Chris and Daves SharePoint and Tech Blog

  Earlier this week Mike Herrity released his Ebook on the work we have been doing on SharePoint over the last three years this is available from Mike’s blog here . One of the features that Mike wrote about is the Room Booking Web Part so I thought that I would go into some more details about it. It is a very simple solution that saves the need to set up complicated calendar options with recurring events or even having to send emails to a member of staff to book rooms. This solution also works on SharePoint 2010 and MOSS 2007 so a winner for now and the future.

The end user is simply presented with a calendar style interface with either “Book me” for free slots  if someone has already booked a slot this just shows the initials of the user and the class name. To book a free slot just click on the book me and the user is presented with a two field form to fill in and then just a book room button to confirm their booking as illustrated below.

For more details please contact Mike on his blog SharePointInEducation.

Continuing on from my posts listing reasons to upgrade to SharePoint 2010 I will now look at Multimedia (Assets) and announcements.

The 6 points I’m looking at regarding upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 are:

• Page based on Wiki
• Tagging / Notes / Rating
• Multimedia (Assets)
• Easier Announcements
• Web Apps
• PowerPoint Publishing

Multimedia (Assets) and Announcements

There is now an asset library in SharePoint giving you a really great place to store images and videos. The main advantage over 2007 is just the way in which images are displayed on the page. No longer do you have to suffer with a list if thumbnails, they now go across the page and happily move around to fit different browser sizes.

If you store videos in the asset library then you can play them from the browser (remember that SharePoint 2010 plays nicely with Firefox too) using the nice Silverlight viewer.

For those of you who have gone through the pain of adding pictures into announcements in SharePoint 2007 will absolutely love this feature. In my opinion this is how announcements should always have worked. Click New, insert, image from computer, browse, OK. The picture is then in and can be resized, text layout changed and announcement written!

You can see in the screen snip that there is an insert Video/Audio button. Unfortunately this is greyed out sorry as far as I’ve seen no ability to add YouTube clips OOTB…yet.

   To continue this series, in this post I will look at small farm deployments this tends to be where most people end up with their SharePoint deployments. Through this post I will cover two tier farms, three tier farms and also three tier farm optimized for search. But before I begin I thought I would go back to basics with advice for hardware required to run SharePoint 2010 effectively. So for your SharePoint servers both web front end and application server the recommendations are as follows:-  

• 64 bit, dual processor, 3GHz
• 8 GB RAM
• Minimal 100 GB disk space
• DVD Drive
• Network / Internet Connectivity

And for your database servers:-

• 64 bit environment
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise + Service Pack 2
• SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 + Cumulative Update 3
• SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 + Cumulative Update 2

Two tier small farm

 A two tier farm is predicated to support between 10,000 and 20,000 users with a dedicated SQL server for all SharePoint databases.  

Three tier farm

 This is very much the classic SharePoint architecture with 2 web front end servers a application server and a dedicated SQL server for all databases.

Three tier farms optimized for search

 This is the classic setup but with a dedicated SQL server for the search databases this topology is recommended for farms with up to 10 million items to index.

In the next post I will cover the topology that we are deploying at Twynham.

Continuing on from my post listing reasons to upgrade to SharePoint 2010 where I looked at pages based on a Wiki, I will now look at Tags, Notes and Rating.

The 6 points I’m looking at regarding upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 are:

• Page based on Wiki
• Tagging / Notes / Rating
• Multimedia (Assets)
• Easier Announcements
• Web Apps
• PowerPoint Publishing

Tagging / Notes / Rating

It’s much easier to add meta data to your SharePoint pages with the ‘I Like It’ tag. Also you can add notes to pages or individual documents. This will enable staff members to tag documents specifically to class groups or subject areas. All theses tags are then exposed through the search!

To set up ratings go into the document library settings and click ‘Rating Settings’ and click the ‘yes’ radio button. Rating is now available on the document library. This will enable great content to surface above everything else!

Look out for part 3 soon!

Chris.

I’ve talked to quite a few people now about the benefits of SharePoint 2010 over 2007. I will share these benefits with you over a couple of blog posts and hopefully persuade you that 2010 is the way forward and to start planning your migration strategies now!

I will focus on these 6 points:

• Page based on Wiki
• Tagging / Notes / Rating
• Multimedia (Assets)
• Easier Announcements
• Web Apps
• PowerPoint Publishing

Pages based on Wiki:

The page wiki layouts means that you can easily edit text, insert images and change the page layout within the browser (remember that SP2010 works equally well in Firefox and IE)

You can add webparts anywhere on the page and even edit text between them!

Adding images can be done easily by simply browsing to an image on your hard drive or another location. This will be really useful in schools allowing heads of departments to enhance the look of the page very simply. The use of the wiki syntax [[link]] easily allows pages to be linked to other content on the site.

Look out for the next part where I will look at Tagging, Notes and Rating.

  We have been posting a lot about the features of SharePoint 2010 but little on the install, topology examples for the product, so I thought I would rectify that now with some topology examples and finish off with our topology at Twynham when we deploy 2010 at RTM.

 As we all know SharePoint is exceedingly scalable but like all things in IT systems you need to start with a solid foundation and foresight of where you are going with your install to have a successful experience. Through this post I will cover Limited Deployments and then move on to Small Farm Topologies. Please do not forget that these examples are exactly that only guidelines and with all things SharePoint one size does not fit all so experiment and see what works for you but please build your SharePoint with growth in mind and do not get painted into a corner with nowhere to go.

Single Server Deployment

The illustration below covers a limited deployment and is only recommended for testing with all SharePoint roles and SQL installed on one box this is only recommended for testing with less than 100 users.

Two Server Deployments

 This is a great starting point for a SharePoint farm as this will allow you to scale your deployment out by adding another front end server and application server at a later date. This scenario is recommended for up to 10,000 users.

In the next part I will cover larger deployments strategies.

If you have web apps set up on SharePoint 2010 (a nifty feature I think!) you will notice that office documents in a  library will not always open in the browser but will open up the full fat office programme.

To make sure that your documents open using the browser app then go into the doc lib settings, click advanced settings then check the radio button to open in browser!

The defaut behaviour will now be set to open in Web Apps in the browser!

 Back on the 23^rd February BA Insight hosted a webinar deep dive into the exciting new features and architecture of FAST for SharePoint 2010, with many live demos throughout the presentation. I was lucky enough to attend this virtual event but in case you missed it they have now made the session available on demand from their website here

 In the post yesterday SharePoint Foundation OOTB web Parts I said that I would cover the web parts available with SharePoint Server 2010 for a comparison of the two versions. With the server version there are 11 categories but in SharePoint Foundation there are only 5 which is very understandable when you compare a free version to a fully featured server application that can support millions of users.  This list of web parts is based on the enterprise edition the next time I do a standard install I will also list those.  

The categories and web parts are as follows:-

 List and Libraries

   Announcements – Use this list to track upcoming events, status updates or other team news

   Calendar – Use the Calendar list to keep informed of upcoming meetings, deadlines, and other important events

   Links - Use the Links list for links to Web pages that your team members will find interesting or useful

   Shared Documents – Share a document with the team by adding it to this document library

   Site Assets – Use this library to store files which are included on pages within this site, such as images on Wiki pages

   Site Pages – Use this library to create and store pages on this site

   Tasks – Use the Tasks list to keep track of work that you or your team needs to complete

   Team Discussions – Use the Team Discussion list to hold newsgroup-style discussions on topics relevant to your team

Business Data

   Business Data Actions – Displays a list of actions from Business Data Connectivity

   Business Data Connectivity Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts using a list of values from the Business Data Connectivity

   Business Data Item – Displays one item from a data source in Business Data Connectivity

   Business Data Item Builder – Creates a Business Data item from parameters in the query string and provides it to other Web Parts

   Business Data List – Displays a list of items from a data source in Business Data Connectivity

   Business Data Related List – Displays a list of items related to one or more parent items from a data source in Business Data Connectivity

   Chart Web Part – Helps you to visualize your data on SharePoint sites and portals

   Excel Web Access – Use the Excel Web Access Web Part to interact with an Excel workbook as a Web page

   Indicator Details – Displays the details of a single Status Indicator. Status Indicators display an important measure for an organization and may be obtained from other data sources including SharePoint lists, Excel workbooks, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services KPIs.

   Status Lists – Shows a list of Status Indicators. Status Indicators display important measures for your organization, and show how your organization is performing with respect to your goals.

   Visio Web Access – Enables viewing and refreshing of Visio Web Drawings

Content Rollup

   Categories – Displays categories from the Site Directory

   Content Query – Displays a dynamic view of content from your site

   Relevant Documents – Displays documents that are relevant to the current user

   RSS Viewer – Displays an RSS feed

   Site Aggregator – Displays sites of your choice.

   Sites In Category – Displays sites from the Site Directory within a specific category

   Summary Links – Allows authors to create links that can be grouped and styled

   Table Of Contents – Displays the navigation hierarchy of your site

   Web Analytics web Part – Displays the most viewed content, most frequent search queries from a site, or most frequent search queries from a search center

   WSRP Viewer – Displays portlets from web sites using WSRP 1.1

   XML Viewer – Transforms XML data using XSL and shows the results

Filters

   Choice Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts using a list of values entered by the page author

   Current User Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts by using properties of the current user

   Date Filter – Filter the contents of Web Parts by allowing users to enter or pick a date

   Filter Actions – Use the Filter Actions Web Part when you have two or more filter Web Parts on one     Web Part Page, and you want to synchronize the display of the filter results

   Page Field Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts using information about the current page

   Query String (URL) Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts using values passed via the query string

   SharePoint List Filter - Filters the contents of Web Parts by using a list of values

   SQL Server Analysis Services Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts using a list of values from SQL Server Analysis Services cubes

   Text Filter – Filters the contents of Web Parts by allowing users to enter a text value

Forms

   HTML Form Web Part – Connects simple form controls to other Web Parts

   InfoPath Form Web Part – Use this Web Part to display an InfoPath browser-enabled form

Media and Content

   Content Editor – Allows authors to enter rich text content

   Image Viewer – Displays a specified image

   Media Web Part – Use to embed media clips (video and audio) in a web page

   Page Viewer - Displays another Web page on this Web page. The other Web page is presented in an IFrame

   Picture Library Slideshow Web Part – Use to display a slideshow of images and photos from a picture library

   Silverlight Web part – A web part to display a Silverlight application

Outlook Web App

   My Calendar – Displays your calendar using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later

   My Contacts – Displays your contacts using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later

   My Inbox – Displays your inbox using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later

   My Mail Folder – Displays your mail folder using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000

   My Tasks – Displays your tasks using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later

PerformancePoint

   PerformancePoint Filter – This web part displays PerformancePoint filters. Filters may be linked to other web parts to provide an interactive dashboard experience. Filter types include lists and trees based on a variety of data sources

   PerformancePoint Report – This web part displays PerformancePoint reports. Reports may be linked to other web parts to create an interactive dashboard experience. Report types include: Analytic charts & grids, Strategy Maps, Excel Services, Reporting Services, Predictive Trend charts, and web pages

   PerformancePoint Scorecard – This web part displays a PerformancePoint scorecard. Scorecards may be linked to other web parts, such as filters and reports, to create an interactive dashboard experience.

   PerformancePoint Stack Selector – This web part displays a PerformancePoint Stack Selector. All PerformancePoint web parts, such as filters and reports, contained in the same zone will be automatically stacked and selectable using this web part.

Search

   Advanced Search Box – Displays parameterized search options based on properties and combinations of words.

   Dual Chinese Search – Used to search Dual Chinese document and items at the same time.

   Federated Results – Displays search results from a configured location

   People Refinement Panel – This webpart helps the users to refine people search results

   People Search Box – Presents a search box that allows users to search for people

   People Search Core Results – Displays the people search results and the properties associated with them.

   Refinement Panel – This webpart helps the users to refine search results

   Related Queries – This webpart displays related queries to a user query

   Search Action Link – Displays the search action links on the search results page

   Search Best Bet – Displays high-confidence results on a search results page.

   Search Box – Displays a search box that allows users to search for information.

   Search Core Results – Displays the search results and the properties associated with them

   Search Paging – Display links for navigating pages containing search results.

   Search Statistics – Displays the search statistics such as the number of results shown on the current page, total number of results and time taken to perform the search.

   Search Summary – Displays suggestions for current search query

   Search Visual Best Bet – Displays Visual Best Bet

   Top Federated Results – Displays the Top Federated result from the configured location

Social Collaboration

   Contact Details – Displays details about a contact for this page or site.

   Note Board – Enable users to leave short, publicly-viewable notes about this page.

   Organization Browser – This Web Part displays each person in the reporting chain in an interactive view optimized for browsing organization charts.

   Site Users – Use the Site Users Web Part to see a list of the site users and their online status.

   Tag Cloud – Displays the most popular subjects being tagged inside your organization

   User Tasks – Displays tasks that are assigned to the current user.

   What’s New – This Web part shows new information from specified lists and libraries

   Whereabouts – Use to display Whereabouts information.

  I have not really looked very deeply at SharePoint Foundation yet so I thought that through this post I would take the opportunity to check out and share with you the out of the box web parts that ship with SharePoint Foundation 2010. These are split into 5 sections

List and Libraries

   Announcements

   Calendar

   Links

   Pictures

   Shared Documents

   Site Assets

   Site Pages

   Tasks

   Team Discussions

Content Rollup

   Relevant Documents

   XML Viewer

Forms

   HTML Form Web Part

Media and Content

   Content Editor

   Image Viewer

   Page Viewer

   Picture Library Slideshow Web Part

   SilverLight Web Part

Social Collaboration

   Site Users

   User Tasks

Now in comparison to SharePoint server 2010’s 11 sections a small amount of web parts but for a free product a good starting point on your road to SharePointLand, in my next post I will go through the web parts available in SharePoint server 2010.