Asif's Blog

Slides from SharePoint Conferences

Nov 29

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

I usually get asked for my slide decks after my conference presentations so I recently started using the SlideShare service to start sharing the slide decks. The slide decks up there are from the sessions I delivered at SharePoint Connections Amsterdam last week. Hope these are helpful to those of you who can use it.

Also, if you need to access the environment that I use for my demonstrations, I have that hosted at CloudShare. It’s a completely pre-built environment with all the SharePoint and Office software you need to get going plus it has my demonstrations on Workflows, Business Connectivity Services, InfoPath forms and more. You can read more about it on my blog if interested.

SharePoint Connections Amsterdam 2011 presentation slide decks

Nov 28

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences 2 Comments

All slide decks from my presentations at SharePoint Connections Amsterdam 2011 have now been uploaded to SlideShare here:

http://www.slideshare.net/asifrehmani

Hope they are helpful!

SharePoint Conference 2011 session recordings

Nov 23

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

Many of the SharePoint Conference 2011 recordings have been posted to YouTube by Microsoft at their sharepointconference channel. I was very happily surprised to see that.

These recordings are complete sessions (many of them over an hour) and not small snippets of 15 minutes or less like many of the other YouTube videos. In the description of the video, it states the session title, code, speaker name, level of presentations, abstract and even which room it too place in at the conference center. Wow!

Following are my two sessions that I did at the SPC 2011:

Sessions at SharePoint Connections 2011

Oct 31

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

SharePoint Connections Fall 2011 is underway this week in Las Vegas. Lots of great sessions planned for the week. 15 sessions will be presented by Critical Path Training trainers altogether and there is also a couple of book signings planned for Scot H. and I in the evening. Stop by the CPT booth for more information.

Here are the sessions that I’ll be presenting:

HNC01: Make the Best use of SharePoint Designer 2010

HNC03: Create SharePoint Library forms using SharePoint 2010

HOF03: Office 365: Customize SharePoint Online with SharePoint Designer 2010

SharePoint Connections Amsterdam Nov 22 to 23, 2011

Oct 07

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

SharePoint Connections conference is coming back to Amsterdam once again. Register before Oct 14 to save 100 Euros. Also, there is a special 50% discount offered for students.

http://www.nccomms-events.com/sharepointconnections

I’m honored to be presenting the following sessions at the conference:

Using SharePoint Designer 2010 in the ‘Real World’

SharePoint Designer is an Awesome product. However, do you know how to use it to the best of its capability? I’ll be happy to show it to you in this session.

Create SharePoint Library Forms Using InfoPath 2010

The Form Library in SharePoint is there to host InfoPath forms much like the Document Library holds regular documents. Using InfoPath forms, you can create amazingly powerful forms with logic and data connections to various sources. That’s going to be the main focus of this session.

Office 365: Customize SharePoint Online with SharePoint Designer 2010

Want to know what you can (and cannot) do in SharePoint Online? Especially regarding SharePoint Designer. Can you use it fully to customize SharePoint Online? Come to this session to find out.

Create Reusable and Transportable Workflows in SharePoint Designer 2010

Workflows in SharePoint Designer are one of the most powerful feature. Reusable workflows can be published globally or even transported between environments. I’ll show you how to make it possible and what to watch out for.

SharePoint-Videos.com presence at SharePoint Conference 2011

Sep 29

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

SharePoint turns 10 years old. Are you coming to celebrate at the SharePoint Conference?

SharePoint Conference (SPC) has been taking place every couple of years. This year’s conference officially kicks off on October 3rd. Are you going to be there?

At SPC 2009, I remember hearing that about 8,000 attendees were present (not counting the vendors and staff). This year’s show seems to be garnering similar type of attention and they’re looking forward to a Huge turnout again! [or maybe it's partially because of the proximity to Disneyland ]. Aside from the abundance of knowledge transfer that undoubtedly will take place during the breakout sessions at the conference, there are some really nice activities planned for the attendees.

SharePoint-Videos.com (SPVideos) is planning to have a good presence at the conference including the following:

• Every conference attendee will find an informational flyer with our information and offering in their conference bags
• We’ll be bringing 500 video tutorial DVDs (shown below) to be passed out at the conference. The videos cover several topics covered on the video tutorial DVDs we have on the site. If you would like a copy, we’ll have them available at the Wrox Publishing booth. I will also be personally passing out many of them during my sessions at SPC .
• I’ll be available at either of the following booths: Critical Path Training, Microsoft Composites, Microsoft SharePoint Online. Come on by for a chat if you have time.

DVD we are passing out at SPC -

Front cover	Back cover

Hope to see you there!

My sessions at the SharePoint Conference

Sep 29

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

Looking forward to the upcoming Microsoft SharePoint Conference next week! I’ll be presenting the following sessions there:

SPC239 – InfoPath + SharePoint Designer + Office 365 = Forms in the Cloud!

Forms are used everywhere in SharePoint Online: Form Libraries, Document Libraries, Lists, Workflows and more. You can use these forms to create great looking layouts, implement conditional formatting and retrieve data from a variety of sources. Come see this session to learn the best ways to use InfoPath generated forms in the cloud. This session will demonstrate the similarities and differences between  InfoPath forms within SharePoint Online as compared to SharePoint on-premises. .

Start time: 10/4/2011  9:00:00 AM

SPC272  – SharePoint Designer 2010- A Tool for End Users?

"My IT department says we are not allowed to use SharePoint Designer."  This phrase is fairly common when the topic of SharePoint Designer comes up in a training, conference setting or a consulting engagement. IT departments have concerns around deploying SharePoint Designer to end users. This session provides real world use cases and guidance that covers when it is safe to let your site administrators use SharePoint Designer 2010 (and also when it’s not safe). In addition, we will discuss the different level of privileges that should be granted to different groups of people in your organization.

Start time: 10/5/2011  9:00:00 AM

Make your data come alive: 3 creative ways to visualize your data

A short 20 minutes session discussing 3 different ways to make your data come alive:

1. Make Chart web part your friend and chart List, Library, BCS and other types of data using just the browser
2. Use Excel Services to publish your existing Charts and Graphs from your Excel spreadsheets
3. Conditionally format your data using List and Data View web parts – using SharePoint Designer 2010

Start Time: 10/5/2011  12:00:00 PM

Critical Path Training @ SharePoint Conference 2011

Sep 27

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

Repost from AC’s blog: Next week brings the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 in CA. The instructors at Critical Path Training will be in full force as we’re presenting over 14 sessions all week.

We are also giving away over 120 SharePoint books at our booth with hourly book drawings and eight book signings throughout the week!!!

But wait, that’s not all… we’re also giving away over $25,000 in SharePoint training to lucky winners throughout the week.

Where can you get more info? Check out our October community page on our website: http://www.criticalpathtraining.com/Community/Pages/October.aspx

Looking forward to seeing everyone… make sure you come to the ESPNZone on Wednesday night for SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night!

My Presentations at SharePoint Conference 2011

Aug 04

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences, InfoPath 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 4 Comments

I’ll be presenting two sessions at SharePoint Conference 2011. Looking forward to seeing lots of old friends and acquaintances and making some new ones there . Here are my sessions:

Title

InfoPath + SharePoint Designer + Office 365 = Forms in the Cloud!

Abstract

Forms are used everywhere in SharePoint Online (Office 365) – Form Libraries, Document Libraries, Lists, Workflows and more. You can use these forms to create great looking layouts, implement conditional formatting and retrieve data from a variety of sources. Come see this session to learn the best ways to use InfoPath generated forms in the cloud. This session will demonstrate the similarities and differences between InfoPath forms within SharePoint Online as compared to SharePoint on-premises. We offer a comprehensive InfoPath training 2010 instructional video curriculum on this topic.

Title

SharePoint Designer 2010- A Tool for End Users?

Abstract

“My IT department says we are not allowed to use SharePoint Designer.” This phrase is fairly common when the topic of SharePoint Designer comes up in a training, conference setting or a consulting engagement. IT departments have concerns around deploying SharePoint Designer to end users. This session provides real world use cases and guidance that covers when it is safe to let your site administrators use SharePoint Designer 2010 (and also when it’s not safe). In addition, we will discuss the different level of privileges that should be granted to different groups of people in your organization.

Get access to pre-built demos using SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010

May 03

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Conferences, Videos No Comments

Don’t you just hate it when you see a powerful demonstration of some functionality at a conference or in a class, and then you try to replicate what the presenter did back in your own environment and it doesn’t work? That’s pretty frustrating to most people. My solution to that has been to point people to a recorded demo of the presentation at our SharePoint-Videos site since then you can pause the video as you follow along in your own environment which works out great! In addition to that, I have something more to share with you now. Read on for the information on how you can access it right away.

One of the roadblocks that many people have when trying to develop or play with new functionality is that they don’t have an environment where they can safely experiment. To build such an environment takes a fairly long time, requires special hardware and software licenses and could be cumbersome overall. Most developers have an environment (a sandbox) already built, but what about the rest of us who still create powerful SharePoint solutions using either just the browser or various no-code applications like SharePoint Designer and InfoPath? Well, now there is a solution and it’s called CloudShare!

Virtual Machine ‘in the Cloud’
CloudShare provides a means of having a virtual environment ‘in the cloud’. You can access this environment just like you were accessing your physical desktop. Since everything is running remotely, you don’t have to worry about any requirements accept an internet browser to connect with.

What I am providing
I have a pre-built virtual machine that I would like to share with you. It has all the bells and whistles already running within it:

• SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft Office 2010 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, InfoPath, Project, Access and more)
• SharePoint Designer 2010
• SharePoint Workspace 2010
• Visual Studio 2010
• and more…

In this virtual machine, I have built four of the demos that I do which have been fairly popular. They are as follows:

• Customizing SharePoint List Forms using SharePoint Designer and InfoPath
• Automating Business Processes using Visio and SharePoint Designer for Workflows and InfoPath for Forms
• Using XSLT List View and Data View web parts to get access to your SharePoint List data and external Database data
• Building Business Connectivity Services components using SharePoint Designer

How does this work?
You can start by going directly to my pre-built virtual machine environment page. You will only be asked for your name and email address to register. Then you will be provided access to my virtual machine directly through the browser. It will look like the image below:

You will have complete access to all the pre-built demos which are implemented in subsites of this site collection and also links to related videos for each demo on SharePoint-Videos. There is no cost to access this environment for 14 days.

So what’s the catch?
Yes, you would be giving your email address to the CloudShare folks, but there is no other catch. To me, if you use this environment and get benefit out of it, I will be satisfied that I was able to help. If you like this environment and find it as valuable as I certainly do in my day to day work, you can subscribe to the CloudShare service and keep access to this environment.

The subscription cost to the CloudShare service is $49 per month if you decide to keep it after 14 days trial. If you do try the service, let me know about your experience and any feedback.

Help spread the word if you can by sending a link to this blog entry onwards to other folks who can benefit from this environment.