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Be Vewy Vewy Quiet, We're Hunting Web Pawts...
2008-05-30 22:13:00
A while back a friend of mine was getting frustrated with a news site he was trying to get set up in MOSS and asked me for some help.  His issue seemed pretty straight-forward, he wanted to add an Announcements web part to the main page of the site but couldn't find the web part anywhere in the site's web part gallery to be added.  I'm a little embarrassed to say that the solution to our problem didn't immediately come to me, but at the same time when your brain is working in a certain direction it's all too easy to overlook the simple solutions. My first instinct was to check his site's Site Features and Site Collection Features in the Site Settings to see what was activated or deactivated.  His Enterprise features were enabled, as were his Standard features and Team Collaboration features.  So this wasn't a case of available functionality being disabled so that the web part couldn't be used.  Next I checked the file ser...
More About: Lists , Hunting , Quiet

A-B-P. Always Be Publishing
2008-05-12 16:30:00
"A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing." These are the words of Blake, Alec Baldwin's character in the movie version of "Glengarry Glen Ross" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348), as he talks to (more like rants) a group of real estate salesmen about the art of deal.  This scene popped into my head a few days ago as I was working on a customized Internet-facing publishing site in MOSS.  Why? Because when it comes to getting new content into your publishing site, it's "A-B-P. Always Be Publishing ." Why is this important?  If you don't, your updates won't show up and your rank and file users won't be able to see them, it's just that simple.  MOSS's content management system for publishing sites is configured so that unless your content has been checked in, published, and approved it will not be visible to anyone not in your site's authoring or approval groups. If you'...
More About: Administration

Meet me on Twitter...
2008-04-21 22:43:00
A couple of weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and join up at Twitter .  If you're not familiar with it, Twitter is often referred to as a "microblogging" service.  Basically, you can post anything you want to it, as long your post consists of all text and is less than or equal to 140 characters long.  So you can't post images or videos, but you can post links to those files if you want. So how does this relate to Share Point ?  Well, I joined Twitter at a pretty opportune time, because there really has been a large up swell in SharePoint-oriented professionals who have started "tweeting" (that's what it's called when you post something to Twitter, don't ask me ) in general and about SharePoint specifically.  I've been really impressed by the discussions I've been able to catch by being on Twitter, not to mention the ones I've gotten to be a part of. If you are on Twitter and want to follow me, my page is ...
More About: Community , Meet

Sample Questions for SharePoint Admin Certification Exams
2008-04-16 22:17:00
A while ago I mentioned in the MSDN forums that I had some sample questions for the 70-630 and 70-631 SharePoint Admin certification exams from Microsoft, and since that time I have gotten a few requests in my inbox for those files.  So I've decided to go ahead and post them online for your downloading pleasure, if you should want them. For exam 70-630 (Configuring MOSS 2007) - http://drop.io/70630Qs For exam 70-631 (Configuring WSS v3) - http://drop.io/70631Qs Please keep in mind that these are not brain dumps, you will not see these exact questions in the certification exam.  Instead, they contain sample questions intended to give you an idea of what the exam will contain. If you're looking for books, there is a book specifically for the 70-630 exam that just came out on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/MCTS-SharePoint-Con figuration-Technology-Certification s/dp/0 470226633/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=b ooks&qid=1207315086&sr=8-2 The other resource t...
More About: Questions , Exams , Sharepoint

Book Review: The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users
2008-04-14 21:23:00
I recently received a free copy of "The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users ", by SharePoint MVP Robert Bogue, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you about the book. The lack of good end user resources for SharePoint like the Shepherd's Guide is what prompted me to start writing this blog in the first place.  SharePoint is a vast, complex, and often difficult tool to use if you're not properly introduced to it.  Time and time again I have seen SharePoint sites wither on the vine from a lack of use, not because the opportunity for collaboration was not there but because the audience could not grasp everything they could do with their SharePoint site or how to do the most basic tasks.  But educating and training your users on SharePoint can be time-consuming and expensive. For me, this book is like the end user manual that Microsoft never shipped with SharePoint but really should have.  Rob does a great job of identifying the core fun...
More About: Book Review , Review , Book

Displaying an RSS Feed Within a MOSS Publishing Site
2008-03-26 14:08:00
For my current project at work I've been customizing SharePoint's publishing template for an Internet-facing website built on top of MOSS 2007.  All in all we're really not doing anything too crazy with the site, but I did run into one roadblock that I think is worth mentioning here.  It may not be completely end-user related, but I do think it is a good thing to keep in mind if you're sitting down with your SharePoint administrator(s) to plan how you're going to create your company's website in SharePoint. The client wants to display an RSS feed on the main home page that outputs their most recent press releases.  Using the RSS feed will cut down on the manual upkeep required to keep the content on the home page fresh and allow them to only have to maintain their press release information in a single place.  I've been creating the master pages and page layouts for this new site on a sandbox server I built, so that I can get the finish...
More About: Features , Site , Publishing , Feed , Administration

Sharing Links: SharePoint Designer Governance
2008-02-12 19:03:00
I just wanted to take a quick second to direct you to a post published today by Robert Bogue, a Share Point MVP: http://thorprojects.com/blog/archive/2008 /02/12/737.aspx The article covers Rob's views on the proper usage of SharePoint Designer (SPD) and how that usage should be governed by SharePoint administrators.  SPD is a great tool for the customization and modification of SharePoint, but when not used properly it can really generate some heartburn for you.  I highly recommend checking out Rob's article and taking his advice to heart; it may not be directly applicable to your situation but hopefully at least it will get you thinking about what kind of limits your organization needs around tools such as SPD. Posted on SharePoint Blogs
More About: Tools , Links , Governance

Disaster Recovery for the End User
2008-02-08 21:30:00
Wikipedia defines Disaster Recovery (DR) as "the process, policies and procedures of restoring operations critical to the resumption of business, including regaining access to data (records, hardware, software, etc.), communications (incoming, outgoing, toll-free, fax, etc.), workspace, and other business processes after a natural or human-induced disaster." In the world of IT, DR usually involves redundant hardware such as web server load-balancing or server clustering and data duplication via the creation and restoration of backup files.  Some companies will spend millions of dollars purchasing, developing, and testing a DR infrastructure that they fervently hope that they will never have to use.  All too many organizations risk the loss of crucial business information and capital by not having any sort of DR plans in place at all. Often DR falls under the jurisdiction of your IT administrators, the same people who installed, configured, and keep your Shar...
More About: User , Recycle Bin , Disaster Recovery

Sharing Links: Adding User Help to Web Parts
2008-01-30 15:36:00
I highly recommend taking a look at this post from the Joining Dots blog on how to add custom end user help information to web parts.  Extending your SharePoint environment with instructive content like this can go a long way towards improving your users experiences and increasing participation. http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/20 07/08/02/stress-testing-microsoft-office- sharepoint-server-2007-windows-sharepoint -services-3-0.aspx Posted on SharePoint Blogs
More About: Links , Help , User , Parts , Sharing

Sharing Links: End User Resources
2008-01-18 21:45:00
This is the first post in a running series I'm going to be doing titled "Sharing Links ".  The premise is pretty straightforward: I'm sharing with you a list of SharePoint links on a variety of topics.  I figured that since I read so many SharePoint-related posts in a given day (upwards of 100 a day according to Google Reader) that I ought to share my observations on some of the best sources available for the various types of SharePoint information out there. And since this blog is targeted towards the End User , I'll be kicking things off with a list of End User Resources for SharePoint.  Please feel free to add any of your own sources in the comment section, the more the merrier!  This blog - duh!  Get the Point - an End User-oriented blog from Microsoft, featuring contributions from both the SharePoint product team and featured guest bloggers.  Heavily focused on the use of metadata in SharePoint. EndUser...

Surprising (at Least to Me) Place to Find SharePoint Videos
2008-01-15 20:55:00
Youtube.  Yep, that's right.  A coworker of mine sent me a link today to a funny SharePoint video hosted at Youtube, and I couldn't help but notice the number of other similar videos that were being displayed in the Related Video s section.  And rather than humorous, they looked pretty useful. So I did a quick search and found over 150 videos currently on Youtube related to SharePoint.  Granted, not all of those are probably on topic, but still!  On a site I think of as a source for horrendous car wrecks, Chad Vader, and other viral videos, there are actually a surprising number of videos and screencasts available on some pretty interesting SharePoint topics like: Linking SharePoint 2007 with Outlook 2007 Content Management with EMC Documentum and SharePoint 2007 Building Master Pages for WSS v3 I definitely encourage you to check it out for yourself; you may find something worth your time.  I know there are several other excellent sources ou...
More About: Videos , Training , Find , Place

If You Use Google Reader...
2007-12-28 16:21:00
For the last six months or so I've been using Google Reader to collect and read my RSS news feeds, and they've recently rolled out a new feature that I think is pretty interesting.  You can now add friends through Gmail and gTalk, and allow those friends to see your shared items within Google Reader , as well as see the items shared by those friends.  I've added a couple of friends so far, and like what I see.  And as a self-professed information junkie, I'm always on the lookout for new nuggets of information.  If you want to find out more about friends in Google Reader, I would recommend checking out the Google Reader blog:http://googlereader.blogspot.com/And if you are using Google Reader and would like to add me as a friend, send me an invitation (ferringer  --  at  -- gmail  -- dot  -- com).As a final note, you should be aware that there are some privacy concerns around the Friends function in Reader.  The followi...
More About: Links

If You Build it, Will They Come?
2007-12-19 20:11:00
My wife got a new cell phone last night, a Palm Centro.  It's her first PDA, and definitely the most advanced handset she's ever had.  Not that my wife is a total Luddite or anything, she's just not...as entranced by technology and gadgets as I am; basically I'm a geek and she isn't. But I was struck by how much she was enjoying the experience of taking her shiny new phone out of the box, turning it on, and playing with it.  Heck, I think she enjoyed manually copying her contacts from her old phone to her new one (at least the first 10 or so...). I bet she also noticed me enviously watching her out of the corner of my eye, and if she did I'm sure she enjoyed that . I found myself thinking about how I love it when I get a new toy like that, whether its a new laptop, a new piece of software (here I come Visual Studio 2008!), or even a new BBQ recipe (don't get me started). Here's the interesting thing: all too often when I get a new...
More About: Build

Links: SharePoint Service Pack 1
2007-12-14 22:22:00
Thought I'd get up a quick post with some links to articles and postings I've seen this week about the new WSS v3 and MOSS 2007 Service Pack 1 releases.  From what I'm seeing, it looks like there's some good, some bad, right now.  The Good: Chris Johnson's blog not only has links to downloads for the service packs, but also to the Fixlists for each pack.  Definitely a good thing to read: http://blogs.msdn.com/cjohnson/archive/20 07/12/12/microsoft-office-system-servers- service-pack-1-is-out.aspx Shane Young has a great step by step rundown on how to apply the patches. Consider this a must read: http://msmvps.com/blogs/shane/archive/200 7/12/14/how-to-install-wss-and-moss-sp1.a spx Rich Finn is a WSS/MOSS success story : http://blog.richfinn.net/2007/12/13/WSS3M OSSServicePack1AppliedSuccessfully.aspx The Bad (mostly MSDN forum postings): http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost .aspx?PostID=2555770&SiteID=1 http://forums.microsoft.com/...
More About: Links , Updates , Sharepoint

Free SharePoint eLearning classes available from Microsoft
2007-12-14 16:05:00
Please note that these classes are not completely targeted at SharePoint end users, but if you're at all curious about how to get started building your own custom web parts or applications using SharePoint these are worth taking a look at.  My experience with these courses in the past is that they are a good way to introduce you to some of the tools and concepts involved in SharePoint development.  You shouldn't expect to be a fully proficient developer after completing the courses, but you'll have your feet wet and you can't beat the price. One thing I've noticed with the SharePoint end user experience is that once people get comfortable in the environment, their thoughts often turn to how they can customize their sites and tune them to meet their specific needs.  That often leads to some gnashing of teeth when they come up against limitations of the platform out of the box.  The great thing about the latest versions of SharePo...
More About: Microsoft , Development , Training , Free , Classes

With Great Power: Beware the New Shiny Precious
2007-12-12 03:38:00
If you're like me and read over 100 SharePoint blog posts a day (and I hope you're not, because you need to get a life!), you're probably aware that Microsoft has released service packs for WSS v3, MOSS 2007, and Office 2007.  So I'm not going to go through the motions of posting links to the download pages for those files, or run through the list of what's included in these updates.  That's been done quite well by far more competent bloggers before me.If you don't know what a service pack is, here's a quick summary.  Since the latest versions of Office and SharePoint were released last year, Microsoft has been publishing patches and updates to the platform.  These updates are intended to fix bugs, patch security holes, and correct functional errors that have been found post-release in SharePoint, and they are a very normal part of the process for commercial software.  If you have Windows Update enabled on your workstation, yo...
More About: Power , Great , Updates , Administration , Beware

Two More Small Notes about Features with a Big F
2007-12-03 19:27:00
In the process of working on some other topics for posting, I've noticed a couple of small details that you'll want to keep in mind when working with Features in SharePoint. I realize they may be kind of nit-picky, but I work in a world where not paying attention to the tiniest of details can lead to days or weeks of re-work.  NOTE: Please read my previous post if you need some background on the difference between features and Features in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007. The first is that when you're in the Site Settings pages, the links for administrating your Site Features and your Site Collection Features use the term "feature" in all lowercase.  Don't be alarmed, these are the admin pages you'll want to check out if you need to activate or deactivate Features in your site or site collection. The other thing I noticed was that when you open one of those Feature administration pages, the list of features displayed has some icons showing up to th...
More About: Sites , Notes , Small , Administration

When a Feature Isn't the Same Thing as a feature
2007-11-15 21:00:00
Hopefully it isn't any sort of a great revelation to anyone that the latest versions of SharePoint (WSS v3 and MOSS 2007) have a lot of great new features, such as blogs, wikis, Excel Services, and many more.  I also hope that almost a year after their release, that you've gotten a chance to experience and use some of these new features.  But there is one item in the update feature sets for SharePoint that may be a cause for some confusion: Feature s . Huh?  What kind of recursive nightmare am I trying to perpetuate? Features are a feature?  That doesn't make any sense, does it? Well, in SharePoint it does.  One of the new features in the latest version of SharePoint is a piece of functionality titled "Features."  Please don't hate me for this confusing wordplay; I didn't come up with it.  And I would go so far as to encourage you not to hate on the SharePoint product team for this either; I've wracked my brain to tr...
More About: Sites , Administration , Thing

Potential Tool for Updating SharePoint's UI
2007-11-13 20:00:00
I haven't gotten a chance to play with this yet, but if you're looking for something to help you change the look and feel of your SharePoint installation's user interface, you might want to take a look at the SharePoint Skinner: http://www.elumenotion.com/default.aspx This tool was recently released by Elumenotion, and it looks like it is free to use (it's also posted on CodePlex, so I'm betting that it is indeed free).  I've downloaded the zip file, but haven't gotten a chance to install it and work with it yet.  From what I'm seeing on Elumenation's site, the tool is intended to help you manipulate the CSS styles of your SharePoint site, meaning you can easily update the colors and images displayed on the site. I like the approach, but just keep in mind that if you're looking for something that will make your SharePoint site not look like a SharePoint site it doesn't look like the SharePoint Skinner going to do it for you on i...
More About: Tools , Sites , Tool , Dati

New Tools for Anyone Who Uses SharePoint
2007-11-12 17:27:00
I've added yet another new section in the right-hand column of this blog titled "My Toolbox," and added two initial links to it.  I've found myself using both of them on a pretty regular basis recently, and highly recommend that you take a look at them. The first item is a link to a website that I just setup to display a Google custom search engine that I've been working on for the last year or so, http://searchforsharepoint.com.  Google's custom search engine offering is a great way for you to create a custom search engine (leveraging all the stuff Google has done that makes their normal search engine so great) built on a specific set of web sites that you provide.  So over time I've been working to add pretty much any site I come across that has any sort of postings, articles, or information regarding SharePoint in all its incarnations to my own custom search engine.  Somehow I've managed to come across over 750 sites out there...
More About: Tools , Search , Administration , Sharepoint

Feel like hitting the conference circuit?
2007-11-09 22:17:00
I just got an email about this in my inbox, and figured I'd go ahead and put it out there for your viewing pleasure. SharePoint Solutions is hosting a SharePoint Information Worker conference in Nashville, TN on February 4-6, 2008.  There's quite a few technology- and SharePoint-oriented conferences out there, such as SharePointConnections and TechEd, but I thought this one was worthy of calling to your attention because it is touted as the world's only 100% non-technical SharePoint conference. That means it will be three days of content and presentations geared towards the SharePoint end user and business professional, rather than focusing on the administrative and development aspects of the platform.  Which sounds pretty good if living in the SharePoint object model or running STSADM commands isn't quite your cup of tea. I will warn you, I have never attended previous iterations of this conference, and am not very familiar with SharePoint Solutions&#...
More About: Circuit , Feel , Conference , The Con

New Additions to My Blog
2007-11-08 18:00:00
If you take a look at the right-hand column of this blog, you should see a couple of new items that I've added to the News box. The first is a live look at some of the most recent blog posts that have come into my Google Reader blogroll tagged as SharePoint-related.  Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader) is a free RSS reader from Google that I've been using for the last 4 months or so, and I really like it.  It's really easy to use, and has some great features.  One of those features is the ability to publish recent posts from tags within your blogroll to pages outside of Google Reader, such as my blog. So I've added a clip of the posts I've read that are tagged "SharePoint" to the News section of this blog.  If you find something of interest, please don't hesitate to check it out.  I subscribe to over 50 SharePoint-oriented blogs, but I'll warn you that most of them are administrator- or developer-related content...
More About: Blog

Wildcards? We're not playing poker!
2007-11-07 22:01:00
Lame title, I know.  But I'm pressed for time, so please bear with me Anyways, I wanted to take a quick second to point out something that is missing from Search in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007: wildcards.  If you already know what a search wildcard is, feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph.  Wildcards are characters you use in a search query to signify that any content can be returned in its position.  So let's say I wanted to find all the .JPG files in a folder on my Windows workstation.  From a search in Windows Explorer within the target folder, I can type "*.JPG", and that query will return all the .JPG files in that folder, regardless of their name.  The asterisk (*) is the wildcard in my query, it represents all characters in the filename of the images.  If I searched for "john*.jpg", that query would only return the files that started with "john" and ended with ".jpg". Often times in search e...
More About: Poker , Poke

With Great Power: Giving Users All the Rope They Need
2007-11-02 15:32:00
If I had to name just one thing that impresses the heck out of me about SharePoint, I'd go with the power that SharePoint grants to the end users who manage sites.  Sure, publishing, document versioning, the SharePoint object model and so many other features are pretty cool, but what you can do as a site admin or site collection admin is pretty dang impressive.  You have the ability to control just about every aspect of your site, from who uses it to what goes into it.  You are able to manage all of it from your web browser without any additional tools.  And you don't have to be an experience IT professional to be able to do it. In fact, this is so apparent in the current version of SharePoint that Microsoft changed their security model for sites to fully embrace this approach.  In WSS v2 and SPS 2003 if you were a SharePoint Admin (someone who had administrative rights to the servers hosting SharePoint and all its administrative resources, such as U...
More About: Security , Power , Great , Administration , Giving

The Importance of MetaData in SharePoint
2007-11-01 13:25:00
In SharePoint, metadata is good.  Metadata is very good.  "That's great," you say, "but what the heck is metadata?" Metadata is data about your data.  Got it?  Good, I'm glad you're going along with me on that. Ok, ok.  Metadata is information you attach to your SharePoint content that provides contextual clues to the subject, audience, and/or intent of your content.  For an example of metadata, you need to look no further than this blog post.  At the end of it, you'll see that I've applied some "tags" to this post that summarize some of the topics I touch on in this blog post.  Because while the title of this blog summarizes the main topic of the post, it doesn't tell the reader that I'm talking about documents, search, collaboration sites and lists.  The tags I've put on this post do tell you that I mention those topics in this post and give you a better idea of what it cover...
More About: Search , Sites , Lists , Sharepoint , Documents

Seek and Ye Shall (Probably) Find...
2007-10-31 15:20:00
Search.  It's definitely a big deal nowadays in this data-driven Information Age.  I would guess that at 25% of my time on the Internet starts with a search of some sort, probably over at the Big G.  And when you have a large number of documents, web pages, or other resources such as forums and wikis, the value of these resources is directly related to your ability to find what you're looking for amongst them. And there's good news: Search in the current version of SharePoint is really pretty effective.  If you happened to have used a previous version of SharePoint, you know that in the past Search wasn't always a winning proposition.  It didn't always find items it should have (I don't know about you, but this is kind of a deal-breaker for me), often buried the item you needed most way below your top results, and wasn't very easy to manage, extend, or enhance.  But with WSS v3 and MOSS 2007, that story has changed, drastical...
More About: Search , Find , Seek , Probably

The Ecstasy and Agony of MOSS's Enterprise Functionality and Licensing
2007-10-26 16:37:00
NOTE: Updated 10/29/2007 with corrections With the release of MOSS 2007, Microsoft and the SharePoint blogging community have spent a good chunk of time and effort touting several great features that are completely new to SharePoint.  The three most prominent features are so important that they can almost be considered applications on their own, except that they have to run within a SharePoint site to be used.  These three features are: Excel Services - allows for the presentation of Business Intelligence and raw data within a SharePoint site Business Data Catalog (BDC) - allows for the integration of business data from external sources into SharePoint InfoPath Forms Service - allows for InfoPath forms to be hosted, viewed, and created in a SharePoint site without requiring software on a local workstation Sounds great, right?  Believe me, these features are great.  They can give you and your fellow users the ability to do things with data in ShareP...
More About: Licensing , Enterprise , Ecstasy , Ality

With Great Power: SharePoint Search
2007-10-25 19:45:00
By now it shouldn't be a secret that SharePoint can be a very powerful and useful tool for your organization or business. Its features are highly touted, and I'm definitely a big fan of them. Sometimes we're not aware of how powerful SharePoint...(read more)
More About: Power , Search , Great , Sharepoint , Great Power

A fundamental element of SharePoint sites
2007-10-23 22:47:00
I considered titling this post "The Grand Unifying Theory of SharePoint Sites ", but it just sounds too lofty... A concept that has really helped me understand how sites in SharePoint work is the fact that just about everything within a site...(read more)
More About: Lists , Fundamental , Sharepoint , Element

About SharePoint sites
2007-10-19 21:44:00
It probably shouldn't be all that surprising that the core component of Share Point is the sites that can be created using it, right? After all, web sites are the basis for content throughout the Internet. But the great thing about SharePoint that...(read more)
More About: Sites , Sharepoint