Tuesday, October 18, 2011

InfoPath Training



Need InfoPath training? We've got just what you're looking for!

SharePoint Solutions offers quality hands-on classroom-based InfoPath training.

Learn the ins and outs of creating digital forms that your users won’t mind using.

Four days is all it takes to master digital form creation in InfoPath 2010, and to learn the basics of routing those forms through common business processes using SharePoint 2010 workflow, through our new course, InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 No-Code Workflow Deep Dive (Intermediate).

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Method to grant account access to User Profile Service Application


In order to work with SharPoint's User Profile Service Application beyond a read-only capacity, a user account must be granted appropriate access. Otherwise, you'll encounter errors such as ActivityFeedPermissionDeniedException when attempting to perform operations such as ActivityEvent.CreateActivityEvent.

Method to determine account identity of 'SharePoint 2010 Timer' (SPTimerV4) Windows Service


As a developer of solutions for the SharePoint 2010 platform, you may on occasion find the need to determine the account identity of the SharePoint 2010 Timer Windows Service (SPTimerV4). The following method will return the service's account name for you.


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private static string GetSPTimerJobAccountName()
{
   string retval = null;
   ServiceController[] controllers = ServiceController.GetServices();
   var cont = controllers.Where(c => c.ServiceName == "SPTimerV4");
   ServiceController svc = cont.FirstOrDefault();
   if (svc != null)
   {
       System.Management.SelectQuery query = new System.Management.SelectQuery(string.Format("select name, startname from Win32_Service where name = '{0}'", svc.ServiceName));
       using (System.Management.ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new System.Management.ManagementObjectSearcher(query))
       {
           foreach (System.Management.ManagementObject service in searcher.Get())
           {
               retval = service["startname"] as string;
           }
       }
   }

   return retval;
}

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Recorded Webinar: Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010


Yesterday's Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010 webinar was very well attended. Based on the webinar's turnout and the multitude of questions we received from participants, there is certainly a lot of interest in the features SPGA 2010 has to offer for SharePoint site creation and governance. Who can blame you for wanting to stop wasting so much valuable time creating, managing and governing SharePoint sites? It just makes sense that so many people are looking for a solution like SPGA 2010 to automate these processes.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Announcing InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 No-Code Workflow Training for SharePoint 2010


The business process automation capabilities of SharePoint 2010 (all editions) are fast becoming some of its most popular features. Streamlined business processes reduce labor and supply costs dramatically and improve both efficiency and office morale. It is rare to find one element that can make such a huge impact on a workplace environment.

In response to the overwhelming demand for instruction on InfoPath 2010 and no-code SharePoint 2010 Workflow creation using SharePoint Designer 2010, SharePoint Solutions is pleased to announce our two new courses:

Friday, May 27, 2011

SharePoint is like a very complex swing set kit, but without the assembly instructions and picture



I just finished teaching our Exploring SharePoint 2010 and Upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 classes this week in Nashville.  I’ve been teaching these classes around the U.S. on a monthly basis for the last year and a half.  It’s Friday afternoon and my students have headed home and I am reflecting on how much information we covered and how much they learned.  I think it was a great week for them.

It just occurred to me that SharePoint has some amazing similarities to “kits”.  Have you ever purchased a “do it yourself” kit of any kind?  There are kits for a lot of different household and hobby types of things that people have a hankering for and want to assemble themselves rather than purchasing a finished product.

A great example is a children’s swing set kit.  For instance:
These parts in this kit:
image

Friday, May 13, 2011

GUIDs in SharePoint Database Names and DPM 2010 - Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing


One complaint about SharePoint 2010 that I have heard consistently for the last year from students in my Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 class is that the "Configure Your Farm" wizard automatically adds GUIDs to the name of a number of the new Service Application databases:

SharePoint 2010 database names with GUIDs appended
  

This problem has been written about and discussed on many other blogs, and so I am not going to go into a full explanation here of why it happens.  Suffice it to say that it is a concern of varying degree for many SharePoint Server farm administrators and SQL Server DBAs.

Monday, May 09, 2011

SharePoint 2010 Social Networking: Part 5c - Browsing Bookmarks and Tags




This post is Part 5c of my SharePoint 2010 Social Networking series.  The other parts of Part 5 are all related to the Social Bookmarking and Tagging features of SharePoint 2010:
Part 5a - Intro and Central Database of Bookmarks and Tags For All Users
Part 5b - Bookmarking and Tagging User Experience
Part 5c - Browsing Bookmarks and Tags < You are here
Part 5d - Searching Bookmarks and Tags
(Note: For the first post of the SharePoint 2010 Social Networking series and a table of contents, go here.)

Friday, February 25, 2011

Your Entrance Ramp to Understanding and Using SharePoint Server 2010


Your task: Understand SharePoint Server 2010 and learn to use it effectively in your work.

But how do you get there? Where is the entrance ramp?








Monday, February 07, 2011

How to Scale Out a SharePoint 2010 Farm From Two-Tier to Three-Tier by Adding a Dedicated Application Server


Three-Tier SharePoint Farm
Microsoft provides some good documentation on different SharePoint 2010 Farm deployment scenarios in the TechNet Library.  One of those is about how to deploy a three-tier SharePoint 2010 Farm, which is the second most common topology for a SharePoint farm.

from an existing two-tier SharePoint 2010 Farm (the most common SharePoint Farm topology).

A lot of SharePoint Server Farm Administrators eventually get to the point where they need to scale out and the most commonly desired way to do it is to add a dedicated Application Server and move the SharePoint 2010 Service Applications to it (shown in the diagram to the right).

I have written a detailed blog post with screenshots on our SharePoint Help site that walks through how to add a dedicated application server to an existing SharePoint 2010 two-tier farm:

http://sharepointsolutions.com/sharepoint-help/blog/2011/02/how-to-scale-out-a-sharepoint-2010-farm-from-two-tier-to-three-tier-by-adding-a-dedicated-application-server/

Friday, January 21, 2011

SharePoint 2010 Social Networking: Part 5a - Bookmarking and Tagging Database


In this post, I will dive into the details of the social bookmarking and tagging features of SharePoint 2010.  As I said in a previous post, my aim with this series on SharePoint 2010 Social Computing is to bring a new level of enlightenment to how the features have been designed to work, their intended use, and benefits.
I am actually going to break this discussion up into four separate posts because of the depth of the subject area and the investment Microsoft has made in the features.  The work that Microsoft has done to enable social bookmarking and tagging within SharePoint 2010 is both broad and deep, and a single blog post on the subject would be too long.
Here is how I am going to break up Part 5 of my series into four blog posts:
Part 5a - Intro and Central Database of Bookmarks and Tags For All Users < You are here
Part 5b - Bookmarking and Tagging User Experience
Part 5c - Browsing Bookmarks and Tags
Part 5d - Searching Bookmarks and Tags

SharePoint 2010 Social Networking: Part 5b - Bookmarking and Tagging User Experience



This post is Part 5b of my SharePoint 2010 Social Networking series.  The other parts of Part 5 are all related to the Social Bookmarking and Tagging features of SharePoint 2010:
Part 5a - Intro and Central Database of Bookmarks and Tags For All Users
Part 5b - Bookmarking and Tagging User Experience < You are here
Part 5c - Browsing Bookmarks and Tags
Part 5d - Searching Bookmarks and Tags

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Just Released: Our Cool New Site Provisioning and Governance Tool


SharePoint Solutions is pleased to announce the release of our newest SharePoint 2010 software add-on, Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010 (SPGA 2010). The “cool factor” on this one is off the charts and you’re going to want to check it out.

As an IT professional, you know how hard it can be to maintain the kind of control you want on SharePoint 2010 sites. New sites propagate like bunnies and can quickly get out of hand, often leaving you with a backlog of work to get them approved, created and provisioned the way you want – keeping your organization’s taxonomy, governance, and look-and-feel intact.


Not any more.


SPGA 2010 allows you to create site request profiles, from which your users can select the kind of site they need. You set all the boundaries on the front end, including workflow for approvals if you like. Then, when a user fills out the site request form, they set into motion an automated set of processes that quickly and automatically approve, create, and provision the site. There’s no way they can mess up your site uniformity or company standards, because you’ve baked everything into the profile in advance.


Is that cool or what?


Users are empowered; your workload is reduced; everybody’s happy.

Take a moment and look over the SPGA 2010 product page
. You’ll be amazed at the difference that this powerful tool can make in your life.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Expand Your Workflow Creation Options and “Power Up” Your Workflows


SharePoint Solutions announces the release of our newest software product: Workflow Essentials 2010 (WE2010).

Once installed to your SharePoint server, Workflow Essentials snaps right into SharePoint Designer 2010’s Workflow Designer “Activities” and “Conditions” to give you nearly double the workflow creation possibilities.