SharePoint Experts

SharePoint Expert and IncWorx Consulting CEO - Gary Biniak

Hello, I'm Gary Biniak - Microsoft SharePoint Solution Architect, founder and CEO of IncWorx Consulting, a Microsoft Gold Partner. For the past 18 years I've been focused on researching and developing technologies that provide game changing results and enable business efficiency.

My History
Since 1992 I've been very involved with developing technologies that enable collaboration, document management, business process, workflows, forms, systems integration and messaging. A product that helped deliver a lot of those capabilities back then was known as Lotus Notes and I was heavily involved with developing solutions for that platform. In 1998 I was introduced to the early stage release of SharePoint and was working on developing my own content management system and various business, financial and healthcare based systems.  I spent quite a few years working as a .NET developer starting when .NET was in it's infancy in 2001.  Working with the .NET framework and visual studio was very empowering, but it still lacked something. I wanted a system that provided all the plumbing and capabilities without having to program it every time, but SharePoint really hadn't progressed that far in the early days. In fact,  It wasn't until SharePoint 2003 that I took a more serious interest in the product and started building a group at IncWorx Consulting that would focus 100% on SharePoint Consulting.

My involvment with SharePoint
By late 2005 it became obvious to me that Microsoft realized what it had and made serious investments into SharePoint to deliver on it's next generation of game changing technology called MOSS. My team and I worked closely with Microsoft on SharePoint 2007 (aka MOSS) and reported over 100 bugs in the TAPS (early adopter) program in 2006 while it was still in beta.   As a business we finally began to realize the benefits of focusing on SharePoint. It was almost overnight that companies jumped on the SharePoint bandwagon and our business increased dramatically with SharePoint customers. I realized with the 2007 edition of SharePoint that Microsoft had done something quite different than before, they built a business platform instead of just another technical platform.   It was with this realization that I went to work on building up a world-class team of professionals from multiple disciplines to work in SharePoint. I realized that SharePoint 2007 would take a team of professionals to produce results, not just .NET developers. One common mistake I see is that people think a .NET developer = SharePoint expert, this is generally a costly mistake. While it is a fact that SharePoint is built on .NET, it is also an enterprise system that provides many capabilities out of the box (OOB). You can customize sharepoint without .Net developers to get a solid business solution running. However, if you use SharePoint as an application platform (more on this topic to come in my next blog posts) then you will need .NET developers. Additionally, if you develop custom webparts you will need .NET developers that understand the SharePoint object model.

Accomplishments with SharePoint
SharePoint is here to stay and my decision to get involved with SharePoint many years ago means IncWorx Consulting is also here to stay. Unlike many others, we aren't just hopping on the latest technology gold rush, we are the leaders in the SharePoint space and considered the best SharePoint Consulting Firm in Chicago and possibly nationwide.  I'm proud of the incredible SharePoint experts and support team we have at IncWorx Consulting and the accomplishments we've achieved over the last few years, some of our accomplishments include:

Earned Microsoft Gold Partner status in 2007
Invited into the Microsoft Gold Managed Partner program in 2008
Vendor of the year in 2009 at DELL
In June of 2009 invited to receive the early bits of SharePoint 2010
and my most coveted accomplishment is IncWorx Consulting becoming the 2010 Microsoft SharePoint partner of the year

Looking back just a few years ago, who would believe that a small company in the Midwest called IncWorx Consulting would rise to be the best SharePoint consulting firm and be named the SharePoint Partner of the year at the biggest SharePoint Conference in the world? In fact, it was announced at the opening keynote at the conference by none other than the person they call "the father of SharePoint", Microsoft's corporate VP Jeff Teper.

The award was for many of our accomplishments in SharePoint, particularly for our ability to provide best practices around SharePoint deployment and planning services (SDPS). It's fair to say we are SharePoint experts and we now have the credentials to back it. We also have the client references to back it. IncWorx Consulting's work at companies like DELL, LoJack, General Motors, Ulta Cosmetics, Burton Snowboards, Columbia College, Central Dupage hospital, Smart Signal, Sysmex, Medline, DLA Piper and many more speak for itself. What we do for them in SharePoint is considered industry leading and has provided game changing results for these customers. Some of the customers businesses have changed overnight as a result of implementing SharePoint.

IncWorx Consultings is a SharePoint Consulting firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. We've helped companies like Dell, SaraLee, Ulta Cosmetics, Sysmex, Genaral Motors, Lojack, Columbia College, University of Phoenix online and many more change their game through our award winning SharePoint consulting practice. We also help companies with worldwide through our SharePoint Support Services (S3) program.

To learn more contact me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or visit my company's website at www.incworx.com

Implementing SharePoint 2010 for document management, search and increased business productivity

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 by gary biniak

Implementing SharePoint 2010 or any version of SharePoint doesn't automatically increase business productivity. Most organizations are still viewing SharePoint as a document management tool, replacing shared drives and moving content into SharePoint. This process is mundane and there are tools that can help (eg tools from AvePoint), but planning appropriately to define your document management and search results will greatly improve this process.

Most SharePoint implementations I'm seeing skip the planning steps when it comes to applying and defining content types and metadata. When planned properly the value of moving files into SharePoint raises the business value exponentially.   This planning and tagging of documents with the appropriate metadata and content types will make your enterprise search results far more useful and meaningful. This is just one of the major SharePoint 2010 benefits. Without this step we are simply moving content from one technology to another with very little added value. Speaking of search, did I mention this is critical for business success in todays business climate, similar how google search is critacal for most everyday life, enterprise search for your organization will allow for far better reuse of information and higher productivity and ROI as a result.

Further, you will want to organize your site structure and content and not just drop it into a document library. This requires further design and site structure considerations based on your business objectives to get the most from your investment in making this transition.

Finally, when implementing SharePoint 2010 you will want to consider business productivity improvements and what else you can get out of the process of moving your documents into SharePoint 2010. Besides the search advantages and benefits you will want to strongly consider implementing workflows on your documents (out of the box workflows, SharePoint Designer Workflows and Visual Studio Workflows). These workflows are modeled on your business processes and SharePoint can now manage these once manual processes.

Consider engaging with a Microsoft Gold Partner that has earned competencies in SharePoint when you are doing this kind of work. Most companies go it alone and the waters can get pretty deep, fairly quick.

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 Experts warn of Holiday Virus being delivered now.

Friday, October 29, 2010 by gary biniak

With Christmas just around the corner it seems appropriate to warn of seasonal viruses coming in for the 2010 holiday season.

As in the last 2 years the UPS/Fed Ex Delivery Failure email is now circulating. The e-mail could come from UPS, Fed Ex, DHL, or the US Postal Service along with a packet/tracking number. It will say that they were unable to deliver a package sent to you on such-and-such a date. It then asks you to print out the invoice copy or a label. DON'T TRY TO PRINT THIS. IT LAUNCHES THE VIRUS!

While this have nothing to do with SharePoint 2010. I felt sending out the warning early so our SharePoint Support Services (S3) team doesn't get overwhelmed like years past.

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.

SharePoint Jobs and Company Promotions - Bonnie Bonelli

Friday, September 3, 2010 by gary biniak

IncWorx Consulting is experiencing rapid growth in our Chicago SharePoint Consulting practice, in response, IncWorx hires and welcomes our 5th new employee for August 2010, Bonnie Bonelli. Bonnie joins IncWorx Consulting as a consulting specialist and brings over 15 years of professional experience in IT.   She brings strong enterprise account experience in the financial and insurance industries. She also has a solid background in business analysis and quality assurance.

Bonnie joins IncWorx Consulting as a consulting specialist and will be working with our HR, operations and client teams to help support and manage the growth of our SharePoint Consulting group.

IncWorx is a SharePoint Consulting company providing services nationally to 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. IncWorx has invested significant time and resources into our SharePoint group because SharePoint is a growing/critical platform for many of our customers. Many customers have benefited greatly from implementing SharePoint, Incworx client's can count on an integrated, holistic approach that integrates best practices, the same practices we helped Microsoft develop for achieving extraordinary results via the SDPS program.   In fact, we recently won the Microsoft Partner of the year at the global SharePoint conference held in Las Vegas in 2009.

If you are looking for SharePoint help, contact us at 847.839.9679 or visit our website to learn more at www.incworx.com

IncWorx Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison - SharePoint Consulting and Audit Services

Thursday, August 26, 2010 by gary biniak

IncWorx Consulting, a SharePoint Consulting services company and the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 partner of the year offers expert level consulting services. We've been the leader in planning, designing, architecting, developing, configuring, auditing and SharePoint support since 1998. We've been involved with every version of SharePoint since it's inception. We are not like most IT vendors that are jumping on the SharePoint bandwagon, we are the horses leading the charge. If you are looking for a solid SharePoint focused partner, IncWorx Consulting is considered the best. Honored with the prestigious SharePoint Partner of the year award by Microsoft at the SharePoint 2010 conference and validated by our broad (and happy) SharePoint customer base, IncWorx Consulting has risin to a true leadership position in the industry when it comes to delivering industry leading solutions using SharePoint.

If you are looking for help with SharePoint, IncWorx Consulting is definitely the partner to help you. Our award winning SharePoint Consulting team helps customers with challenging SharePoint issues. For example, we recently audited a custom SharePoint implementation for a very large insurance company. With several "SharePoint vendors" in the mix, they were struggling with integrating claims based authentication for months. Within 2 days of the audit we identified key issues and within 2 weeks created a comprehensive list of remedies. Our audit identified key architecture and development flaws and clearly indicated that the previous vendors had very limited to no experience in SharePoint, albiet they were talented .NET developers. This is a fairly typical situation and is also the same reason why DELL named us 2009 partner of the year for the swift turnaround we provided for them. They had gone through 4 "SharePoint vendors", one offshore and 3 Microsoft Gold partners before finding us. Within days of starting the engagement DELL realized a huge difference in our experience.

I work for the leading SharePoint services company that works with 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 all versions of SharePoint and have been working with SharePoint 2010 since june of 2009 when it was released to just a handful of partners worldwide from Microsft. 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 fact, we recently won the Microsoft Partner of the year at the SharePoint 2010 conference held in Las Vegas.

If you are questioning why things aren't going so well on your SharePoint project and looking for a 2nd opinion, we offer expert level help in the form of quick audits to assess your situation and deliver tangible results and corrective measures built into our final analysis. To learn more contact me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or visit my website at www.incworx.com.

SharePoint Jobs - hiring a SharePoint Expert

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 by gary biniak

Hiring a SharePoint expert for your company is not going to be easy. If you are looking for a SharePoint Job, opportunities are readily available and the pay is good. What's even more interesting is many employers are not qualified to technically qualify applicants because they are new to SharePoint and in many cases there is nobody in the company capable of doing a proper technical interview. This is good news for active SharePoint Job seeker, bad news for companies that need experienced sharepoint resources.

My company is a Microsoft Gold Partner and is focused on SharePoint Consulting services business. We review over 3000 SharePoint candidates/month and meet dozens of potentials from around US. Even the most self-proclaimed SharePoint expert is missing many pieces to the puzzle. In fact, I'm convinced there is no one individual that is truly an expert in SharePoint since there are just to many facets to SharePoint. SharePoint requires multiple technology disciplines so being an expert in all of those disciplines is impossible. When looking to fill a SharePoint job position in your company ask yourself, what am I looking for this person to do?

If the role is primarily SharePoint administration then you need to look for someone with an infrastructure background, SQL, security, back-up and recovery, etc.
If the role is OOB sharepoint customization and configuration, look for a lotus notes developer or access developer or even a strong power user with some tech savvy. You don't want a .NET developer for this role
If you are using SharePoint as an application platform, find a solid .NET developer willing to learn the SharePoint API

I work for 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 me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or visit my website at www.incworx.com/sharepointsupport.

SharePoint Support

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 by gary biniak

SharePoint support comes in two forms; internal or outsourced. The compexities and integration points of SharePoint make it troubling for internal and external resource alike to keep up. Information on the web is growing, but hardly enough to guide people through all the issues. Companies are starting to realize that having a solid Microsoft Gold Partner that focuses on SharePoint help is not a bad option. Going it alone is risky because taking down SharePoint might just impact some critical business operation and put the spotlight on you, not the spotlight you are wanting. Partnering with the right SharePoint Experts in a formalized support model will allow you to quickly solve issues, avoid pitfalls and keep SharePoint running at it best.

IncWorx Consulting is one of those companies offering a formalized support program for SharePoint , we call it SharePoint Support Services or S3 for short. This program was built from the ground up based on our client's input and today we service clients like Dell, GM, LoJack, DLA Piper, Columbia College, etc... These companies realized they needed direct access to SharePoint Experts without the normal process of going through a dozen hoops to get the person that might be able to answer the question is more than a little frustrating. The S3 program offers direct access to a level 3 expert, usually at the time a call or ticket is placed, but no more than 4 hours later. Getting direct access to the experts is one of the key differentiators of the S3 program. Another differentiator is the program covers all aspects of SharePoint (Administration, configuration, integration, custom applications, development, service accounts, security, messaging, architecture and much more).

I work for a SharePoint services 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 support group because this is an area many of our clients expect competency in and many of our competitors come up short in.

If you are looking for help with SharePoint contact me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or visit my website at www.incworx.com/sharepointsupport.

How to hire the right SharePoint Consulting Company and not get burned

Thursday, August 19, 2010 by gary biniak

There are tons of service based companies trying to get into SharePoint right now because it's the latest IT gold rush.

Things to do and things to watch out for when hiring a SharePoint Consulting Firm:

Beware of the companies that can't clearly demonstrate a track record of success in SharePoint. By now they should have dozens of clients success stories in SharePoint 2007, but very few in SharePoint 2010
You should demand references of active clients
Ask them how deep there bench is for SharePoint, do they even have one?
Stay away from the companies that say they have dozens or 100's of SharePoint resources (trust me, this just does not exist or we would have no problem finding talented SharePoint people)
Don't hire a 1 man team, there is way too much to know in SharePoint for one person to be an expert
Look for companies that have won one or more awards from Microsoft in SharePoint
Look for companies that have more than one earned competency in SharePoint from Microsoft
Stay away from companies that say they do everything in Sharepoint, no company has the bandwidth or resources to be able to do that. Sure, they can handle many aspects, but I'm talking about ones that say they can do SharePoint, Business Intelligence, Implement Project Server, Office Communication, e-Commerce, etc...
Instead, look for companies that are experts in SharePoint but partner with other companies in these other areas of competency

IncWorx Consulting was named the 2010 SharePoint Partner of the year at the Worldwide Microsoft SharePoint conference held in Las Vegas recently and holds 4 competencies in SharePoint from Microsoft. We take a holistic approach when it comes to SharePoint. SharePoint is an enterprise platform and requires a team of people from start to finish. Most companies fail assuming this is just a regular application platform and then they hire IncWorx Consulting.

IncWorx Consulting is a Microsoft Gold Partner that services clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Tampa, Orlando, Boston and Minneapolis. We specialize in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

Proper design using SharePoint Designer 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010 by gary biniak

There are a few ways you can integrate good style and branding into your SharePoint site, some methods require in depth skills in XSLT, Visual Studio or CSS and some don't.

Many people get confused when implementing design within SharePoint, let's face it SharePoint 2007 made it difficult if not impossible to achieve the look and feel you wanted. The fact that Microsoft reduced the troubles with design in SharePoint 2010 means they listed and took note. In fact, Jeff Tepar made a bunch of comments about this at the SharePoint 2010 conference.

Those with technical backgrounds will naturally want to work within Visual Studio (Note: technical people shouldn't be doing design related stuff IMO). Most commonly, they delete parts and zones that are critical to the fundamental operations of SharePoint, thus breaking the page. I've seen this on a number of Internet sites and internal sites. The unfortunate part is it usually takes down the entire site.

SharePoint Designer abstracts you from many of the technical details and keeps you from making common mistakes that are typically made when someone opens a Master Page within Visual Studio. While SharePoint Designer is good for implementing Design, it's also good for creating custom forms, work flows, editing lists, etc! It's not entirely an end user tool, it's more of a power end user tool, so be careful to not distribute this to everyone that asks for it. I found this video which is very informative about the capabilities of SharePoint Designer. It's short and give you an overview on how and what to use it for.

You don't have to be a SharePoint Expert to use the tool either.

From Microsoft's download site> SharePoint Designer 2010 is the tool of choice for the rapid development of SharePoint applications. Using SharePoint Designer, advanced users and developers alike can rapidly create SharePoint solutions in response to business needs. Advanced users can compose no-code solutions that encompass a variety of common scenarios, from collaborative sites and web publishing to Line-Of-Business data integration, business intelligence solutions, and human workflows, leveraging the building blocks available in SharePoint in an easy to use environment. In addition, developers can use SharePoint Designer 2010 to get a quick start on SharePoint development projects.

You can download a free copy here. This is not an evaluation copy, it's the full blown product.

I work for IncWorx Consulting, a Microsoft Gold Partner that services clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Tampa, Orlando, Boston and Minneapolis. We specialize in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010. We have invested a ton of time and resources into branding, design and UI for SharePoint because this is an area many of our client expect competency in and many of our competitors come up short in. Our clients appreciate working with a consulting company that understands pixels, colors, fonts and layout coupled with proper functionality makes a huge difference.

If you are looking for help with SharePoint when it comes to design and brand integration contact me at gary.biniak@incworx.com or visit my website at www.incworx.com.

IncWorx Consulting's SharePoint Jobs and company promotions - Amber Lazzaroni

Friday, August 13, 2010 by gary biniak

IncWorx Consulting, a Chicago SharePoint Consulting company and Microsoft Gold Partner, hires and welcomes Amber Lazzaroni as a Consulting Specialist. Amber is a graduate from Winona State University and recently held the position of operations manager at Carbella Builders and started the Ballistix Dance Acadamy in Lake Geneva, WI. Amber's passion for working with people, dedication to success and competitive nature make her a natural fit for this role. She will be working on sales, marketing, recruiting and planning/running events with our business development group. Amber will also 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 responsibilities with our clients in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Antonio and Minneapolis. Amber joined the new bright minds training and development program and reports to Heath Anderson - Corporate VP and Director of Consulting.

To learn more about opportunities and SharePoint jobs like this one, please visit our career section of our website

How to Support SharePoint

Thursday, August 12, 2010 by gary biniak

The SharePoint planning and deployment phase is now over. As if that wasn't challenging enough you now learn that's just the beginning of your long-term relationship with SharePoint. SharePoint Support, user adoption and governance are typically an after thought when it comes to implementing SharePoint.

Since this post is about SharePoint Support I'll write about user adoption and governance another day. Most companies fall into the trap of finding a good developer that wants to learn/work in SharePoint and putting them in charge of the SharePoint Farm. Not really the best idea, since most developers don't deal with the full range of challenges they will come up against in SharePoint. Alternatively, SharePoint gets pushed into IT to manage. IT might be better equipped since it's a server but generally doesn't have SharePoint Expertise to understand all the things that SharePoint requires.

To really support SharePoint a team of technical people from diverse technology backgrounds are required and they all require SharePoint knowledge have to . The teams profile generally looks like this:

SharePoint Architect
SharePoint Developer
.NET Developer
SharePoint Administrator
Business Analyst
Business Intelligence Expert
Infrastructure and Security Expert
Exchange Expert

Most companies fail Supporting SharePoint which impacts user adoption when users don't trust the system they are putting all their work products into. The reality is there are very few experts in SharePoint since business just took SharePoint seriously with the SharePoint 2007 platform and started adopting SharePoint a couple years back. Growing expertise in house is challenging without access to SharePoint experts. My recommendation, don't go it alone when it comes to supporting SharePoint, find a reputable Microsoft Gold Partner that can help your team get up to speed and won't let you do something wrong because of limited experience.

SharePoint is an enterprise platform and Microsoft has just about baked in every product they own to complicate matter further. I recommend trying out the SharePoint Support Services (S3) program. It's direct access to local SharePoint Experts and it's low price point make it the ideal solution for any size company.

I work for IncWorx Consulting, a SharePoint Partner that services clients in: Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, New York, Houston, Topeka, Milwaukee, San Antonio, San Diego, Tampa, Orlando, Boston and Minneapolis. We specialize in SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.