Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Products
We have two events happening in March that you should be aware of if you are in the Oklahoma City metro area. It will be great time to share what you are doing with SharePoint and struggles you are having. Perhaps there will be someone in attendance that can provide an answer to your problem.
When: March 11th, 2010 11:30am - 1:00pm (please rsvp, see below)
Where:
Dell Oklahoma City office
3501 SW 15th
Bldg A, Hudson Hall on 1st Floor
Oklahoma City, OK 73108
Who:
Eric Shupps, The SharePoint Cowboy will be our guest speaker for this first meeting of the Oklahoma City SharePoint...
I have had some time to ponder the ton-of-stuff at the 2009 SharePoint Conference. Overall, I really like what Microsoft has done with this version. They seem to have addressed the majority of pain points. Here are some of the highlights of what comes to mind...
Service Applications - Previously, we were forced to use the SSP service for all services (Search, BDC, Profile, Excel). Now, the Service Application approach is providing a Service Model. AC gave a level 400 session on this and built a cleverly simple load-balanced calculator that was indeed an independent service.
The Ribbon - consistency is always a good thing. The Ribbon provides...
Missing your SQL Server Management Studio after installing SQL Server 2005? When creating my Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) development environment I had the same problem. Thankfully, Pete Orologas posted a solution and it worked for me. Apparently, if there is already a \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools folder that exists then the installer moves on to the next step. How does that subfolder get there? Well, if you install Visual Studio before SQL it creates the folder when installing SQL Express. Or if you install the SQL Express edition it will create the tools folder.
THE SOLUTION?
Rename the Tools folder to something...
I have started a SharePoint resource page. I have been recommending (and still do) some of the great ones out there. However, I have found that some of my experiences and needs differ in a lot of ways. As with others, my resource page has started out as something I use to personally reference in my day-to-day work routine. If it helps others that would be great too. Here's the beginnings of my MOSS SharePoint InfoPath Workflow .NET Resource Page. It will be growing significantly over the coming days.
Waynester's SharePoint Resource page
Great Resource for us SharePoint developers!
http://www.MsSharePointDeveloper.com
[via AC]
Do you need hands-on development experience with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Applications? Here's a link to start your journey:
Hands on Labs for Developing Applications on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
[via TechNet]
Each application template has a companion set of two datasheets. For business decision makers, the functional overview (BDM datasheet) highlights the features and details of the scenario which can be used to consider deployment. The technical overview (TDM datasheet) is for IT professionals and describes the scenario, Web parts, relevant workflows, lists, and document libraries that are part of the template.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb848090.aspx
Keynote - Bob Muglia, Christopher Lloyd
Bob is the senior vice president over the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. The opening was pretty dramatic with a spoof on "Back To The Future". They taped a movie-quality version for the first few minutes. Then out came Bob and Christopher Lloyd AND the Delorean.
Many demonstrations were shown during the keynote. However, the one that stood out to me was the Microsoft Server 2008 Management Tools related to Virtualization. It came across really cool in the way they were able to host many servers and move them to different physical servers at "will". ...
This is a boon for InfoPath developers out there! I caught this over at Jan Tielens' blog. It's concerning the use of newly introduced Universal Data Connection (UDC) files. In previous postings I ranted about the lack of (or pain of) accomodations for distributed solutions in InfoPath. I found myself creating data sources in development that were difficult to change when migrating to Testing or Production environments. Jan does a swell job of explaining this new approach. He also throws in some upgrade and migration tips.
External Data & InfoPath: Server Upgrade and Migration Tool
I got wind of these from a co-worker, Jake Wilds. Microsoft has provided free eLearning courses on MOSS 2007 and Office 2007 Client Suite. You can find them here:
https://www.microsoftelearning.com/catalog/itproDev.aspx#officeSystem2007
I thought I'd relay some references that I've read on Andrew Connell's blog this morning.
Great SharePoint 2007 Web Part series by Sahil
MOSS 2007 and WSS v3 SDKs available for download
MSDN SharePoint Migration Center now live - including MCMS migration/upgrade information!
**NOW AVAILABLE**: MCMS 2002 Assesment Tool
If you are going to TechEd 2006 in Boston, be sure to catch Andrew Connell and Heather Solomon when possible:Find more on Where Andrew Will Be at the following link: TechEd: CMS to WCM Migration TheaterHeather Solomon's whereabouts can be found here: TechEd: BOF Session and TechEdConnect
I recently came across an unexpected error a user got when attempting to run an InfoPath 2003 SP2 VS 2005 Managed Code Solution. The error was this:
InfoPath cannot open the selected form because of an error in the form's code.
The Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 is not installed on your computer or the InfoPath primary interop assembly (PIA) is not registered. Use Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel to make sure that Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 is installed or install it using Windows Update, then run Setup again to confirm that .NET Programmability Support is installed, or contact your system...
Found this on Andrew Connell's blogsite...
Things to note:
A new client SKU named Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 is what you know as Office Professional Plus 2007 (including Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Access, InfoPath, Communicator, & Publisher) but also includes Microsoft Office Groove 2007 & Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes publishing, collaboration & search. In today’s terms, think SharePoint Portal Server & SharePoint’s Shared Services, and Content Management Server.
Office Project Server 2007, Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, Office Forms Server 2007 (think webified InfoPath), and Office Groove Server 2007 are separate SKU’s from Office SharePoint Server 2007....
[via Scott Hillier]
Solutions that automate business processes are becoming increasingly common, and the combination of SharePoint, InfoPath, and Visual Studio 2005 definitely streamlines the development process. In fact, the special relationships between these technologies make them an ideal platform for developing process-based solutions. A similar solution developed in ASP.NET, for example, would take considerably longer to create and deploy. That's why I think you'll see more and more solutions built on the Office System in the next few years.
This is an excellent article by Scott Hillier on integrating InfoPath, Excel, and Sharepoint. It has some great infopath coding examples too. Check...
[via Patrick Tisseghem]
Some time ago, I had the opportunity to have a talk at the Belgium MSDN community regarding opportunities for .NET developers to extend the Windows SharePoint Services. In addition to the Web Part development (see also my 2 articles on building Web Parts), and the access to the SharePoint object model and related XML Web Services, I demonstrated how to create document event handlers in VS.NET that hook up to a SharePoint form library. The goal of the .NET code was to process the incoming InfoPath XML. In this article I provide an overview of how to accomplish...
[via Scott Robinson]
It's easy to look at Microsoft's InfoPath 2003 as a frivolous add-on to Office 2003 (specifically the Enterprise Edition, which includes InfoPath). It's hard to believe that something that seems an extra, dropped into a desktop product suite like a basket of breadsticks at an Italian restaurant, can be a powerful and flexible desktop application tool. Designed for the not-particularly-technical, it does not appear at face value to be particularly powerful—and therefore not particularly useful to the enterprise-minded developer.
But InfoPath will surprise you, not only with its considerable fundamental capabilities but with the added utility and features beneath...
[via MS Visual Basic Developer Center]
My.Blogs is a collection of sample code that will show you how you can easily provide programmatic access to weblogs in the applications you build. Full source code is provided along with Windows Forms, ASP.NET 2.0 and a Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Outlook Add-In.
[via Mark Kruger]
Brian Jones: Office XML Formats, a program manager in Office. He's been working on the XML functionality and file formats in Office for about 5 years. His focus is on XML in Office and the Microsoft Office Open XML File Formats coming in Office 12.
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/09/29/475340.aspx
[via Mark Kruger]
Stephen Thomas has put together a video and sample walking through a simple Sequential Workflow using Beta 1 of WinWF (available for download from Microsoft). This video will take you step by step through creating your first sequential workflow in less than 15 minutes This workflow is hosted by .net using a Windows Form. It takes in an input value and returns a string of how long it took to process the order. The sample includes two windows form for calling the workflow.
Download the sample code: Sequential Workflow using WinWF Download the video: My First Sequential Workflow Video...
via [Andrew Connell]
AC reports from the Microsoft MVP Global Summit that Office 12 products will support saving documents as PDF natively... no more PDF Drivers! Now that's cool! I hope it sticks and doesn't get axed at the last moment.
Here's the spill...
Native "Save As PDF" support coming in O12
[via Darren Jefford]
For those of you familiar with BizTalk Server 2004, Windows Workflow Foundation is to the Orchestration Designer and Orchestration Runtime (XLANG) in BizTalk. It allows you express your “workflow” using a designer and then have this executed by a runtime.
Highlights of Darren's post:
Windows Workflow Foundation is light-weight and re-hostable allowing you to integrate workflow functionality into your application.
Shipped with WinFx and will be supported on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP
You can host Windows Workflow in any host (ASP.NET, WinForms, Console App….)
The debugging story is fantastic, you can step into workflows and debug through activities and...
[via Mei Ying]
Mei asks, “Have you registered for the Beta release of Office 12?”
via [Heather Solomon]
Heather has updated her already informative Sharepoint Resource Page with V3 and Office 12 information.
This PAGE is a Must-Bookmark for any person venturing into the Sharepoint ether-world!
» SharePoint V3.0 and Office 12 Resources
Add it to your Favorites Today!
[via Stefan]
» First official Info on Microsoft Content Management Offering in Office 12
“Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has become a strategic imperative for most organizations. Businesses have seen a huge explosion of structured and unstructured information over the last several years that includes documents, e-mail messages, voice mail, and video. A recent study by Accenture shows that more content will be created in the next two years than in the entire previous history of humankind. It will be critical for organizations to have a strategy to manage unstructured content through its entire lifecycle—creation, management, storage, and disposal.“
Read more on Office Preview...
via [Mike Fitzmaurice]
The Kimono Is Open, The Veil Is Lifted, The Gags Are Removed.....
RSS. Everything about sites, lists, libraries, etc., can be syndicated via RSS automatically.
Blogs and Wikis. Templates and features in the box.
Content Types. These aren’t just like SPS 2001’s document profiles. They define sets of metadata, but they also contain view information. And associated workflows. And events bound to them (synchronous or asynchronous). And you can have more than one in the same list/library.
Workflow. Windows Workflow Foundation is embedded in WSS. It’s used everywhere.
Recycle Bin. We did it. It’s scoped to a site and...
[via AC]
Check out the new UI of the Office 12 Core Applications. I watched the PDC 2005 keynote and saw some Word, Excel and Powerpoint looks. They really have simplified them but the tons-o-functionality is still available.
Here's AC's posting
Screenshots can be found here
MSFT PressPass: Q&A: Microsoft Showcases New User Interface for Office “12” Core Applications