Asif's Blog

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!

Business Connectivity Services–Surface data in Outlook

Jan 27

Asif RehmaniSharePoint BCS No Comments

I wrote a short article for SharePointProConnections magazine on how to surface Business Connectivity Services (BCS) data in Microsoft Outlook. It has been published now and is available in electronic format here:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/556a09e7#/556a09e7/68

Free Webinar on Business Connectivity Services by Raymond Mitchell – 1/27/2011

Jan 24

Asif RehmaniSharePoint BCS No Comments

One of the biggest pieces of SharePoint 2010 that has taken the industry by storm is its ability to display data from external systems. And not just display the data, but letting you interact with it, changing the views of the data and also modifying the backend data directly from SharePoint’s presentation layer. All this power comes packaged within Business Connectivity Services (BCS).
 
We are holding a webinar on this Thursday, 1/27/2011 at 2pm Eastern to show you exactly how this functionality works. If you have attended any of our previous webinars, you know that we dive straight into the subject to ‘show’ you how it’s done and not just talk through PowePoint slides. This webinar will be no different. You can see all the information about the webinar and sign up for it here:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/270194368
 
This webinar will be presented by Raymond Mitchell and hosted by SharePoint-Videos.com. Raymond is an excellent speaker who has presented at many conferences and has also written the BCS chapters in the following book: SharePoint 2010 Six in One.  In addition to this, we also recently launched a video tutorial DVD-ROM for BCS authored by Raymond. It is currently available on the site at the pre-release price. The DVD will be officially released on Feb 1st. 
 
Here are a few words by Raymond himself on BCS and his video tutorials:
 
"Most of you have probably heard of the Business Data Catalog (BDC) that shipped with SharePoint 2007; it is a component that allows you to use external data inside of SharePoint.  What you may not know is that in SharePoint 2010, the BDC got a new name: Business Connectivity Services (BCS).  They changed more than just the name in 2010 though:

• While the BDC was only available to customers with the Enterprise license of SharePoint 2007, the BCS is available to all versions of SharePoint 2010, including SharePoint Foundation!
• The BDC only let you read data from your external systems but the BCS allows you to both read from and write data back to your external systems!
• The BDC allowed you to surface your external data in SharePoint but the BCS allows you to surface your external data in SharePoint AND inside of Office applications, meaning your data is that much more accessible!
• One of the big stumbling blocks in getting started with the BDC was the lack of tooling support from Microsoft.  With the BCS both SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 have first-class support for building solutions with the BCS.  What’s even better, many common scenarios can be handled with just SharePoint Designer 2010, without needing a developer or Visual Studio

All of this means that it is that much easier to get started with the BCS.  These videos give you the introduction you need to Business Connectivity Services to allow you to hit the ground running and quickly begin building solutions using SharePoint Designer 2010.

In addition to these videos, I also contributed two chapters on Business Connectivity Services to a newly released book: SharePoint Six-in-One.  These videos compliment the background provided in the book and show additional examples and walkthroughs on topics such as:

• Creating External Content Types that allow reading and writing back to your external systems
• Building External Lists that surface external data as if it was a SharePoint List
• Adding Business Data Columns to your existing SharePoint Lists and Libraries
• And more…

Hope to see you at the webinar. Once again, here is the link to sign up for the webinar:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/270194368

SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows DVD

Jan 04

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Designer Videos, Workflow 2 Comments

We just released the new SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows DVD. The complete information on this DVD package is available here:
http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/sharepoint-designer-2010-workflows-training-dvd/

There are four ways to implement workflows in your SharePoint sites:

1) Use the browser and built in workflow templates – A great way to start making simple workflows. Doesn’t require any other tools other than the browser.

2) Use SharePoint Designer 2010 – SharePoint Designer 2010 is free and lets you create powerful and robust workflows using a variety of built in activities (such as sending an email, creating list items, copying documents and a whole lot more). The resulting workflows are easy to understand and ownership can be transferred to business users as it seems fit.

3) Use Visual Studio – This is by far the most powerful and flexible way of creating workflows. However, it requires knowledge of the Visual Studio environment and programming. In addition, once you deploy the workflows, chances are you will need to manage them as well.

4) Buy workflow building tools from 3rd party vendors – There are some really good companies out there who will sell you their workflow building package bundles. Some of them are quite affordable and provide great functionality. Check out the recording of a webinar we conducted a while back in which I talked through the limitations of workflows in SharePoint and demonstrated the functionality of a 3rd party vendor (AgilePoint) – http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/sp10-best-practices-workflows-visio-sharepoint-designer

If you decide on option 2 above – to build powerful workflows without programming using SharePoint Designer 2010, the SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows DVD is what you need to learn all that’s possible.

Among other content, I wrote two chapters in our SharePoint Designer 2010 book (which was released in November 2010) dedicated to workflows. This DVD is a great companion to that book since it contains the videos of all of the workflow scenarios discussed in the book and more. Some of the scenarios covered in the DVD are as follows:

• Creating List and Library Workflows
• Creating Powerful Reusable Workflows
• Creating Site Workflows
• Creating Workflows using Visio
• Managing Workflow forms using InfoPath
• Packaging up Reusable Workflows
• Migrating Workflows to other Site Collections
• and more..

Best wishes to you on your SharePoint journey!

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!

Video – Create reusable workflows using SharePoint Designer 2010 and attach to Content Types

Dec 02

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Designer Workflow No Comments

Being able to create reusable workflows is a major component of SharePoint Designer 2010. In this presentation, you will see how you can create a reusable workflow and attach it to a content type and then use that content type in multiple libraries.

Create Reusable Workflows using SPD 2010 and attach to Content Types

* This video will be available for free until Dec 3rd, 2010. It will then be returned to the Subscribers only video collection.

If you liked our Workflow videos, buy the SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows Video Package which contains all of our SharePoint Designer 2010 workflow videos:

• Creating a Workflow on a List using SharePoint Designer 2010
• Create reusable workflows using SharePoint Designer 2010 and attach to Content Types
• Create a Site Workflow and modify its form using InfoPath
• An end to end process using InfoPath 2010 for forms and Visio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 for Workflows
• Create Workflows in Visio then transfer to SharePoint Designer
• Visualize a running workflow with Visio Services
• Customize SharePoint Designer Workflow forms using InfoPath
• Publishing globally reusable Workflows
• Modifying the built-in Workflow templates
• Exporting a reusable workflow to a different Site Collection

Use the following discount code when purchasing for 10% off the purchase price: workflowarticle. This coupon code is only valid for 2 days until Dec 4th!

Video – Create a Site Workflow and modify its form using InfoPath

Dec 01

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Designer Workflow No Comments

One of the types of workflows you can create using SharePoint Designer 2010 is the site workflow. This type of workflow is not attached to a list or library but rather to a site itself. In this video, you will see how to accomplish that. In addition, you will also see how to modify the user interface form, that this workflow creates, using InfoPath 2010.

Create a Site Workflow and modify its form using InfoPath

* This video will be available for free until Dec 2nd, 2010. It will then be returned to the Subscribers only video collection.

Check back tomorrow for a new free video on SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows.

Video – Create a Workflow on a List using SharePoint Designer 2010

Nov 30

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Designer Workflow No Comments

SharePoint Designer can be used to create powerful workflows on your site. You can create workflows on a list or library, create reusable workflows or create site based workflows. This video focuses on creating list workflows. While showing you how to create a list workflow, the various capabilities of the workflow designer environment (such as steps, conditions, actions, parallel branching, moving actions around etc) are explained so you can take full advantage of this robust environment.

Creating a Workflow on a SharePoint List or Library

* This video will be available for free until Dec 1st, 2010. It will then be returned to the Subscribers only video collection.

Check back tomorrow for a new free video on SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows.

Review of Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration

Nov 29

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Books No Comments

Review of Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration book by Wrox publishing.

Authors: Todd Klindt, Shane Young, and Steve Caravajal

Short review:

If you are or will be in charge of administering SharePoint 2010, please don’t think twice and pick up this book. You’ll definitely need it!

Longer review:

A very critical message that unfortunately many people miss about SharePoint is that it is truly a ‘platform’. Many of the solutions that you will need on this platform are already created for you such as Sites as containers for content, Lists and Libraries, Security framework, Enterprise Search capability, Business Process management, Forms management and more. No need to recreate the wheel by creating any of these components using code. Rather ‘enhance’ what’s already there by administering and configuring it properly. This is where this book comes in. Todd, Shane and Steve do an Awesome job at hitting on all the major areas that you will need to consider when rolling out SharePoint 2010 in your organization. Use it to plan, install, configure and then maintain SharePoint 2010. 

Important areas that the book covers -

• Architecture planning before even thinking about installation
• Upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to 2010
• Installation and configuration of SharePoint 2010
• Securing SharePoint (including usage of the new Claims based authentication) and its content at various levels
• Tour around the Central Administration
• The backup and restore capabilities
• Configuring Service Applications (Managed Metadata, User Profiles, Business Connectivity Services, PerformancePoint Services, and more)
• Branding in SharePoint

I would definitely recommend buying this book. You will not regret it. Guaranteed!

Also, if you are looking for video instruction on how to accomplish many of the tasks and configuration steps in SharePoint 2010, check out SharePoint 2010 Fundamentals DVD. Let me know if you have questions.

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!