Connect.Collaborate.SharePoint
Sep
7

I was talking to a customer at TechED NZ who asked if there was a simple way to chart data from a SharePoint list. Thanks to VisiFire and the SharePoint Designer blog, I was able to throw this live demo together in a few minutes using the Data View web part. http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/graph.aspx

VisiFire supports animating the chart build, mouse-over datapoint details and lots more.

If you can't install Silverlight on your corporate desktop, this is what you are missing out on...

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Sep
6

Or any online survey for that matter.

SurveyMonkey has published a great document on "Smart Survey Design" which is a collection of guidance from many sources.

E.g. a good checklist of concerns regarding the survey and question design that, as the survey designer, you should consider:

  • Do the respondents feel comfortable answering the questions?
  • Is the wording of the survey clear?
  • Is the time reference clear to the respondents?
  • Are the answer choices compatible with the respondents experience in the matter?
  • Do any of the items require the respondent to think too long or hard before responding? Which ones?
  • Which items produce irritation, embarrassment, or confusion?
  • Do any of the questions generate response bias? Which ones?
  • Do the answers collected reflect what you want in regards to the purpose of the survey?
  • Is there enough diversity in the answers received?
  • Is the survey too long?
  • According to your test audience, have any other important issues been overlooked?

Download the document from here http://s3.amazonaws.com/SurveyMonkeyFiles/SmartSurvey.pdf

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Sep
5

I have had many people asking me how I built the demo that displays multiple pins on a map from a SharePoint list of locations. http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/map.aspx

You can do this with SharePoint Designer and the Data View web part. Nothing has to be run on the server as this is a "content" solution.

This demo was based on some examples from the SharePoint Designer blog but the problem is that the Virtual Earth API's have been updated since these articles were written.

So, here are some instructions that will hopefully get you up and running quickly.

Assuming that you have a list with Title and Description fields that includes 2 additional fields called "Lat" and "Long", create a web part page in SharePoint Designer and add a Data View of the list containing the locations. Here is the raw list from my demo http://www.wssdemo.com/Lists/Location/AllItems.aspx

Add the following script and html to the page above the data view web part

<script src="http://dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=5"> </script>

<script type="text/javascript">

var map = null;

// Loads the Virtual Earth map control

function GetMap()

{

map = new VEMap('myMap');

map.LoadMap(new VELatLong(0,0), 1,'r' ,false);

AddPins();

}

// Places a pushpin on the map using the parameters given, iconurl is ignored

function AddPin(lat, lon, iconurl, title, desc)

{

var shape =

new VEShape(VEShapeType.Pushpin,

new VELatLong(lat,lon));

shape.SetTitle(title);

shape.SetDescription(desc);

map.AddShape(shape);

}

// Programmatically adds func as a handler for the onload event

// This method has been used by many developers, but the code is

// via the ViaVirtualEarth Wiki

// http://www.viavirtualearth.com/Wiki/Load+VE+control+without+body+onload.ashx.

function addLoadEvent(func)

{

var oldonload = window.onload;

if (typeof window.onload != 'function')

{ window.onload = func; }

else

{ window.onload = function()

{ oldonload(); func(); }

}

}

addLoadEvent(GetMap);

</script>

<div id='myMap' style="width:800px; height:600px;"></div>

 

Add the following XSL template section to the Data View web part

<xsl:template name="AddMapPins">

<xsl:param name="Rows"/>

<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"><![CDATA[

<script type="text/javascript">

function AddPins()

{

]]></xsl:text>

<xsl:for-each select="$Rows">

<xsl:if test="not(normalize-space(@Lat) = '' and normalize-space(@Long) = '')">

AddPin(<xsl:value-of select="@Lat" />,

<xsl:value-of select="@Long" />,

null,

"<xsl:value-of select="@Title" />",

"<xsl:value-of select="@Description"/>");

</xsl:if>

</xsl:for-each>

<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"><![CDATA[

}

</script>

]]></xsl:text>

</xsl:template>

 

Find the following code in the Data View

    <xsl:template name="dvt_1">

        <xsl:variable name="dvt_StyleName">Table</xsl:variable>

        <xsl:variable name="Rows" select="/dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row"/>

 

And insert the following immediately after

<xsl:call-template name="AddMapPins">

    <xsl:with-param name="Rows" select="$Rows"/>

</xsl:call-template>

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Sep
4

Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions.

Delivering Rich Media with Windows Server 2008 (yes, there is more to life than SharePoint ;-)

Windows Media Services
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/serve/prodinfo2008.aspx

IIS 7.0 Media Pack
Web Playlists http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/07/21/web-playlists-go-live-release-is-now-ready-for-downloads.aspx
Bit Rate Throttling http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5182d5e1-e741-49bb-8a69-9f331812ae93

Batman 1966 TV intro http://www.4shared.com/file/31190387/ebb59e04/Batman__1966_.html

SharePoint Anatomy

See my previous post http://www.wssdemo.com/Blog/archive/2008/07/30/sleepless-in-seattle-literally-.aspx

Microsoft NZ Consulting Services SharePoint Offerings:

  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Deployment Planning Services - is a pre-defined service that customers can request through their Software Assurance benefits that helps you plan an effective SharePoint Deployment (this offering can also be delivered by accredited partners).
  • Enterprise Portal and Collaboration Technology Planning Service – this comprehensive plan helps mitigate implementation risks and is designed to provide maximum value and effectiveness for your enterprise portal and collaboration solution.
  • Backup Operations Service for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Data Protection Manager - helps you validate, envision, and plan the architecture and the design for an effective, rapid, and reliable recovery of your Office SharePoint Server farms.
  • Monitoring Service for SharePoint 2007 with System Center Operations Manager 2007 - helps you meet the IT management challenges by enabling you to proactively monitor and manage many of the components that can influence SharePoint Server 2007 performance and availability.
  • Enterprise Search Decision Accelerator - provides you with the ability to successfully plan the implementation of Enterprise Search in your enterprise with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 by helping you evaluate the functionality in your own test environment.

Let me know if you are interested in any of these consulting services.

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Aug
26

New Zealand is famous for its cheese. Unfortunately we have a very successful dairy corporative (Fonterra) who has managed to get such a high price for our dairy exports that the only way we can purchase it in NZ is to pay the same price as can be achieved overseas.

So, when I order a cheese board for my desert at the hotel I'm staying in tonight, I understand why they charge $16 for it but I expect to get more than 2 little pieces!

I'm also embarrassed for any overseas guests staying at the hotel and wanting to sample our fine range of cheeses...

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Aug
16

So fast that I didn't believe it. I had the Vista Enterprise ISO file on the W2K8 host and it took about 2 minutes from creating the virtual machine, mounting the ISO, answering the start-up questions and logging into Vista.

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Aug
14

Now that WSSDemo.com is running in a Hyper-v multi-server farm, SharePoint features such as the BDC and Data Form web part can't use Integrated security SQL access without configuring Kerberos. Many of my customers don't want to enable this (for whatever reason, fear of the unknown is my guess) just for the sake of SharePoint so I decided to try out SharePoint's SSO service to solve this problem on WSSDemo.com (and because I'm chicken and don't want to change the current web app authentication mode).

I have configured SSO in a single server VPC environment easily but trying to get it working in a multi-server environment proved to be a challenge.

My final steps (which I still need to repro to confirm) were:

  1. Start the Windows SSO service on the Central Admin server first and run it under a domain account (SSOService).
  2. Add the SSOService account to the MOS Farm Administrators
  3. Add the SSOService account to the local admin group on the MOSS Servers and give the account SQL Server rights (I just added it to the local admins group on the SQL server because this accounts needs to be able to create the SSO database).
  4. Logon to the Central Admin server using the SSOService account. This will light up all the settings links. If anything is wrong at this point you will either get a red error text saying the service can't be configured or when you click on the "Manage server settings" you get an Access Denied error.
  5. Configure the Server settings specifying the SSOService account as the SSO Admin account (the only way I could get it to work), then I could create the encryption key and application definitions.
  6. Now I'm trying to create a SQL data source in SharePoint Designer that uses SSO. Because my SharePoint designer is connecting to SharePoint over the Internet and only has HTTP access to the MOSS WFE, I can't complete the connection to bring back the list of databases (at least I think that is the problem) so I'm installing a Hyper-v virtual desktop OS with SPD installed that will be joined to the same domain as the MOSS farm.

If step 6 works, I will be able to continue this story. Stay tuned...

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Jul
29

I made it to Seattle eventually. Had to go via Vancouver in the end and only just managed to check in for my connecting flight to Seattle with 1 minute to spare. There is no direct baggage transfer so I couldn't use the transfer lounge. Had to clear Canadian customs, wait for bag, exit agriculture (very lax compared to NZ where everyone's luggage gets scanned), lug it to the Air Canada ticketing counter to get a boarding pass then go through USA customs (in Canada – that was kind of cool), drop bags off, go through security, get on plane, never going that way again unless I stay a day or two in Vancouver.

For the last 3 nights I have not been able to sleep, not even a wink. I felt like I was going to fall asleep during the presentation I was giving at TechReady first thing this morning though and it probably showed.

Anyway, here are the links to some public resources I talked about in my session for any MSFT's who were there and wanted them.

Rather than letting SharePoint create sub-optimal databases, you can have a DBA create them in advance
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262869.aspx

Plan for administrative and service accounts (yes, you need a minimum of 5 AD account to setup MOSS)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263445(TechNet.10).aspx

White paper: Planning and Monitoring SQL Server Storage for Office SharePoint Server: Performance Recommendations and Best Practices
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=105623&clcid=0x409

White paper: Database maintenance for Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111531&clcid=0x409

Predeployment I/O Best Practices, SQL Server Best Practices Article
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/bestpractice/pdpliobp.mspx

Single content db with many site collections and sub-sites can get badly fragmented user data and documents table index's.
See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943345/ to REORGANIZE or REBUILD them

New SharePoint Central Administration UI tool to schedule locking/moving of Site Collections between content databases
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=263cd480-f6eb-4fa3-9f2e-2d47618505f2

P.S. Hotel wireless sucks when there are 400 MSFT's trying to use it simultaneously. 1Kb transfer rate for me L

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Jul
25

One that I have been involved with for many years is still trucking along. I think I shared some numbers for this site back when wssdemo.com was running WSS 2.0.

This SPS 2003 Medium Server farm has 6 virtual server extended with WSS and a portal site that is only used for searching and the site directory. There are 16 content databases.

 

Total Number of In-Use Sites: 1408

Total Number of Unused Sites: 328

Percent Large (250MB+): 28%

Percent Medium (5-250MB): 35%

Percent Small (5MB-): 37%

Percent Frequently Visited (100+ visits per day): 15%

Percent Rarely Visited (< 1 visit per day): 24%

Percent Increasing in Popularity: 51%

Percent Decreasing in Popularity: 49%

Average Number of Visits per Site (in the past Month): 2777

Percent of Visits made to the Home Page: 15%

Percent with a Customized (Unghosted) Home Page: 2%

Percent that are Top-Level Sites: 59%

 

.doc

Total Documents: 243292

Average number in Version History: 1

Average Size: 511KB

Average number of Visits per Document: 7

Percent of all Documents: 31%

Percent of all Document Visits: 7%

 

.xls

Total Documents: 132471

Average number in Version History: 1

Average Size: 855KB

Average number of Visits per Document: 11

Percent of all Documents: 17%

Percent of all Document Visits: 6%

 

.pdf

Total Documents: 67929

Average number in Version History: 1

Average Size: 584KB

Average number of Visits per Document: 10

Percent of all Documents: 9%

Percent of all Document Visits: 3%

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Jul
24

I have done that twice now. If you don't know what I'm talking about then all the better.

Both times I have done this when adding an entry in a rush before heading to the airport. For my punishment, the Wellington airport closed today just after I checked in due to bad weather and it was the first of 3 flights to get me to Seattle for TechReady. Tomorrow I set out again but via a different route. Wlg/AKL/YVL/SEA (22 hours start to finish, praying for an upgrade so that I don't have to endure economy)

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