Zlatan's Blog [MVP SharePoint]

Information Worker Community Launched

Finally, brand new and revamped Information Worker Community has been officially launched with a new community website (http://www.informationworker.co.za/)

Although this is a result of the hard work of more of us for over a year, I would like special thanks to go to Michael O'Donovan for being instrumental in making this community become a reality. 

You can get your own blog or you can get your existing blog mirrored, you can participate in the forum discussions and be informed about the upcoming events.

Live events in Western Cape will continue to be organised with SADeveloper community (look out for the one coming up on the 26^th of March) and the events in Gauteng will be organised by the IW Partner Board and Microsoft (more info to come).

I encourage everybody to join and participate on any level and if you wish to become a lead for respective provincial chapters please contact out team at http://www.informationworker.co.za/Pages/Contact.aspx

Also, as a Community Lead for Information Worker (which is a fully endorsed by Microsoft, and MS being part of our team), feel free to contact me directly if you want to contribute or you have any suggestions/comments.

Microsoft Academic Alliance Installation Festival 2008 Africa

We are organising the first (hopefully, of many) MS AA Installation Festival at University of Cape Town on the 1^st and 4^th of March 2008. Some of you in the community know that I've been pushing for this to happen with Microsoft SA for a while, well since my trip to Redmond where I had a chance to meet the core Academic Alliance team and share common insights in how communities can work and operate better in respective countries. We both agreed that the most vital and core part of any development and technical communities of professionals are students and basically that they are the ones who get neglected the most. I still think, if I, and many others knew of communities and our possibilities as university (and tech) graduates well in advance we would've been in a different place right now, so would our respective communities. Not wanting for that to be a reality for all the new graduates of the Information Systems Department at University of Cape Town (I felt that giving back to my old department would be only fair as I really owe a lot to them) we're organising this festival that will feature not only presentations and demos from top SA IT industry professionals and MVPs and talks about communities, but also include giving away free software, namely (still waiting on the confirmation of the full list):

Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite (for students)
Windows Server 2008 (for students)
Windows Vista (for students)
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (for students)

SQL 2005 (for the Department)

Team Foundation Server (for the Department)

After this the Installation Festival will go to the rest of the AA registered Academic Institutions.

The team behind this (besides myself):

Nyaladzi Mpofu (MS Academic Alliance)

Elsje Scott (UCT Information Systems Department)

Kevin Johnston - HOD (UCT Information Systems Department)

Hilton Giesenow (C# MVP)

Nicholas Blank (Exchange MVP)

Ruari Plint (MS MVP Programme)

Imagine the User Interface that requires no clicks?!?

Imagine if you didn't have to use buttons for your user interface anymore, and instead you navigated the contents of your application in a different way. 

Enter: http://www.dontclick.it/ 

Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map

If you're an Office (OBA, SharePoint 2007, PerformancePoint 2007, Unified Communications, Groove, Project Server, Visio, etc etc) Developer, you're going to love this application. It's very useful, especially to people that are still grasping how the full Office offering from Microsoft works (Enterprise Content Management, Business Intelligence, etc etc) and also, it's also quite funky to use.

Here's the link: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb497969.aspx

"The Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map is a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application that helps developers visualize the different programs, servers, services, and tools that will help them build solutions. It allows them to drill down to each product and technology and learn about new features, objects, Web services, namespaces, and schemas required to extend Microsoft Office and build custom Office Business Applications (OBAs)."

Install the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map Version 2

Windows Vista Users

• Install the Microsoft Office Interactive Map via ClickOnce.
  Note: Firefox users will need to install the FFClickOnce extension first.

Windows XP Users

The following prerequisites are required:

• .NET Framework 3.0
• .NET Framework 2.0

If these components are already installed, you can install the Microsoft Office Interactive Map via ClickOnce. Otherwise, install the prerequisites and run the application.

Thanx for the link Niq!!

Final Release of VSeWSS 1.1 (Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services)

It kind of took them some time. Some of you might remember my old (ish) post (http://dotnet.org.za/zlatan/archive/2007/08/29/ctp-for-version-1-1-of-the-quot-visual-studio-extensions-for-windows-sharepoint-services-quot-vsewss.aspx) announcing CTP for version 1.1 of the "Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services" (VSeWSS).

So much like the CTP version these extension are in fact (as you're guessing) for Visual Studio 2005. The whole awesome thing that VSeWSS 1.1 brought us is all the templates we needed for SharePoint development and to "make F5 work" (simple F5 deployment of your SharePoint development projects). (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/03/27/visual-studio-extensions-for-windows-sharepoint-services.aspx)

Visual Studio 2008, when it came, gave us all that + it pushed the functionality boundary of the "make F5 work" functionality to include debug.

So why would you download and dust off your Visual Studio 2005 to use these extensions? Well there's only one reason from my side: Because for some totally weird reason templates and build scripts for SharePoint web parts are missing in Visual Studio 2008 (nobody still knows why, for eg see: http://weblogs.asp.net/jimjackson/archive/2007/11/28/visual-studio-2008-and-web-parts.aspx), and as you guessed it VSeWSS 1.1 has pretty good ones.

You can download the VSeWSS 1.1 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3e1dcccd-1cca-433a-bb4d-97b96bf7ab63&displaylang=en

And you can get the user guide here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A8A4E775-074D-4451-BE39-459921F79787&displaylang=en

Good news is that the 1.2 version of the Visual Studio extensions for Windows SharePoint Services will be designed for Visual Studio 2008, which we can expect in June 2008.

DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit for SharePoint Server 2007 is finally here!!!!!!!!!!

Earlier, in December last year, for the last time I extended my concerns about the late arrival of the DoD 5015.2 Add-on Pack for SharePoint 2007 Records Management in my post on this blog (http://dotnet.org.za/zlatan/archive/2007/12/23/what-happened-to-the-dod-5015-2-add-on-pack-for-sharepoint-2007-records-management.aspx).

This was followed by many questions from the community and respective clients. J.P. Horne of Microsoft kept me in the mean time updated about the progress with the Add On pack (thanks JP, you're the best), and finally it's HERE!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a slighltly confusing post Lawrence wrote on the official blog of the SharePoint Product Group (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/02/09/announcing-the-dod-5015-2-resource-kit-for-sharepoint-server-2007.aspx):

"The DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit is intended only for customers, who are required to run their records management system in a DoD 5015.2 Chapter 2 certified state. In case you're wondering, we currently have no plans to provide support for DoD 5015.2 Chapter 4 (classified records).

However, the Resource Kit is not intended for customers, who would like to enhance the records management functionality of MOSS 2007 with particular 5015.2 oriented features but are not required to run their system in a certified configuration. Alternatively, sample code and documentation will be available shortly via the MSDN Dev Center for MOSS 2007 for the most frequently requested features such as:

• Generating a Unique ID
• Display search results in Grid View
• Referencing and Linking - Using a secondary table to maintain the relationship
• Referencing and Linking - Using the asset picker
• Referencing and Linking - Using a custom field to display the relationship
• Create Document Library from a list item
• Put multiple items on Hold using SPQuery
• Custom expiration formula based on metadata (2 parts)
• Custom expiration formula based on metadata (cont.)
• Creating a custom router & extracting date received (2 parts)
• Creating a custom router & extracting date received (cont)
• Prevent record modification but allow metadata modification in event handler
• Prevent record modification but allow metadata modification by overriding upload page
• Programmatically defaulting/inheriting a field value
• Using ProcessBatchData to batch update list items
• Using Metadata tags to route documents into document libraries
• Create a record category programmatically (2 parts)
• Create a record category programmatically (cont)
• Routing content to a record category based on a metadata value

Officially, the DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit for SharePoint Server 2007 is now available to customers through our partner and Microsoft Consulting Service (MCS) channels. The reason for requiring partner/MCS involvement is that DoD implementations are not as simple as a "double-click installation." They require deep understanding of records management practices as well as business process and policy requirements. In order to successfully implement a DoD 5015.2 certified solution based on MOSS 2007, customers should work with their respective Microsoft account managers to engage a partner that has been trained on the DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit. Partners may download the Resource Kit's source code for free via MS Connect's DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit Source Code download site.

Also on the download site is a DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit Installer that partners as well as customers can download only for evaluation purposes and not for production use. This additional download provides a way for evaluators to learn about the DoD 5015.2 oriented records management capabilities provided by the Resource Kit while deciding which features, if not all, will be suitable for addressing their organization's requirements. [Caution: This is an unsigned debug build of the Installer for early preview purposes. The official Microsoft signed version of the Installer will be available on Microsoft.com's Download Center within a couple of weeks.]

For the latest answers to frequently asked questions about the DoD 5015.2 Resource Kit for SharePoint Server 2007, go to http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/capabilities/ecm/dod5015.mspx."

P.S. Can someone tell me what a hell does this mean ?! -> "However, the Resource Kit is not intended for customers, who would like to enhance the records management functionality of MOSS 2007 with particular 5015.2 oriented features but are not required to run their system in a certified configuration."

Anyway it's still great that it's finally here!! (I'm off to play with it, and maybe plan its first deployment)

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool - Continued (Behind The Scenes)

Well don't think of what you're about to read as a let down, this is in fact a good point many of us were trying to make internally and externally (but some people just don't listen), if you've had a long and hard experience with SharePoint 2007 so far (even with similar ECM systems) you probably expected what you can read in this post from Joel:

http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2008/02/06/sharepoint-capacity-planning-tool-released-behind-the-scenes.aspx

Creating Effective Enterprise Portals by Using SharePoint Server 2007 - Technical White Paper

Building OBAs with WPF, WCF, and LINQ

One thing is for sure, using Visual Studio Tools for Office in the new Visual Studio 2008 environment has become much easier and a lot more effective.  We have a number of frameworks that not only make our lives as developers easier but it also allows us to create even more powerful solutions. Besides the mighty Enterprise Content Management platform MOSS 2007, simple Office applications like MS Word can utilise Business Process Management, SOA and Enterprise Service Bus concepts, even employ more attractive User Interface to elevate user experience and create large powerful enterprise solutions.

The powerful frameworks that I'm talking about are Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, and Windows Presentation Foundation. Just Windows Workflow Foundation is so powerful that for example a new version of the mighty BizTalk Server will be rewritten on it (well the orchestration engine).

Another great thing is how well these frameworks work with each other and with the rest of the MS technologies. Most of the large enterprises are used to using office application over the past two decades, so extending the functionality of the same familiar interface to utilise the functionality of the modern Enterprise Content Management systems is now easier than ever and also the next logical step in the evolution of large Enterprise Solutions.

Also, as XML is the common language between all of these technologies using LINQ is almost always a must when it comes to developing such solutions.

The architectural concept behind this is commonly known as Office Business Applications (as most of you know).

Anyway the main reason for this post is this excellent article (http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/12/VstoNet/default.aspx) with downloadable source code (above you can see the downloaded code from the article in action on my laptop) that shows:

• How VSTO makes Office development more powerful
• Using WCF, WPF, and LINQ in Office solutions
• Easily adding advanced features to your Office apps
• Building services the easy way

Also I suggest checking what Soma Somasegar (VP, Development Division Microsoft) posted on Office development recently. Here's the link: 

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2008/01/30/integrating-business-systems-with-office-and-sharepoint.aspx

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool is out so go ahead and download it here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=93030

Why would you need this tool?

Planning a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) installation or a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) installation for a large enterprise can be a very complex undertaking. Determining the most cost-effective topology, hardware, and bandwidth requirements is not a trivial task and involves selecting from a variety of configuration options. In choosing the option that best fits your organization's needs, you need to answer the following questions:

• What is the minimum hardware you need to deploy?
• Where and how should you deploy the hardware?
• How can you optimize your deployment to meet your organization's requirements for availability and performance?
• How will growing capacity needs affect the topology?

You will also need the System Center Capacity Planner 2007, you can download it here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sccp/bb969059.aspx

The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool walks you through the following sequence of steps in the planning process:

1. Use the Model Wizard to assess your organization's needs and create your initial topology.
2. Use the Model Editor and the Hardware Editor to review and edit your topology.
3. Run simulations, and use the detailed simulation results to review the behavior of your topology.
4. Return to the Model Editor and the Hardware Editor to optimize your topology, and then re-run the simulation to check your results.
5. Finalize your topology and generate reports to guide the deployment process.

I'm so glad that they released a capacity planning model for SharePoint, I just downloaded it and I'm playing with it and it's just what I expected it to be, and for those of you that are not familiar with the concept of System Center Capacity Planner 2007, you will find that this will be the number one tool in your arsenal when deploying your SharePoint 2007 (or WSS 3.0) solutions.