Are you ready? Well, I hope so… because the downloads are ready now. Download them, install them and Enjoy! Not much else to say about this

SharePoint Designer 2010:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=d88a1505-849b-4587-b854-a7054ee28d66

SharePoint Foundation:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=49c79a8a-4612-4e7d-a0b4-3bb429b46595

You know the feeling when you go to a conference and you want to talk to the presenters and just ask him/her one of those burning questions you have…? Well, now you can! Microsoft is holding a couple of SharePoint 2010 Q&A sessions where you can ask any question you like. On the other end, there will be a dozen or so SharePoint MVPs (including myself) who will try to field those questions. If we know the answer, we’ll help you out. If not… well, you can always contact many of us through email or ask your question in the forum. In any case, it’s definitely worth checking out the MSDN chat sessions.

First one will be on April 27, 2010 7pm – 8pm (Eastern) and the second one is on April 28, 2010 12pm – 1pm (Eastern).

Aside from SharePoint, there are many other MSDN chats being held. You can check out the whole schedule here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx

Want to learn about the improvements in SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010? Come join me in this webinar series:

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/upcoming-webinars/

The first one is tomorrow (Thursday, 4/22 at 2pm Eastern)

If you have ever attended my webinar, you know that I’m all about ’showing’ you stuff. These webinars will be no different and will be packed with demonstrations of functionality. Hope to see you there.

In SharePoint Designer 2010, conditional formatting is one of those ‘got to know’ features that you should get familiar with. Back in SPD 2007, you could apply conditional formatting only to XSLT Data View web parts. However, now that all of the List View web parts are XSLT enabled, you can apply the same type of conditional criteria to format your data to any list or library view data. Not just formatting, but you can also conditionally show or hide your data. Want to see it in action? Watch the following video (available for free for a limited time):

Create List View pages with conditionally formatted data

This video shows how to conditionally format information in a List View page using the XSLT List View web part. The scenario starts off by importing information from a spreadsheet to make a list. Then a new List View page is created on the list which automatically comes with the XSLT List View web part showing the information in the list. Conditional Formatting is then used to highlight some content and also hide other content based on certain conditions.

I have always been a big fan of InfoPath and all the possibilities that it offers. We already have a bunch of videos demonstrating some very cool functionality within InfoPath here: http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/infopath/. A ton more videos will be created in the future for InfoPath 2010 to show you all that it can do.

Aside from all that InfoPath can do, you can of course put code behind the forms to extend it a lot further. However, my recommendation to my clients and students has always been to look at all of the other possibilities first before jumping into code because once you do go that route, there is no turning back. Also, the management of code requires a developer and most times that means that it creates a bottleneck for fixing any current bugs and implementing new features. If the original form designer, hopefully the business analyst with the business knowledge, can take ownership of fixing the issues and extending the functionality as needed, the process is usually a whole lot smoother and faster.

To that end, I would like to introduce you to Qdabra qRules. Think of this as packaged features that you can just turn ON in your forms – plug and play! Qdabra qRules lets you use rules in place of code to quickly add common features to your InfoPath forms. qRules 2.1 (the most recent release) contains 25 of the most commonly requested functions accessible via rules—even things that aren’t available in InfoPath today like encrypting fields.

Functions in Qdabra qRules include:

• Password Protect – Hide sensitive data using client-side encryption
• Format Date – Format your dates from SharePoint or SQL and show just the year, month, or day
• Get Week Day – Get the date value for a day of the week and improve your forms’ usefulness. Use Get Week Day in an open rule to quickly calculate the date for a weekday and populate your form based on it
• Input Parameters View Switching – copy Input Parameters to your main data source on load and use to switch views (codeless!)
• Submit To SharePoint List – Submit your XML form to a SharePoint list—now browser compatible
• Copy Table – from secondary source of main data source
• Set Value – filter target value
• Generate GUID, Sort Table, Save To SharePoint, and more

Here is some additional information about qRules:

• Patrick Halstead’s blog post: InfoPath Forms 101: Codeless = Less Cost
• qRules product page: http://www.qdabra.com/en/products/qRules.aspx
• qRules Encryption Template Part: http://www.infopathdev.com/files/folders/qrules/entry53061.aspx

If you are an avid user and a fan of InfoPath, IMHO you would be doing a disservice to yourself and your company by not checking out this product since it can make your current processes much much easier!

Want to see for yourself how the install process works for SharePoint 2007 and now the new SharePoint 2010? Now you can! Both of these videos are available to be watched for free for a limited time:

SharePoint 2007 Install – http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/installing-sharepoint/

SharePoint 2010 Install – http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/sp10installing-sharepoint-server-2010/

Enjoy!

Back in 2008, Woody Windischman, Bryan Phillips and I (Asif Rehmani) teamed up to write a book on SharePoint Designer 2007. The main reasons we wrote that book are because we really believe in SharePoint Designer and felt that there was just not enough ‘good’ information out there in the market about how to use it effectively. In fact, even till this day if you go to Amazon.com and read the reviews for the product, you will see that the prevailing viewpoint of reviewers is the complaint of not having a good user manual for it. In my humble opinion, I think we did a pretty good job at documenting a lot of abilities of this product in our book. My only regret is that the book came out so late in the market (it was published in Jan 2009). I truly believe that if this book was available earlier, it could have saved lots of unnecessary pain to many people who went about using SPD in a not so effective manner.

With the upcoming release of SharePoint Designer 2010, we have teamed up once again to write another book. The title of the book is Beginning SharePoint Designer 2010 by Wrox publications and the target release date is middle of 2010 – right after the product gets released. Even though we are writing under the Beginning series, rest assured that there will be a LOT of detailed information on SPD in the book. SPD 2010’s interface and functionality is so different from SPD 2007 that this book is going to be almost a complete rewrite for us. The SPD 2007 book will continue to be needed by anyone who is still using SharePoint 2007 (Reason: SharePoint Designer 2010 is not compatible with SharePoint 2007). Each of us is a SharePoint MVP, but we have different areas that we focus on within SharePoint. We have divided the book chapters between us keeping our complementary skills in mind to provide the reader with the best viewpoint we can offer about each area of functionality. In addition to the explanations we will provide on each functional area within SPD, there will be plenty of examples in each chapter to walk you through step-by-step scenarios on how to create the actual solutions. We think that these examples will be truly indispensable for readers who prefer hands on experience with the product.

We have high hopes for this book and our goal is that this book will be indispensable to any SharePoint professional whether they play a role of a server administrator, site collection administrator, site administrator, designer, developer or IT professional. Our belief is that to truly take advantage of SharePoint 2010, you need to be proficient in SharePoint Designer 2010 and our book will serve as your guide in your SharePoint adventures to make you into a SharePoint rock star!

There are a bunch of SharePoint presentations that can be downloaded for free from the member’s area at Critical Path Training site. Check it out here:

http://www.criticalpathtraining.com/Members/Pages/Presentations.aspx

The presentations currently there are from me, Andrew Connell, Ted Pattison, and Scot Hillier. More will be added after each conference. I would suggest signing up for the member’s area (did I mention it was free ) and taking advantage of it.

I will be doing a SharePoint Designer 2010 eLearning Series which consists of three webcasts, including Q&A for each, on April 20th. This eLearning series is being produced by the folks at Windows IT Pro.

Here are the three sessions:

• 11:00 am ET: Introduction to SharePoint Designer 2010: Top 5 Great Things to Know!
  
• 1:00 pm ET: Creating Workflows with SharePoint Designer 2010, InfoPath 2010, and Visio 2010
  
• 3:00 pm ET: Creating Data Centric Composite Applications using SharePoint Designer 2010

   

For more information about the sessions and to sign up, navigate to: http://elearning.left-brain.com/event/sharepoint-designer-2010-elearning-series.aspx. Hope to ’see’ you there

Are you at the SharePoint Pro 2010 Summit this week? If yes, I would love to see at any of the 3 sessions that I’ll be doing tomorrow:

HDEV04: Introduction to SharePoint Designer 2010: Top 5 Great Things to Know!

HDEV05: Overview: Creating Workflows with SharePoint Designer 2010, InfoPath and Visio

HDEV06: Generate and Publish Electronic Forms on Your Intranet Using InfoPath 2010… No Code Required!

The abstracts for each session are listed here: http://www.devconnections.com/shows/sp2010sp/default.asp?c=1&s=147. Hope to see you there!