Page 2 - SharePoint 2010 Training

The Total Economic Impact of Implementing SharePoint 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 by Michael Mayes

In a recent study Forrester Consulting interviewers revealed a number of valuable insights on the implementing SharePoint 2010 within these organizations. Key drivers for investing in SharePoint development in 2010 varied among the companies in the study, including the following:

Achieving cost savings by consolidating enterprise functionality and implementing new capabilities offered by implementing SharePoint 2010. Companies in the study cited actual, or potential for, lower costs of software with the move to consolidate on the Microsoft platform, thus eliminating older, more expensive software and support agreements with other vendors.
Consolidating the proliferation of collaboration tools. As one interviewee stated, “Having too many tools becomes an impediment to collaboration.”
Empowering business units to manage more of their own collaboration and content tools, while freeing IT resources that were previously tied to administrative, maintenance, and customization tasks.
Easing the efforts required to find structured and unstructured content inside the organization as well as externally.
Improving process efficiencies and workflow management and improving collaboration across the enterprise.
Building capabilities for integrating legacy data stores, financial data, and a wide variety of enterprise content and business intelligence applications in SharePoint 2010.
Creating options to gain potential future benefits from relatively easy integration of business intelligence, and ERP, CRM, and other line-of-business applications.
Changing training from traditional instructor-led classroom courses, requiring travel, to self-serve and just-in-time delivery of corporate education.
Improving worker productivity by providing integrated content and record management that uses a consistent data classification interface, as well as more end user-accessible content management.
Enabling enterprise governance and policies around currently unstructured data processes to enhance risk management.
Taking advantage of the co-authoring capabilities so that more than one employee at a time can work on a content item.
Leveraging .NET development skills within the organization to build new classes of content-centric applications. Reducing hardware footprint.

All companies in the study are in the early stages of SharePoint 2010 adoption, making productivity measurement and estimates less reliable than for mature software investments. Yet a strong business case exists based on hard cost savings. Most of the companies in the study described their SharePoint 2010 investment as a natural upgrade path from SharePoint 2003 and 2007 to continue to build a collaborative information system of record and to move away from disparate software applications and file shares to team and personal sites, blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 functionality. Most companies reported an expected drop in IT staff dedicated to servicing business unit applications.

About IncWorx
IncWorx Consulting is the premier consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients. IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premier Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

Does Apple use SharePoint?

Friday, November 19, 2010 by Michael Mayes

No. But I bet they wished they did. I can just see Steve Jobs sitting in a chair thinking of the limitations he runs into every day knowing Microsoft SharePoint rivals any competitor. One of the most dominating platforms.

...but what is SharePoint?
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 makes it easier for people to work together. Using SharePoint 2010, your people can set up Web sites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions.

...but why use SharePoint?
The capabilities of SharePoint 2010 work together to help your company quickly respond to changing business needs. Using SharePoint 2010, your people can share ideas and expertise, create custom solutions for specific needs, and find the right business information to make better decisions. For IT, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut training and maintenance costs, save time and effort, and focus on higher business priorities.

...but why do companies buy SharePoint?
Based on a study done by Forrester on "The Total Economic Impact Of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010" the effective return on investment based on the customer interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework for a composite organization and the associated ROI analysis illustrating the financial impact areas. The risk-adjusted ROI for the composite company — not including any productivity benefits is 108%, with a breakeven point (payback period) of fewer than 12 months after deployment.

SharePoint is the tool of all tools. It is truly an application platform of this century. I would love feedback.

To get help with search or other aspects of your SharePoint implementation, you can contact me at SharePointExpert@incworx.com or 847.839.9679

IncWorx Consulting is the premier consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients. IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

The Benefits of Implementing SharePoint 2010 Using Office 365

Thursday, November 4, 2010 by Mario McGuire

   This week the release Office 365 was announced, and the global business community were informed of the positive impact it will have on the market, SharePoint customers, and our partners.

   Today Office, Exchange, Lync and SharePoint provide the productivity backbone for many organizations. With these products, companies are already seeing great results and high ROI.

   With Office 365 it was announced that the next step in the future of productivity would be bringing together these capabilities in an always-up-to-date cloud service. It provides businesses of all sizes with professional grade productivity solutions at a predictable monthly cost.

To date, SharePoint 2010 is a huge hit with our customers. When I joined the business earlier this year, I was impressed with the passion shown by our customers using the product to transform the way their organizations collaborate and share information. Now, with SharePoint Online as part of Office 365, millions more will be able to benefit from the power of SharePoint.

With great applications, SharePoint Online helps organizations and professionals create sites to securely share information, insights, and important documents with colleagues, customers, and partners.

It’s simple to create Office documents and save them directly to SharePoint Online, easy to access your content off-line or on your phone, and quickly share information and insights using familiar tools.

And, with Office 365, organizations get the full benefit of Office, Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint because it is designed to work together.

For SharePoint developers and independent software vendors (ISV’s), the opportunities to configure and extend SharePoint Online today include the ability to:

configure master pages, templates, page layouts, and site columns
customize the site UI with custom Silverlight controls, navigation or functional controls
build customized document workflows, using data and documents contained within SharePoint Online
customize lists and content types
use Sandbox Solutions to build custom web parts
design browser based forms using InfoPath forms

For IT professionals and site administrators, SharePoint Online offers easy ways to plan, set up and manage your SharePoint Online service using the SharePoint Online Administration Center including the ability to:

set up a new service
create or delete a site collection
build extranet sites and invite customers and partners securely
manage administrators for a site collection
change storage quota and warning level
access end user support and training content

Currently Office 365 is only in a Beta stage, but hopefully within the next year it will be available. Being a Microsoft Gold Partner I can't wait to try out this new approach from Microsoft as well as helping our clients to see even more SharePoint 2010 benefits.

To get help with search or other aspects of your SharePoint implementation, you can contact me at SharePointExpert@incworx.com or 847.839.9679

IncWorx Consulting is the premiere consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients. IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

SharePoint 2010 Search Engine Optimization - SEO Tips from SharePoint Experts

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 by gary biniak

Implementing SharePoint 2010 for an Internet facing site that is Search Engine Optimizated (SEO) can be challenging, but is very important. Who doesn’t want their sites to be visited by more people? SEO is not a very simple task and the rules are constantly changing, it needs to be planned at the very beginning during you SharePoint design phase. I worked on many sites before, different topics, but they all landed into the first page of search engine results for certain keywords. I didn’t use any black hat tricks in my work, they might have better result at the beginning, but they would get punished when search engines change or improve. Of course – always make sure you have awesome content in the sites, that is the key. Remember, by following the right way, even a site with all hand-crafted static HTML pages could get much more traffic than a complex WCM system.

Let’s take a look at my quick check list of SEO:

Use meaningful site names and page names to create “friendly” URLs.
Think about these examples:
http://foo.com/nodes/123
http://foo.com/blog/sharepoint-2010-search-engine-optimization-seo-tips/
http://foo.com/blog/sharepoint2010/seo/tips/
Which one would be more likely to get traffic? Definitely that’s not the first one. How about the second and the third? Most of the time the second one will get more traffic, depending on the keywords. Pages with a very deep URL (sites1/sites2/sites3/sites4/page1.html) is unlikely to get a better ranking. In SharePoint 2010, you need to carefully plan your site infrastructure and page names so it can be more meaningful to the crawlers and the users.
Great Page Titles
Give the pages better titles, it’s one of the important factor for search, from the query algorithm to user experience. For example, “Untitled” “New-Page-1” does not make sense. Even if it can be shown in the result, very few people will likely to click on it. A good SharePoint 2010 page title would be something like the site intro page title for example: “SharePoint is Awesome – Trainings, Demos, Hands on Labs” or a sub site page title: “SharePoint is Awesome – Search Engines Optimization Explained”.
Accurate Meta Elements.
Search Engines uses meta elements like <description> , <language> and <robots> to crawl the pages. <keywords> is no longer used. Within the three, <description> has more influence on the ranking. You can customize these meta elements with SharePoint Designer.
Up-to-date Sitemap.xml and Robots.txt, and even a HTML sitemap page that provides all the links.
Sitemaps can be submitted to search engines, and they can also be picked up with the reference from Robots.txt. For SharePoint 2010, you can use my script here: Generate SharePoint 2010 Sitemap with Windows PowerShell to create the sitemap file. And then use Task Scheduler to run it everyday. Robots.txt can be used to point search engines to the sitemap files, and prevent some of the folders from being crawled.
Search Engine Friendly Redirects
Some search engines, prefer 301 (Permanent) redirects to 302 (Temporary) redirects. Out of the box SharePoint uses 302 redirects to maintain flexibility of site creations and variations. But you can override this behavior by different methods. For example this and this are achieved by using URL Rewrite Module in IIS SEO Kit.
Search Engine Friendly Menus and Navigations
Use Text! Avoid from using Flash/Silverlight/Javascripts for navigation menus because they are hard to be picked up by the crawlers. If you have to use technologies for menus , provide an alternative if possible. Don’t forget accessibility is also very important, although not quite related with SEO.
Faster Page Response Time.
Recently Google put site speed into their ranking calculation algorithms. This is not a very important factor, but worth considering. Something can be put into consideration are caching, load balancing, network infrastructure optimization. In SharePoint 2010, Developer Dashboard is a great feature to help to analyze page loading time – for example webpart loading time. In this way you will know if some webparts should fixed or removed.
Better anchor text for links, alt text for images.
Anchor text can give search engines better understanding for the pages pointed to. You can take it as “another title” for the target pages. Alt text for images are also good to have.
Always provides text based content for rich media.
Think about a video file, a Flash/Silverlight application or a podcast on your website, how can it be indexed and showed in search result? Title and tags are important. But more importantly, you can improve the result by providing transcript to the video/audio, or text alternatives to your Flash/Silverlight applications. Certain features in Silverlight can also help. For more information on Silverlight SEO, please check http://www.silverlight.net/learn/whitepapers/seo-for-silverlight/.
Use Webmaster Tools to submit sitemap, check results.
Search Engines provide webmaster tools to help people to submit and optimize their sites.
Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster
Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

You don't have to be a SharePoint Expert to understand this. This checklist can help you get started your project. But don’t forget to promote your site as much as you can. More links coming from important websites can bring up your ranks significantly. And don’t use spamlinks or hidden text – these can get your site a very low score in the long time.

If you need further help with SEO, google analytics and SharePoint design you can contact me at gary.biniak@incworx.com

Jie Li is the original author of this content his blog and more SharePoint related tips can be found here.

IncWorx Consulting is the premiere Consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients. IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

SharePoint UI Design driving business value and efficiency

Thursday, October 21, 2010 by gary biniak

Implementing SharePoint UI Design based on information worker functional input is key to driving business efficiency with SharePoint. For many years SharePoint didn't have strong capabilities to modify and enhance the user experience.. SharePoint 2010 breaks the mold so we can fully customize the user experience to drive both early user buy-in and high post implementation user acceptance.

The company I started 10 years ago embraces this approach by leveraging these new capabilities to help our customers get the most out of SharePoint. Taking a very serious step further, this past week IncWorx Consulting acquired Creatix, a UI design boutique firm based in Chicago, IL. We have been working with Creatix for the past 3 years on delivering incredibly well designed and highly successful intranet and internet solutions based in SharePoint. The acquisition continues to solidify our position as the market and thought leaders in the SharePoint world by adding capabilities no other SharePoint consultancy can match. From our global award winning SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services to our design, integration, customization, implementation, training and SharePoint Support there is not an angle of SharePoint we don't have covered.

I'm excited and pleased to announce that David Jelinek - President and CEO of Creatix and his team have joined forces with the best SharePoint Consulting Firm in Chicago.

IncWorx Consulting is the premiere Consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients. IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

SharePoint help is here at last - get end user training now in Chicago!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 by gary biniak

SharePoint help is here at last! If you are going to be in Chicago January 19th and 20th you will get the most comprehensive end user training available! This is a two (2) day end user training class that introduces intermediate and advanced concepts for users to create, manage and develop sites. This class is being built from the ground up based on direct customer issues and requests taken from our industry leading SharePoint Support Services (S3) group. The content is targeted to what most companies experience versus getting the generic approach. This is not the standard powerpoint presentation and text book training offered elsewhere. This is a hands on class utilizing the latest version of SharePoint. The class is being offered at $495/student., but if you sign up before Dec 31, 2010 you get a $150/student discount.

Incentive to sign-up before the end of 2010:
Sign-up now and save $$$. Sign-up and pay before December 31, 2010 and get a $150 discount! Class is $345 after discount.

Training schedule:
1/19/2011 - 1/20/2011
2/16/2011 - 2/17/2011
3/16/2011 - 3/17/2011

If you are interested in learning more, please email me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or call me at 847.839.9679 to learn more. The class will create power users capable of producing game changing results for their organizations.

IncWorx Consulting is the premiere Consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested signficant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients.

IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

If you are looking for help with Exchange, Outlook, SQL, .NET or SharePoint you contact me at 847.839.9679 or visit my website www.incworx.com.

SharePoint 2010 User Training from the SharePoint Experts

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 by gary biniak

SharePoint help is here at last! SharePoint 2010 User Training is an extensive 2 day class that introduces SharePoint 2010 basics, intermediate and advanced concepts for users to create, manage and develop sites. This class is being built from the ground up based on direct customer issues and requests taken from our industry leading SharePoint Support Services (S3) group. The content is targeted to what most companies experience versus getting the generic approach. This is not the standard powerpoint presentation and text book training offered elsewhere. IncWorx Consulting plans to run a pilot to the first 10 people that sign up at 50% off the retail price. Participants in the pilot will get the full training for $250, for the discount they will be asked to participate in some surveys and feedback to help improve the offering. The class will be offered at $495/student following the pilot program. The pilot class will be held in our Schaumburg location on November 17-18, 2010.

Schedule for December and January:
12/1/2010 - 12/2/2010
12/15/2010 - 12/16/2010
1/12/2011 - 1/13/2011
1/26/2011 - 1/27/2011

If you are interested in learning more, please email me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or call me at 847.839.9679 to learn more. The class will create end users capable of producing game changing results for their business.

IncWorx Consulting is the premiere Consulting company for SharePoint, we service clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, NYC, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint and have invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint practice. We take a holistic approach from inception to delivery which provides the best possible outcome for our clients. IncWorx Consulting was also the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is a managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

If you are looking for help with Exchange, Outlook, SQL, .NET or SharePoint you contact me at 847.839.9679 or visit my website www.incworx.com.

Migration to SharePoint 2010: Working in Phases

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 by Brian Prigge

Migrating to SharePoint 2010 can seem like an overwhelming task. How can any IT department be expected to cut over the entire SharePoint implementation to SharePoint 2010 in one weekend? The reality is, you don't need to. With SharePoint 2010 requiring SQL 2008 and 64-bit hardware, many companies will find that they need to bring in new hardware to make a migration possible.

That being said, your new SharePoint implementation can happen gradually. When phased appropriately, companies implementing SharePoint 2010 can stretch their implementation out over the course of weeks, months, or even years depending on the specific needs and scope of the new SharePoint design.

Below there are a few key points that will make your phased SharePoint migration easier to handle.

Be realistic- We all know Rome was not built in a day, for that matter, neither was your SharePoint 2003 or SharePoint 2007 environment. Give yourself enough time to customize SharePoint 2010 to your organizations needs, train and migrate the users in that phase, and verify functionality of the system.
Manage your fires- SharePoint 2010 is different from SharePoint 2007 in many ways. Make sure that your IT team is managing users' complaints and questions. The first few weeks will be where your users make or break their trust in the new system. A speedy response to users' problems can ease your workload down the road.
Don't go it alone- John Steinbeck wrote "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry". While there was not a strong IT presence in 1937, the same idea is still relavent. Whether you simply need a SharePoint Consultant to oversee the migration in case of a problem or you need a SharePoint Expert to drive your migration, IncWorx Consulting can help. As a Microsoft Gold Partner specializing in SharePoint, IncWorx can help you meet your SharePoint 2010 migration goals and manage any last minute problems you may run into.

IncWorx Consulting is a Chicago SharePoint Consulting company that services clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. We have invested a ton of time and resources into our consulting group because this is an area many of our clients expect competency in and many of our competitors come up short in. In fact, we recently won the Microsoft Partner of the year at the SharePoint 2010 conference held in Las Vegas.

If you are looking for Exchange, Outlook, SQL, NET Development or SharePoint help you contact me at 847.839.9679 or visit my website www.incworx.com.

Planning and supporting a SharePoint 2010 implementation or upgrade

Friday, August 27, 2010 by Brian Prigge

When implementing SharePoint 2010, there is more to consider than the hardware upgrades needed to run the updated version. While there are many SharePoint 2010 benefits, it is important to plan the upgrade all the way through. To help you through this process, let's take a look at a five common pitfalls.

1. SharePoint 2010 is an application

It seems like a common one, but it's true. SharePoint is an application and as such is subject to the same review process as any other software being brought into the organization. It must be analyzed for a true cost-benefit analysis. I am sure that given the tremendous upgrades from SharePoint 2007, this should prove to be an easy task, but it is one that needs to be completed.

2. Training, Training, Training!

Before you flood your SharePoint Support team with service requests, let's make sure that all of the end usrs are properly trained on the new system. The new benefits go beyond the SharePoint developer and go all the way to the end-user level. That being said, these new features come complete with a new feel to the system. While the changes are simple enough to someone that knows the system, your end users may not be ready or willing to learn the system on their own. Exhaustive SharePoint training is the key to a successful upgrade.

3. Feature Usage

Given the wide scope of the SharePoint application, most people do not use all features at the same time. Therefore, what do you use? It is important to know what features your specific SharePoint deployment is using. How do these features change in 2010? Map out exactly what features you need to keep an eye on. When you know what features you are using, you know how to proceed with beta testing. Again, SharePoint is an application. Just like any other implementation, you need to test all functionality before moving into a producton environment.

4. Have an Escape Route

Things happen. Give yourself time to get out of the fire. Should the worst scenario actually occur, how are you getting out? Anyone who has been around for an upgrade before knows that you aren't running the SharePoint upgrade at 7am Monday Morning and hoping for the best. Make sure that you have a retreat plan in place and tested.

5. Have a Second-Line of Defense

Sometimes, you just need SharePoint Experts. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, IncWorx Consulting is ready to help you through your upgrade, no matter what level of service you need. From anything as small as looking over and making suggestions to your existing upgrade plans, to as large as creating, presenting, and executing your upgrade plan. IncWorx has the SharePoint Experts to get the job done.

I work for IncWorx Consulting, a Chicago SharePoint Consulting company that services clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, San Diego and Los Angeles. We specialize in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. We have invested a ton of time and resources into our consulting group because this is an area many of our clients expect competency in and many of our competitors come up short in. In fact, we recently won the Microsoft Partner of the year at the SharePoint 2010 conference held in Las Vegas.

If you are looking SharePoint help contact us at 847.839.9679 or visit our website at www.incworx.com.www.incworx.com

Recruiting SharePoint Experts

Monday, August 16, 2010 by Kelly Oles

First of all I am so new to SharePoint that when I first started two weeks ago I had not a clue what SharePoint even was. I mean the first day I started this job I was calling SharePoint, "SharePlan" and someone finally asked me what the heck I was talking about.  After I researched SharePoint and was trained on it, I started in the HR department.
So this week I want to talk about my experience in HR and a little bit about SharePoint Jobs. It is truly difficult to find qualified SharePoint Developers and SharePoint Experts. Through hours of searching Monster, LinkedIn, and Twitter, once in a while I would have a good candidate with awesome experience. Just for your information, the best place to look is on LinkedIn!

The number one problem when hiring IT people is communication skills!  Apparently if you know SharePoint as well as these people, then you can not talk at a regular person's level! The second problem is that it isn't easy to communicate with people overseas either. Not only do I deal with a language barrier, but also with time zones, and traveling. SharePoint consultants might live in one place and you call them and they are on the opposite side of the country that day. Also, consultants are hard to reach, because they might be working on a specific project with another company and do not want to even talk to you about future projects.

Its obvious, as a SharePoint Support Service that we need consultants set up in advance, because we have incoming projects at all times! I mean we are Microsoft's SharePoint Partner of the Year(brush ya shoulders off!) But, it is so difficult to interview someone and not have something set for them right then. The best way to overcome this, is just keep in contact with those consultants so someone else doesn't scoop them up for a different project!

The other barrier I run into is the fact that being a sales and marketing person, I only know technical SharePoint talk from a high level.  When I say "high", I mean I am in the clouds! So here I am getting these IT people on the phone and they start talking about ASP .NET, SQL Server, and PowerPivot and I am like "Hold on, back it up, shut the front door I am not a techie!"
It gets easier though! I started learning what an actual SharePoint Architect or SharePoint Developer does within a project. But, you still can't beat the guys who go on and on about their "knowledge experience with SharePoint". One of these days I am going to start telling them about how to apply mascara and we will see how they do!
Those of you who are in the HR field and trying to hire IT people for SharePoint Jobs, remember to tell them that you are trying to learn about them, not just their technical background, but also what kind of communication skills they have. The SharePoint side of things is so important, but there is a lot more to a person then just their experience with SP.

Also, the most important thing I have been asking them about, is if they know SharePoint 2010. It is obvious that there are not many classes for the 2010 program yet, but are they familiar with it at all! Get into their heads people! I mean obviously if there an IT person they must be able to handle it!

Wiki in SharePoint 2010

Wednesday, August 11, 2010 by Tiffany Nolan

Being that I am a novice in creating anything in SharePoint 2007, and would not consider myself to be "technically inclined" I would have never imagined being thrown into a solo project of creating a wiki in SharePoint 2010. None the less, here I am. I am putting together a Wiki to manage all metadata found in the client's Buisiness Intelligence reporting system, and learning tons along the way.
At IncWorx Consulting, I am fortunate enough to work with some of the best SharePoint consultants in Chicago, and therefore had a reputation to uphold - the pressure was on. To my surprise, creating a successful Wiki in SharePoint 2010 could not be easier, or more fun! It is extremely intuitive, and seems to be holding my hand every step along the way. I have recently searched out new features to put a little more "pizazz" into my wiki, and my tried and true friend, Google, has come to the rescue again.
Thanks to Martin Hatch, for example, and his blog, "Tales from a SharePoint Evangelist", I was enlightened on how to add a web part to a wiki! You can see his post at: http://mkeeper.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!60F12A60288E5607!478.entry

Thanks again to Mr. Hatch, and if anyone has any other fun features to share about creating a wiki in SharePoint 2010, I am all ears!

Next project - developing a training plan for running and understanding those SharePoint Business Intelligence Reports I mentioned... to be continued...

IncWorx Consulting's SharePoint Jobs and company promotions - Kelly Oles

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 by Gary Biniak

IncWorx Consulting, a Chicago SharePoint Consulting company, hires and welcomes Kelly Oles as a Sales and Marketing executive. Kelly is a recent graduate from Oakland University and will be working on sales, marketing and events with our business development group. Kelly will be instrumental in promoting our packaged services offerings, including: SharePoint Support Services (S3) as well as the Microsoft SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS). She will have territory responsibiltiies with our clients in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Antonio and Minneapolis. Kelly is the first to join the new bright minds training and development program and reports to Michael Mayes - Regional Sales & Marketing Manager.

IncWorx Consulting was the winner of Microsoft’s 2010 worldwide partner of the year award for SharePoint Deployment and Planning Services (SDPS) and is managed Gold Certified Partner. They have been focused on delivering solutions utilizing Microsoft tools and platforms since 1998. IncWorx Consulting is considered the premiere Microsoft Partner for SharePoint architecture, design, development, integration, deployment and support.

What does it take to support SharePoint?

Thursday, July 15, 2010 by Gary Biniak

SharePoint is about the most enterprise level systems Microsoft has released. The idea of one person supporting it is challenging, yet many people I discuss this topic with still think it's possible. IncWorx Consulting is a Chicago Microsoft Gold Partner that works with midsize and large scale customers based in the United States, it's obvious to our customers that SharePoint requires a team of 3-5 people to support it, let's take a look at why.

These are the technologies that most companies will use when running SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. These technologies require vastly different skills:

SQL Server/Windows Server Enterprise for clustering
Virtualization (optional, but recommended)
Active Directory
ISA and TMG
Firewall/networking te
SharePoint (Configuration, Development, Designer, workflow, BI, forms, etc...
.NET, Visual Studio (has anyone tried deploying code or debugging in SharePoint 2007?), Silverlight with a SharePoint twist
Exchange or other email server
Business Analysis

I'm sure I'm missing a few here, so feel free to add more...

SharePoint requires a number of disciplines (listed above) to make it work, the additional technologies just add to the mix and make this comparable to an enterprise system. It’s a very rare individual that can successfully install and deliver a SharePoint system that is fully functional and is done in a fashion that is scalable and follow best practices. We have encountered many SharePoint systems that are on the brink of failing due to lack of understanding around many of the intricacies of SharePoint. It is our experience that a team approach works best. However, there is a critical ingredient, each member needs to have an understanding of what SharePoint requires. Gone are the days of the single "web master", supporting a website. SharePoint requires a team that is dynamic and works together to solve problems.

We learned the hard way with SharePoint 2007 back in 2006 when we too took our most talented .NET developers and said here's SharePoint now go make it work. Yes the platform is based on .NET, but trying to use a .NET resource to configure, manage design and work in SharePoint is the last thing you want to do. In fact, your .NET developers will try to develop things that usually already exist, that's what developers do, they develop. Further, if you keep them on this task too long they will most likely quit. Send your .NET developers to training for webpart development and spare them all the rest of SharePoint, there are plenty of other people out there that love to work with SharePoint, mostly not .NET developers! Back to the point, SharePoint is enterprise level stuff and if you plan to deploy to several or several thousand you will encounter the same issues over time.

Did I mention supporting SharePoint is a team effort? Building a team can be costly and challenging. An Alternative approach is to use the SharePoint Support Services (S3) program to gain the experts you need to fully support your system from administration to development at a fraction of the cost of hiring 1 FTE.

I can be reached at: gary.biniak@incworx.com