Navigation can be one of those tricky things that takes a bit of planning to get figured out. In this post I am going to cover a few things that are in place to help you provide a great experience for your users. Navigation is one of those things that is so important to your users so be sure that above all things you are thinking about them as you develop your approach. Keep it simple, keep it clean and easy to follow. Remember that you can have the best solution ever but users must use it for it to be successful. If a user gets easily lost moving through your solution or can’t find what they expect then you are going to have a hard time getting them to use the solution.

Seattle vs Olso

If you have spent much time in the “change the look” area of SharePoint you have likely seen the Site Layout option.

This option allows you to pick a specific layout for your site. The default layout option is Seattle and provides your site with a “Global Navigation / Top Bar” and a “Quick Launch / Current Site” side navigation.

The Oslo option provides a second option for displaying navigation. When selected, the Current Navigation is displayed in the location of the Global Navigation and the Global Navigation is hidden. This is a great tool to use when you are interested in having only one set of navigation and would prefer to have more whitespace on your site to display content.

This second layout option of Oslo provides a great way to give your users more content and should be used when you don’t need to have a second layer of navigation. Both options have benefits of use, so I encourage you to simply pick the one that works best in the scenario that is driving your business solution.

Updating Team Site Navigation

Updating the links that are displayed within your navigation is a pretty easy task. If you are working with a Team Site (one without the Publishing features activated) then you will have a slightly different experience with the navigation settings. You will be able to update the links directly on the page (using the Edit links option) or you can use the Top Link and Quick Launch options within Site Settings.

If you would like additional settings, you can always go into Site Settings and use the settings page for Top Link or for Quick Launch to add and re-order links.

The options for managing navigation on a team site are pretty basic and there are limitations with what can be configured. If you find that you run into limitations, then you can always activate the publishing features to allow for the site to take advantage of some advanced navigation options.

Publishing Navigation

If you would like to use the advanced navigation options on your site you will need to either create your site using a Publishing template or activate the features within your team site. The feature you will want to activate is the Publishing Infrastructure Site Collection Feature.

Activate Publishing Feature for the Site Collection

Once this has been activated you will see a Navigation link in the Look and Feel section of the Site Settings page.

When you click on the Navigation settings link you will be able to have much more granular control over the site navigation. You can set the navigation to build itself automatically based on the pages and sites created within the site collection, you can manually add the links or you can point to a Managed Metadata Term Store (see below).

In most cases I am a fan of building it manually. I do this because I want to make sure that my navigation is consistent and only changes by design. This is really personal preference, so I am sure there are some business cases where it makes sense to build it based on site content.

Managed Metadata Navigation

If you have the need to use a common Navigation set across multiple site collections then you could take advantage of the Managed Metadata settings. This would allow you to create a term store that has all the navigation items you need that would be referenced in other site collections. If you need to update links you would simple update the term store and the changes would push down to all Site Collections that are referencing your term set.

Step 1: Create a Term Store

To create the term store you would need to be assigned create permissions. If you are not an administrator then you will need to work with your organizations administrators to create this. In most cases, there will be a set of governance guidelines that are associated with this type of thing. For the sake of this example, we are going to assume that the term store has already been created. If you don’t have one created and need to get help with those steps, just follow the information in this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn194310.aspx Below is a screenshot of the term store that we will be linking to for our site collection navigation.

Step 2: Reference the Term Store in Your Site Collection

Once your term store has been created, you just need to reference it in the Navigation settings for the site collection.

Once this has been configured, your site collection navigation will match the values in the term store. If you need to update the navigation, simply open the term store and make the changes there.

Promoted Links

Promoted Links are the final area of navigation that will be discussed in this blog. Promoted Links come from a custom list type that is new with SharePoint 2013. It allows you to create a list of Links with associated images that are displayed in a Tile format. A common example of the use of promoted links is the “Getting Started” toolbar that is displayed on new sites.

What most people don’t know is that you can create your own list using this same template and add whatever custom links you want. You just need to create a new app based on the list template and then populate it with your values.

These lists are a great way to streamline navigation to key areas or links that your users should be accessing. For many of the solutions I have built there are several different lists based on this template. The best part of all is that this list is just a standard SharePoint list, so items can easily be security trimmed. This means it is easy to display tiles to one group of users but not another.

Over the years, Rackspace has spent a great deal of time giving back to the community – now, the SharePoint team at Rackspace is looking to continue the efforts with a series of events called ‘SharePoint in the City’.

One of the best parts of having a large team of experts and SharePoint MVPs is the opportunity to share information with the larger community. Normally this involves travel to differnt shows and conventions, but we also want to take the time to bring this event to local venues.

 

Below is a sample of the agenda that we will have at this event.  The goal is to provide everyone who attends insight on a variety of SharePoint topics with a focus on real-world solutions we have implemented internally at Rackspace.

It’s our hope that this endeavor serves to help the Houston community take better advantage of SharePoint!

Schedule: October 29th –

8:30 – 4:00 SharePoint talk @ the Microsoft Offices
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Drinks, Networking & ‘SharePint-ing’! @ TBD

The event will run much like an extended user group. The format will be interactive and will allow for much discussion and dialog between the attendees. We will be covering the following topics throughout the day:

• Introduction to our Internal SharePoint Implementation

• Using SharePoint to Manage the Strategic Proposals Process

• Using SharePoint to Build an Interactive Onboarding Experience

• Using SharePoint to Build a Departments Information Portal

• Adoption, Governance, Training and Migrations – Oh My! – Implementing SharePoint in the Real World

Registration Link: http://spinthecityhouston-es2.eventbrite.com/?rank=3&sid=bd1daa0a34e111e3b58e1231390f3274

Over the years, Rackspace has spent a great deal of time giving back to the community – now, the SharePoint team at Rackspace is looking to continue the efforts with a series of events called ‘SharePoint in the City’.

One of the best parts of having a large team of experts and SharePoint MVPs is the opportunity to share information with the larger community. Normally this involves travel to differnt shows and conventions, but we also want to take the time to bring this event to local venues.

 

Below is a sample of the agenda that we will have at this event.  The goal is to provide everyone who attends insight on a variety of SharePoint topics with a focus on real-world solutions we have implemented internally at Rackspace.

It’s our hope that this endeavor serves to help the Houston community take better advantage of SharePoint!

Schedule: October 29th –

8:30 – 4:00 SharePoint talk @ the Microsoft Offices
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Drinks, Networking & ‘SharePint-ing’! @ TBD

The event will run much like an extended user group. The format will be interactive and will allow for much discussion and dialog between the attendees. We will be covering the following topics throughout the day:

• Introduction to our Internal SharePoint Implementation
  
• Using SharePoint to Manage the Strategic Proposals Process
  
• Using SharePoint to Build an Interactive Onboarding Experience
  
• Using SharePoint to Build a Departments Information Portal
  
• Adoption, Governance, Training and Migrations – Oh My! – Implementing SharePoint in the Real World
  

Registration Link: http://spinthecityhouston-es2.eventbrite.com/?rank=3&sid=bd1daa0a34e111e3b58e1231390f3274

This afternoon I will be giving a session at Houston TechFest about the differences in SharePoint Social and Yammer Social and most importantly, why you should care 🙂

I am hoping for a lively interactive discussion with the audience.  If you are interested in my slides, you can find them here.  Also, here are some links about Enterprise Social that you might find helpful!

Article	Link
Grow Your Business with Yammer Breakout #WPC13	http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/grow-your-business-with-yammer-breakout-wpc13-021657.php
Yammer versus SharePoint: What is a Company to Do?	http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/yammer-versus-sharepoint-what-is-a-company-to-do-020163.php
An Overview of Social Features in Yammer	http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/an-overview-of-social-features-in-yammer-019870.php
SharePoint 2013: Social Features Highlights	http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/sharepoint-2013-social-features-highlights-019624.php
SharePoint, Social and Yammer: A Way of Working, Not Just Tools	http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/sharepoint-social-and-yammer-a-way-of-working-not-just-tools-019408.php

This afternoon I will be giving a session at Houston TechFest about the differences in SharePoint Social and Yammer Social and most importantly, why you should care 🙂

I am hoping for a lively interactive discussion with the audience.  If you are interested in my slides, you can find them here.  Also, here are some links about Enterprise Social that you might find helpful!

This morning I get the opportunity to present a session at SPSRedmond about an internal solution that I have been working on for Rackspace.  This soluton is used by our HR team during our onboarding week.  The solution allows for users to access the content from the sessions and schedule as well as interact with each other through various discussion lists.

You can find a link to the presentation here.

I get the awesome opportunity to speak at the Austin SharePoint User Group tomorrow. I hear that the tickets have sold out, so I am looking forward to a great night with the local community!

The topic I will be presenting is:

Creating Simple Dashboards Using Out-of-the-Box Web Parts

In this session, we will look at some basic out-of-the-box ways to create powerful dashboards for managing teams and projects. Our dashboards will be created using multiple connected Web Parts all configured from the browser. This class will give you a good overview of lists, views, Web Part pages and Web Part connections.  This is a great class for those just getting started with SharePoint and want to push the limits of out-of-the-box configuration.

I have uploaded a copy of my presentation to my blog. I hope you find it helpful!

I get the awesome opportunity to speak at the Austin SharePoint User Group tomorrow. I hear that the tickets have sold out, so I am looking forward to a great night with the local community!

The topic I will be presenting is:

Creating Simple Dashboards Using Out-of-the-Box Web Parts

 

In this session, we will look at some basic out-of-the-box ways to create powerful dashboards for managing teams and projects. Our dashboards will be created using multiple connected Web Parts all configured from the browser. This class will give you a good overview of lists, views, Web Part pages and Web Part connections.  This is a great class for those just getting started with SharePoint and want to push the limits of out-of-the-box configuration.

 

I have uploaded a copy of my presentation to my blog. I hope you find it helpful!

This week I get the awesome opportunity to present at one of my favorite conferences – SPTechcon! We will be in Boston and I am looking forward to spending some great time with the community. I will be giving a full day session on Sunday, followed by three technical sessions on Monday and Tuesday. Below is a quick summary of my schedule:

Sunday, August 11 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM – Building Business Solutions: InfoPath & Workflows

Business Processes and forms are everywhere. In your organization, there are always forms to be filled out, and these forms usually entail some type of automation such as a workflow. Microsoft Office InfoPath is a powerful form-creation tool that lets you create highly customized and professional-looking business forms, without writing any code. When you use this product in conjunction with SharePoint and SharePoint Designer, you have all the tools you need to build a no-code automated business solution.

In this all-day tutorial, you will learn everything you need to know about creating a full-blown business process using SharePoint, InfoPath and SharePoint Designer. Some basics will be covered, along with common practices for form-submission approval processes and SharePoint Designer workflows. When you walk away from this tutorial, you will be confident that whatever processes the business throws at you, you will be able to create a solution using the tools and best practices that you learned.

Monday, August 12: 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM – SharePoint in Its Most Basic Terms: An Information Worker’s Introduction

Are you new to SharePoint? Or just getting started and wondering how in the world you are going to make sense of the fire hose of information? Join this class as we pull back the curtain and define the most common terms used within SharePoint. This class will help you build a solid foundation of the basics, enabling you to quickly take things to the next level as you dig deeper into the many features available within SharePoint.

Tuesday, August 13: 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM – SharePoint 2013 Tools for the Information Worker

With the release of SharePoint 2013, many changes have come to the Information Worker. And while it’s true that our tool set is changing, our purpose is still the same: building powerful composite solutions for the organization without requiring resources from IT. In this class, we are going to explore the different tools available and look at the best way to use them together to build composite solutions. We will cover topics such as SharePoint Designer, InfoPath and Access Services, as well as review solutions in 2010 and how they would be built using the tools in 2013. If you are an Information Worker that will be upgrading to 2013, or even if you’re a SharePoint Governance Team member, then this class is definitely for you!

Tuesday, August 13: 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM Creating Simple Dashboards Using Out-of-the-Box Web Parts

In this class, we will look at some basic out-of-the-box ways to create powerful dashboards for managing teams and projects. Our dashboards will be created using multiple connected Web Parts all configured from the browser. This class will give you a good overview of lists, views, Web Part pages and Web Part connections.  This is a great class for those just getting started with SharePoint and want to push the limits of out-of-the-box configuration.

Office Hours

In addition to the sessions above, I will be hanging out in the Rackspace booth, as well as having “Office Hours”. These are 1:1 sessions where you can schedule some time for you and your team to chat with me about anything related to SharePoint! This is a great opportunity to get some 1:1 questions answered and to go deeper into some of the topics I cover in my workshops! I will have my schedule on me at all sessions, so feel free to ask me for the signup sheet! My hours will start on Monday after my first session and I have some available until the end of the conference!

 

This week I get the awesome opportunity to present at one of my favorite conferences – SPTechcon! We will be in Boston and I am looking forward to spending some great time with the community. I will be giving a full day session on Sunday, followed by three technical sessions on Monday and Tuesday. Below is a quick summary of my schedule:

Sunday, August 11 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM – Building Business Solutions: InfoPath & Workflows

Business Processes and forms are everywhere. In your organization, there are always forms to be filled out, and these forms usually entail some type of automation such as a workflow. Microsoft Office InfoPath is a powerful form-creation tool that lets you create highly customized and professional-looking business forms, without writing any code. When you use this product in conjunction with SharePoint and SharePoint Designer, you have all the tools you need to build a no-code automated business solution.

In this all-day tutorial, you will learn everything you need to know about creating a full-blown business process using SharePoint, InfoPath and SharePoint Designer. Some basics will be covered, along with common practices for form-submission approval processes and SharePoint Designer workflows. When you walk away from this tutorial, you will be confident that whatever processes the business throws at you, you will be able to create a solution using the tools and best practices that you learned.

Monday, August 12: 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM – SharePoint in Its Most Basic Terms: An Information Worker’s Introduction

Are you new to SharePoint? Or just getting started and wondering how in the world you are going to make sense of the fire hose of information? Join this class as we pull back the curtain and define the most common terms used within SharePoint. This class will help you build a solid foundation of the basics, enabling you to quickly take things to the next level as you dig deeper into the many features available within SharePoint.

Tuesday, August 13: 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM – SharePoint 2013 Tools for the Information Worker

With the release of SharePoint 2013, many changes have come to the Information Worker. And while it’s true that our tool set is changing, our purpose is still the same: building powerful composite solutions for the organization without requiring resources from IT. In this class, we are going to explore the different tools available and look at the best way to use them together to build composite solutions. We will cover topics such as SharePoint Designer, InfoPath and Access Services, as well as review solutions in 2010 and how they would be built using the tools in 2013. If you are an Information Worker that will be upgrading to 2013, or even if you’re a SharePoint Governance Team member, then this class is definitely for you!

Tuesday, August 13: 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM Creating Simple Dashboards Using Out-of-the-Box Web Parts

In this class, we will look at some basic out-of-the-box ways to create powerful dashboards for managing teams and projects. Our dashboards will be created using multiple connected Web Parts all configured from the browser. This class will give you a good overview of lists, views, Web Part pages and Web Part connections.  This is a great class for those just getting started with SharePoint and want to push the limits of out-of-the-box configuration.

Office Hours

In addition to the sessions above, I will be hanging out in the Rackspace booth, as well as having “Office Hours”. These are 1:1 sessions where you can schedule some time for you and your team to chat with me about anything related to SharePoint! This is a great opportunity to get some 1:1 questions answered and to go deeper into some of the topics I cover in my workshops! I will have my schedule on me at all sessions, so feel free to ask me for the signup sheet! My hours will start on Monday after my first session and I have some