Asif's Blog

Webinar by Andrew Connell (5/18) – Creating SharePoint Designer Workflow Activities with Visual Studio

May 16

Asif RehmaniEvents, SharePoint Webinar No Comments

Usually, our webinars are 100% no-code. However, this will be a slight exception. The reason: it’s necessary for all of us to know the next step if we are unable to accomplish a task without programming.

This webinar shows what you do when the out of the box workflow activities provided by SharePoint Designer just don’t cut it. The next step is to create the activity using Visual Studio and deploy it to SharePoint so it appears in SharePoint Designer next time. Here are the details of the webinar:

Webinar Title:

Augmenting SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows with Visual Studio 2010

Presenter:

Andrew Connell – http://www.criticalpathtraining.com, http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/

Description:

Generally the best story for creating custom workflows in SharePoint 2010 is to stick with the declarative and most productive option: use SharePoint Designer 2010. However there are situations when SharePoint Designer cannot achieve some business requirements. One common example is when you need to implement some sort of a loop. In this session, you’ll see what’s involved in creating a custom activity (action) in Visual Studio 2010 and deploy it to SharePoint so it can be used in SharePoint Designer based workflows.

Andrew Connell (also known by many of us as AC) is an exceptionally talented and well respected SharePoint professional within the SharePoint community. He’s my colleague (and my boss – although he doesn’t like to be called that ) at Critical Path Training (CPT). CPT offers expert level SharePoint training by trainers whose career focus is solely around SharePoint technologies. All of the instructors speak, write, train, consult, breathe and sleep SharePoint. Check out the upcoming training schedule at CPT.

We are holding this webinar on Wednesday, 5/18/2011 at 2pm Eastern. This webinar will be hosted by SharePoint-Videos.com. You can see all the information about the webinar and sign up for it here:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/870672600

Hope to ‘see’ you at the webinar!

Coupon Code for SharePoint Connections – Coast-to-Coast

Apr 28

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences, SharePoint 2010 No Comments

Coupon Code: Rehmani

SharePoint Connections Coast-to-Coast (applies to San Francisco and Chicago conferences)

SharePoint Connections is now being held locally as well. The coupon code will get you $50 off either the San Francisco (May 9-11) or the Chicago (August 8-10) conference. They always provide a variety of tracks for all types of audiences – IT Pro, Developer, Business User. The presenters at this conference are also Microsoft folks and SharePoint experts in the field. Content is focused on SharePoint 2007 and 2010

Coupon code for SPTechCon

Apr 28

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences, SharePoint 2010 No Comments

Coupon code: Rehmani

SPTechCon
The SPTechCon is held twice a year in the United States. This coupon applies to the upcoming one in Boston (June 1-3) and will give you $200 off. Audiences catered to are IT Pro, Developers and Business Users. The presenters at this conference are primarily experts in the SharePoint field. The focus of the content is specifically on SharePoint 2007 and 2010.

Webinar (3/24/2011) on Customizing SharePoint List Forms using InfoPath and SharePoint Designer

Mar 23

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences 1 Comment

I’ll be presenting a free webinar tomorrow (3/24/2011 at 1pm Eastern) on the pros and cons of customizing SharePoint List Forms using either SharePoint Designer 2010 or InfoPath 2010. Get more information about it and register here if you would like to attend:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/798083688

Presenting the Workflow story at Houston SharePoint User Group

Mar 23

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

I’ll be teaching my No-Code SharePoint Designer class in Houston during the week of April 18th. While there, I have been invited to present at the Houston SharePoint User Group on April 20th. Hope to see some of you Houstonians there

The SharePoint Conferences you should attend

Mar 01

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences 1 Comment

“Which SharePoint Conference should I attend?”. I get this question so many times that I thought this definitely deserves a blog post. As part of my job, I continue to visit and present at numerous conferences every year. While I don’t think that this makes me an expert at SharePoint conferences, I do have a perspective that I can share with folks who are looking to evaluate the choices out there.

Why should you attend a SharePoint Conference?

These days, training and travel budgets are limited. You truly have to convince yourself (and your boss) that it’s going to be worth the time and money to attend a conference. If your company is focused on SharePoint or is evaluating SharePoint as a critical component of your business, it will definitely serve you well to look into attending a conference with SharePoint content.

Please do not substitute training with attending a conference. Conferences are great for getting a feel for variety of subjects in a short two to three day period with bite sized sessions (60-75 minutes each). However, when you are ready to dive into a subject, it’s always good to get some real hands on experience either training on your own with books and video tutorials or by attending a focused training session. It’s hard to beat these modes of learning.

Which SharePoint related Conferences provide the biggest bang for the buck?

I have listed below several conferences and some subjective information about each conference. Hope this helps you when you are deciding on which SharePoint conference to attend.

The SharePoint Conference

If you can only attend one SharePoint conference, this is the one you want to attend. It is hosted by Microsoft and usually draws thousands of people to it. The presenters are people from SharePoint product group, experts and SharePoint MVPs who have been working with the product for many many years. The next SharePoint conference coming up is in October 2011.

SharePoint Connections

SharePoint Connections is one of my favorite conferences to attend since 2006. They always provide a variety of tracks for all types of audiences – IT Pro, Developer, Business User. The presenters at this conference are also Microsoft folks and SharePoint experts in the field. It is held twice a year in the United States (once in Vegas and the other time in Orlando) and has very direct and focused content on SharePoint 2007 and 2010. They are expanding now to have sessions in a variety of cities (SharePoint Connections coast-to-coast) and also international (Germany and UK).

SPTechCon

The SPTechCon is held twice a year in the United States. Usually, the venues are in Boston and San Francisco. Audiences catered are IT Pro, Developers and Business Users. The presenters at this conference are primarily experts in the SharePoint field. The focus of the content is specifically on SharePoint 2007 and 2010.

Best Practices Conference

The main charter of the Best Practices Conference is to have presentations that focus on the best practices for doing things in SharePoint. Not just ‘How To’, but ‘How Best To’ and also ‘What Not To’ do. The presenters at this conference are SharePoint experts. This conference is usually held twice a year – once in DC and the other in San Diego. There is also a european flavored SharePoint Conference that takes place in the UK every year.

TechEd

This event is one of the biggest that Microsoft arranges every year. It covers all different Microsoft technologies. Members of the product team from all different technologies are represented here. It is not, however, heavy on SharePoint sessions especially since Microsoft now produces the SharePoint Conference as well.

SharePoint Saturday

This is a free event that takes place around the world now. The basic premise of this event is to have a local event for the community that is free to attend. Many presenters are usually local as well. In addition, some presenters travel great distances on their own dime to present at these conferences.

SharePoint User Groups

Definitely check out and find the SharePoint User Group in your city. There are many good ones out there. A charter for a well run SharePoint User Group is to serve the users (usually for free) with monthly or bi-monthly events focused on all aspects of SharePoint. Usually, there are a couple of presentations at each meeting with lots of interaction with the audience.

Caution: Over time, some SharePoint user groups have been taken over by local training or consulting companies unfortunately. The focus for these have shifted to serve more as a lead generation for these companies rather than a true SharePoint community gathering. Check out the user group’s site for these signs before visiting.

SharePoint Virtual Conferences

In addition to in-person SharePoint conferences, there are also virtual SharePoint conferences and presentations held year round. There are too many to mention here. However, doing a simple search on ‘SharePoint virtual conference’ brings up several of them. More often than not, these are hosted by either SharePoint training or consulting companies. Also, various in-person conference organizers host the virtual conferences as well.

Free SharePoint Virtual Conference – Feb 24

Feb 18

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

The ‘SharePoint – Behind the Curtain’ free virtual conference is set to take place on Thursday, Feb 24. You can go here to register:

http://www.vconferenceonline.com/event/home.aspx?id=140

Dan Holme and I will be presenting on the following topics:

Dan’s sessions -

• Best Practices for Least-Privilege Installation, Administration, and Security of SharePoint 2010
• Designing Governance: How Information Management and Security Must Drive Your Design

Asif’s sessions -

• Manage your External Data using Business Connectivity Services—without Code!
• Automating Business Processes using InfoPath 2010 Forms with integrated SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows

Hope you can join us!

Join Andrew Connell and me (Asif Rehmani) in Seattle for some SharePoint fun!

Dec 06

Asif RehmaniEvents SharePoint Designer 2010 2 Comments

AC and I will be teaching our classes adjacent to each other in Redmond, WA on Jan 31 to Feb 4. AC is a master in SharePoint development and recognized worldwide for his expertise and willingness to share his knowledge in all sorts of ways. My focus has been on SharePoint Designer for many years and I’ll be teaching the class that I wrote and have been teaching with Critical Path Training for almost a year now. You are free to mix and match and attend the portions of the classes that are most beneficial to you. Check out more information about this combined package.

Top 6 reasons for taking advantage of this training package:

• If you want to learn SharePoint development, AC is The Man to teach you!
• The SharePoint Designer 2010 class that I wrote and teach was the first ever SPD 2010 class in the world and is full of lots of examples of what you can do with that product.
• Students will receive a copy of Real World SharePoint 2010 book which AC and I both have contributed to.
• Students will receive a copy of SharePoint Designer 2010 book that I co-authored.
• You will receive the materials for both classes when you take advantage of this offer.
• You will have the opportunity to sit into both classes for the topics important to You!

Hope to see you there!

Free SharePoint Virtual Conference – Dec 2nd, 2010

Nov 22

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

A free SharePoint virtual conference is being held by SharePointPro Connections. Registration and session info located here:

http://www.vconferenceonline.com/event/home.aspx?id=117

I’ll be presenting a session on XSLT Data Views and List Views. There are also presentations on SharePoint database management, Business Intelligence, Site Collection administration and more. See you there!

Free Video Recordings from SharePoint Connections held at The Hague – Netherlands

Nov 10

Asif RehmaniEvents SharePoint Videos No Comments

Lots of good free videos can be found on Channel 9. All have been recorded at the conference in The Hague – Netherlands.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Tags/spc10

Videos from Andrew Connell, Ted Pattison, Scot Hillier, Steve Fox, Spence Harbar and many more. A couple of my presentations are available as well (one on Workflows and the other on Data Views). Enjoy!