Monthly Archives: June 2012

Exploring InfoPath 2010 Controls for SharePoint Online

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Our SharePoint-Videos dot com tutorial, “Explore InfoPath 2010 Controls” is part of a complete set of 15 classes on InfoPath 2010. Subscribers to our website can view this video. You can read about our SharePoint-Videos dot com subscription plans, or consider purchasing a DVD for either personal or enterprise video training in InfoPath 2010 to learn further about how you can view this video.

We thought it would be helpful to step through this video tutorial with our Office 365 SharePoint E3 plan account to advise anyone viewing the training of any differences between the environment portrayed in the video and SharePoint Online.

The intended audience for this video are power users, citizen developers, SharePoint administrators, developers and architects. To summarize the content of this video, most of the content highlights differences between InfoPath 2003, 2007 and the latest version, InfoPath Designer 2010. Therefore, users with experience with one or both of these earlier platforms will benefit most from reviewing this video.

The video begins with a blank InfoPath 2010 form. We should note that we could not find a “Section Layouts” option on our out of the box ribbon for InfoPath 2010 Designer, nor could we add a Layouts section to our set of controls from those offered on the Home ribbon for the application. We worked around this difficulty by selecting a form layout that included multiple controls.

Further, we could not find a “View” tab on our ribbon. When our video tutorial demonstrates a drag and drop capability that is consistent with InfoPath 2003 and/or 2007, we got to that same compatibility by clicking on “Table Tools” and then “Show Fields”. We then selected the “Home” tab and clicked on the button below the Controls Pane, which brought up a list of all controls on the right hand side of the work space, from which we could drag and drop any control that we required for inclusion in the form.

The demonstration of the Controls Tools Properties ribbon was completely consistent with our version of InfoPath Designer 2010. From a development perspective we found it helpful that the video instructs the viewer that fields data is scripted with XML. Further, it was equally helpful when the video demonstrates that the application is intelligent enough to notify the user that data will be duplicated when a named field is inserted multiple times within a form. Finally, this time from the perspective of citizen developers who are usually long on enthusiasm and interest, but short on understanding development, it was very helpful to learn that duplicate data might be collected via different controls on the same form as the properties of fields and controls are kept entirely discrete.

The video’s demonstration of the user’s ability to preview the form was also completely consistent with our desktop InfoPath Designer 2010 software, ditto for the demonstration of using the Rules button from the Control Tools Properties Ribbon to change the formatting of a selection made via a Drop-Down List Box control. It’s worth noting that the video instructs the viewer that field names cannot contain blank spaces, which we noted as missing from the first video in this set.

When a picture was inserted into the demonstration form we did not note the dialogue box that we received, which prompts us to set whether the picture is to be inserted as a link or as a part of the form. In order to gain the ability to assign an action to a picture, we needed to insert the picture as a part of the form, which looks to us like a security control that has been added to InfoPath Designer 2010 since the date of this video tutorial. It is also worth noting that the ability to change a picture on hover has been removed (in all likelihood for security reasons).

If you would like to explore further the suitability of this collection of video training for InfoPath 2010 with us, then please contact us. Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or contact us via email to further a discussion about this video set. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Introduction to InfoPath 2010 from the Perspective of SharePoint Online

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We went back and reviewed Asif Rehmani’s video tutorial introduction to InfoPath 2010 with our Office 365 SharePoint E3 plan account to note any/all differences between the environment presented in the video and realities for SharePoint online.

The intended audience for this video tutorial includes power users, citizen developers, administrators, developers and architects.

In fact we noted no points of difference. Nonetheless, some procedures do require some further mention.

The first of these relates to the procedure for naming fields. As is noted in the video, for each control added to an InfoPath 2010 form, a field will be produced which can be used for several future purposes (for example, to serve as a site column for lists in a SharePoint Server 2010 Team Site). Our video tutorial recommends that unique names be given for each of these fields, which makes complete sense when one recognizes that the same controls will, in all likelihood, be used repeatedly from form to form. Therefore, it makes sense to rename each of the fields with a unique label to ensure that the accompanying data will be processed correctly and as required.

What is not noted in this specific video tutorial (though the point is made clearly in several other videos in this series) is that unique labels must conform to InfoPath 2010 string syntax. We found this point out when we attempted to replace “field1″ with “Employee Name.” The system instructed us that InfoPath 2010 text string syntax does not permit the use of a blank space between terms. We renamed the field “EmployeeName” with complete success.

The second area where more explanation may prove helpful, relates to publishing the form to a SharePoint Online Team Site. Asif Rehmani alludes to this possibility at the conclusion of this first 9min video on InfoPath 2010. However, he does not actually demonstrate publishing in this video, but does so in a video that appears later in the series. Bottom line, we do not recommend that viewers go ahead and publish the sample form until Asif Rehmani specifically directs viewers to do so in a later video. If you have any questions about this video, the complete set of InfoPath 2010 tutorials that we offer, or SharePoint Online, please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or contact us via email to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Building a Farm Administrators Group for On Premise SharePoint Server 2010

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Once a governance policy for SharePoint Server 2010 has been created, a key step is to identify users who will serve as farm administrators. These users will be granted permissions to execute all of the required administrative functions; therefore, the composition of this group needs to be carefully managed. For on premise SharePoint Server 2010, these users can be managed through the Central Administration page of actions in conjunction with the Active Directory. We include a video tutorial on managing farm administrators on SharePoint-Videos dot com.

The appropriate audience for our video tutorial on managing farm administrators are SharePoint Administrators, Developers and Architects.

In a video tutorial titled Managing the Farm Administrators Group, Asif Rehmani, SharePoint MVP demonstrates the procedures required to manage a group of farm administrators.

As Asif notes, farm administrators “can manage all of the services, configurations and settings at the central administration level” as such, these users have powerful permissions to make significant changes to SharePoint operation. Further, by simply adding a user to the farm administrators security group “is provided these abilities”; therefore careful management of this group of users and its individual members must be exercised.

We demonstrate how individuals and even Active Directory groups of users can be added to the farm administrators group. The actual domain administrator for the SharePoint Server 2010 address should be the user granting privileges to the farm administrators group. The number of users in this group should be kept to a minimum. Viewers of this video tutorial are shown how to simply access the farm administrators group within the Security section of the central administration page, how to point and click add groups and/or individual users by browsing the Active Director for the farm, and, finally, how to test the addition of users to ensure that they have been successfully added to the farm administrators group.

Important points to take away from this video tutorial include the following:

  • It is better to grant farm administration privileges to a group than to an individual user. Groups can certainly be entirely made up of simply one user, but having a group in place affords the domain administrator with an option to swap out individuals as required while maintaining the farm administration role
  • All selections of users and/or groups of users should be done through Active Directory to ensure that all users with farm administration privileges are widely recognized across the various lists of users for the farm
  • Individuals not listed in the Active Directory should not be included in the farm administrators group

If you are working on governance policy for your on premise SharePoint Server 2010 implementation and would welcome a discussion, please do not hesitate to contact us. Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

SharePoint Training Resources should be Useful for Either On Premise or Cloud Servers

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We read with some interest an article posted to the IT World blog on June 19, 2012: Cloud failures cost more than $70 million since 2007, researchers estimate. While a cumulative cost of $70Mil over the noted time period may not seem high, some businesses do maintain a policy of hedging operational risk (meaning the type of risk represented by the cloud outages that are the subject of the article) with a fallback strategy. For these businesses we think that our SharePoint-Videos dot com set of video tutorial content ought to be a component of the hedge strategy against the risk of failure of cloud computing resources or, conversely, on premise servers.

Further, an optimum training solution should include subscriptions to our online repository of training information as well as the purchase of a number of our SharePoint training content on DVD media. With our content locally installed, the potential disruption that might arise from failure of cloud services (including our web site) will be properly mitigated. Conversely, should local, on premise serving fail, then utilizing a SharePoint Online resource like Office 365 will make sense in conjunction with access to our training content via our web sites.

In fact, where SharePoint has assumed the role of a mission critical application for an organization, it is entirely sensible to do the type of disaster planning that we have just described. Further, where user communities need to be self serving (as regards SharePoint support and development) than training is legitimate a feature of the computing environment that needs to be safeguarded to ensure fault tolerant performance of the self service system. The cost of provisioning redundant systems for training is small when compared to the cost of a failure of computing systems and the resulting explosion in requests for support from a community of users that, prior to systems failure, was functioning properly with very few dedicated IT support staff.

Once redundant systems have been implemented for training and for system operation an organization will be properly insulated from the damages of a catastrophic failure of computing systems. We think that businesses, wherever possible should operate in this manner. If you are considering a sensible combination of on premise and cloud SharePoint Server 2010 resources and would like to plan for the inclusion of video training content that makes sense for your specific SharePoint implementation, then please do not hesitate to contact us.

Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Securing SharePoint is a Mission Critical Procedure Regardless of the Size of your SharePoint Farm

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On June 18, 2012, Kane Lightowler, Regional Director for Imperva Australia and New Zealand published an article on the Australian edition of the Voice and Data Web Site, Five tips for securing SharePoint data. As Mr. Lightowler notes in this article, “[t]hese five best practices can help your organisation get the most out of SharePoint’s existing permissions system and fill some of SharePoint’s security gaps.” We were particularly pleased when we read another of his points, specifically his position that “[w]hen organisations begin to leverage SharePoint as a core business system, the importance of securing SharePoint data and applications comes into focus.” Very early on in this blog we wrote several posts on the topic of building mission critical applications on SharePoint. Mr. Lightowler’s admonishment to tighten up on security, as he lets us know, comes specifically into play once a SharePoint implementation has, in fact, become “mission critical” (in other words, a “core business system”).

We offer 9 video tutorials on SharePoint Security. Two of these speak specifically to SharePoint Groups, which Mr. Lightowler points out is a feature included in a technical paper from Microsoft, itself, “Security and protection for SharePoint Server 2010″. He notes that this Microsoft Technical Paper points out that SharePoint Administrators can ” . . .manage permissions by using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 groups, which control membership, and fine-grained permissions, which help to secure content at the item and document level.”

With regard to SharePoint Access Control Lists, we speak to these in a video tutorial on Managing List and Library Views.

Finally, several of the video tutorials included in our 9 video set on SharePoint security speak to permissions, including permissions management.

Anyone with a subscription to unlimited access to all of our tutorial content on SharePoint has access to any of the video tutorials just mentioned. We offer subscriptions for individuals as well as for groups of users. Some of the content is also available on DVD media. We sell video tutorials on DVD for either individual or enterprise group access. All of the pricing for unlimited subscriptions to our web site content, or our DVD product is included on our web site.

Most any organization with a tight governance structure for SharePoint as a mission critical application must have a strong security policy and a training mechanism to educate SharePoint users, at all levels, across an organization as to how best incorporate security policy into daily business operation. If you are grappling with how best to build your training mechanism, please do not hesitate to contact us as we welcome opportunities to discuss such plans.

Call us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Document and Records Management is a Fast Growing Enterprise Application for SharePoint

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Whether as the result of greater regulatory scrutiny of large organizations in the public as well as private sectors, or in the interest of building truly useful Business Intelligence (BI) systems, enterprise efforts to manage documents across SharePoint (commonly referred to as Enterprise Content Management, ECM)is an area of growing interest on the part of users. The same can be said of records management, though the requirements and methods of managing records are different and more formalized as the result of literally decades of scrutiny of this type of data.

SharePoint Server 2010 offers out of the box features that support ECM and records management. Microsoft® has produced a web page on Content Management System for Enterprise (ECM) SharePoint 2010. The product name is simply “Content”.

In fact this “Content” product is a combination of several features of SharePoint covered by our video tutorials, including Version Control, working with Retention Schedules and establishing correct document level permissions to ensure that any required legal holds on documents are properly respected throughout daily business operations. All of our SharePoint-Videos dot com tutorials on managing documents with SharePoint Server 2010 can be reviewed on a single web page. You will note specific video tutorials for SharePoint 2010 on:

  • Check Out, Check In process in Document Libraries
  • Versioning Settings in Document Libraries

You will also note relevant video tutorials for SharePoint 2007 which, nonetheless, may be specifically useful in a SharePoint 2010 environment. Two of the SharePoint 2007 videos are, in fact, specific to building workflows that support “Content” activities; therefore, similar workflows can certainly be built for SharePoint 2010 environments. These SharePoint 2007 video tutorials include:

  • Introducing Document Management
  • Control Content Approval and Publishing on a Library with Approval Workflow
  • Using the Disposition Approval Workflow

A review of our specific video tutorials on workflow will also be useful for enterprise class organizations looking to assemble a useful set of video training for SharePoint 2010 “Content” applications. We highly recommend looking at our video tutorials on out of the box SharePoint 2010 workflows. Further, reviewing the list of all of our video tutorials on SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010 can be very helpful as users assemble ECM plans.

If ECM is a core requirement of your plan to implement SharePoint 2010 it is certainly cost effective to explore, in detail, your options to craft an internal solution that best suits the needs of your organization prior to looking externally for a third party solution or solutions to accomplish the same objective. We welcome opportunities to speak with organizations at this juncture. Therefore, please do not hesitate to contact us directly for a conversation on this topic. Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Publishing Web Applications to SharePoint Access Services for SharePoint Online

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We cross checked our SharePoint-Videos tutorial, Publishing Web Applications to SharePoint Access Services to point out any anomalies that a business user may encounter should he/she apply the instruction to an Office 365 E3 SharePoint instance or to a comparable SharePoint Online instance offered by another cloud services provider.

Bruce Herz opens this video tutorial on publishing an Access Database to SharePoint Server 2010, Enterprise with Access Services by summing the procedures that he has demonstrated through the first 4 videos of this 1 video set. He notes that a no-code approach has been used to create tables, macros, queries and even navigation objects.

The next step is to test the compatibility of the database with the standards applicable to web databases. He notes that the “default start up web display form” must be set. His instructions to click on the file tab, options, and then current database are entirely consistent with our test system, which runs Access 2010 per the Office Professional update included with our Office 365 E3 plan. Our “display form” and “web display form” were populated with the same label, “Main”. This label differs from the “NavigationFormMain” label that Bruce demonstrates. However the complete consistency between the names for the two type of forms is actually the point, rather than the literal label itself.

Bruce then demonstrates how to publish the database. The first step is to run an automated compatibility test with the “Compatibility Checker” feature of Access 2010. This worked for our test system precisely as Bruce demonstrates in the video. Once the database has passed the compatibility test, Bruce shows how a URL can be selected with on premise SharePoint Server 2010, enterprise. We were not offered that option through our Office 365 E3 Plan account, which makes sense when one considers that the URL is predefined by Office 365 for the user; therefore, we do not think this difference materially effects the usefulness of the training presented.

The remainder of this video appears to us to be entirely consistent, regardless of whether or not one uses a SharePoint Online, SaaS option, or on premise. What may be disconcerting for a business user is that the database components differ from the database which is uploaded to SharePoint and the database that has been put together through the first 4 videos. However, the intended audience are administrators, developers and architects; therefore, these differences should not be consequential. Further, these SharePoint users can certainly provide end users with a better orientation to the differences prior to the end user proceeding on this training.

If you would like to learn further about this set of video tutorials and the subscriptions that we offer for groups of users, then please do not hesitate to contact us. Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Lowering annual support and development costs for SharePoint Server 2010 should be an important objective for enterprise users

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On June 15th IFPress.com published an article that caught our attention, City’s whopping web work bill decried. We certainly disagree with the ostensible position of the writer of this article, Chip Martin, that utilizing Open Source alternatives to SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition for the Internet web site for the City of London, Ontario would result in a lower final cost for the city. In fact, we are not aware of an Open Source alternative with the complete range of functionality that SharePoint offers. Further, having some substantial experience of our own with Open Source software, we are familiar with the high cost of developing, integrating and managing this type of software for an enterprise of the size of the City of London (2500 users). Bottom line, Open Source developers are paid handsomely for their work. In our experience the cost of Open Source software, when all is said in done, is generally comparable with the cost of taking a different route with proprietary software like Microsoft® SharePoint®.

What further caught our eye in this article was the cost information that the quoted representatives from the City of London shared with Chip Martin. The annual cost per user for an enterprise license for Microsoft’s software for the 2500 user community of users at the City of London amounts to $280.00 or $700K for the entire enterprise. The actual software included in this license is not provided in this article, but the author notes that training is included in the annual subscription. We think that the way the training component of the subscription is applied is potentially very important.

If applied effectively, we think that the City of London can progressively reduce the annual cost of the subscription through user training on at least SharePoint. We ourselves offer a comprehensive set of video training designed to support large groups of users for SharePoint Server 2010. Simply consider that a reduction of $10.00 per user per year in maintenance cost will result in an annual cost savings of $25K for this organization. We are entirely capable of working with corporate customers to architect a SharePoint training solution that will deliver this level of cost saving, which will more than pay for the cost of our content in year one alone, not to mention each subsequent year of use.

A successful implementation of our content usually alleviates support and/or development responsibilities for existing staff members who become available to address other needs, which can add substantial hard cost savings to the overall Return on Investment (ROI) for our content. We will be happy to elaborate on these points should you have an interest. Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

Unlimited Access Subscriptions to Video Training Content Make Sense for Corporate Users of SharePoint with Small Teams of Developers

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For corporations and larger communities of SharePoint users in the public and non profit sectors where only a small group of administrators, developers and architects perform most of the technical procedures required for SharePoint operation, unlimited annual subscriptions to all of the content on SharePoint-Videos dot com constitute the most cost effective training method. Usually, organizations that fit this model have been outfitted with a clear governance policy for SharePoint that restricts design privileges to simply this group of technical professionals. If SharePoint Server 2010, enterprise edition has been implemented, the range of tasks that these individuals will be looked upon to perform may be quite broad; hence an unlimited subscription to all of our content (as of June 15, 2012 we have 410 video tutorials on SharePoint 2010 and 2007 on our site) is the best solution.

We offer these unlimited subscriptions for individuals and groups of users. Unlimited subscriptions to all of our video tutorial content for SharePoint Server 2010 and 2007 for 20, 50 and 100 concurrent users are described on our website, specifically, in the “option 2″ section of the web page reached with the link just offered in this post. With each of these subscriptions we provide a group login ID and password. In our experience these subscriptions can actually service a larger community as, generally, we find that no more than 10% of a group of users will be accessing training content at any particular time. Accordingly, a 20 people subscription may service as large an organization as 200 administrators, developers and architects. At an annual cost of $1450.00, or $7.25 per year (when the cost is spread over all 200 staff members) the training will certainly pay for itself very quickly in terms of reductions in support and/or development costs.

It must be noted that our unlimited online subscriptions do not include download permissions. On the other hand, there are no restrictions on accessing any of our training content as often as required as skills are mastered. A further advantage of our online unlimited subscriptions is that our subscribers will enjoy complete access to new tutorial content as we make it available.

If your team does require local access to video training content on the topics we cover, then a better solution is to purchase any of our video tutorial content for SharePoint on DVD for enterprise use.

Subscribing to video tutorial content for SharePoint is a powerful tactic within an overall road map for SharePoint that promises to deliver high value. We are enthusiastic about opportunities to discuss plans; therefore, please do not hesitate to contact us should you wish to pursue a conversation. Please contact us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved

A Business User’s Glimpse at Our Introduction to Data Macros Using Before Events Video Tutorial

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The set of video tutorials on Access Services for SharePoint 2010 on SharePoint-Videos dot com includes instruction on creating data macros (which serve as workflows for SharePoint Server 2010) associated with specific tables in an Access Database. The audience for this video instruction is clearly SharePoint and/or Access administrators, developers and architects.

If viewers intend to approach this training video as a course, then be sure to build all of the tables referenced by this (and other video tutorials in this set) prior to embarking on this set of courses. Bruce Herz builds a “Lookup and Relationship” field from data stored in a “Neighbors” table which we did not have at the ready as we stepped through each of his instructions. Having all of the tables in place will ensure prompt completion of this training.

This video is particularly useful. The “before” macro that Bruce produces, which checks a table to ensure that an authorized user exists, provides an important safeguard against unauthorized use of the reservation process that is effected through the Access database built throughout this training series. While the training is geared to technical staff, it is useful for business users to grasp the purpose of the macro as a means of establishing value for the training. In fact Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code cannot be used with Access Services for SharePoint Server 2010; therefore, macros like this “before” macro provide an important function that would, perhaps, require a much higher skill level (at, potentially, a much higher cost) should an application written with Visual Studio be required to deliver this same procedure.

As we proceed through the steps required to build the macro, we do remark on the importance of including comments along with each step. Certainly our developer audience will be familiar with the rationale for including comments, but the information will be useful for business users who choose to study this video. All of the steps are taken with reference to the “Neighbors” table already alluded to above; therefore, and to reiterate, it would be most helpful to have the table in place prior to starting the training.

For trained individuals with a high level of familiarity with building macros with visual tools this training can be highly useful. By reviewing this presentation an appropriately trained individual can embark, right away, on accomodating the needs of business users in an otherwise “foreign” area. If you would like to learn further about how best to plan for the needs of business users with regards to working with video training content for SharePoint, please do not hesitate to contact us. Call us at (630) 786-7026, or Contact Us to further a discussion about this offer. Of course we are happy to speak about your SharePoint development plans, as well.

As ever, use this link to place an order for an annual subscription to SharePoint-Videos instructional content

© Rehmani Consulting Inc, all rights reserved