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2/8/2010A new feature baked into Internet Explorer allows finding and changing SharePoint styles a little easier without using FireFox or any additional add-ins. The IE 8 Developer Tools is an "Explorer-Style" browser that lets you click on an area of a SharePoint page and see which style you can modify or override. In this example, I am going to show you how to add a Content Editor Web Part and in the content area, override the styles so you can see how to impact your SharePoint design without modifying the primary CSS file. First, open IE 8 and either click on “Tools”, then “Developer Tools”, or press F12 to directly access the tool. From there you should see the following tool bar options. The primary area we are going to focus on is the “Select Element by Click” (Ctrl + B) tool to get us started. Click on the icon so we can start changing your SharePoint site.  Next, open your SharePoint site and start hovering over areas you’d like to change. In this case, I am going to select the “Quick Launch” so I can change some elements of that area. The blue border around the “Quick Launch” is going to be our primary target of our changes and this is how the Developer tool identifies the  selected CSS class.
In the results pane, you will see the class that we can manipulate is “ms-quicklaunch” and in the right pane you will see references to the master CSS file, the sub-classes available, and classes that have been overridden (strikeouts). In this case, the biggest impact we will see with changing the Quick Launch will be to hide it. SO we are going to override the classes display property so that it becomes “hidden”. Next, add a Content Editor Web Part to your page and modify the web part by going into the “Source Editor” and adding some code.  Paste this code into the CEWP: <STYLE TYPE="text/css"> .ms-quicklaunch { display: none; } </STYLE> Click “OK” to accept the changes, then exit “Edit Mode” and your changes will then take effect. 
Voila, it’s hidden (not deleted) and you can now move on to other classes. This is just the tip of the iceberg for all the changes that you can test and experiment with on a test site (always test on a local development environment). You can change the way web part background colors appear or change the Web Part title background color, or hide other elements of the SharePoint page. These changes only impact one page of your site, but you can take these changes and create an alternate CSS files to utilize or work with your development team to have the changes integrated into their design. I find this to be a quick way to test designs and love the built-in functionality that I had previously used FireFox extensions to accomplish the same feat. Remember, once you remove the CEWP, the style no longer overrides the CSS used in SharePoint so if there is an issue, just delete the CEWP from the page to have the site inherit the style from the default CSS file. This is a pretty straight-forward process and you can see the basics of how to use the IE 8 tool and will save users and developers a time trying to figure out which class they can change to impact their pages. 12/28/2009The old saying states “it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish” and 2009 has been a great personal example of this philosophy. 2009 has been very difficult from a personal point of view with all the change that has happened from month-to-month, but with all that instability I have learned to be flexible. I’m glad for all the things that have happened this year even if they have not been all experiences I would like to repeat. From a SharePoint perspective, as a consultant I was exposed to a bunch of new concepts and put in scenarios where I learned new features and functionality and will use those starting the new year and decade. I thought the highlight of the year was attending the “SharePoint Conference 2009” in Las Vegas and various “SharePoint Saturday” events. Now Vegas was ok, but the amount of information and the people that I met that week were the best part of attending the “SharePoint Conference”. Starting my company, PointLogix LLC, has been an eye-opening experience that is still a work in progress, but glad I took the plunge in February to control more of my work and life. There are many obstacles to starting my own business, but luckily there were opportunities that I had during the year that allowed me to market and build upon. This brings me to the end of the year. Well, just as I said owning my a business was very exciting and allowed me to build something from the ground up, it also comes with a variety of pitfalls that I cannot financially account for, so effective January 1, 2010 I have accepted a new position as a “Senior SharePoint Consultant” at RDA Corporation, where I will work with clients on customization, governance and best practices, potentially training, and hopefully Business Intelligence as it relates to SharePoint. I am very excited and with this new position there are some items that I have set to accomplish in a very short period of time. First up is certification. I am currently an Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (WSS Configuration), but by June I should have completed 3 other certs as a requisite for my position. I’m not terribly excited about taking tests, but looking forward to the learning that will help both me and provide value to my future employer. Next on the plate is speaking at events, my goal is to speak at 10+ SharePoint events, to include “SharePoint Saturday” and local SharePoint User groups. Sharing information is very important to me as I learn by explaining to others and think that others can learn from my experiences. This objective also includes blogging more about technical and non-technical issues on this very blog. I think that I have missed the opportunity in the last 6 months based on the types of work that I have done, so that will be a focus in 2010. Finally, digging into SharePoint 2010 will be the other objective for the year. With the latest product coming out, and probably be asked for by many of my new clients I will need to continue to understand how SharePoint 2010 will be used and can be used with large and mid-size businesses. I am especially looking forward to understanding the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) and PerformancePoint Services. So with the best laid plans that I have concocted for 2010, seems like I have going to have an incredibly front-loaded schedule for the first portions of the year. Looking forward to 2010 and wish everyone a Happy New Year. 12/6/2009
December 5th, I was lucky enough to be able to speak and meet some great SharePointers at SharePoint Saturday DC. The topic I presented was about moving to the cloud with SharePoint and I provided my “dos and don’ts” based on my experience with Doosan/Bobcat in 2008. When I submit my topic to the SPSDC committee, I was not sure if there was any traction in the community for the new service, but I had a pocket of interest in the subject and I am thinking there will be continued interest in 2010 when purse strings start to open up and companies start working on larger initiatives.
SharePoint Saturday DC was a great success, especially with the small snow event that showed up during the day. There were over 160 people who attended the day's activities, to include attendees, speakers and sponsors. Thanks to all who attended and especially for those who provided feedback to my session. Looking forward to reading all of the responses in the near future.
The next SharePoint Saturday DC event is scheduled in May 2010, so I am looking to offer a different topic that will be more technical.
Here’s my presentation: "SharePoint in the Cloud" on SlideShare.net 11/23/2009Thursday, I was informed that my session for "SharePoint in the Cloud – Migrating and Operating in a Hosted Environment" will be on the agenda for SharePoint Saturday – D.C. on December 5th in Reston, VA. I am really excited about the opportunity to present and meet other SharePoint professionals in the D.C.-area. The last event in May was very well attended and I learned a bunch about some of the concerns of the public sector attendees. In my session, I am going to focus on the broad strokes about what a Service-based model looks like from a customer perspective and address the pros and cons of the entire process. Also, I am going to review how a cloud strategy impacts your organization from a customization and support angle. I have a lot to do over the next few weeks (WSS Certification, presentation preparation, Thanksgiving) but I am looking to the opportunity to share and learn at SharePoint Saturday DC! I will post the presentation to "The SharePoint Blog" after I have presented. To learn more about the event, visit the SharePoint Saturday DC site, or if you are on Twitter search by #spsdc. 11/14/2009In preparation for the amount of demo and development work I expect to continue to do in the future, I have started to build out more and more VMs (Virtual Machines) with Windows Server 2008 R2 (32- and 64-bit) and want to document the process I use to build demo VMs, notice I didn't write Production or Staging. A lot of the work I do as a consultant revolves around strategy and new product introduction so the goal is to show the product, not to build best practice demo machines, but I try to incorporate as many best practices as possible. Some of the BAD practices I have on my demo box: - I have multiple accounts with the same password
- Turn my all-in-one server into a Domain Controller (DC) for an Active Directory (AD) Forest
- All accounts "never expire"
- Use "hosts" file for all my DNS, I do not install DNS Server at all
- There are many more, but those are the ones I want to discuss
Most of the breaches that I consistently expose are around Security, but I recommend hardening your environments if you have a virtual production/staging/UAT/development platform. Now that I have admitted to my faults, let focus on what we should do to start the process. Virtualization Software First, select a Virtualization product. There are many tools some free, some not. Here's a short list: There are other scenarios where dual-boot on a MAC, or even a attach a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) in Windows 7, but you will have to explore if your hardware can support those models. Operating System and Server Software Determine if your strategy is 32-bit? or 64-bit? Either way Microsoft have versions for each type, but be aware that Microsoft's Virtual PC does not currently support a 64-bit guest OS, big factor for SharePoint 2010 based on the fact it only support 64-bit installations. I have moved to the latest version of Windows Server but you can use any of the following Operating Systems: - Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2008 Standard/Enterprise
- Windows Server 2003 Standard/Enterprise
Next is product software requirements - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard/Enterprise
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
- SQL Server 2008/2005 Standard/Enterprise
- Visual Studio 2008/2005
- MOSS/WSS SDKs
Now You Are Ready to Install! Once you figure out what virtualization product you want and gather the software (and licenses) to install the bits, you are off. My next article will start the process of installation (slipstreaming, account creation, etc.) so that you can have a quality demo/dev box for your SharePoint needs. 11/13/2009Frustration, anticipation, and, in some cases, jealousy. I consider those to be some of the feelings I currently have when I read blog posts about the SharePoint 2010 information that is out on blogs, online publications, and other ways that I hear about the new product. I said it and I feel better, because since I attended the Microsoft SharePoint Conference I have seen VMs (Virtual Machines) running the product, screen shots with the new User Interface (UI), and documents with dialog boxes and checkboxes from the latest bits. Why do I feel frustrated? The biggest reason is because I expected Microsoft to release the SharePoint 2010 Public Beta in October at the SharePoint Conference. Now it’s mid-November and I think SharePoint 2010 is getting closer to seeing the light of day for the Beta, the current wisdom is SP2010 will be publicly available before Thanksgiving (specifically November 18, 2009). Why am I excited? This is just the start of the race to learn the new product, deploy the latest capabilities, and work through the issues. I also want to document the newest features in details on “The SharePoint Blog”. One area that I am happy about it is the Microsoft has significantly improved its release cycle so when the Beta is available, I feel it will be far more stable than the SharePoint 2007 Beta . I appreciate all the work that the Microsoft engineers have spent to make the product the best it can be before I get my hands on it. I also appreciate the work the MVPs and Microsoft Gold Partners have spent working through the bugs and other defects that will never be seen by the rest of us. With all this said, I am putting my money that I will have installed SharePoint 2010 by Thanksgiving and hope that everyone else who wants to learn about SharePoint 2010 will have the same opportunity. Here’s hoping for a November 18th release. 11/7/2009Like many new products Microsoft introduces, there is a lot of talk about when companies will migrate to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Some companies wait until Service Pack (SP) 1 is released, others jump on the platform in Beta and then migrate through each release as the next release becomes available, and then you have the companies that choose to be late to the party. This offering will be no different that any other software Microsoft has released in the past. Two factors have entered the scene with the introduction that were not present in other versions of SharePoint: - The deepest recession since the "Great Depression" in the 1930s
- Requirement for 64-bit SharePoint
The economy in the United States has hit the bottom and is showing signs of recovery, but corporate investment for new projects continue to be severely scrutinized and many think it will take until Spring or Summer of 2010 before we see any movement in the pent-up demand that has held back upgrades and other similar initiatives. If Microsoft plans to roll-out SharePoint 2010, I don't think the economy will impact the adoption, if companies want to migrate it, it might actually help. Now that IT management knows that SharePoint 2010 will be available, they can plan the expenses in their budget and if the global economy continues to improve then spending the money to upgrade will not be a problem. Also a sizable set of the companies that could go to the next version immediately could do so based on their Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, a contract which allows companies to buy the software they need for the company over a three-year period, that allows for access and authorization to upgrade to the latest version upon release. This is not going to cover every enterprise, but will hit a majority with over five thousand employees in their organization. The next requirement enterprises need to account for is 64-bit SharePoint. Many have said that this will be the biggest reason why companies won't go to the product, I think that is not a major concern. My reasoning is this, large companies generally outsource or had virtual server farms (or both) and moving to a 64-bit environment so spinning up a new 64-bit farm is not a major expense, when they can retire the same application on another virtual server farm. Most companies will on incur time and re-allocation of licenses of 32-bit software to 64-bit. There are special cases across the board because of contracts, but those are very special cases. For mid- and small-business, this expense could be an issue, but the smaller the company I am convinced that with this financial crisis, they would not move to SharePoint 2010, unless they are an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) or consulting firm. So when will companies move? Some already have started, others are thinking about when they can move before the Release Candidate (RC) is out, but I see the wave starting in August/September, if the product maintains its mid-year release and increase throughout 2010. I know I am advising to start to plan for upgrading to SharePoint 2010 prior to it's release and for some, recommend its adoption before RC for others. I can see others holding off until 2012, just because of the lack of buy-in for the entire Microsoft stack, but that happens in all types of product lines. The next item up for discussion will be what should you do to plan for migration and how to help your users choose when to upgrade their sites. 10/31/2009 Last week, I attended the Microsoft SharePoint Conference and was very interested in the tone of the entire week related to Microsoft's Services Online for SharePoint and how the future adoption was a focus from Steve Ballmer's Keynote to a majority of the topics throughout the event. Developer, Administrator, and Business sessions included references to the product and how it will change the topology of IT's operations. I think explaining the service and for many to understand how the service operates is pivotal to deciding to adopt the platform or to seek more information about other options (on-premise hosting or choose another option). A little background on my experience in the MSO space, in late 2007 a generous-sized portion of my company was sold from Ingersoll Rand to the South-Korean company Doosan Infracore. This sale of the Bobcat Company was the largest acquisition by a South-Korean company of all-time and what needed to happen was that we needed to set up an entire IT infrastructure by the end of 2008. All the activities that required us to host this type of infrastructure would have been difficult for the amount of people we had in our organization, so we focused on a strategy which would allow us to stand up an environment in the best possible way with as little time as possible. Enter Microsoft Services Online. So that part of the story will end for another day or another location, but selecting the latest "cloud" service was a great part of our strategy and a successful deployment. What I learned about the service offering and how it will change in SharePoint Online 2010 is the story of today. First, there are two flavors of SharePoint Online: Standard (Multi-tenant) and Dedicated. Standard supports 5+ seats, Dedicated supports 5,000+ seats for a large enterprise and has very different tools to manage the platform and support requirements. I would consider the "Standard" platform to be very vanilla in the current version and allows for very little customization and configuration. The Dedicated platform is a little different and offers a level of customization and enhanced configuration, but I like to think of both, in their current state, as "SharePoint with Sacrifices". Both offer High-Availability (HA), redundancy and allow your organization to feel confident that the SharePoint environment has the best people managing its capabilities. So, what's missing now that will make the service better in 2010? - Web Content Management: Currently not offered in either "cloud" environment, but there are vendors who have filled that gap and offer a similar product for those who want it. So that means no Internet public-facing web sites.
- PerformancePoint (Services)
- Business Data Search
- Microsoft Project Online
- Tenant Admin. Right now administrators do not have access to the Central Administration site and need to call/email support to have operations completed on their behalf. Having something will be better than no access at all.
- Shorter lead times and approvals for customizations within the Dedicated environment.
- More SharePoint 2010-specific features (Business Connectivity Services, Visio Integration, Access Services, Legal Holds, and Sandbox Solutions. In current version, some 2007 features were or are not available.
All of these additions will be a great and should be available by April 2011 (per Microsoft's guidance at the SharePoint Conference) based on the specific feature and will continue to build the service, but out of all of the new abilities, I think the Web Content Management piece will be the most impactful. Web Content Management, both in the hosted and on-premise SKU, seems to lag behind the general adoption of SharePoint based on the cost to deploy for small- and mid-size businesses, and the overall feature set, but that will change in SharePoint 2010. Although there are no licensing numbers released, I see a change in the overall licensing model and pure guess would probably reduce the cost by half. This would not only drive enterprise adoption of SharePoint's WCM platform, but would encourage mid-size and larger small businesses to use the product, too. This could complete Microsoft's vision of a internal and external service offering that would compete with the leaders in all of these spaces. ![168694_0001[1]](/Lists/Posts/Attachments/10/168694_00011_thumb_78488079.png "168694_0001[1]")
Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management (Source: Gartner) As you can see in Gartner's Magic Quadrant, Microsoft is a challenger in the WCM space and providing more quality features will move Microsoft's SharePoint 2010 product to the upper right-side (Leaders) of the space. The Microsoft vision of a hosted SharePoint environment will improve greatly from early 2008 and I see push to continue to take place for IT organizations to focus resources on business-building projects and productivity enhancements to their Lines-of-Businesses versus on-site hosting or even offshore/outsourced hosting. Businesses and CIO want to control cost, but also need to contribute significantly to their respective organizations by delivering core solutions versus performing maintenance functions that do not return perceived value. Microsoft will continue to build the "Software+Services" offering and that will ensure that SharePoint 2010, whether hosted internally or externally, will continue to grow as the biggest licensed product in their history.
10/25/2009One of the issues in the past with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 was controlling the use of SharePoint Designer (SPD) within SharePoint's Central Administration or within a site collection, or even granular control at the site level. Well, it appears Microsoft has listened to the voice of the customer and implemented a solution which allows an administrator to check a box and limit SharePoint Designer use on a site collection basis. With some companies creating most sites as it's own site collection, this is a great option. Now, I know there were ways by modifying web.config files and other work-arounds to allow this similar feature but in most cases the feature had to be implemented on a site-by-site basis or it was "all-or-nothing". Adding this feature will allow enterprises and administrators decide how and who is allowed to make design, workflow or other modifications via SPD 2010. Some of the other choices are enabling the detaching of pages from the site definition, enabling customized Master and Layout Pages, and enabling the management of the web site URL structure. These choices are self-explanatory, but have great consequences of how much a user can change on the site. Options are always best in this case. Based on previous deployments, I know this ability will be very well received because some companies what users to have no ability to use SPD and others allow the full use of SPD, it's a governance choice. With the new interface, there appears to be more ways that a site can be modified and SPD 2010 will only be able to modify SharePoint 2010 sites so only the future platform will be impacted. 10/24/2009After arriving home from Las Vegas on Thursday night, I started reviewing all the documents, vendor advertisements and session videos from the 2009 SharePoint Conference and came to the conclusion that learning SharePoint 2010 is going to be similar to learning an entirely new product. The reason why I believe this is that the user experience (UX) is significantly changed (and improved), the way developer's will use the product is more inline with a "finished" solution, no more modifying XML files to build solutions and features, and the amount of new Business Intelligence (BI) additions will change the way business users will adopt the product. The first session I replayed was related to Visual Studio 2010 and the major improvements, which will allow Solution Architects and Developers to deploy SharePoint Solutions much quicker and with less pain. Adding a feature, event receiver or solution is started as simply as right-clicking within the project and walking through the steps to complete. There is also a new "Visual Web Part" mode which allows developers to drag-and-drop controls onto the design area and complete tasks without writing as much code as previously needed. The next session I reviewed was a PowerPivot and BI review and I think this one area will encourage the migration from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint 2010 from a business case point of view. The significant Return on Investment (ROI) gained from having Line-of-Business (LOB) via Business Connectivity Services (BCS) will be a boon to businesses, data analysts and developers alike. Connecting the BCS is much more simplified and now can read information, as well as, write back data to LOB data sources. This is was a very big factor in companies that I worked with not deploying or even consider using the feature in SharePoint, this will change that perception now. PowerPivot will also remove the single point-of-failure that exists by business users retaining information on their desktop and now will expose their entire workgroups. Negatively, based on questions raised during the Key Note session with Steve Ballmer and Tom Rizzo (Senior Director of SharePoint) the tools specifically built for SharePoint 2010 cannot be used in the MOSS 2007 environment. This means SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 will only support the SharePoint 2010 SKUs and means developers and designers must use two different products to support their mixed environments. Also, Microsoft had made a decision to only deploy the server-based products to 64-bit platforms and with the way IT budgets are stretched I believe adoption will be relatively slow for the mid-sized and some Enterprise-sized companies. If the product was to be released in the middle of 2010, it might benefit from pent-up demand of the past few year's financial crisis and be streamed into the budget process. It could go either way, depends how quickly the global economies rebound. This all being said, I believe now that the 2009 SharePoint Conference is complete there is much work to be done in both products (2007 and 2010) and know that for me and my company that building solutions in both will pay tremendous advantages in the short- mid- and long-term. SharePoint 2010 is very impressive and I hope by Thanksgiving that I will be able to start participating in the Public Beta and share my experiences in this blog, articles I will write, and conferences I will speak at. |
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A registered Microsoft® Partner Specializing in SharePoint Technologies for the
Global, Small-, and Mid-sized Enterprise. To learn more about what PointLogix can do for you, visit their web site at www.pointlogix.com. |
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