Connect.Collaborate.SharePoint
May
11

There are many pieces in the SharePoint jigsaw puzzle and they should all rely on Active Directory accounts.

Every SharePoint Farm should follow these guidelines for the use of AD accounts http://www.wssdemo.com/redir.aspx?ID=1456

Unfortunately this is not always the case and, although everything appears to work when a single account is used for everything, there comes a time when corrective action is required to fix problems like:

  • Search Results return unpublished pages
  • Products like the SharePoint End-user Training kit can't be installed because the training site application pool is dbo of the content db.
  • Regulatory compliance requires enforcement and auditing of content separation at the database level

If you are an old hand at managing Windows you might be tempted to jump right into the Services and IIS admin UI's and start changing accounts. Stop right where you are! There are a number of reasons why you should not do this.

For SQL Server you should always use SQL Server tools such as SQL Server Configuration Manager to change the account used by the SQL Server or SQL Server Agent services, or to change the password for the account. In addition to changing the account name, SQL Server Configuration Manager performs additional configuration such as setting permissions in the Windows Registry so that the new account can read the SQL Server settings. Other tools such as the Windows Services Control Manager can change the account name but do not change associated settings. If the service cannot access the SQL Server portion of the registry the service may not start properly.
Follow these steps to change the SQL account passwords http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263226.aspx

For SharePoint there are a number of Windows Services and IIS Application Pools. If you have multiple servers in your farm, these have to be in sync so you should use the STSADM commands or Central Admin UI. When you use these tools, they ensure that the appropriate registry, file system and data base permissions are also maintained across all servers in the farm. Everything may appear to work if you do make a manual change to a service or application pool but after a full farm restart you will find strange behaviours and errors all over the place (often with search or failure to create new sites). Always follow this procedure http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838for the Farm, Search and SSP settings. Use Central Administration/Operations/Service Accounts menu to change the Application Pool accounts for other sites.

Categories:

 
May
10

The purpose of this article is to help IT desktop support professionals understand the different ways a user can interact with files stored in a SharePoint document library and the implications of each method.

  1. Clicking on the document name results in Read-only copy

    This is the option that causes the most problems. In this case, the following events happen:
    1. IE downloads the document to the client's Temporary Internet Files location
    2. Client OS uses MIME association to launch the registered application (Word)
    3. Client application opens document from local disk Temporary Internet Files location
    4. Document is Read Only!
    5. Server Document Properties can't be displayed (See 2. Below)
    6. Save location is a rather random file name/location under Temporary Internet Files)
    7. If user tries to 'Save-as', Word has no idea that the document came from SharePoint so what can the user do?

    It gets even worse than this. If the user saves the document locally and then uploads it into the SharePoint library or saves directly back to SharePoint, closes Word and then re-clicks on the document link. IE , depending on its cache settings, may not download the updated document but instead serve up the cached copy to word which will not contain the users' updated document. This is a common cause for the "SharePoint is losing all my document updates" help desk call.

    Office 2007 improves this situation by detecting that the document has come from a SharePoint site and allowing the user to switch into Edit mode

  2. Using the drop-down menu (preferred method for editing documents)

    This cause the following chain of events:
    1. The Edit menu item calls a javascript function that creates an ActiveX object http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms454230.aspx
    2. The ActiveX control launches Word and then automates word to open the document using the Web-DAV protocol http://www.webdav.org
    3. Because Web-DAV was used to open the document, Word knows where to save it back to
    4. After word closes or the browser gets focus, the web page is refreshed to tow the updated document properties

    Because this function is performed by an ActiveX control, IE security settings must allow it. Overzealous locking down of IE security or the SharePoint site being detected as from the Internet Zone will result in this failing or the user being bugged with lots of security warnings. Best bet is to place your SharePoint sites into the Trusted Sites zone.

    There are several versions of this ActiveX control depending on which version of Office is installed. This can cause problems if you have a mixture of versions (e.g. Office 2003 and Outlook 2007 or Office 2003 and SharePoint Designer 2007) which can result in one of the following:

  • an error informing the user that they don't have a compatible version of Office installed
  • IE shuts down (especially when clicking on the New menu item or a content type from the new drop down)

If you are in this situation then the fix can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929360

Office 2007 (Office Ultimate, Professional Plus or Office Enterprise) understands content types and uses the property panel to link the SharePoint library metadata to document properties

Because the property panel is the InfoPath ActiveX control, it makes a separate SOAP call to the SharePoint server. This is why you will get two login prompts on an Extranet site using NTLM (one for Word to open the file for editing and one for the property panel form).

  1. Documents can also be edited from the Explorer view

    This also uses the Web-DAV protocol. The url is handled by the Windows XP or Vista Web-DAV Redirector in Windows Explorer which translates the url into a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) of \\server\DavWWWRoot\Site\Library.
    If you have any problems with Explorer View, see http://www.wssdemo.com/redir.aspx?ID=909
    Problems with this method:
    1. Site Administrators and Designers can place files outside of document libraries (still in the sites content database by other users will not be able to browse for them)
    2. No metadata displayed
    3. Documents remain checked out if uploaded or changed
  2. Users can map a drive letter to the library using explorer view.

    Users can cut and paste the document library URL into the path to map to but this will often fail because spaces are converted into %20 and when these are translated into the UNC format they are no longer valid.
    This also has the same disadvantages as #3.
  3. FrontPage RPC's. Not really an end user option but for a developer or ISV who wants to automate creating/updating documents with full functionality. See http://www.codeplex.com/sharepad for a sample application that uses this method.
  4. Record Center Web Service. Again, not an end user thing and only works with Record Center document libraries. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms442541.aspx
    Or install a web service like http://www.codeplex.com/wsuploadservice
Categories:

 
May
10

I've been out of town every week except 2 so far this year so the blogging has taken a back seat while my spare time is taken up with migrating the site onto a new Server 2008 Hyper-v environment. Apart from building the new DC, SQL Server, MOSS App server and WFE, I can also run up a few other virtual machines to try out Performance Point, Data Protection Manager and System Center.

I created 2 new web applications on the WFE (this VM has 8Gb dedicated and 2 cores) and installed the Fantastic 40 templates and the End User Training on each.

There are a few possible approaches for moving the main site content. I chose to just move the site collection content database by using SQL backup/restore and create a new web application using this restored content db. Because this is a new AD I had to change the dbo to the application pool of the web application and reset the site collection administration account. Then it was a matter of finding all the 3rd party solutions I had installed and correcting all those absolute URL's I had placed in the content. I plan on the new site using forms based authentication so I'm using another url for the NTLM zone.

I have cut over the DNS for www.wssdemo.com (The SilverLight demo isn't working on the new server yet). That will have to wait until next week as I'm off to Auckland again this week. It is only an hour flight but I have already managed to read 5 novels on the plane this year. I'm trying to get through all the Lee Child books this year and number 6 will be Killing Floor.

Categories:

 
May
10

I've been out of town every week except 2 so far this year so the blogging has taken a back seat while my spare time is taken up with migrating the site onto a new Server 2008 Hyper-v environment. Apart from building the new DC, SQL Server, MOSS App server and WFE, I can also run up a few other virtual machines to try out Performance Point, Data Protection Manager.

I created 2 new web applications on the WFE (this VM has 8Gb dedicated and 2 cores) and installed the Fantastic 40 templates and the End User Training on each.

There are a few possible approaches for moving the main site content. I chose to just move the site collection content database by using SQL backup/restore and create a new web application using this restored content db. Because this is a new AD I had to change the dbo to the application pool of the web application and reset the site collection administration account. Then it was a matter of finding all the 3rd party solutions I had installed and correcting all those absolute URL's I had placed in the content. I plan on the new site using forms based authentication so I'm using another url for the NTLM zone.

I have cut over the DNS for www.wssdemo.com (The SilverLight demo isn't working on the new server yet). That will have to wait until next week as I'm off to Auckland again this week. It is only an hour flight but I have already managed to read 5 novels on the plane this year. I'm trying to get through all the Lee Child books this year and number 6 will be Killing Floor.

Categories:

 
Apr
26

Not as much content as the IT Pro's get but, given that there is also a lot of .Net content that is also relevant to SharePoint developers, I'm sure this event will be worth your while. There are still some discount registrations available so register now.

Session Title

Track

Level

Speaker

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services and Integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 With Office SharePoint Server, you have one central location from which you can provide business intelligence capabilities to every employee and quickly connect your people to the information they need. SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2008 enables an end-user to view and manage reports completely from within a SharePoint environment. Reports become standard SharePoint document library objects and can be used in SharePoint workflow and security models. In SSRS 2008, there is in-place upgrade support from the SSRS 2005 SP2 add-in and support for data-driven subscriptions has been added.

Business Intelligence 

300 

Prash Shirolkar 

Inside Microsoft: How Microsoft IT Used Excel Services to Create an Office Business Application That Supports Microsoft's Top Executives

 Learn how Microsoft IT moved Microsoft Office Excel 2007-based Executive Reporting UI that supports top level corporate executives' decision making process to the Web leveraging Excel Services. Find out how Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 makes it easy to connect Microsoft SQL 2005 databases and Analysis Services with Excel Web Access. Learn about integration of InfoPath forms with automation and encrypted data connection to collect user inputs for commentary and collaboration. Discover how Office Open XML file format allows developers to manipulate server side workbooks to provide end users with secure scorecard viewing experience in the browser and not sacrifice Excel 2007 rich client functionality while meeting the requirement of no client side code install.

Business Intelligence 

300 

Sergei Gundorov, Mike Reese 

The Nine Essential Power Tools for Every Developer: Extending Microsoft Visual Studio to Enhance the Microsoft Office Development Experience

 Check out the first release of Visual Studio Power Tools, a set of free tools that enhance the design-time or runtime capabilities of Office development in Visual Studio 2008 Professional.This session includes demos of all the tools, such as the Office Interop API Extensions library which brings optional and named parameters to Microsoft Visual C#, the Ribbon IDs Tool Window, and the SharePoint Workflow Package Generator. Come check them out and find out how you can start using them today.

Developer Tools and Languages 

300 

John Durant 

Enabling Collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

 SharePoint has become a key tool alongside the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Discuss with other companies how they are using SharePoint and find out how their ROI and satisfaction with Microsoft Dynamics CRM has improved.

Dynamics 

300 

Ben Vollmer 

Introduction to SharePoint Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (Repeats on 6/4)

 Are you a .NET developer? It's about time you learned the basics of SharePoint development, which is built entirely on ASP.NET. This talk introduces you to the various places in SharePoint that you can build and extend as a developer. We look at the new SharePoint concepts that .NET developers need to be aware of. We drill into the biggest pieces such as Web parts, workflow, list definitions, event handlers for lists and document libraries, custom content types, and the business data connector. Demos use the Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint to show how to get started building some of these components.

Office and SharePoint 

200 

Paul Andrew 

Developing Your First Office Business Application: From the Client to SharePoint and Beyond

 This session provides developers with an understanding of how they can build and deploy Office Business Applications (OBA), composite applications built using the Microsoft Office Development Platform. This session specifically address the why, what, and how of OBA development and walks through code samples and demos using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Office and SharePoint 

200 

Steve Fox 

Tunneling through Microsoft Office InfoPath Form Services: Wormholes, Parallel Universes, and Higher Dimension Views

 The single biggest complaint about InfoPath v1 was that users had to have the InfoPath product installed to fill out forms. Office Forms Server is Microsoft's answer to ubiquitous reach for the powerful InfoPath forms platform. Finally the power of InfoPath is available in a Web browser. The next best thing since notepad? Well, not quite. Many limitations exist, including no task pane support, poor rich text support, deployment headaches, ad infinitum. This lecture focuses on the form physics you will need to bend the fabric of Form Services to accept the real-world solutions that your users are building. Learn about InfoPath Form Services on Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 from one of the former Microsoft InfoPath senior developers for Form Services, David Airapetyan. David discusses: • Basic browser form deployment • Admin form deployment (for forms with code) • Creating browser-specific views for hybrid solutions • Gotchas in working with browser-enabled forms • UDCs - write once, use often to connect your forms to popular Web services In addition, in the first public unveiling of the new Qdabra Task Pane Framework, David shows you how to tunnel through the task pane limitation. This framework enables the use of task panes in the rich and browser clients while retaining the design-once paradigm. This session is a must-see for InfoPath/MOSS developers. All attendees receive a free IPFS task pane framework platform CD including a special UDC editor.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Shiraz Cupala 

Light Up Your SharePoint Web Site with Microsoft Silverlight and AJAX

 In this session, learn how to leverage Web 2.0 technologies to deliver a rich and interactive end-user experience for SharePoint sites and content. Topics covered are: building ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 enabled Web Parts; creating and consuming SharePoint Web services that are AJAX-enabled; Web Parts hosting Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1 applications; techniques to have the Silverlight applications communicated back and forth with SharePoint content such as items in lists and libraries, user profile information and search results; samples of how publishing portals can be enriched with Silverlight navigation controls and enhanced page layouts; and demos on how to build Windows Vista Gadgets that display SharePoint content using traditional UI techniques as well as using Silverlight.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Patrick Tisseghem 

Simplifying SharePoint Web Part Development

 ASP.NET developers have always had two options for building controls for applications: user controls and server controls. Although server controls have their benefits, developers tend to gravitate toward user controls because of the designer support for building out the UI. SharePoint Web part developers are restricted to the server control realm which offers no UI designer support and often requires a great deal of code to define the UI directly in the control itself. Even simple UI changes require sifting through Web part code to determine where to make the change, and then the Web part needs to be recompiled and redeployed before the change takes effect. This session illustrates the use of templated Web parts, an architectural technique that separates Web part logic into the server control and the UI into one or more user controls. Developers are then free to use the designer tools in Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer to build out the UI for Web parts, and can make UI changes without the need to recompile or redeploy their Web parts. Templated Web parts also allows for other user experience possibilities like displaying alternate UIs based on user input, profile settings, security, or Web part configuration properties, and promotes code reuse because project-specific UI elements are maintained separately from the core Web part logic.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Damon Armstrong 

Microsoft IT: Lessons Learned Designing, Developing, and Deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Sever 2007 Solutions for Publishing Portals within Microsoft

 Learn how Microsoft IT designs re-usable MOSS solution building blocks for Microsoft internal portals. Hear lessons learned in solving business problems with MOSS, how Microsoft IT manages deployments and the development process, and see some of the re-usable customizations built that you can use.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Jad Honein, David Johnson 

Building High Performance Solutions on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 Performance should be one of the top areas of focus on everyone's mind when embarking on an Internet facing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 site. In this session we look at the built-in caching capabilities in the SharePoint platform, including disk-based and page output caching. In addition, we take a look at various hot-button issues developers should be aware of when developing components for a public site built on MOSS 2007. Topics include object model techniques, how to properly manage memory in order to avoid the dreaded OutOfMemory exception, key sizing numbers to keep in mind when architecting your implementation and minimizing the page payload to speed up those page load times. After this session, you'll be armed with the power to create high performance, scalable solutions in MOSS 2007!

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Andrew Connell 

Windows SharePoint Services: Custom Field Types

 This session investigates Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) custom field types and the business cases for their use. We walk through the steps needed to implement and deploy a custom field type, and a code demo for using a custom field type to integrate WSS with another organizational system.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Eugene Rosenfeld 

Building Document Management Solutions Using SharePoint Content Types

 Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 introduces a new concept called "Content Types" that will dramatically alter the Enterprise Content Management landscape. On the surface, Content Types make it easier to encapsulate field definitions into a nice neat package, but there is a lot more going on under the covers. In this session, we take a deep dive into the world of content types and see how to declare them using XML and how to create them programmatically. Then we use content types to create a real-world document management solution with custom policies that we can use to control every stage of the document lifecycle. At the end of this session, you will have a thorough understanding of what content types are, with a deeper appreciation of the value they bring to document management solution development.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

John Holliday 

Line-of-Business Integration Using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007

 Project Server 2007 is a key application within any organization, and thus typically needs to integrate with an ecosystem of existing applications (ERP, CRP, etc.) This session provides an overview of how to achieve line-of-business application integration with Project Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 using the new Project Server Interface, the Project Eventing and Queuing systems, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Business Data Catalog.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Christophe Fiessinger, Boris Scholl 

Project Initiation Using Microsoft Office InfoPath and Windows Workflow Foundation

 The project initiation phase differs for every customer and organization. It typically requires a set of custom attributes be filled into a form and then it needs to go through an approval process workflow for all key decision-makers. This session demonstrates how you can create your custom project initiation process using InfoPath/Forms Services, a SharePoint sequential workflow, and Project Server 2007.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Christophe Fiessinger, Boris Scholl 

Microsoft Office Live Forms Applications with Microsoft Office InfoPath

 Office Live enables small organizations to get the power of SharePoint in a hosted environment. This includes the ability to create rich forms applications using the flagship Microsoft Office InfoPath. This talk walks through the best practices and gotchas for building InfoPath applications deeply integrated with the Office Live system.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Shiraz Cupala 

Using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System and SharePoint Products and Technologies to Automate Document Creation

 During this session, see how to combine SharePoint and VSTO-enabled document templates to create dynamic documents suitable for business use. Specifically, see how custom document templates and SharePoint lists can be used together to automate the creation of project proposals, statements of work, contracts, and status reports. Office development is more than custom controls; learn how to leverage SharePoint list data in your custom documents!

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Dustin Miller 

Building Federated Search Connectors with Microsoft Search Server 2008 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 Walk through the process of building federated search connectors to connect to external search engines and /or applications using the new federation features introduced in Search Server 2008 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Michal Gideoni 

SharePoint Tools for Style: How to Start Branding SharePoint

 You have a site design and your trusty copy of Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, but now what? In this session, we cover SharePoint branding concepts and benefits and show step-by-step how to create a custom master page using SharePoint Designer.

Office and SharePoint

300 

Heather Solomon 

Take It With You!: Building Occasionally-Connected SharePoint Applications Using the Microsoft Sync Framework

 Since the dawn of SharePoint we have lived a connected life. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services v3 coupled with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Office Groove 2007, and a few third-party components, provides some support for the occasionally-connected application. Microsoft Sync Framework (currently in CTP) provides a extensible platform enabling offline access for applications. This session explores the possible integration points between Microsoft Sync Framework and SharePoint, allowing developers to more easily extend SharePoint data into the disconnected and occasionally-connected world.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

Darrin Bishop 

XOML, XOML, Everywhere: Building Custom Workflow Editors for SharePoint

 XOML is the markup language behind Windows Workflow Foundation and is the same language used by Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to attach declarative, no-code workflows to SharePoint lists and document libraries. This session takes a deep dive into Workflow Markup and explores how you can use it to generate custom workflows from any client application, including Office clients like Word and Excel. The session also shows how to attach custom workflow markup to SharePoint lists using the websvcWebPartPages Web service provided by Windows SharePoint Services.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

John Holliday 

SharePoint Workflow Activities

 SharePoint offers a wide variety of out-of-the-box SharePoint activities, however, those plus the standard workflow activities don't always offer everything you need—or they have limitations that are difficult to get around. In this session, learn how to write your own Workflow Activity and use it in your workflows.

Office and SharePoint 

400 

Robert Bogue 

How to Use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 As an Application Development Architecture

 Not your typical Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) development and deployment. Having worked on small projects all the way to large public facing social networking sites, you too can learn how MOSS is much more than just an Intranet-in-the-box solution. It can be utilized as the application development architecture of the future. It offers tremendous time savings for development and deployment. Learn the best practices for setting up your server architecture for redundancy and high performance. Learn the pain points to watch out for as well as all the short cuts to make your next Web application ready for prime time.

Office and SharePoint 

400 

David Walker 

Creating Solutions with the Business Data Catalog

 During this session, learn what the Business Data Catalog (BDC) is, why you would want to use it, and how to create applications that leverage the BDC. This session demonstrates what functionality the out-of-the-box BDC Web Parts provide and shows how they can be leveraged to quickly create applications inside SharePoint without writing a line of code! The session also demonstrates how custom Web Parts and Windows Forms Applications may be used to accesses BDC data when the out-of-the-box BDC Web Parts don't meet the needs of a project. Finally, this session demonstrates how to use the BDC and Excel Services KPIs to create powerful digital dashboards.

Office and SharePoint 

400 

Todd Baginski 

Turning SharePoint Data into Microsoft Office Documents: A Deep Dive into SharePoint Document Assembly Using Open XML

 Microsoft Office Open XML is an ECMA standard file format specification for electronic documents. This session introduces the Microsoft SDK for Open XML Formats and shows how developers can use it to generate Microsoft Office documents on the client or on the server using data stored in SharePoint lists and form libraries.

Office and SharePoint 

400 

John Holliday 

Building Contextual Collaboration Clients for the Web Using the Microsoft Unified Communications AJAX SDK

 Communicator Web Access (CWA) provides Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) users access to the OCS 2007 experience from any computer runing a browser without any client install. In this session, we use the API used to develop the CWS UI, the UC AJAX SDK, to show you how to build communciations into any Web solution including enterprise Web applications and SharePoint portals. We cover the AJAX call architecture and XML payload messages associated with authenticating users/logging in to OCS 2007, registering for presence information, and initiating communication sessions.

Unified Communications 

300 

Rui Maximo 

Categories:

 
Apr
26

Don't miss out; get onto your registration today!

Session Title

Track

Level

Type

Speaker

Integrated Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Office Excel 2007

 In this session, see an important part of the overall Microsoft BI platform in action from end to end. Learn how to integrate SQL Server 2008 with SharePoint Server 2007 to enable users throughout your organization to access powerful reporting capabilities. See how you can use Excel 2007 to analyze multidimensional data from SQL Server analysis services; we also demo the SQL Server Data Mining Add-In for Excel 2007, a set of easy-to-use capabilities that enable predictive analysis on every desktop. In addition, utilize Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to get the thin Excel experience in Excel Services by creating Excel Web parts, dashboards, and to collaborate across the organization.

Business Intelligence 

300 

BRK 

Pej Javaheri 

Microsoft Office Excel Solutions: Migrating from My Desktop to Team Solution

 Microsoft Office Excel is used on personal desktops every day to create solutions and analyze data that can lead to better business decisions. These solutions and analyses often become core tools for more than just the creator of the spreadsheet; teams, and even entire organizations make decisions based on the analyses. This session walks through the creation of a personal solution that becomes critical to a business and the path that solution takes as it is migrated from a single spreadsheet to a centralized portal of information for the entire team. We look at the evolution of the spreadsheet as it moves from the desktop to Excel Services (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007), as well as the changes that are made to the data sources underlying the report in order to support the increased workload/analysis requirements.

Business Intelligence 

300 

BRK 

Gabhan Berry 

Secure Document Collaboration between Organizations Using SharePoint, Active Directory Rights Management Services, and Active Directory Federation Services

 A common challenge in today's world of ever more connected business is how to securely and efficiently collaborate on documents between two organizations. More often than not, painful compromises need to be made between cost, security, and efficiency, and at the expense of end users and the business. In this session learn how to use SharePoint 2007, Rights Management Services, and Active Directory Federation Services to enable seamless document collaboration between business partners. Learn how to configure the components to enable single sign-on, eliminate the need to manage accounts for partner users, encrypt documents so that only users in the two organizations can open them, and control what end users can do with the documents they receive.

Identity and Access 

300 

BRK 

Donovan Follette

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Scorecarding with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

 In this session, see how you can create CIO scorecards in SharePoint 2007 for Operations Manager 2007 using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and other technologies such as Dundas (soon to be featured in SQL Server 2008) to create an Executive view of your Operational Environment. The session looks at why these types of views are important to many companies, what impact this can have on your business, and what simple steps you can take to achieve very effective, high-level executive views of everything from performance and availability of your key LOB services and applications, whether important KPIs are being achieved and whether your IT department is meeting the day-to-day needs of your business. The key demos in this session take you through the steps you need to implement effective business scorecarding in SharePoint 2007 using key metrics collected in the Operations Manager 2007 Datawarehouse based on "real-world" experiences gained from the field. After attending this presentation you will have a good insight into how CIO Scorecards can help you add real value to their Operations Manager deployments, helping them to show real value to their executives.

Management 

300 

BRK 

Gordon McKenna 

Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner 2007 Overview

 This session presents an overview and demonstration of System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) with a focus on Exchange 2007 as well as SharePoint scenarios, including Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. See how SCCP can be used to quickly plan new deployments of these applications and model changes to an existing deployment. SCCP helps validate both the load on servers and the end user responsiveness of a chosen configuration.

Management 

300 

BRK 

Beckett Thomsen 

Introduction to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: An Overview

 New to SharePoint technologies? Come learn what the SharePoint buzz is all about. This overview session includes a high-level overview of the product and the latest updates on releases, service packs, and other solutions. It includes a lot of demos, so you'll walk out understanding what SharePoint is and what it provides.

Office and SharePoint 

200 

BRK 

Tom Rizzo 

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies: Branding Concepts and Component Relationships

 With buzzwords like master pages, themes, page layouts, and CSS, the world of SharePoint branding can quickly become confusing and overwhelming. Instead you need a clear idea of what is involved with SharePoint branding so you can make decisions about what technologies your site needs to utilize and what skills your team needs to learn. In this session, we show a composite view of SharePoint branding components and their interworking relationships. We look at the differences between master pages, themes, content pages, and page layouts, and cover the basic starting points for kicking off your SharePoint branding effort.

Office and SharePoint 

200 

BRK 

Heather Solomon 

Introduction to Records Management in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 Records management is a critical element of document control and legal compliance in every large organization. In this session, learn about the out-of-the-box features across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that support records management. Discover the ways that you can extend the SharePoint platform in records management and learn about the add-on pack that Microsoft has created to acheive DoD 5015.2 certification.

Office and SharePoint 

200 

BRK 

Ryan Duguid 

Best Practices: Enabling Innovation Process Management Using Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 In today's fast-paced global economy, innovation is the key to the next big breakthrough in products, services, and processes. However, businesses are often challenged with facilitating innovation due to cultural, strategic, or logistical pitfalls. This session covers the best practices for fostering a culture of innovation by enabling an organization's most valuable assets, its people, to actively and easily participate in the innovation process. A live demonstration shows how anyone can capture, investigate, formulate, and evaluate ideas to conclusion using the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management solution and SharePoint Server 2007.

Office and SharePoint 

200 

BRK 

Christophe Fiessinger, Simon Floyd 

Boldly Go Beyond SharePoint Form Libraries: Advanced Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Solution Architecture

 As business solutions based on out-of-the-box Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Office InfoPath grow, reaching maximum performance requires careful effort and planning. Large-scale form libraries, complex form views, multiple data sources, and other factors can complicate processes and reduce the performance of your environment. This talk provides the after-market SQL modifications to accelerate the performance of your SharePoint Server and InfoPath solutions. We also include the HUD (heads-up dashboard) mods so you can see the key pivots for the data inside your business process. Need to lock down permissions? No sweat. We offer a hacker-proof cloaking service that dynamically controls permissions based on in-form assignment. To test drive our mods, we walk through a Project Tracking application built entirely on InfoPath 2007 forms connected through Web services to a SQL data store with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services providing data cubes to Office Excel 2007 pivot tables. This is an end-to-end Office solutions bonanza! All attendees receive a free copy of Qdabra Database Accelerator Suite 2.2 with a Project Tracker bundle. Start your SharePoint engines…

Office and SharePoint 

200 

BRK 

Shiraz Cupala

Monitoring Strategies for Microsoft SharePoint Server in the Enterprise

 This session features two new Solution Accelerators providing new Microsoft Operations Manager packs and an inventory tool for scanning SharePoint deplolyment and use. This session includes a demonstration of the actual tools.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Luis Camara Manoel, Todd Klindt 

Simplify External Collaboration with the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint

 Every day, your organization collaborates on key projects with others across the Internet—sharing documents that often contain sensitive or proprietary information. Like most organizations, your project teams may be using methods to collaborate that are not secure, like e-mail and instant messaging. You need a secure way to collaborate and share documents with others across the Internet. And, you need a solution that's easy to set up—one that lets project teams manage collaboration sites on their own. The Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint provides guidance and tools to deploy a pre-built, customizable SharePoint solution that teams can use to collaborate with partners outside the firewall. Join us for this session and learn how you can use this free toolkit to set up a SharePoint-based extranet collaboration site in minutes. We demonstrate how end users can manage collaboration sites on their own, posting sharable documents, inviting external users, and freeing up scarce IT resources from everyday maintenance.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Luis Martinez, David Mowers 

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 SharePoint Backup and Restore made easy with Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 for SharePoint.  See DPM 2007 in action with live demos.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Jason Buffington 

Creating Portals That Last: Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, Governance and Information Architecture

 SharePoint is easy. Anyone can throw a portal up in an afternoon and then let it grow, but three months later they will have a big mess. In this session we cover how to design a strong taxonomy and structure to increase the user friendliness of the portal. Then we discuss how to setup a governance committee to help manage and grow your portal in a controlled manner.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Shane Young 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Lifecycle Management Demofest: Methodologies, Tools, and Best Practices

 Having problems with SharePoint lifecycle management? This session provides guidance and information, including helpful methodologies, frameworks, tools, and best practices. We demonstrate a number of new tools addressing SharePoint manageability and governance including SharePoint Asset Inventory, SharePoint Capacity Planning, SharePoint Automated installation and Configuration, SharePoint Cross-site Configurator, and SharePoint Monitoring Management Packs.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Luis Camara Manoel, Satish Mathew, Rick Taylor 

How to Plan for SharePoint Storage Management for Multi-Terabyte Deployment

 This session covers key recommendations and best practices to help administrators of large SharePoint farms to plan and monitor their Microsoft SQL Server storage requirements to support optimal performance and operation of their server farms.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Doron Bar-Caspi, Todd Klindt, Mike Watson 

Deploying Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution 2007 into an Existing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Environment

 Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution 2007 (EPM 2007) is a very unique form of Windows SharePoint Services V3. This sessions provides you with best practices, learned in Performance Labs in Redmond, to keep in mind when you want to deploy EPM 2007 into an existing MOSS farm.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Boris Scholl 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Administrative Architecture, Deployment, and Operations Fundamentals (Part 1 of 2)

 This session explores the administration side of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, starting with deployment scenarios and working through key concepts to get you farm setup properly. We also touch on other key servers to be considered in the environment.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Shane Young 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Administrative Architecture, Deployment, and Operations (Part 2 of 2)

 In part one we layed the foundation, in part two we start to use it. We discuss topics like extranet and Internet scenarios where security and cache are even more important; the challenges of geograpically dispersed SharePoint; and farm best practices. We also cover code access security and using solution packages. All these topics are very important for keeping those developers in line.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK

Joel Oleson, Shane Young 

Using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to Unlock the Power of SAP

 In this session, learn about the integration picture between SAP and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with a focus on real-world customer implementations. This discussion includes topics like the new Business Data Catalog, Searching SAP, iView WebParts, WSRP, Forms, BI and SAP (using XMLA), and SSO configuration for SAP.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Mike Fitzmaurice 

Assessing and Planning SharePoint Deployments

 This session describes and demonstrates a number of new Solution Accelerators that help with capacity planning, asset inventory, configuration deployment, and monitoring. Starting with the SharePoint Inventory Tool which collects information about unmanaged SharePoint sites in the environment, the new capacity planning tool allows adequate first drafts of new deployments, the new Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) packs allow SharePoint to be managed using the latest SCOM technology.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Luis Camara Manoel, Satish Mathew 

Secure Extranet Deployments with Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint and Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway 2007

 In this globalized and mobile workplace, collaboration is both internal and external to the organization, opening the doors to new security threats. Forefront Security for SharePoint provides anti-virus protection and content filtering for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Server 3.0. Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 and Intelligent Access Gateway 2007 secure the edge by providing user authentication using Active Directory and SSL-based application access to  SharePoint. In this session, we discuss how these Forefront technologies can help secure the extranet deployment and provide secure remote access to SharePoint.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Uri Lichtenfeld, Noelle Méndez-Villamil 

SharePoint Security: Authentication and Authorization Under the Hood in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007

 SharePoint 2007 technologies provide a robust authorization layer for securing SharePoint sites which sits on top of the authentication schemes provided by the underlying platforms (Internet Information Services and ASP.NET). This session discusses how to configure a Zone within a Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) Web Application by modifying its web.config file to support either Windows Authentication or Forms-Based Authentication (FBA). The session explains how WSS takes the identity established by the underlying authentication provider and wraps in a profile that is cached at the level of site collection. From a programming perspective, the session explains the difference between the Windows security content and the SharePoint security context of an incoming request. See how to write code to elevate privilege and to impersonate a user. The second half of the session explains how authorization within a site collection is managed in terms of groups, permission levels, and securable objects, as well as how to write code to automate the configuration of authorization settings.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Adam Buenz 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Business, and End-User Productivity: 2007 Microsoft Office System Applications as SharePoint Clients

 While SharePoint offers great functionality through its out-of-the-box Web interface, you really "kick it up a notch" when you add 2007 Office system applications to the mix. This session, appropriate for IT professionals, end users, and managers, highlights some of the exciting ways you can integrate Office apps and SharePoint, including document libraries, Excel and Access integration, slide libraries, and taking files offline with Outlook. Also, learn what to expect from different versions of Microsoft Office clients and of SharePoint. And, discover tricks and traps related to configuring SharePoint, even with forms-based authentication, for client integration.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Dan Holme 

Advanced Search Configuration and Management for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

 Organizations intending to implement a search solution in SharePoint often approach this technical problem by asking, "What do we need to index?" While this approach may yield results, they are usually less than optimal. The approach presented in this session begins with the user and drives to determine what the user needs and wants in their search experience. We discuss: Search Center design and configuration, Search Results XSLT to improve results rendering, Customizations to enhance the SharePoint search experience, and BDC Integration to search structure data. This session will be of interest to Site Designers, Developers, and Farm Administrators.

Office and SharePoint

300 

BRK 

Ryan Duguid 

Planning and Implementing Global Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Deployments

 Global deployments can be complex if you don't know what really matters. This session focuses on network performance, solutions, and partners with information from real global SharePoint Server 2007 deployments.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Doron Bar-Caspi, Mike Watson 

High Availability and Disaster Recovery for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies

 This session details the components of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the options available for disaster recovery. The session focuses on high availability solutions like SQL Mirroring, log shipping, with gotchas and workarounds.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Mike Watson 

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Governance: From Chaos to Success in Ten Steps

 From Corporate compliance, security policies, information policies, and file plans with content types, this session walks you through the right way to manage your data and address the compliance needs of your company.

Office and SharePoint 

300 

BRK 

Brian Cook, Joel Oleson