Jennifer Ann Mason

In this blog post I wanted to cover some of the basic options you have for working with different types of content on your SharePoint site. The example solution that I will be covering is a Marketing Intranet site that contains shared files that can be used and accessed by internal employees. Basically the site is a repository of content that users access as needed. Here is a screenshot of the solution home page.

The solution includes several main components, including:

• A place to store the approved marketing images. These are the images that have been approved and tested and can be used in materials created by internal employees.
  
• A place to the store the approved PowerPoint slides. These are the common boiler plate slides that everyone should be using in their presentations.
  
• A place to access the latest marketing brochures.
  
• A place to discuss marketing initiatives with the team.
  
• A place to showcase the latest marketing video.
  

In this series I am going to create a post that covers each of the items referenced above and then a closing post that discusses some tips for site design and layout. The purpose of this series is to spark some ideas of different ways that you can organize and store different types of content. All the solutions I will be presenting are out of the box items. I find that these features are often overlooked, so I think it is very important to cover them in detail so that everyone is aware of the different things that can be done out of the box.

As I complete the additional items in the series I will be sure to update the links in the table below so that they are easily accessible from one location. If all goes well, I hope to have this series completed in the next week or so.

Merry Christmas everyone! It’s been a great year and I am thankful for all the different ways I have been able to connect with the SharePoint community. As a thanks to all of my blog readers I have worked with my company to offer a discount on the upcoming Information Worker training to get you a $400 discount. All you have to do is mention you heard about it on my blog  You can click the link below for more details and to register for the training course.

I have also been hard at work this fall on a new book that is now available in rough cuts on Safari Online. For those unfamiliar with rough cuts, this basically gives you access to the book prior to it being publically available. I have worked hard on this book and to date it is one of my favorites! This book is focused on specific solutions and maps them out from start to finish (including tips on governing them once they are deployed). I definitely would love to hear your feedback on it! You can get to the book using the link below:

Starting in January I am going to start building some solution based blog series. This will be similar to some of the chapters in the book (just much shorter)! I am hoping that these will really be of use for people who are just getting started on their SharePoint implementations. If you have any requests for the blog series leave them in the comments below! See you again in January!

his year I had the great opportunity to attend SPC12 and write about it for CMSWire and for Rackspace.

Each day I created 1-2 su

mmary articles that highlighted my view of the conference. Overall, the conference was great and I learned many things, mostly around the future vision of SharePoint. Much of what I learned at SPC is going to help frame my path for the next year as I work with various clients and customers. I wanted to quickly put together a post on this blog that points you to the articles posted at CMSWire.

I would love to hear any feedback you have, so feel free to add comments below.

In early 2013 I will be starting a new series highlighting some of the new features in SharePoint 2013 that will make your like easier

This blog post is about Sharing Content and how they work in SharePoint 2013. There are a few assumptions that you should note before you get started:

1. The environment I am using is an on-premise installation (read this as NOT Office 365, this is important only because my blog does not include information about External Users, which is an Office 365 feature)
   
2. Email has been configured for the Farm within Central Admin (this is important because if email has not been configured you will likely have some errors about permissions to do things and won’t see the same menu options)
   

In most environments your system administrators will take care of the two assumptions that are listed above and you will only have to worry about the details below this note. I only includes the notes in case you run into issues following blog. You can use the notes to work with your admin to get your environment configured differently.

Goal: To allow Users without Admin Permissions to Share Content with Other Users

The goal of our configuration changes is to allow for users to be able to easily share their site content with other users. When a user who doesn’t have the ability to manage permissions for a site shares the sites with another user, the request is first routed to the admin for approval. This allows us to empower our users to work naturally with their content, but still allows us to govern and control how the permissions are managed.

This approach allows the Non-Admin users to easily make access requests, without really having to understand how the process works. They are able to just use the Share options and simply share the content with the users that they want to work with. Training is simplified and ease of use is greatly enhanced.

Configuring Access Requests

First thing you want to do is to ensure that the site is configured to allow for Access Requests. From the Site Settings page, click on the option for Site permissions:

In the Ribbon, click the option for Access Request Settings:

On this page, ensure that the email loaded is the email that you want to use to manage Access Requests for the site. This is the email that will be used as a notification when a new request for sharing has been created.

Sharing Requests

The person who wants to share the data uses the “Share” option and enters in the information and message to the person they want to share the content with.

The Administrator (email address configured from above) gets an email letting them know a Sharing request has been made.

The admin can click the link in the email to access the page that lets them Approve or Reject the request. Once they act on the item, it will be stored in the history list so that it can be referenced later.

If the Admin Accepts the request, the user who shared the content is notified and the user that the content is shared with gets the original email that was created by the requestor.

If the Admin denies the request, then the requestor is sent an email that lets them know that the request has been denied and invites them to try again.

By configuring Access Requests for your site, you open a whole new set of ways for users to easily work with content. In our day to day tasks it is natural to share content with others. With these new Sharing features this activity can happen naturally without having to understand how the permissions are configured for the site. We can Share and then rely on our admins to validate the requests. Since Admins can approve or deny requests we can easily rely on them to implement the required governance for the site. This feature allows us to have freedom to share content without the fear that we may do it wrong and mess up permissions for the site or item.

In this blog, I wanted to outline a solution that we recently implemented at a client. They were looking for a way to quickly display project information on the home page of the site. They wanted Project Admins to be able to easily update the information and wanted it to be as easy as possible. We looked at having them add the information to the home page; however we didn’t want to have to teach our Project Admins to update SharePoint pages. While this is an easy task there still really wasn’t any compelling reason to have our admins need to update pages. We ended up going with the solution of creating a simple Project list and then customizing the form in InfoPath. We then used the InfoPath form web part to display the form on the home page of the site. In this blog post I will walk you through the steps we took to do this.

1. Create the Project List. In this list we added columns for basic project information that people could use as a reference throughout the life of the project. Some sample columns could include:
   
   1. Project Name
      
   2. Project Number
      
   3. Project Manager
      
   4. Description
      
   5. Estimated Completion Date
      
   6. Vendor
      

   Since your list is based on your specific needs, feel free to be creative on what items are included. Below is a screenshot of my list settings page that shows the sample list that I will be using for the remainder of this example.
   

   
   

2. Next up, we will want to customize this list using InfoPath forms services.
   

   
   

   When the form opens in InfoPath, we will want to create a new View. This will allow us to create a view that we can reference as a read only view for displaying the information.
   

   
   

   Use the different layouts and styles to customize a display view of the form.
   

   
   

   When you complete the form layout, select the Quick Publish option to publish the changes back to the SharePoint site.
   

   
   

3. With the form complete we will now add a list item that has our project information. This list will really only ever contain one item. We are just trying to make an easy way for users to access and update the project information without having to update the page.
   
4. Now we are ready to add the web part to the home page.
   

   
   

   
   

   Once the web part has been added, use the Tool Pane to configure the web part to display the correct form.
   

   
   

   Your page should look similar to the screenshot below.
   

   
   

5. The next step in this process is added a way for the form web part to know which list item to display by default. This is done by configuring a web part connection in the Form Web Part. We first start by adding the projects web part to the page and then we add a connection within the Form Web Part to get the form data from the Projects web part. An example of the connection is below.
   

   
   

   Now our home page displays the list web part and the form web part.
   

   
   

6. The final step is to set the Projects Web Part to hidden so that it is not shown on the home page. There are two options for doing this:
   
   1. 1 – configure the web part in the tool pane to display as hidden (note: this isn’t available on all sites, so if the option is greyed out, see b)
      

      
      

   2. 2- configure the web part in SharePoint Designer to display as hidden.
      

      
      

      Open the page that the web part is on and select the web part and edit the properties.
      

      
      

      Save your changes and close SharePoint Designer. When you navigate to the site in the browser you will now see the form on the home page with the information displayed and the projects list hidden. To update the information that is displayed you just need to update the list item.
      

   
   

Recently I was given an opportunity to attend a private session of the MEC (Microsoft Experience Center). During this trip several of my favorite SharePoint community members and I were able to see firsthand some of the new ways that MS is trying to communicate value to the business. The event started in the NYC MS office and was laid out so that each participant had a fully configured PC and an assigned role. Some of the roles included the CEO and the HR director. Once we were all set up and ready to go, Jennifer Kim and Justin Chandoo walked us through the demos. In each demo we were able to interact with and put the tools to the test using real business solutions and scenarios. Through each demo we were also able to ask questions and hear insight from other participants. The event was wonderful and I walked away have a new appreciation for some of the “simple” things inside of Office that can make my life so much easier. I highly recommend that you keep your eyes open for an opportunity you have to experience the MEC! It was a great way to pull different users together and give them real world (non-fluff) examples of how they can use technology to work together easily. Below is just a small list of some of the key things that were highlights for me from the event:

• Learning together through community! I love being able to learn from others who are using the same technologies as I am. If you don’t have this type of community then you are really missing out! If you need help connecting to a local SharePoint community, let me know and I am sure I can help you find one, you will thank me later I promise J (Here is a list of the people who attended the event with me, if you don’t follow their blogs, you should! – Dux Raymond Sy , Jeff Willinger, Laura Rogers, Melissa Webster, Geoff Varosky & Marc Anderson)
  
• You can always learn something new! One of the best highlights of the day was learning some of the little things inside of Outlook that make my life so much easier. I had always known about the conversation view and had messed with a few times, but had never really seen it used in a way that made me want to use it all the time. When Jennifer Kim showed us some of the ways we could use it to manage conversations better I became a big fan of it. Since then I have used it almost non-stop. It is just a simple reminder that the products we work with are so very big that there is always something new to learn!
  
• Just get started! Some of the different interactions we had in the group confirmed my attitude that there is always a place to get stared. As an organization you may not be able to jump in and take full advantage of all of the many rich features, but can you start by just using some of them and build a plan to grow over time. I think that is part of the beauty of SharePoint as a solution. You can get started immediately and take advantage of what you can while you work towards a future goal.
  

This was definitely a great opportunity and I am thankful that I was able to be a part of it. Below is a link to a video that Microsoft created to highlight my experience.

mms://wmbmodigital.microsoft.com/a10125/o9/events/videos/9633_Str.wmv

Disclaimer: Microsoft brought me to NYC, gave me a copy Microsoft Office 2010 and this video.

After the event we were invited to a dinner reception where we got to interact with and ask questions from many of the Microsoft representatives that coordinated the event. It was a great opportunity to hear feedback from them on some of the different things available and coming up that will really help impact how the business uses SharePoint. I am really looking forward to keeping in touch with this team and then sharing some of the great things I learn with all of you. As a next step, I will be attending the Lync Launch event next week and I will be planning to share a summary of what I learn the following week on my blog. I am very excited to see some of the new technology and I am confident that it will really bring some great value to many different types of organizations.

This was also my first trip to NYC and I had a blast- Jeff and Geoff were wonderful tour guides! Here are just a few pictures that highlight the trip-

I work a lot with different lookup columns and one of the great new features in SharePoint 2010 is the ability to quickly display the associated items on the list forms.

In my example I have two lists:

• Procedures (Document Library)
  
• FAQs (Custom List)
  

The FAQ list has a lookup column that allows you to select what procedures the FAQ is associated with. From the procedures list I want to be able to quickly see all of the FAQs that have been linked to my procedure. To do this, you can simply add the related list web part to the display form in the Procedures list.

Open the Procedures list and select the option in the Ribbon that allows you to open the Default Display form:

When the page loads, select the Insert option on the Ribbon and select the Related List dropdown. All of the lists that contain a lookup to the current list will be displayed:

The web part will be added to the page:

Now, when you select to View Properties from the document menu you will see both the properties and the associated FAQs:

Here is a screenshot of the FAQ item that is linked back to Test Document 1 through the lookup column:

I have been using this 2010 feature quite a bit, but I just realized this afternoon that I hadn’t blogged about it yet. I hope you find it as useful as I have!

One of the best places to get information about Office 365 is on the Office 365 community site. They have everything from Technical blogs to User Forums. This is the location to get your questions answered. I spend quite a bit of time there and am a very regular user of the forums.

On September 19th they released a tool called the Office 365 Forum Assistant. This is an application that sits on your desktop and allows you to easily access and search the Office 365 forums. Here is an example of what it looks like:

There are just a few small configurations that you make the first time you open it

Once these have been made you can quickly ask new questions, search for forum answers or access the latest blogs. This is definitely a tool that helps you get access to the information you are looking for quickly!

If you are using Office 365 this tool can be a great time saver! Head over and download it today!

I am writing this post because I think there is a little confusion out there about Managed Metadata Services and the limitations. I know that I am personally guilty of talking about the limitations of the Service, but really mean the limitations of the column type. This is important because there are so many great features that I feel might be getting a bad name because they are getting all lumped together. In this blog post I wanted to highlight some of these items at a high level, hopefully bringing some clarity to the subject.

Office 365 vs Local SharePoint 2010

The first thing that I want to discuss is the differences in the platform. In Office 365 you will be able to manage the items that I am discussing, however you will not be able to configure them. When you sign up for Office 365 this service application is preconfigured for you. Information on how the hub is configured in Office 365 can be found in this blog post. But even though it is configured for you, it is still a good idea for you to understand the different pieces and how they work together. Reading through the rest of the blog post should give you that information.

Service Applications

The first thing we should understand is what service applications are in 2010. There are a few links out there that go into great detail, so I won’t do that here. But the best way that I can think to describe them is that they provide a way to share common functionality across the farm. They allow you to configure once and use across many locations.

This includes things like:

• Search
  
• User Profile Services
  
• Managed Metadata
  
• Excel Services
  
• Visio Graph Services
  

By managing these centrally you are able to control the way that the different services work across the entire organization. Listed below are some more links that you can follow to get you more familiar with the technical details:

• Manage service applications (SharePoint Server 2010)
  
• The New Service Application Architecture in SharePoint Server 2010
  

Managed Metadata Service Applications

Managed Metadata Services is one of the new service applications that came with SharePoint 2010. It has two primary components – Content Type Publishing and the Managed Metadata Term Store, both of which are described in more detail below. When you configure the service application for the first time you are able to configure the associated database and the site collection that will be used for the content type publishing.

Content Type Publishing

Content Type publishing allows you to have a central location for the creation and management of content types that can then be published out to any site collection that is consuming services from the Service Application. Any content type that can be created in the hub site collection can then be used in many different site collections. This means that you can centrally manage and maintain your content types.

Managed Metadata Column Type

The Managed Metadata column type is a new type of column that is available in 2010. This column is like any other site column and can be used in a list, library, site column or content type. This is the new column type that allows you to have an organized managed term set and supports type ahead and synonyms. This is a great new feature in 2010 that provides a great deal of flexibility when building out a solution. Managed Metadata columns make use of a Term Store for creating and managing terms. In the Term Store you are able to set the properties and values for the items within the Term Store. This Term Store can be managed globally (at the Service Application) or locally (at the site collection).

The Managed Metadata column type also brings the concept of enterprise tagging to the environment. The Enterprise Keywords is a global term store that is non-hierarchical and any user can add any value. For more information on this, refer to this link – Configure Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings for a list or library

Limitations of the Managed Metadata Column Type

There are a few important “gothchas” that you should understand before using the Managed Metadata Columns. These have all been outlined before, so I am going to just link to some of the common articles:

• SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata: Understanding the tradeoffs – knowing when to use and when to pass – Jennifer Mason
  
• Managed Metadata Column Limitations – Michal Pisarek
  
• Un-Managed Metadata: A couple of gotchas – Paul Culmsee
  

It is very important to understand these limitations and to plan accordingly before you get too far in your solution design.

Publishing Content Types

In this article we have talked about two different things – Content Type Publishing and the Managed Metadata Column Type. Both are available to us when we have configured the Managed Metadata Service Application. But one thing to note is that Managed Metadata columns can be used without Content Type Publishing and Content Type Publishing can be used without using the Managed Metadata columns. This means that you can still publish content types without having the limitations mentioned above concerning the Managed Metadata column type. This also means that you can use the Managed Metadata column without publishing it through a global content type. They are in reality two separate functions that are available through a single service application.

Closing Thoughts

This has come up quite a few times in the past couple of weeks, so hopefully this blog post can help bring some clarity to all of it. I hate to see organizations miss out on the rich features of Content Type Publishing because they have heard through the grapevine about the limitations. I for one will start to clarify better in my discussions that I am talking about the column type and not the Service Application.

I’d love to hear any thoughts or comments you have about this topic in the comments!

Often times the projects I get to work on go way beyond the scope of a blog post. This blog post is an example of one of those cases. In this blog post I will just be highlighting some screenshots and reviewing the tools I used, but I won’t really be covering how I created the solution step by step. I will however be covering how to build this step by step in our upcoming book (available this Christmas), so if you are interested in learning the exact steps, then you should plan on picking up a copy J

Overview of the solution:

• A solution that allows users a way to review the current class schedule and register for classes they are interested in attending.
  
• Users should also be able to easily manage their classes and cancel registrations for future classes.
  
• Teachers need to be able to easily report on the students who are attending a class or easily report on all the classes a single student has attended. Teachers also need to update the registration status to display what students attended the course.
  

To build this solution I used all out of the box tools, including:

• Internet Explorer
  
• SharePoint Designer
  
• InfoPath
  

Some of the main features that I used include the following types of items:

• Data Form Web Part
  
• InfoPath Web Part
  
• InfoPath Input Parameters
  
• InfoPath Custom List Forms
  

So now, here are some screenshots of the solution. I know this is all very high level, but I still think it is good to see the types of solutions that other people are building. If nothing else, it should give you some ideas of things that you can be building yourself.

Home Page

The home page is just a simple list view web part that is using a Calendar style to display the training courses. (We didn’t use a Calendar list because we wanted to be able to customize the list forms).

Register for a Class

Depending on your current registration status for the class a message will be displayed. The screenshots below are of the module popup that is displayed when you click on the list item. On this page we have configured connected web parts that link the training class together with the registration form

 

Reports

For our solution we needed to be able to generate several different reports. The reports needed to be easy to read and print. We used InfoPath to create these (and used the form web part to display them).

Managing Classes

Since we wanted users to see one view for displaying class information and admins another for creating the class information we needed to create a page that allows for admins to access the view. We did this with the InfoPath web part and a list web part. A trainer can select their class in the list and then update the class information within the web part.

Additional Items

In addition to the items above we have a page for FAQs and then a few pages for easy navigation. The FAQs all live in one list and each have a category assigned to them. We then send the users to a filtered view of the list based on the link they click. This allows them to hopefully find what they are looking for quickly. For navigation we have a single Admin page that will allows training admins to easily navigate to the content they are trying to manage. We have restricted access on this page to only training admins and since only training admins have access to the page users who don’t need the page won’t see it in the site navigation.

Summary

Hopefully this blog post will give you some ideas on some of the different things you can accomplish out of the box with SharePoint! If it sparks any ideas, be sure to share them in the comments section so that others can benefit as well!