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My new blog at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/lliu
2/17/2007 7:32:00 AM
Long time no post. Yes, I've been very busy indeed.
Well, it's finally time to move this blog to its new home that's powered by Office SharePoint Server. The URL is http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/lliu. Although it's slightly longer to type than http://blogs.technet.com/lliu, you just have to agree that it's a much cooler looking/sounding URL. J
Anyway, my RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/lliu) will start pulling content from the new blog very shortly, so subscribe to it now, and you won't miss a thing.
4 new screencast-based demos for MOSS; more hints about SharePointPedia
11/15/2006 6:02:00 AM
Personally, I believe that screencasts will quickly become the de facto way for many people to learn how to use a new piece of software like Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. In today's fast paced, YouTube crazed world, it's often times more efficient and almost always more effective to learn how to use a software feature by watching a short video than by reading a "how to” text article. A key aspect of my concept of the SharePointPedia is that 1) it would contain community annotations and supplementary content similar to what the MSDNwiki currently provides for the .NET Framework SDK, and 2) it would support the storage/streaming or embedding of screencasts that complement a description of a feature or a how to article.
Coincidentally, here are 4 recently posted screencasts of MOSS features, which were developed by the SharePoint User Assistance group, and there may very well be more forthcoming:
· Configure a SharePoint Server 2007 site to receive e-mail
· Deploy an administrator-approved form template
· Add a library to a Records Center site
· Enable Excel Services and data connections for a SharePoint team site
While these screencasts are extremely well done, I feel that they're a bit too lengthy and probably too costly to produce to be able to cover the many hundreds of features in MOSS. Typically, a feature or use case centric screencast should be no longer than 2 minutes. That way, the viewer can watch it quickly and get immediately back to work. Since I continue to fall behind on publishing my Vision/Scope document for the SharePointPedia, I thought that it would be worthwhile to publish the "Recording a Screencast Demo with Camtasia Studio” whitepaper (it's here) that I had drafted a couple of months ago as supplemental guidance on how to create screencast-based content for the SharePointPedia, and since TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia Studio graciously provides free licenses to the MVPs, I want to give them a well deserved plug because the software is indeed very easy to use and quite flexible -- you can get more info here.
Many of the SharePoint MVPs are planning to create short screencasts in the coming months. In the absence of the SharePointPedia (implementation timeframe still TBD), you can use the SharePoint Community Search to find the latest SharePoint screencasts. If you've created a screencast, please leave a comment here with a URL that links to it. If you feel strongly about a MOSS feature that is unintuitive and urgently needs a screencast, please leave a comment about that, too.
[11/18 update: Just found a very well done screencast that provides a tour of key features in WSS 3.0.]
Social computing in the enterprise or "Enterprise 2.0"
11/7/2006 11:48:00 AM
A lot of buzz for "Enterprise 2.0” was generated last week from Socialtext's announcement of SocialPoint for SharePoint. As usual with new and exciting "the next big thing” announcements related to Microsoft products and technologies like this, my colleague Don Dodge was quick to provide an excellent write-up. There was also an enlightening Port 25 video interview with Ross Mayfield, the CEO of Socialtext. Since then, a bunch of people have pinged me privately for my perspective, and I finally have some free time to blog about it now.
In short, I am extremely excited about this! What's most interesting to me is that Socialtext runs on the LAMP stack while SocialPoint is a bundle of webparts that run on SharePoint. This shows that integration between applications on very different technology platforms can now be achieved with relative ease and enables customers to choose best of breed solutions while maintaining an integrated user experience on SharePoint.
From an Enterprise 2.0 standpoint, the key advantage of SharePoint Server 2007 is that its blog and wiki functionality is available OOTB on a common technology infrastructure that includes other collaboration, portal, content management, enterprise search, business process and forms, and business intelligence capabilities. (My manager, Arpan, had blogged about this previously.) SharePoint's other Enterprise 2.0 features include discussion boards, My Sites, and people search while Knowledge Network provides a unique value add to SharePoint by significantly enhancing people search. Having tightly integrated features eases deployment and improves usability and will continue to be one of SharePoint's primary advantages. However, some customers require best of breed features that go above and beyond what SharePoint provides. More often than not, these niche solutions do not have any integration with SharePoint, which is why I'm so excited about Socialtext's announcement of SocialPoint. I expect to see at least several other Enterprise 2.0 focused ISVs jump on the SharePoint bandwagon over the next 4-6 months. What 3rd party Enterprise 2.0 products would you like to see integrated with SharePoint?
Hmmm, look at who I saw at my son's basketball game this past Saturday!
10/29/2006 4:59:00 PM
Yup, it's the real Steve Ballmer! His son was playing on the other side of the court – we split a full regular court into two half courts. I could hear his booming voice cheering his kid on throughout the game. J
I think his son's 2-3 years older than mine, but his team plays in the same timeslot as my son's. We have 6-7 more games to go in the season, so I'm going to find some excuse to at least say "Hi!” to him at one of the games.
WSS 3.0's suboptimal support for anonymous access scenarios
10/14/2006 4:28:00 AM
I knew that by using WSS 3.0 to host the SharePoint Community Champions team site, I would run into scenarios that would challenge some of the design assumptions that went into the development of the out-of-the-box webparts in SharePoint. In particular, I have not been able to configure the Survey webpart or any of the List type webparts (e.g. Contacts) to support the scenario where I want the anonymous site visitor to fill out something and submit it without being able to see anyone else's submissions. This scenario is essential for any Internet facing community site that wants to encourage visitors to register for membership. I was hoping that I could utilize either the Survey webpart or the Contacts webpart as my site's registration module, but I've had to resort to instructing visitors to simply send me an e-mail as their membership request. Hence, I would love to see a custom Registration webpart developed by someone in the community. J
Why would I reveal these findings when I'm trying to convince customers to deploy WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 for their Internet facing community sites? Because I'd rather that they hear it directly from me than someone else. I will be open and candid about SharePoint's out-of-the-box limitations as much as I will be promoting SharePoint's advantages. I believe that this is the only way to earn the trust and respect of the community and of the growing number of customers, who have followed my advice on seriously evaluating SharePoint as an integrated solution platform for online communities.
[Updated 10/14: After doing more tweaking of webpart config settings and getting some guidance from a couple of SharePoint Program Managers, I was able to get Survey webpart to support my scenario! No need for a solution like Nick's FBA Registration webpart. Here's how to get the Survey webpart working to support the submission of site membership requests by anonymous users.
1. Create an instance of the Survey webpart. You can leave the default settings, but I chose to not display the (link to the) Membership Request survey on the Quick Launch bar because I didn't want curious visitors to click on it.
Then click the [Next] button, configure the desired questions, and click the [Finish] button to complete the creation of the survey.
2. On the survey's Settings page, click on the "Permissions for this survey” link. On the Permissions page, click on Actions | Edit Permissions. When prompted to confirm that "you are about to create unique permissions for this list”, click on the [OK] button. (By default, instances of webparts inherit permissions from the site.) Once the page refreshes, click on Settings | Anonymous Access.
Ensure that only the "Add Items” and "View Items” options are selected. Then click on the [OK] button.
3. Click on the "Settings” link in the breadcrumb navbar to get back to the survey's Settings page. Then click on the "Advanced settings” link.
Ensure that the "Only their own” option under "Read access” and the "Only their own” option under "Write access” are selected. Also select the "No” option under "Allow items from this survey to appear in search results”. Then click on the [OK] button.
At this point, you're done! This survey webpart will allow an anonymous user to complete and submit a questionnaire but not be able to see the response or anyone else's response, which is exactly what I want. However, the solution is not perfect. For instance, the Overview page, which contains the number of responses submitted, is viewable by the anonymous user, and I don't think the page should be.
When the anonymous user clicks on "Respond to this Survey” menu command, the NewForm page will be displayed with the following URL as the address: http://sharepointchamps.officeisp.net/Lists/Membership%20Request/NewForm.aspx?Source=http%3A%2F%2Fsharepointchamps%2Eofficeisp%2Enet%2FLists%2FMembership%2520Request%2Foverview%2Easpx. What's interesting about this URL is two-fold:
· The first part of the URL (http://sharepointchamps.officeisp.net/Lists/Membership%20Request/NewForm.aspx) can be given to an anonymous user, so the NewForm page can be opened from a different page or webpart than the Overview page. I chose to include the link in the Announcement item on my site.
· The second part of the URL (Source=http%3A%2F%2Fsharepointchamps%2Eofficeisp%2Enet%2FLists%2FMembership%2520Request%2Foverview%2Easpx) specifies the return page that will be displayed after the survey has been submitted. I chose to create a custom "Thank You” page to display to the user upon submitting the survey. So, my final URL looks like this: http://sharepointchamps.officeisp.net/Lists/Membership%20Request/NewForm.aspx?Source=http%3A%2F%2Fsharepointchamps%2Eofficeisp%2Enet%2FSite%20Files/Membership%20Request%20-%20Thank%20You.aspx.
What's also interesting (and most likely a bug) is that I had to do Step #2 ahead of Step #3 in the procedure above because when I go back to the webpart's Settings | Anonymous Access page, I can no longer see or change any of the options. If I go back to "Advanced settings" in Step #3 and selected the "All responses” option under "Read access”, the Anonymous Access Settings page would then show the previously selected options and let me change them. Weird.
Lastly, for an instance of the Contacts webpart or the Custom List webpart, which would be a viable alternative to the Survey webpart for a Membership Request questionnaire, the trick of setting the Source= parameter in the URL to display a different return page than the default AllItems page is essential because the AllItems page will not allow anonymous access when the webpart is configured with the same options described in the procedure above.
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