Top 18 Enhancements Our Students Are Hoping For in SharePoint 2013

by Jeff Cate

We’ve been teaching SharePoint 2010 training classes each month around the U.S. for about two and a half years now. Our instructors have become pretty used to hearing from students the same “ugh, why doesn’t SharePoint do that?” or “If it just did this one thing it would open the door to solve so many more business problems!” We hear this list over and over again, class after class – probably from over a 1,000 people total.

Importing and Exporting Data in Extranet Collaboration Manager (ExCM) 2010 – Part 2 – Importing

by Matthew McBride

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed how you can export data from the ExtranetCollaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) database for use with other applications, projects, etc.  A far more common question we receive is whether or not companies with data for existing users can IMPORT that information into ExCM.  In the past, we have run across potential customers who have a large number of existing users stored in another application or database and would rather not have to go back and manually add or register them for access to their ExCM SharePoint extranet site.  By utilizing our free PowerShell utility, you can import users directly into an ExCM database.

Importing and Exporting Data in Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) – Part 1 – Exporting

by Matthew McBride

ExtranetCollaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) is a SharePoint add-on that provides easy SharePoint extranet collaboration and simplified extranet administration. A common question we often receive about ExCM is if data from the ExCM database can be exported and/or data from another source can be imported into that database.  The answer is “yes.”  In Part 1 of this series, we will take a look at how we can export data from our ExCM database.

Approval Workflows in Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) – Part 1 – Basic Approval Workflows

by Matthew McBride

Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) allows you to create users in three ways:

1.      Manually

2.      Invitation Registration (via e-mail)

3.      Anonymous Registration (potential users visit the Extranet site and click “Sign Up”)

The most common of these is via invitation.  When using invitations, there is most likely an existing business relationship with the invitee and the general thinking is that “if you’re invited, you’re approved.”  However, there may be certain scenarios where you want to add an approval step for invited users as well.

Approval Workflows in Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) – Part 2 – Advanced Approval Workflow

by Matthew McBride

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how using workflows along with the Approval feature of Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010  (ExCM) can add an additional layer of security to your site when using both Invitation and Anonymous Registrations.  We also discussed that when using invitations, there is most likely an existing business relationship with the invitee, and in general the thinking would be “if you’re invited, you’re approved.”  But what if we only wanted to approve ANONYMOUS Registrations and allow invited users immediate access to the Extranet site?

SharePoint 2013 Licensing: What is the one thing that would really help customers?

By Jeff Cate, Founder and President, PremierPoint Solutions

This post falls into the “my two cents worth” category.

As most know, starting with the 2007 version of SharePoint, the product is available in three editions. In the 2010 version of SharePoint, those three are SharePoint Foundation, Server Standard, and Server Enterprise.  Microsoft publishes a good comparison of what you get in each edition here for SharePoint 2010.

I think most people know that the Foundation edition of SharePoint does not require any additional license purchase other than Windows Server licenses and Windows Server CALs.  People often talk about the Foundation Edition being “free.”  We could debate whether or not this is really true given that Windows Server licenses are still required, but that debate is not for this post.