Display a Security Trimmed Listing of Sites Using SharePoint Search

Depending on where you live, and how frequently you travel by car, you might have come across vast areas taken over by kudzu.  I’m always amazed at the vast land area kudzu can quickly take over.  I’ll bet if you stared at it for a while, you could actually see it grow.

As SharePoint grows in your organization, so do the number of sites each of your users has access to.  So how do you go about showing a listing of sites the user has access to, especially if their sites are separate site collections or even web applications?

If you don’t provide something for the users, it might be easier for them to find a green crayon in a field of kudzu.  You need something to help users find their sites besides relying on them to have well organized bookmarks. 

Configure Host Headers for SharePoint Web Applications

My friend and I were driving down the road the other day when he turns to me and tells me that there is this website with links to great extranet security products for SharePoint and even links to SharePoint Training. I had to check this out for myself! “What’s the site?” I ask. “Oh, its http://216.215.157.252” To which I reply “Cool, I’ll look that up as soon as I get home… if I remember it!”

There is a reason we have DNS: it is so we can make things easier to remember. There was no way I was going to be able to remember http://216.215.157.252 unless I put it into a song (is 86753O9 going through anyone else’s head right now?)

You see, despite what Juliet may tell you, names are important. Sure a rose by any other name would still be as sweet, but the florist still gives me strange looks when I ask for a dozen #F80000 roses. You do not go around treating people as if they are storm troopers and asking "TK-421, why aren't you at your post? TK-421, do you copy?", so why would you treat your SharePoint web apps like they are storm troopers?

Give your SharePoint web apps names by configuring Host Headers.

New White Paper Addresses Extranet Security Best Practices

In using SharePoint as an extranet platform, one of the first decisions that IT pros face is where to store the extranet user accounts. Which alternative makes the most sense?

This is the topic which our new white paper, The Case for Using Forms-Based Authentication (FBA) and the SQL Membership Provider for Implementing a SharePoint Extranet, addresses.

The paper can be downloaded from the PremierPoint Solutions website.

An extranet is like an intranet which can be accessed from anywhere on the Internet.

Because the extranet is accessible from the Internet, the need for iron-clad security is paramount. Just as important is the need for users to be able to access and use the extranet easily.

But can both of these seemingly opposing goals really be achieved?

According to the white paper, these ostensibly conflicting goals can be achieved by using FBA and the SQL Membership Provider in on-premises SharePoint.

Special Holiday Pricing on SharePoint Training

It's the most wonderful time of the year for SharePoint training!

PremierPoint Solutions is making it more affordable than ever before to get quality SharePoint training.

We have never, in the 10-year history of our company, made the kind of offer on SharePoint training that we are offering right now! $700 to $900 off the regular price of 3- and 4-day classes.

It’s our holiday gift to you.

Every December and January class is just $995.*

Register from now to December 31st, 2014, for any 3- or 4-day December 2014 or January 2015 training class, and pay just $995! That’s $700 to $900 off the regular price for these classes, thanks to our Special Holiday Pricing (SHP)!

You must use the Promo Code “MYGIFT” when you register online to get the special pricing.

How can I use InfoPath to get KPIs in my library?

This post is an extension of a previous post about creating and using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in a SharePoint library, based on a calculated column. The follow-up question is, “Can I use InfoPath to set KPIs in SharePoint?”

The answer is “Yes, but... it takes a little bit of work.”

The problem is that neither SharePoint nor InfoPath is set up to enable users to simply click a couple of buttons and make KPIs magically work. (Sometimes, a calculated column can be a better choice. Read about that solution here.)

We can work around this deficiency, though, by:

1. creating a SharePoint column to display pictures
2. finding or uploading KPIs we want to use
3. creating an InfoPath field to store a link to our KPIs
4. promoting the InfoPath field to the SharePoint column  

In this post, we will use SharePoint 2010 Enterprise and InfoPath 2010, but it should work the same way with SharePoint and InfoPath 2013. 

The Best Way To Get A Correlation ID Error Out of Your ULS Logs

One constant in the SharePoint world is that there are always multiple ways to do almost everything.  I can't recall the number of times I've heard someone in a meeting say "there's many ways we can skin that cat" when asked how to do something in SharePoint.  I'm not real well versed in cat skinning, but I get the point.

I work with clients and customers all over the world.  It's interesting to see all the different ways and free tools used to figure out what that pesky correlation ID that popped up is trying to tell us.  There are definitely a lot of ways to skin that particular cat.  The one I use unequivocally in every situation is merge-splogfile.  This is definitely not a brand new concept but it is new to most of the SharePoint professionals I speak with.  I'm not the first to blog about it but since it is still relatively unknown with those I speak with, and this blog has good viewership, I feel compelled to share.

New White Paper: Cost-effective, Enterprise-ready SharePoint Extranets



A SharePoint extranet gives an organization’s employees, partners, vendors, and clients access to the specific information they need, when they need it.

In fact, the same things that make SharePoint a great intranet platform also make it a great extranet platform. But there is a problem.

While SharePoint is built for collaboration and contains built-in collaboration tools, IT professionals who attempt to implement SharePoint as an extranet quickly find out there are many hurdles to overcome.

In SharePoint, Microsoft’s extranet platform does not provide an easy way to: 

•      Deploy an extranet

•      Secure an extranet

•      Manage an extranet

•      Empower users to solve simple login issues or perform simple administrative actions for themselves

•      Facilitate simple user-friendly access

A new white paper, “Providing Enterprise-ready and Cost-effective Extranets with SharePoint,” examines the kinds of business problems a SharePoint extranet can help an organization overcome and explains a way to overcome extranet hurdles, making extranet management and use secure, easy, and affordable.

SharePoint BI Basics: Set a KPI Column in Your Lists and Libraries as a Visual Reference

Business Intelligence is a hot button with most managers and executives these days, because the immediacy of having real-time data turned into actionable insights is priceless for strategic decision-making. In a recent class on “Business Intelligence Training – The Microsoft Self-Service BI Toolset,” one of our most popular courses, a student asked me an excellent question. With a little research, I came up with a better answer than I was able to give in class off the top of my head. So I thought I’d share it with you.

The question is, “How do I set a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) column for every object in my SharePoint list or library?” Our answer will be applicable to SharePoint 2010 and 2013, but I’ll be using screenshots from SharePoint 2010. 

Is Microsoft Pressing the “Delete” Key on InfoPath?

What is the future of InfoPath?

I frequently get asked variations of that question in my SharePoint training classes.

Microsoft’s official guidance released earlier this year declared that InfoPath 2013 will be the last version of InfoPath.  This led to widespread panic (not the band) on the part of many individuals, and numerous rants about how InfoPath should be avoided at all costs and how migration to alternatives should be initiated immediately.

Mark Twain once said, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The same could be said for InfoPath.

Configuring Global Registration Fields in Extranet Collaboration Manager (ExCM) 2013

Registration is one of the core concepts in Extranet Collaboration Manager 2013. There are two types of registration; Anonymous and Invitation. The most common, by far, are the Invitation Registrations. You send an e-mail to a potential new user, they click on the Registration link provided and they are taken to the custom Registration Page on your site. Here is an example: