SharePoint Administrator's Blog

View all resources and events from a SharePoint Calendar

Monday, February 27, 2012 by Mat Agrest

How to view events on a calendar and set resources

The other day a client was having a problem with a OOTB Calendar in SharePoint 2010. They had created a new site and set up Resources for the Calendar. After they had done this, anytime they went to add an event to the calendar it would not show on the calendar view. Even if they created a new calendar, the same would happen. If they switched the view to the All Events view, they would see the events they had created yet the actual calendar view was empty. After looking into this we realized when Resources are active it changes the content type for the calendar list (from Events to Resources). For whatever reason, when this happens, SharePoint's calendar view no longer recognizes these new events. If the content type was changed back to Events, they would show in the calendar but then they could not set Resources.

Now we had to figure out how to have both, as this was critical to the client. Luckily it is not too difficult of a fix to get both working. Here is what you would need to do (assuming you already set up Resources).

Create a calendar and in More Options select 'Use this calendar for resource reservations'
Once created, go to the list settings for the calendar
Click 'Title, Description, and Navigation' and set 'Use calendar for resource reservation' to no
Back in the calendar list settings, click 'Change new button order and default content type'
Check 'Reservations' and set it to the default content type

That is it! now you should be able to add new events like always, while being able to assign resources and check their availability.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Certain calendar events shared with multiple calendars

Monday, January 30, 2012 by Mat Agrest

How to copy certain calendar events to other calendars

I had a request, recently, asking if it were possible to have certain events created on a Main calendar (one everyone has access to) to be also created on another calendar on a sub-site. After looking around it appeared it could be done with the Data View Web Part or Content Editor Web Part. Either of these two approaches would require some light coding to show the events that need to be seen on both calendars. The problem with these web parts is that they work great for displaying information as a List, but to keep the calendar look and feel is a lot harder to do.

So, I started to think of other ways to handle this and thought... Hey, maybe a simple workflow can accomplish this goal. I opened up SharePoint Designer 2010 and started to make a simple workflow that just copied a list item to another list. Technically this should work as Calendar's are nothing but a fancy list.

Things were fine up until the point I remembered, SharePoint Designer 2010 cannot look to sub-sites through a workflow (oob). Now what to do? Well, and this may not be appropriate for everyone, I decided what if I were to make another Calendar on the Main site (same place the Main calendar lives). Then in the sub-site (with publishing turned on) I could create a link in the Quick Nav to point to this new Calendar. This would solve the SharePoint Designer 2010 problem, since now it would just have to look in the same site. So users were not confused as to which calendar was what, I hid the new one on the Main site.

Now this copies any item added to the Main calendar to the new calendar, but the requirement was for only certain events to show on both. Well, this was simple also, as I just created a simple yes/no field. In the workflow I had it copy the list item only if this field was set to yes. Case Closed and zero coding!

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Save Time with RouteIt

Friday, January 13, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Save Time and Money with RouteIt

I have done a couple blogs now on RouteIt talking about how it works and all, but how may it help you? I am sure after reading my other blogs about RouteIt, some ideas were already going through your head as to how you could use it. This blog is to mainly help with that idea generating process, so I would like to give you an example where this product would help your organization. This won't apply to every organization but it should get you thinking more!

Your a large company that deals with many other companies either for products, services, or what have you. You are in constant communication with these companies as they send you emails with updates on products/packages etc... Now you have already created a separate site for each of these companies to hold all and any documents/emails they send you. How would you deal with placing these documents in the right locations? No matter how you handle it, someone is involved to help make sure documents are where they belong. Whether that be they are personally moving these documents or going to each site to make sure the documents there are correct. Either way it takes time.. and time is money.

With RouteIt, all you have to do is create a rule or rules and be done! With our product you can have one central location that people upload documents to and where emails get sent to. In this library, you just create a rule that looks for something you know sets these documents apart from each company, whether that be something in the title for the document, who sent the email, or maybe something in the subject line from the email. RouteIt can look at any of these (plus more!) to know where your files should go, and now that it is more dynamic. Your rules can look to these columns and send them off to their appropriate locations. Once something comes into the library or list, it is immediately routed to it's destination (in the blink of an eye). It is just that simple!

If you are interested in learning more about RouteIt, please contact IncWorx at 847-839-9679 or email us at: info@incworx.com

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

RouteIt Now Dynamic

Friday, January 13, 2012 by Mat Agrest

RouteIt Now More Dynamic!

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog about the Content Organizer and in that I talked about IncWorx's new product, RouteIt. If you have not already done so, you can read that blog here:
http://blog.incworx.com/blog/sharepoint-administrators-blog/short-falls-of-content-organizer-v1

This has some general information about RouteIt, however, there has been a nice change to the product since then. The change being that RouteIt is now more dynamic. Before when you would create a rule, you would use the list picker to pick the destination and set when it would route your items. This made everything very static, and you would have to create a rule for each type of file you may of wanted to route. For example, if you had some document libraries set up for companies you do business with, then you would have to create a rule to look for one type of file that would be sent to that companies document library. This would have to be done each time for each company document library you had that you wanted to route to. While this still worked and routed perfectly, it would become a little tedious to create a lot of rules that technically are doing the same thing.

Now RouteIt is Dynamic! Meaning, you no longer have to create as many rules as you once might of had to. Continuing with the above example, now all you have to do is use the new 'token' feature. If in the original document library files were getting saved to had a column for each company they dealt with, then you can set up a rule to look at what was in that column and route to that destination. So if you had a document library under Site A named IncWorx. You can create a rule that looks to this company column and based on what was in the column, route to its appropriate destination. So instead of telling it to route to Site A/IncWorx (the old way). Now you would do Site A/[company]. This goes to Site A and then looks at what was in this company column to determine what document library it belongs to. This all happens very fast! You could even use the token feature to have it create folders if you so desired. Since it is dynamic, let your imagination roam as it can be dynamic or static wherever you want!

If you are interested in learning more about RouteIt, please contact IncWorx at 847-839-9679 or email us at: info@incworx.com

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Lync Mobile Deployment

Friday, January 13, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Deploying Lync Server 2010 Mobility Feature

If you don't already know, Lync Mobile is now available for smart phones. You can download it right from the Android market easily enough. What is not quite so easy, is getting it to work for your organization. I wish it were just as simple as downloading the app and using it. You must first configure Lync server 2010 mobility feature in your environment. Microsoft has some pretty good documentation that lists the steps you need to follow. When I say follow, I mean to the T. One wrong move can ruin the whole deployment! Here is the link with all the steps you need to do:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh690055.aspx (follow exactly)

It is not quite as bad as it may look, you just have to be carefull not to miss a step anywhere. Once you have successfully deployed the mobility feature, your users can do most of the basic Lync activities. This is real nice when you have people in and out of the office a lot that need to stay connected. Give it a whirl, you may love it or hate it. I just hope that in the future Microsoft makes this a little easier to set up and roll out. Especially since more and more things are being pushed to phones and tablets.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

International Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

Friday, January 13, 2012 by Mat Agrest

What is the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

CES has been around for over four decades as it reaches out to global markets to cennct the industry.  This event helps the consumer electronics to be innovative and thrive in the markets.

"CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). CEA represents more than 2,000 corporate members involved in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution and integration of consumer electronic products. All profits from CES are reinvested into industry services, including technical training and education, industry promotion, engineering standards development, market research and legislative advocacy."

The event is held yearly and mostly in Las Vegas. Every big and upcoming electronics company shows up to this event (even Microsoft). It was even where Atari was first introduced! This is a geek heaven and alway displays what new technologies companies are releasing. This year close to 150,000 people attended the event, with almost 50,000 exhibits. These include product categories such as:

Audio                                                     Digital Imaging/Photography
Automotive Electronics                          Electronic Gaming
Computer Hardware & Software           Emerging Technology
Connected Home                                  Entertainment/Content
Content Distribution                             Internet-Based Multimedia Systems
Digital Health and Fitness                     Lifestyle Electronics
Telecommunications Infrastructure       Video
Wireless & Wireless Devices

The event is always a good time, and if you have never been, I recommend a trip out there in the years to come!

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

IIS 7 Rapid Fail Protection

Thursday, January 12, 2012 by Mat Agrest

IIS 7 Rapid Fail Protection

If you do not already know, Rapid Fail Protection is feature within IIS7 that is on by default. It basically is there to check for a specified number of hard failures in a given time period, again the default is 5 failures within 5 minutes. If a hard failure that occurs meets this default setting, then the Application Pool will crash and does not automatically restart. The only way to get it going again is to manually start it.

If this does happen for you, in IIS Manager you would see a little stop symbol next to the name and it would also say stopped under Status (depicted below).

When this sort of problem occurs an entry is written to the Event Logs (usually under System), which IIS 7 does a little better of a job properly reporting errors. You will most likely also get a 503.2 - Service unavailable error when trying to access the Application Pool.

Personally I think this is a great feature, if it did not exist a broken application/service could crash > restart > crash > restart etc.. taking up all your system resources. This Rapid Fail Protection will at least stop that from happening, 5 errors in 5 minutes seems a bit long but luckily you can edit this (or it appears you can). In IIS Manager select the Application Pool in question and click Advanced Settings to the right. You will see a window like the below picture, scroll down to Rapid Fail Protection and you can disable it or change the frequencies.

It let me change it so I am assuming it will keep those settings, I have not personally tested this yet. One last note, I would only disable this setting or really mess with it at all if its for a development/test server where you know you will be breaking things enough to cause this to go off.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Integrate Mobile Apps with SharePoint Workflows

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Integrate Mobile Apps with SharePoint Workflows

With some work, you are now able to integreate any mobile applications your organization may have created or use with SharePoint Workflows. This, like anything very custome, must be done within Visual Studio 2010. You first will need to create the mobile app to be used with SharePoint (though I suppose there are other ways to create it). Continuing with Visual Studio, you would need to create a Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) application. To get it to link with SharePoint 2010 sites/lists/workflows, you need to reference and call the WCF service to the WPF app. Once you have done all of this, you have to create your Visual Studio Workflow.

There is a lot of codeing and work to be done to get all this to work, but it could be a real time saver if you have a lot of employees on the road all the time. You can get very creative with this, as it is all custom. Microsoft has a GREAT article with very detailed steps on how to accomplish this very task. Right now it may seem like a lot of work, but it is nice to know Microsoft is trying to get things on mobile devices. That is where the world is heading, and if they want to be apart of it, they need to stay with the times. As time goes on, this will become much simplier I assure you. It could even start to be happening with the new versions of SharePoint and Visual Studio.

Her is the link the the Microsoft site with all the detailed instruction and sample code. Take a look at it even if you never plan to use it, as it is pretty neat.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg454783.aspx

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Microsoft Access and SharePoint

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Microsoft Access 2010 and SharePoint 2010

With Access 2010 you can move your table to SharePoint 2010 and have user forms show up in SharePoint as well. One thing to note is that forms need to be created as Access web forms. This makes it so, for one, SharePoint can use these forms and two, it relies on the new Access Data Macros to drive the behaviors. Below is a nice diagram I found depicted the connection between Access and SharePoint 2010.

Let's take a closer look at how this all works!
Open Access and go to your database you want to send to SharePoint. You will need to run the Web Compatibility checker to make sure everything can transfer over smoothly. If any table fails, you will be given a list of the errors or problems so that you may try to fix them. Assuming all pass, you can then publish your database to SharePoint 2010. While publishing, Access moves the forms, reports, macros, tables etc to SharePoint. This will allow any users that have Access 2010 on their machines to download a local copy of the database to edit them if needed.

All your tables should now be SharePoint 2010 Lists and create all the necessary links between Access and the Lists. This way if someone were to download the database to their machine, Access will get all the SharePoint list data to maintain a local cache. While a user has this database open, Access will periodically sync with SharePoint with any changes made on either end.

All your forms get converted to ASP.NET (.aspx) pages, including javascript for any supported page events. The layout for these pages is mainly driven by HTML tables. One thing to keep in mind is that your controls on the form need to be placed within the cells. This helps Access transform the form into an appropriate .aspx page.

If your organization is looking to move your Access database(s) to SharePoint, you can do so with the peace of mind knowing everything should go over smoothly. Luckily, for those that are not using Access 2010, you can link SharePoint with Access 2007 as well. The link between Access 2007 and SharePoint is slightly different, but most functionality should still work as intended.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Office 365 now supports custom code

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Office 365 supports custom code

This finally makes Office 365 seem like such a better product. It was just too limited at first. Not being able to do anything custom, I think, was a big turn off. I know that not all organizations want or will ever do anything custom, but what about the ones that have no other choice! This new version finally lets everyone be happy!

You can design and create customized sites and list templates that you can access through Site Settings, just like with normal SharePoint 2010. One nice thing about this, in Office 365, is the fact that you can access both .stp and .wsp files from any site within the site collection. You can also download them and transfer them to other site collection in your Office 365 environment, and they can be downloaded to an on-premises instance of SharePoint. This is a very nice improvement to Office 365.

Now for the cherry on top. Microsoft came up with a mechanism to allow you to deploy custom code to Office 365! This will let you further customize your site by letting you create custom master pages to really suit your organization. To allow for the ability to deploy custom code, Microsoft uses the sandbox approach. Through this, you can create custom web parts, event handlers etc... All custom files are stored in the User Solutions gallery.

To end this blog, I just wanted to list out a few other things quickly you can now also do in Office 365:

Change what is stored in user profiles.
Enable the Content Organizer to automatically “file” documents in different locations based on metadata.
Create a corporate metadata scheme using Managed Metadata Services.
Associate a specific document template with a library.
Create customized workflow for content within SharePoint.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Visual Studio 11 with DirectX and SharePoint Features

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Visual Studio 11 with DirectX and SharePoint Features

Well with the new year here, Microsoft has been releasing more and more information on their new product versions. Visual Studio 11 is sure to be a nice improvement from the initial look of things. I wanted to just briefly touch on two points I thought were pretty neat in the new version. Those being the added support for DirectX and some new SharePoint Features.

The support of DirectX means improved developer shader support through the editor. This is to help make editing easier and give more build integration. Also, you will not be limited to the text editor anymore as their is going to be a designer to help create shader effects. In this designer view you will be able to make changes and see the effects in real time. Since this is new, there will be a new debugging tools to help debug DirectX frames etc.

Visual Studio 11 is also enhancing the way developers would do things for SharePoint. In this new version, you will be able to edit SharePoint lists through the new List Designer. This means no more having to manually edit XML files! The designer lets you display, sort, and group available site columns among so much more. Since everyone and everything seems to be pushing for cloud support, Visual Studio 11 is no different. You will be able to publish solutions to remote SharePoint sites, including Office 365.

These are just some of many new features to come to Visual Studio 11. One last thing to note, it looks like Microsoft is trying to improve the performance in the new version. It looks like they are really trying to listen to what users think about the current version and their insights to how it could be better.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Colligo Briefcase Enterprise

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Colligo Briefcase for iPad's with SharePoint Security

This new App/Tool from Colligo makes it possible for iPad users to access SharePoint 2010 confidentely without the worries of security compromises. Colligo Briefcase makes it easy for organizations, with the growing use of iPad users, to store, view, sync, and share SharePoint files, lists, libraries etc.. All of this without the need of using a browser even! This app even lets users access SharePoint while being offline. Here is a quick rundown of some of the security features offered:

Separate passcode to access the Colligo Briefcase application
Hardware-based encryption (AES-256 bit) for all stored data
Remote data wipe capabilities (via MDM systems)
SharePoint credentials stored in Keychain, providing the highest form of trust-chain security
Stored data can be wiped automatically on 10 failed login attempts
Ability to restrict the SharePoint sites accessed and content cached (via Colligo Administrator)
Ability to restrict which content can be shared with external recipients (via Colligo Administrator)
Supports all SharePoint authentication methods

This will really help users with the adoption of SharePoint; by giving users access to SharePoint, while on the go through one of the most used tablets (iPad). This was always one thing that prevented organizations from using iPad's. Everyone wants one, but if it can't be used to help you work, then it become more of a toy than something needed. This app helps bridge that gap.

Looking at some things happening with Windows 8, it makes me wonder what the new version of SharePoint is going to be like. Windows 8 loooks to be aimed a lot towards tablet users so it wouldn't surprise me if the new SharePoint is as well. Especially now, looking at Colligo Briefcase, extending a windows product to apple tablets. I think this only shows us how technology is changing and what people need to do to keep up!

You can read/find out more here:
http://www.colligo.com/products/sharepoint/colligo-briefcase/

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Nintex Workflow 2010 version 2.3

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Nintex Workflow v2.3

So like many companies pushing out updates to products for the new year, Nintex is no different. It has released it's newest version of Nintex Workflows with added features/improvements. The two biggest updates are the improved integration tools and now Nintex Live is apart of Nintex Workflow 2010.

Improved Integration Tools:
This helps make leveraging your in-house business data and systems even easier than before. There is an added button called "Run Now" which lets you see your workflow integration actions before you actually run the process. Nintex Workflow now supports multiple output queries, making it easier to gather information from business systems and get multiple rows from database queries. The "XML picker" lets you query InfoPath forms quicker by allowing you to choose the fields you want and a graphical view. This tool can also be used on web pages and Office documents. The last thing worth noting here is the new option to right click actions to disable them. This helps keep debugging controlled and causes less of an impact on your SharePoint environment.

Nintex Live:
Nintex Live is a growing catalogue of on line services and actions, and now this is available through Nintex Workflow. Some new actions available here are the ability to identify languages and translate text, send Twitter updates, validate e-mail addresses, convert currencies, and more! By having the two together now helps you to easily interact with Office 365 environments. Just create your workflow(s) and connect them to Office 365 in no time at all.

Other good news; version 2.3 update is available free of charge to any current Software Assurance subscribers! Nintex is always striving to be and do better, and this latest update just goes to show that very thing.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Avoid being prompted for credentials when accessing SharePoint 2010

Friday, January 6, 2012 by Mat Agrest

Prompt for credentials when accessing SharePoint 2010

If you wuold like to stop being asked to input your and your users credentials when accessing your SharePoint 2010 environment, here is one way that should solve this problem. This is done in Internet Explorer 8 but 7 and 9 should be very similar.

Go to Tools -> Internet Options

Click the Security tab
Select Local intranet (1)
Click Sites (2)

o This will open another window that has 4 check boxes, the first saying “Automatically detect intranet network.” Make sure this is checked and then click Advanced

localin

· Another window will open up that will have two fields, one that says “Add this website to the zone:” and one that says “Websites”

stzone

· Add each of your SharePoint portals/web applications (http://X.yourcompany.com, http://X.yourcompany.com/IT etc) you can also try and add a domain wildcard (http://*.yourcompany.com).

o If you have http and https set up then you will have to add one for each (http://X.yourcompany.com and https://X.yourcompany.com) same with the wildcard.

o Make sure Require server verification … is unchecked

o Click close -> OK

· Back at the internet options Security tab

o Click custom level which opens a new window (security settings – local intranet zone) (3 in the first picture)

o Scroll down to the very bottom to where you should see “User Authentication” “Logon”

o Select the Automatic logon only in Intranet zone option or Automatic logon with current user name and password could work as well depending on how your security is set up

secloczone

o Click OK

· Make sure Enable Protected mode is unchecked (4 in the first picture)

A Domain Admin should be able to apply the same settings to every user so that not everyone has to do this. I also like to do the same set up but instead of selecitng Local Intranet, you will select Trusted Sites. All the options should be the exact same as what is described here.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Hide Recently Modified from the Quick Launch

Friday, January 6, 2012 by Mat Agrest

How to Hide Recently Modified from the Quick Launch

Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the page you wish to hide Recently Modified

2. Edit the page by either click the little edit button next to Browse, Selecting the Page tab and clicking Edit, or Site Actions -> Edit Page

3. Either place the Cursor above or below all the text in the Page(if you have text on the page already)

4. Now, under Editing Tools, click Insert -> Select Web Part

a. Under Categories select Media and Content

b. Under Web Parts select Content Editor

c. Click Add on the right

insweb

5. This should place the Content Editor on the Page where your Cursor was located

a. If you hover over this Web Part, off to the right hand side of it, you should see a downward arrow and a check box

b. Click the downward arrow to open the menu

c. Select Edit Web Part

edweb

6. This will open the Content Editor edit pane to the right hand side of the page (ignore it for the moment)

7. Inside the Content Editor web part, you should see “Click here to add new content” do so

click

a. By doing so, those words should be gone and you should see a cursor on the left side of this web part

b. Under Editing Tools click Format Text, if not already selected

c. On the right hand side you should see <>HTML

d. Click to open the menu and select Edit HTML Source

html

e. This should open a new window that is blank (if it is not blank, you did not quite click inside the Content Editor Web Part)

blank

8. Inside of this window copy and paste the following

css Click OK

9. Now inside the Content Editor edit pane (on the right)

a. Expand Appearance

b. Under this, near the bottom, you should see “Chrome Type”

c. Click the drop down menu and select “None”

d. Click Apply

10. Save & Close to stop editing this page and Recently Modified should be gone!

save

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

SharePoint 2010 and Web Analytics Introduction

Thursday, December 29, 2011 by Mat Agrest

Basics of Web Analytics in SharePoint 2010

I wanted to give a quick overview of SharePoint 2010 Web Analytics and what each section can do for you. Luckily this is all OOTB, so you will not have to purchase any 3rd party software. That is, of course, if the basic analytics are not enough for you.

The reports are aggregated per web application in the farm, per site collection, per site, and per search service application. Administrators at each level above are able to view said reports. Their is, however, a new permission level "View Web Analytics Data" that will allow users to access these reports. So how do we get to these Web Analytics from within SharePoint 2010? Simple! go to Site Actions -> Site Settings. Then under Site Actions heading, you should see two links (Site Web Analytics Reports and Site Collection Web Analytics Reports).

Clicking either link takes you to an overview page where you can drill down further and see what your users are accessing etc. There are 3 categories of reports you may see, Traffic reports, Search reports, and Inventory reports. Lets talk about each one of these briefly.

Traffic reports:
These reports show information regarding how many times a user has clicked or how many times a page has been visited. Going a bit further, there are Trend and Rank reports. The Trend reports show the number of times a page has been viewed, the total amount of visitors for the page, how many of these are regular viewers or not, and the number of people who refer the page to others.
Rank reports show which page has been viewed the most and who has visited the most frequently.

Search reports:
These reports show information regarding what users are searching for. They also contain Trend and Rank reports like above. Trend reports here show will show a queries list for everyday. These will include number of queries, top queries, and failed queries. Rank reports show Best Bet Usage, Search keywords etc..

Inventory reports:
These reports show information regarding the inventory of your sites. As with the other two reports, these also have Trend and Rank reports. Trend reports here show total number of site collections, site usage, and total available sites. Rank reports show the top site product versions and top site languages etc..

Here is a quick look at what you will see when you click Site Web Analytics reports (first picture) and Site Collection Web Analytics reports (second picture). These reports should help you to learn what your users are accessing etc. Based on this information you can plan changes to your SharePoint 2010 site to better accommodate your users.

Site Collection Web Analytics reports

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

SharePoint 2010 Best Bets

Thursday, December 29, 2011 by Mat Agrest

SharePoint 2010 Search Best Bets

SharePoint 2010 has done some neat things with Search. Best Bets is enhancement to your basic SharePoint 2010 Search. Essentially, this allows you to inject chosen content at the top of search queries to searching users. An example could be that you want your twitter account link to display if someone searches for your name. Lets jump in and get this set up!

First you need to create a Search Center site, for this example I will use the Basic Search Center. Go to Site Actions -> New Site -> Basic Search Center (under search on the left). This is the same as creating any site within SharePoint 2010.

Now that you have the Search Center created, we need to go in and set up our Best Bets! Navigate to Site Actions -> Site Settings and under Site Collection Administration click go to top level site settings option. If you don't see this option then just navigate to the top level site and go to Site Settings. Once at the top level site settings, under Site Collection Administration you should see Search Keywords (shown below).

You should now see a screen like the one below with options to set up keyword phrases and the like.

Keyword phrase is exactly as it sounds, a keyword used for search. The Synonym part lets you technically create another keyword. For this example I used my name (Mathew) as the keyword and the synonym (Mat). So far everything is pretty simple!

Next we need to click Add Best Bet to add in our Best Bets. You can have more than one Best Bet per keyword. In the above screen shot I have created one already. If you had more than one Best Bet you could change the order they appear to the user. Clicking Add Best Bet loads the following screen.

Here you have to input a URL and Title for that URL. Optionally you can also add a description, which I did not do. Once you click OK you are taken back to the previous settings page where you can set a time frame for the Best Bets to be used etc. For now let's just click OK again to be taken back to the Site Settings page.

Well that is pretty much all it takes! If we now go to our create Basic Search Center site and search for Mathew or Mat you will see the following at the top of the query.

The only thing that is left to know and discuss is that this will only work if the searching is done within our Basic Search Center site. Luckily, you can change the search on the Home page of your SharePoint 2010 site to use this search site as it's default search.

For this go back to the top level Site Settings and again under Site Collection Administration, click Search settings.

In here select "Enable custom scopes" and fill in the appropriate link to your Basic Search Center Site. Now you should be all set up to search from the parent site or from within your SharePoint 2010 Basic Search Center site.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Microsoft Updates SkyDrive and Office 365

Friday, December 23, 2011 by Mat Agrest

Microsoft updates Office 365 and SkyDrive

At the beginning of the month, Microsoft set out to release updates to its SkyDrive and Office 365 services. Now Office 365 reaches out to 22 new markets, and has more support for SharePoint with IE9 and Chrome, plus support for Mac OSX Lion. Other updates involving Office 365 include:

Windows Phone 7.5 support
Lync for Mac
Office Web App Preview in Outlook Web Access
Self-serve password reset tool for admins

SkyDrive is what Microsoft really wanted to update as under 10% of college students consider using SkyDrive to share documents. Most student use Microsoft Office to start and finish papers and projects. The new update to SkyDrive lets you work within the context of the application, and not just SkyDrive. Files are now easier to share among friends and people within your Windows Live network. It now includes email and networks like Twitter or LinkedIn. The service is also faster now; Microsoft said the log-in process has sped up by 50%. Here is a list of new features that also came out of this update:

Bulk file transfer
Create in line folders and in line move and copy functionality
right-click functions to copy, embed, share commands etc..
HTML5 and CS3 upload ability
Enhanced photo management to include adding captions
Supports more file types
Brought back photo slide shows

I, for one, like the updates to Office 365 as I think they were needed. I just hope to see Microsoft continues to update its service in a timely fashion. I personally do not use SkyDrive, but I am curious to check it out now. I am also curious to see if these changes will help it become more adopted to the masses.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

Creating Workflows in Visio Premium 2010

Friday, December 23, 2011 by Mat Agrest

SharePoint Workflows in Visio Premium

Visio has been used by many companies, for a while now, for documenting processes. It has proven to be a great tool for visualizing the flow of a process. Visio Premium 2010 finally lets us create a visual diagram for business processes (workflows). This diagram can then be exported to SharePoint Designer (SPD) where you can put all the logic together. This works the other way around as well. You can create the logic in SPD and export the file to Visio Premium to see it visually. This can help you fine tune some errors or help you notice that the current flow is just not how it should be. You can then change this aspect right within Visio Premium. The drag and drop functionality of Visio still holds true when working with workflow diagrams. This makes this approach similar to how Nintex Workflows work (not as good or easy, but similar).

Now that I have touched on what Visio Premium can do for workflows, let me show you an example of how this works with a OOTB SharePoint 2010 Approval workflow.

This is what the workflow looks like in SharePoint Designer 2010:

Now we just export this out to Visio so we can see it their.

This will ask you to save a .vwi file. This is the file needed to view the diagram for the workflow within Visio. So, lets go open Visio and take a look.

First you need to start a Microsoft SharePoint Workflow template.

Next you have to import the .vwi file you just created within SharePoint Designer 2010.

And once you navigate to the .vwi file and open it up, you get to see the outcome. *Note I grabbed a simple workflow that does not have much to it (from a basic view standpoint).

Here we are. Shows the start and end point of the workflow as well as the process that the workflow is to run through (in this case an approval process). While this picture is here, you can see on the left hand side, Visio shows all the basic actions you would use in a workflow. All you have to do to add one is drag it over to the drawing board and drop it where you want it to go.

This is all pretty neat if you ask me. If you have someone that is great at laying down visio diagrams, and someone that is great at workflows, you can produce something amazing. There is also an option in SharePoint Designer 2010 to also publish the Visio diagram to SharePoint. This will let users see a graphical depiction of the workflow and where it may currently be sitting waiting for something.

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.

SharePoint 2010's Web Content Management Sweet Spot

Thursday, December 8, 2011 by Mat Agrest

SharePoint 2010 as a web delivery platform

I happened to find this article on cmswire.com that was talking about where SharePoint 2010 is at its best as a web delivery platform. I think the author, William Saville makes some good points in the article, and I would like to breifly touch on some of these points.

SharePoint 2010 as a facing application deliery platform
Site visitors want a website that is interactive and provides some service that will deepen the users experience. SharePoint has many features that prove to do just this. It has the ability to let organizations built their own online community through blogs, wikis, discussion boards, and user profiles. All of these features help provide end users with a vast array of informatino that strengthens customer relations and brand.

Search-Driven web experience
SharePoint 2010 is all about search, whether it be out of the box or having FAST search implemented. Most users these days want to be able to have a way to find information pertinent to them. Any form of SharePoint's search options can and will provide this functionality to your users. "The quicker people can find what they are looking for on a website, the more likely they are to engage and take an interest one step further" (Saville).

Microsoft Centric Organizations
Most organizations these days use some type of Microsoft product, for example Microsoft Office 2010. SharePoint 2010 integrates with the entire Office suite beautifully and flawlessly. This also helps your IT department since any support they may have to do, will all be based around a single platform. End users also benefit as they only have to learn one set of authoring tools. All of this can greatly impact an organization's digital progress.

Feel free to check out the rest of the article here:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/sharepoint-2010-as-a-web-delivery-platform-013675.php

IncWorx Consulting is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner focusing on SharePoint Consulting, SharePoint Support, and SharePoint Application Development.