office 365 admin panel once there click on the Manage link under SharePoint Online.

This will open up the administration center as illustrated below

You then click on Manage User Profiles and then under People click Manage User Properties if you then scroll down the page you will find on property titled picture hover over and on the down arrow click edit

The section you need to change is under Edit Settings by default this is set to Do not allow users to edit values for this property change this to Allow users to edit values for this property

Once you have made all your changes scroll to the bottom of the page and click OK. Give it a couple of minutes to propagate the change through and then when you click edit profile you will now see the section to change or add you picture.

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Just a quick blog post to announce that I will be presenting at this years Microsoft Project Conference in Phoenix, Arizona in March this year.

My Company: Corporate Project Solutions	Microsoft Project Conference 2012 Full Session Details

If you are attending the conference and you would like to meet up, just let me know.  You can contact me here.

Further Details:

Session Title: Integrating SharePoint and Project Server 2010 – Deployment Approaches, Integration Options and making the most of the SharePoint Enterprise Features.

Track: Deployment, Administration & Developer

Level: 300

Audience: IT Professionals, Developers & Consultants

Products: Project Server 2010 & SharePoint 2010

Now that Project Server 2010 is built on top of SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, a new series of options are available with various choices around implementation.

Although integration was possible between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise and Project Server 2007, this was not seen as a standard implementation for many companies and those implementing this approach were defining the rules.

Corporate Project Solutions is one such company who have been taking advantage of these SharePoint Enterprise Features for companies such as ID Business Solutions and ARM to deliver tight integration along with Business Intelligence (self-service dashboards), Document Management and Collaboration.

Solutions created with this approach provide a level of visibility and collaboration previously unseen by these clients and genuinely provide business value for all stakeholders and management / reporting lines.

As a Senior SharePoint Architect who has moved into the Project Server arena in the last 3 years, I initially made many assumptions in the way Project Server works based on the fact it was built on top of SharePoint.  This presentation discusses the deployment approaches / configurations of programme and project sites.  It outlines 4 options, how they support business intelligence and the pros / cons of each implementation in relation to the project management maturity of the client.

However, during trialling of various implementation approaches, CPS has found a number of pitfalls that do not conform to what is encountered in a SharePoint-only implementation. This demonstration discusses some key difficulties and how to provide a solution that is in accordance with Microsoft best practice and supportable.

Section One – Implementation approach definitions:

Option 1 – Out of the box Project Web Access and Project Sites

Option 2 – Project Web Access as installed with Project Sites within the SharePoint Enterprise Site Collection

• Allow custom styles to be applied
• Full use of Search capabilities
• Project Server / Client integration still remaining intact

Option 3 – Project Web Access as installed with Project Sites customised outside of the standard Project Server 2010 configuration

• Allow custom styles to be applied
• Full use of Search capabilities
• Site Content Types can be utilised to centrally control key lists such as Risks, Issues, Actions and Deliverables
• Workflows can be attached and rolled out by Content Type
• Lists can be updated whilst projects are in-flight centrally as project management maturity evolves.

Option 4 – Project Web Access as installed with centralised lists for all projects / programmes

• Allows all dashboards to be kept in sync as project maturity evolves
• Project and programme roll up dashboards can be implemented using standard out of the box list views and filter web parts (Enterprise Feature)
• Business intelligence reporting becomes easier due to all lists being in sync for all projects / programmes o Reporting is always comparing apples with apples.

However, depending on the approach taken various pitfalls need to be taken into account such as loss of client / server integration features between the Project client and Project Server, cross project security etc.…

A demonstration of each option will show the power and pitfalls of each approach as they are discussed during the presentation.

Section Two: Maintaining consistency and integrity between SharePoint and Project Server

The focus here will move to customisation options using Enterprise Features, taking account of Microsoft best practice.

Examples include:

PSI Web Service integration

• Resource Synchronisation between ERP and Project Server solutions

Project Server Event Handlers

• Linking tasks to SharePoint data and keeping them in sync via Project Server Event Handler

Business Intelligence

• Reporting Services in SharePoint Integration mode and SharePoint Enterprise filters for parameters.
• Complementing the standard BI options of Excel Services & PerformancePoint provided as part of the out of the box Business Intelligence Center site template.

Look and Feel customisation

• Customising the look and feel and adding jQuery to Project Web Access whilst maintaining best practice and supportability. (I.E. Without modifying the Master Page, Page Layouts or using SharePoint Designer)

Section Three: Breaking the rules – discussing key differences between Project Server and SharePoint and how they can be overcome.

For the final section of the presentation, we shall discuss how Project Server doesn’t conform to the techniques that SharePoint consultants use during implementations:

• User Profile Service versus the Resource Pool
• Permission Model
• Project Server vs. SharePoint – Browser compatibility comparisons
• List content types vs. Site Content Types
• Attaching workflows to Risks and Issues

Conclusions

To finish off we shall tie the three separate sections together to discuss end-to-end implementations utilising the most appropriate features of SharePoint and Project Server allowing clients to achieve the best possible solution with the options available.

Technorati Tags: Project Server 2010, Sharepoint 2010, Speaking Engagements

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There are many mysteries when it comes to SharePoint one of those is content types and how to use them. Well I am pleased to say that the webinar we held on Wednesday 11^th January with Laura Rogers went a long way to help and answer people’s questions. So if you missed the live webinar sit back and enjoy and learn.

Technorati Tags: laura rogers, recording, Webinar

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There is no doubt that MetaVis are a truly innovative company so it was not a huge surprise when they released their migrator for Google docs to SharePoint. This simple to use solution is the same drag and drop interface that is common across all the MetaVis tools. And as you can see in the video below works seamlessly.

The feature set can be seen below and you can migrate from Google to SharePoint WSS 3, MOSS 2007, Office 365, BPOS and SharePoint 2010 I would recommend downloading a trial version to give it a try. http://www.metavistech.com/product/metavis-migrator-google-apps

•Migrate Google documents, collections, version histories, comments, and metadata to SharePoint and Office 365

•Convert native Google documents (documents, presentations, tables) from the Google format to the Google format to Microsoft Office equivalent, txt, pdf, CSV, etc.

•Preserve document created and modified dates

•Map users and permissions when copying content from Google Documents to SharePoint

•Filter and map file owner attribute

•Filter Google Documents content by file size

•Copy document and file versions when copying content from Google Documents to SharePoint

•Windows Explorer-like interface with tree-based navigation and content display that supports drag-and-drop, multiple windows and much more.

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11th January

Title: – How to Use Content Types in SharePoint.

Abstract: -

In SharePoint, the concept of content types seems a bit ambiguous to most people. In this session, Laura Rogers will teach you what you need to know about content types to be able to implement them in your organization.  In conjunction with site columns, content types can be utilized to create custom business solutions. Take your lists and libraries to the next level without having to do any custom development.  In this session, demonstrations will be done to take you through common scenarios and show how to use the power of content types in SharePoint.

Speaker: – Laura Rogers – Senior SharePoint Consultant at SharePoint911

Bio: -

Laura Rogers is a Senior SharePoint Consultant at SharePoint911, and a Microsoft MVP.  She has worked in SharePoint implementation, training, customization and administration since 2004.  Although her background is in server administration, her main focus is on making the most of SharePoint’s out-of-the-box capabilities.  She works extensively with SharePoint Designer workflows, InfoPath and Data View Web Parts.  Laura’s latest books on SharePoint 2010 are Using Microsoft InfoPath 2010 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Step by Step and Beginning SharePoint 2010: Building Business Solutions with SharePoint. Her blog is http://sharepoint911.com/blogs/laura, and she is @WonderLaura on twitter.

Registration Link: -  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/737679697

8th February

Title: – Pannone Document Management System

Abstract: -

The session will cover a recent project delivered by a dedicated project team within Pannone LPP, a Law Firm based in Manchester, UK.

Jon will deliver an overview of the project starting with the business problem. He will then discuss some of the decision making process which resulted in the SharePoint 2010 Document Management System project. The session will then cover basic configuration of the system, end user focus, document migration, productivity and ROI before discussing the selection of an appropriate  document migration tool.

Speaker: – Jon Taylor – SharePoint 2010 MCITP, Legal IT Software Developer at Pannone LLP

Bio: -

Jon Taylor is a Microsoft Certified IT Professional with over 15 years of Legal IT experience in working for large Law Firms in the North West of England. Jon is a Business graduate who has many years of experience in systems administration, architecture and development fields.

Jon uses his experience to focus on delivery of high value business solutions and much of his recent work has been in Microsoft SharePoint. Recent projects include Legal Intranets, Client Portals and Extranets and Document Management  delivered in SharePoint 2010. He is a contributor to the UK SharePoint community and regular attendee of the SharePoint User Group UK and SharePoint Saturday.

Jon lives in Liverpool and is a keen supporter of Liverpool Football Club and his spare time is spent mainly entertaining and educating his 6 year old son.

Website: http://www.pannone.co.uk

Registration Link: – https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/171241888

15th February

Title: - Wrapping Your Head around the SharePoint Beast – What Every Beginning Developer Needs to Know

Abstract: -

“What should every developer be aware of before diving head first into SharePoint?  Being a talented .NET developer does not directly translate to being a SharePoint Developer.  The learning curve can be huge and the environment taxing.  Mark Rackley designed this session as the session he wished he would have seen when he started SharePoint Development.

Attendees will learn:

1. A greater understanding of what SharePoint is and how it’s structured including a crash course in Logical Architecture, Taxonomy, Governance and why these topics are so important in SharePoint.

2. What steps to take in order to become a SharePoint developer and a jumpstart on getting started down that path.

3. Why the SharePoint community is unique and important.

Speaker: – Mark Rackley – Solution Architect at Juniper Strategy, LLC

Bio:-

Mark has been developing software applications for over 15 years filling the roles of Project Manager, Business Analyst, Lead Developer, and Software Architect.  He has been involved in projects for such companies as Dell, Motorola, Intel and Agilent Technologies. He has worked in large corporate environments, small software start-ups, and as a consultant.

Mark currently works for Juniper Strategy, LLC (http://www.juniper-strategy.com) as a Solutions Architect and SharePoint Practice Lead making key SharePoint architecture and development decisions as well as bringing the appropriate SharePoint Best Practices to his clients and customers. Mark’s goal as a speaker, blogger, and author is to help every new architect and developer avoid the frustrations and brick walls he ran into while learning SharePoint.

Registration Link: -  https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/962356880

Technorati Tags: Webinar

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Connect-MsolService

Changing the password Policy

To change for all users, we get the users and pipe them into the set command.

Get-MsolUser | Set-MsolUser -PasswordNeverExpires $True

To change just one users we just need to select one user into the set command.

Set-MsolUser –UserPrincipalName <username> -PasswordNeverExpires $True

Upon inspection we can see the property has been changed. All done.

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On Wednesday the 7^th December I was lucky enough to host a webinar with Todd Klindt. It was very well attended and Todd gave many great real world examples of using PowerShell with SharePoint 2010.

I did have one slight blip in the recording when I lost my internet connection for a couple of minuet’s so apologises but I do not think it takes anything away from the recording so sit back and enjoy.

We will be starting the webinars up again in January so stay tuned for the date of the next one and have a great Christmas and new year.

The slidedeck for the session can be found at: – http://www.toddklindt.com/Slides/Metavis/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Technorati Tags: recording, todd Klindt, Webinar

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