Brian Alderman

CMSWire Magazine 35,000-Foot View of What's New in SharePoint 2013

Brian Alderman — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:34:00 GMT

CMSWire Magazine hosted my four-part series on a 35,000 Foot View of What's New in SharePoint 2013. This four part series which was rolled out over a four week period in August introduced what is expected to be new or changed in the RTM release of SharePoint 2013, which is expected in Q1 of 2013 according to the reputable rumor mill. I have included the links to the four articles below and I apologize in advance for the not-so-friendly URL's but I do promise you they will get you where you want to go.

The first of the four articles, released on August 8^th, focused on changes and new functionality for IT Pro's and it can be viewed at:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/35000-foot-view-of-sharepoint-2013-for-administrators-016847.php

The second of the four articles, released on August 15^th, focused on changes and new functionality for the fine developers in the SharePoint world and it can be viewed at:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/35000-foot-view-of-sharepoint-2013-for-developers-016848.php

The third of the four articles, released on August 22^nd, focused on changes and new functionality for our creative designers and it can be viewed at:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/35000foot-view-of-sharepoint-2013-for-designers-016849.php

The final article, released on August 29^th, focused on changes and new functionality for the serious SharePoint end users and it can be viewed at:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/35000-foot-view-of-sharepoint-2013-for-end-users-016850.php

So if you haven't had time to take a peek at what you can expect for changes in SharePoint 2013, these articles will introduce you to what is expected to be available in the next release of SharePoint. As always with BETA software, there could be some disappointments, and some very exciting changes between now and the RTM, so keep that in mind as you are reviewing these articles.

Happy Reading!

SharePoint 2013 Public Beta Bits Released

Brian Alderman — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:05:00 GMT

Wow you blink your eyes or bat your eyelashes, and there is another release of SharePoint lurking around the corner.

Yes, Microsoft has released SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview and SharePoint Server 2013 Preview (which can only be downloaded from TechNet) last week for your viewing pleasure.

There are some significant changes in this release that you’ll want to familiarize yourself with to allow you to take full advantage of the new functionality provided in SharePoint 2013.

The cool thing is that they also provided plenty of documentation and Visio diagrams (pictures are worth a thousand words) to help you understand SharePoint 2013. The images and documentation for SharePoint 2013 is available from a few different locations:

Mindsharp

To review Mindsharp’s SharePoint 2013 VIP Webinar, where I provide a 35,000 foot overview of "What's New in SharePoint 2013" for Developers, Designers, IT Pro's, and End Users, you can visit the Mindsharp Web site at:

https://www.mindsharp.com/Training/2013/Webinars/VIP.aspx

Microsoft

If you are interested in downloading the documentation and diagrams currently available for SharePoint 2013 you can visit the following Web Site:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/search.aspx?q=SharePoint%202013

If you are interested in downloading SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview you can visit the following Web Site:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30345

If you are interested in downloading SharePoint Server 2013 Preview (with a limited time trial) you can visit the following Web Site: (Be prepared to provide a Windows Live Account to complete this download)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx

I think this will give you plenty to do for a while, but check back for future posts where I will discuss SharePoint 2013 components and functionality in more detail.

Enjoy the SharePoint 2013 Preview and I will see you soon!

SharePoint vNext – What’s all the Excitement?

Brian Alderman — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:23:53 GMT

SharePoint is an ever evolving product and with its integration with so many other systems, (O.S., SQL Server, IIS, DNS, AD, Office, Project, etc..) it isn't a wonder people get excited about what is in store for the next release of SharePoint, and from what I am reading on the Internet it is being developed under the code name 'SharePoint 15. I hope that doesn't mean it won't release until the year 2015. J

According to an article written by Jeffrey Schwartz in the Redmond Magazine, located at www.redmondmag.com, these are just a few of the anticipated (rumored really) functionality changes in SharePoint 15:

An overhauled Client Object Model (COM), "making it easier for UI designers and front-end developers to build compelling visual interfaces."
Supports for a new app marketplace that will create an ecosystem for multitenant apps.
Features a version for education and training called SharePoint Education.
Enables workflow looping in SharePoint Designer, eliminating the need for the Visual Studio development environment for that function.
Provides authentication via OAuth 2.0, an open standard that provides cross-platform authentication.
Offers added information rights management in SharePoint Foundation.

In addition to this list of functions Microsoft is officially saying: SharePoint 15 will tie closely with the release of the next version of Office, code-named "Office 15," and with a planned upgrade to Office 365. The cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 service offers online versions of SharePoint, Exchange and Lync, but the Office Professional Plus option is strictly installed on-premises at this time.

Surrounding the technology preview, Microsoft released two key documents: the SharePoint 2013 Technical Preview Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Office 15 Technical Preview Open Specification Update. Both provide rich technical documentation on what's new in SharePoint 15, notes Bjørn Furuknap, a senior SharePoint solutions architect, founder of training organization USPJ Academy and author of a series of ongoing detailed technical reports on the new SharePoint release.

Expectations Of Sharepoint 15

The New UI
Speaking at last fall's SharePoint Conference in Anaheim, Calif., Microsoft SharePoint exec Spataro said the company has increased the number of UI designers on the SharePoint team by a factor of four, an investment that did not go unnoticed by stakeholders.

"I think user experience is going to be very important," says Wahid Saleemi, a senior SharePoint consultant at Avanade Inc. "It's still difficult for someone to learn to use more of the advanced features of SharePoint -- setting up versioning, setting up workflows." Saleemi also wants to see better integration with Office. While it's already vastly improved in SharePoint 2010, he'd like to see better synchronization with Outlook and support for Access.

"What I'd like to see is people using SharePoint without knowing they're using SharePoint, where they're just using the applications they're used to -- Word, Excel, Access and primarily Outlook. Why should someone have to go to a Web page to look at a calendar when their calendar app is Outlook?" Saleemi asks. "That's possible today in 2010, with a little bit of tweaking, but hopefully that's much easier."

I have been seeing Microsoft trying more and more to create this environment of the Office Suite acting as a gateway to your SharePoint content without accessing so hopefully the new UI in SharePoint 2015 makes that easier for our end users. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

What's New in the Cloud
It's expected that the future release of SharePoint 15 and its correspondingly upgraded SharePoint Online component in Office 365 will have greater fidelity in terms of functionality than the current releases do. Today, there are disparities between how organizations can use SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Online.

For example, the BI features in Office 365 are limited compared with SharePoint 2010. Likewise, Office 365 is not optimized today for custom code or third-party apps.

There is some alignment between these two implementations in SharePoint 15 which should reduce the confusion of functionality options available in each deployment type.

This is a big step in aligning these two 'flavors' of SharePoint and I think the Office 365 functionality should contain all of the functionality the on-premise flavor offers. I hope they don't start providing functionality in Office 365 that isn't in on-premise just to 'steer' consumers to Office 365. I think this would be a disservice to our medium to large organizations.

The SharePoint Apps Marketplace
While there's a marketplace for SharePoint applications via Office.com, the app store that hosts downloadable site templates is not widely used, notes Furuknap. That's because the current app store supports only sandbox solutions, which are constrained from using all of SharePoint's functionality.

Another limitation is the lack of licensing provisions, Furuknap notes. "Naturally, this is a deal-breaker for many vendors as they're likely not going to want to give away their software without any license control," he writes. "The new app store, which Microsoft calls the Marketplace, solves all of these issues and looks very promising as a new way of getting and distributing applications both for users and developers."

I think the term app in this sense is going to cause confusion for people in SharePoint 15. We have always used it for SharePoint web apps, so there will need to be some clear concise documentation to help explain the difference between the two terms.

Summary

SharePoint 15 will offer many new features including; improved integration with Lync, and integration with the newly released SQL Server 2012 (which will offer more tightly integrated BI and reporting services). However, with the coming of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8, more can be expected on how SharePoint 15 will leverage those environments using the new Metro-style UI.

SharePoint 15 was released to those select few during the technology preview stage, but the beta release is expected this summer, (soon I hope) and speculation for the RTM release is in either Q4 of 2012 or Q1 of 2013 so be prepared for some exciting changes in SharePoint 15 when it does go public.

For more detailed information about what is expected in SharePoint 2015, be sure to review Jeffrey's Redmond Magazine article at:

http://redmondmag.com/Articles/2012/04/01/Whats-Next-for-SharePoint.aspx?Page=1

It is going to be a busy, yet exciting, year for the SharePoint community!

International SharePoint Conference, London

Brian Alderman — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:16:00 GMT

The International SharePoint Conference in London is such an amazing event! If you haven't had the opportunity to attend this conference yet, you should definitely plan on going to the next one. The Combined Knowledge team really knows how to put on a conference that includes speakers from around the world, unbelievable after hour events, and sessions that always get rave reviews.

In my session I had the privilege of working with John Holliday and Agnes Molnar. Our topic was 'Building a Records Management Solution', with the key word being solution. Many sessions will 'touch' on a specific topic, or focus on a particular theory. However, these sessions walked the attendees through a detailed records management solution. We began with the best practices for making sure your file plans contain the information necessary to support a real-world SharePoint records center deployment, configuration, and implementation. The majority of my presentation was what I enjoy doing the most… DEMO's. I did a full demonstration on the SharePoint farm level record centers components, how to configure the records center, and finally how to route a document to the records center where it would reside during its retention period. We also provided information on how to improve searches on records and automate business processes by creating workflows for these records.

You didn't have to go too far to meet some really great speakers that are experts in the SharePoint field. It was great to see many of my colleagues and make the acquaintance of many new ones. These are the conferences where personal and professional connections are made. I am already looking forward to their next conference, being held April 15-17 of 2013.

International SharePoint Conference

Speaking at The International SharePoint Conference London 2012

Brian Alderman — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:24:00 GMT

I am excited to be presenting again this year at the fourth annual SharePoint Conference London 2012 which has been re-designed to now deliver solutions using as much time as necessary to cover a complete topic. What is new for 2012 is that there are sets of sessions that are structured to work together in certain scenarios during the 3 days to build a complete solution. For example: Imagine working with data through business connectivity services and then taking that data and aggregating it through various aggregation web parts in a publishing environment. We will be getting the various IW speakers to work together and create these end to end scenarios so you can see the full picture and enable you to go back to your work place with all the information you need to get it done.

This year I will be presenting on the topic Building a Records Management Solution which is a four-part solution within one of the three Information Worker tracks, designed for the end users and what they can actually do with SharePoint's functionality. We will examine capacity planning and security WRT building a "records farm" derived from the information contained in the file plan. Depending on the classification and routing strategies that have been identified in prior sessions, we'll identify the major issues and show how the provisioning plan changes based on which strategy is chosen.

The International SharePoint Conference London 2012 will be held at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre which is a premier venue uniquely situated in the shadow of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye.

Follow this link for more information about this conference: International SharePoint Conference

‘Access Denied’ Error When Activating Document ID Site Collection Feature

Brian Alderman — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:01:00 GMT

Document ID's are useful when you want to associate a metadata property to a document, or document set, which can then be used to retrieve the item regardless of where it is moved within the site collection, or even moved to a document center or record center.

The first step necessary to configure this functionality is to activate the Document ID site collection feature. You then run the Web Application specific timer jobs (Document ID assignment and Document ID enable/disable jobs) to assign a Document ID to every new Document and Document Set created. If the document or Document Set already existed they will be assigned a Document ID the next time they are updated.

Note: After activating the Document ID feature you should modify the default prefix, (because no-one would be able to remember this randomly generated prefix) for the generated Document ID's. This is accomplished by accessing the Document ID Settings option within the Site Collection Administration category of Site Settings. This prefix must contain 4-12 letters and numbers.

However, when you attempt to activate the Document ID site collection feature you may receive an Access Denied error.

This error is generated if the Create Subsites permission has been removed on the web application that contains the site collection that you are trying to activate the Document ID feature on.

To resolve this error you need to allow the Create Subsites permission for the web application. This can be done via Central Administration->Manage Web Applications->Web Application name ->User Permission. Within the Site Permission category check the Allow checkbox for the Create SubSites permission.

You will now be successful in activating the Document ID site collection feature on all site collections within the Web Application.

Configure SQL Server Log Shipping for SharePoint Database Redundancy

Brian Alderman — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:09:00 GMT

Data redundancy provides you the capability to recover your SharePoint data quickly and without any data loss. There are several ways to provide data redundancy to assist in business continuity; SQL Server clustering, database mirroring, and SQL Server log shipping are just a few of these ways that are managed by the DBA’s in your SQL Server environment.

Log shipping not only provides data redundancy, but also provides entire server redundancy being an entire server (usually referred to as the secondary server) is hosting a duplicate copy of your SharePoint database content and all the SQL Server configuration settings. This can be helpful if you need to quickly failover to this secondary server in the event your primary server fails. This server can also be used to perform DBCC (Database Console Commands) to verify the integrity of your SharePoint database content so it doesn’t just sit their idle waiting for a failure to occur.

To configure log shipping you stand-up a second server that mirrors the configuration of your primary SQL Server and then create automatic shipment of transaction logs from the primary server to the secondary server. You can use the following steps to configure SQL Server log shipping of your SharePoint content databases:

1. Go to secondary SQL Server (we’ll call it SQLBackup) and create a folder called LogShipping and share it as LogShipping

2. On the primary SQL Server (we’ll call it SQLPrimary), open SQL Management Studio, and add the SharePoint farm account to the security logins and map the user as a dbo of each SharePoint content database.

3. Make sure the SQL Server Agent is started and configured to automatically start on both the SQLPrimary and SQLBackup Servers.

4. On SQLPrimary locate and right-click on the SharePoint content database and click Properties.

5. Select Transaction Log Shipping, and then select Enable this as a Primary database in a log shipping configuration.

6. Click Backup Settings and use \\SQLPrimary\LogShippng and c:\LogShipping

7. Change Schedule to 5 minutes, and then click OK.

8. In the Secondary Database section, click Add and then click Connect and connect to SQLBackup. Ensure your SharePoint content database is selected as the database for log shipping configuration.

9. Select the option: Yes, generate full backup and create secondary database.

10. Click Restore Options and type c:\LogShipping on both fields.

11. On the Copy Files tab use \\sqlBackup\LogShipping, and then change the schedule to 5 minutes

12. On the Restore Transaction Log tab click Standby Mode (read only when restored) and make sure the Disconnect users checkbox is selected or transaction logs will not be applied later. Click OK.

13. Select Script Configuration and choose Script Configuration to clipboard, open Notepad and paste.

14. Click OK, and then click Close after completion.

15. Go to SQLBackup and refresh the databases to see your SharePoint content database exists in standby / read only mode.

16. In the event the SQLPrimary SQL Server fails you can simply modify the SQL Alias to point to the SQLBackup SQL Server so it now responds to all SQL Server requests after the failure of the SQLPrimary server.

Mindsharp Presence at Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Conference

Brian Alderman — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:29:00 GMT

It has been a crazy summer but I have been feverishly working at providing you an outstanding educational experience during your visit to Anaheim during the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Conference. I, along with several other experts will be presenting additional educational sessions during your visit to Anaheim.

Mindsharp is offering ten SharePoint 2010 sessions throughout the week from some of the top SharePoint experts in the world. If you would like to learn even more during your lunches and breaks visit Mindsharp located at booth 323 in the Exhibit hall for more tips, tricks, and best practices about SharePoint 2010. Some of the topics that will be presented during the conference include:

Aligning SharePoint Implementations with Business Strategy – Bill English

Dynamic Integration Between Business and IT using SharePoint 2010 – David Gregor

Optimizing SQL Server for SharePoint 2010 – Brian Alderman

Improving SharePoint’s Performance - Ben Curry

Managing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in SharePoint 2010. What it is, why you should, and how you can – Jay Simcox

Introducing SharePoint Tools in Visual Studio 2010 – Todd Bleeker

Building Better Choices: Using Managed Metadata to Create Managed Choice – Timothy Calunod

Business User Adoption – Kay McClure

Create a Reusable Workflow in SharePoint Designer 2010 – Tamara Bredemus

Extending LINQ to SharePoint to the List’s Attachments and Property Bag – Nancy Brown

In addition to several SharePoint 2010 sessions, Mindsharp has invited O’Reilly to co-host a free book-signing event for the first 100 people beginning at 12:30 on Monday October 3^rd. In addition to myself, Bill English, Todd Bleeker, and Penny Coventry will be signing our SharePoint books.

But wait there's more, if you stop by our booth and provide your business card we will give you three SharePoint 2010 posters on:

SharePoint 2010 Permission Levels and dependencies infrastructure

SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and Configuration Job Aid that provides information Service Applications, Content Types and the List Ribbon options

SharePoint 2010 Information Architecture & Design Overview that shows how to obtain an ROI on your information and investments.

Be sure to stop by and say hello and enter your business card in for a drawing for a free Mindsharp.

I look forward to seeing everyone in October...

...Brian

Microsoft SharePoint Service Pack 1 Update

Brian Alderman — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:09:00 GMT

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1 was recently released which resolves several ‘undocumented features’ also known as fixes for issues reported about SharePoint 2010. Service Pack 1 includes fixes that were not release prior to this service pack, as well as general product fixes that provide improvements to security, performance, and the stability of the product.

This service pack includes all of the product updates that were release through June of 2011 which includes the cumulative updates through April 2011. Yes that is correct only through April of 2011, which means it does not include the June 2011 Cumulative Update. So what does that mean you need to do to update your SharePoint Server 2010 farm? Lots of installations!!!!! But before you begin be sure to check out the release notes and side effects of SP1 as described in KB2532126.

Caution: Always test the installation of this and all updates in a non-production environment prior to deploying it to your production environment!!!!!

To add service pack 1 to your entire farm you have to perform the following installations on each server in your farm:

1. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010

2. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Foundation 2010 Language Pack (if applicable)

3. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2010

4. Service Pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2010 Language Pack (if applicable)

5. Run the SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard or "psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b -wait” on every server in the farm following this final update.

Note: Upon completion of the service pack 1 installation extravaganza, the version of content databases will be 14.0.6029.1000.

But wait there’s more, Microsoft strongly recommends that you install the June 2011 Cumulative Update immediately after the installation of Service Pack 1. This June CU includes several important security and bug fixes that were not included in Service Pack 1.

If you have already installed the June Cumulative Update, you can install SP1 using the steps previously described.

Note: Upon completion of the June 2011 CU, the version of the content databases will be 14.0.6106.5000

Now for some good news, in addition to providing fixes to the product, the service pack also includes some great improvements in the following key areas of SharePoint 2010:

· Improved support for Internet Explorer 9.

· Recycle bin: Lets you restore a site collection or a web that was deleted.

· Remote Backup Systems (RBS) and shallow copy can decrease downtime and increase efficiency by moving pointers to databases instead of moving databases. The New Shallow Copy functionality with the Move-SPSite CmdLet enables moving site collections between content databases without moving the underlying unstructured data, i.e. Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint Presentations, etc.

· You can see which folders are taking up valuable space with the improved Storage Management (StorMan.aspx) feature in site settings.

· Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2011, Code Named "Denali”

· A more robust Search Host Distribution service that improves error recovery and performance during the search crawl.

· Adds backup and restore functionality to recover deleted site collections and webs.

Well, let the fun begin and for more information on your SharePoint 2010 Service Pack endeavor, click this SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 1 link for more information about service pack 1 for SharePoint Server 2010.

Did I tell you that I highly recommend that you:

Always test, test, test the installation of this and all updates in a non-production environment prior to deploying it to your production environment!!!!!

Unable to Create a Site Using Team Site Template

Brian Alderman — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:41:00 GMT

While doing a demonstration in one of my SharePoint Administration Core Technologies classes, I discovered I wasn’t able to create a new site using the Team Site template within one of my web applications. However, I was able to create a new site using the blank team site template. Oddly enough this was the day after I had completed a demo on how to block file types for this web application.

I thought about the file types that I had blocked the day before and I remembered that I had entered in four file types; wmv, avi, mp3, and png. Knowing the implementation of blocked file types prevents those files from being uploaded, or downloaded, into SharePoint I started checking to see which file type may prevent the Team Site site template from being used.

I opened up a Team Site and noticed the picture located on the top right side of the site. I guessed this picture may be one of the four file types I blocked. Thinking about the four I blocked that may impact the use of the Team Site site template, I guessed it may be the .png file type was being used to add that picture during the creation of the site when using that template.

I went back and removed the .png file type from being blocked for this web application and again tried to create a site using the Team Site site template and sure enough it worked fine. I felt it is important wanted to share that file types that are blocked for a web application include files that are not just those directly uploaded but those that are also uploaded as part of a site template, such as the Team Site site templates or features.

Be careful what file types are blocked per web application to avoid issues with the use of templates and features.