Asif's Blog

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.

Spotlight on SharePoint Video Tutorial DVDs

Apr 29

Asif RehmaniInfoPath, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer InfoPath 2010, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer, SharePoint Videos 3 Comments

Do you learn best by watching examples/demonstrations? Do you want the ability to be able to watch the videos anywhere you are regardless of presence of an internet connection? If the answers to these are yes and yes then you might find that our DVD-ROM based video tutorials are just what you need! We are dedicating this newsletter to highlight our top DVDs and provide you with some more information on what you should expect to find inside of each video tutorial package.
 
SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is one of the Most powerful features in SharePoint 2010. You can use BCS to easily integrate data from your external systems into your SharePoint environment. The videos in this tutorial show you how to take advantage of this functionality in your SharePoint environment. Create lists in SharePoint which show your line of business application data (such as from custom databases, SAP, PeopleSoft and more) or show that information using pre-built BCS web parts. You will also learn about how to make BCS associations to relate two different connections. All of this and a whole lot more is all taught in this video tutorial package.
 
Reporting Services using SharePoint 2010
The introduction of Reporting Services 2008 R2, using the SharePoint 2010 add-in with the free Report Builder 3.0 authoring tool, provides an excellent way to create powerful reports for your business needs. These video tutorials show you how to take advantage of Report Builder’s design concepts to create reusable datasets and report parts from multiple sources. Also, easily create visualizations of your data such as sparklines, databars, charts, indicators and more. The end result is transformation of live data from multiple sources into powerful and meaningful reports inserted right within your SharePoint sites.
 
SharePoint 2010 Fundamentals
If you need to start out with the basics of SharePoint, this is the video tutorial to pick up. However, even if you are an intermediate SharePoint user already, you are guaranteed to pick up other tricks and tips along the way. It covers topics such as customizing sites, navigation, document management, list management and more.
 
SharePoint Designer 2010 Fundamentals
Once you have mastered the fundamentals of SharePoint 2010, it’s time to dive into this video tutorial which will present you with all of the opportunities you have to create no-code customizations and solutions on top of SharePoint using SharePoint Designer 2010 (a free product). SharePoint Designer lets you create views of your data (fetched from lists, libraries, databases, web services and more) directly on any page within your site. In addition, you can automate processes using workflows, customize site metadata, security, list/library schema and a whole lot more.
 
SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows
Ready to dive deeper into all that SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflow capability has to offer? Pick up this DVD for demonstrations of various opportunities you have to produce workflows in SharePoint Designer. Learn how to create list based, reusable or site workflows and what the difference is between the three. Also, you will see how to package these workflows and transport them from one site collection to another when needed.
 
InfoPath 2010 Fundamentals
InfoPath is ‘the recommended tool’ to create and modify forms in SharePoint. Learn how to create form library, list and workflow forms using InfoPath designer. Already have forms created using Microsoft Word or Excel? The videos in this DVD will guide you on how to migrate those forms into InfoPath. You will also see how easy it is to fetch information from your data repositories like lists, libraries and even databases into your InfoPath forms to present to your users.
 
Check out our complete collection of video tutorials on DVDs. Have an idea on a subject area we should consider for our next batch of DVDs? Just comments on this post or fill out our contact form to let us know and we’ll definitely consider it!

Webinar recording on SharePoint Designer Workflows integration with InfoPath and Visio

Aug 12

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Designer InfoPath 2010, Visio, Workflow No Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I conducted a webinar on SharePoint Designer 2010 workflows integration with InfoPath and Visio. The recording for this is available for free right now on our site right here:

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/sp10-creating-workflows-with-sharepoint-designer-2010-visio-2010-and-infopath-2010/

This will remain free on the site until 8/20/2010 and then it will be returned to the subscribers only area.

SharePoint 2010 Fundamentals DVD released!

Jul 08

Asif RehmaniSharePoint InfoPath 2010, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 No Comments

The SharePoint 2010 Fundamentals DVD was released today. It’s packed with the core knowledge needed to start out successfully with SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint topics covered include:

• Creating SharePoint sites
• Customizing site structure
• Customizing navigation components
• Setting up site security
• Making use of the built in Lists
• Creating custom lists
• Understanding the document management options
• Understanding Site Columns and Content Types
• and more..

There is also now a complete DVD bundle available for SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010.

Licensing requirements for InfoPath forms on SharePoint

Jun 29

Asif RehmaniInfoPath InfoPath 2010 4 Comments

I have been asked enough times now about the licensing requirements of SharePoint to be able to show InfoPath forms in the browser that I’m finally putting together this blog entry about it . With InfoPath 2010, you can create SharePoint Form Library Forms, SharePoint List Forms and SharePoint Workflow Forms. Let me try to break down each of these briefly and talk about the licensing requirements.

SharePoint Form Library Forms

InfoPath’s ability to create form templates that can be posted to a form library in SharePoint dates back to to 2003 when InfoPath 2003 first came out. Once the form is published to that library, your users can click on the New Document link/button and that will open up the form. This form can only be opened in the browser if you have SharePoint Enterprise license. No exceptions here. If you don’t have enterprise licensing on your server then your users will require at least the InfoPath filler application (or InfoPath Designer application) on their machine to open up the form. If that’s not the case either, they will get an error saying that no compatible application can be found to open up the form (just like the error you would get if you didn’t have MS Word installed and you tried to open up a .doc document).

SharePoint List Forms

This functionality is new in 2010 products. SharePoint lists (such as Tasks, Announcements, Links etc.) come out of the box with ASP.NET forms that let you take actions on the list (viewing a list item, editing an item, creating a new item). You can see these forms in the browser or through SharePoint Designer 2010. If your SharePoint server has SharePoint Enterprise license, you can modify these out of the box forms or create new forms (recommended) using InfoPath 2010. If you don’t have enterprise licensing, you can still customize or create new list forms without code. However, you will need to use SharePoint Designer 2010 to do that and the resulting forms will be ASP.NET forms as well.

SharePoint Workflow Forms

This functionality is also new in 2010 products. When you create a workflow using SharePoint Designer 2010, it creates forms that users interact with as needed (for example task forms, initiation forms, association forms, forms to collect data from users etc.). If your SharePoint server has SharePoint Enterprise or Standard license applied to it, you can use InfoPath 2010 to modify these forms. If you are instead running SharePoint Foundation, you can still modify these forms, but that would have to be done using SharePoint Designer 2010 and the forms will be ASP.NET forms.

I hope this breakdown eliminates some confusion. InfoPath 2010 is an Awesome product! If you have the proper licensing, I would definitely recommend using it!

InfoPath 2010 Training DVD

Jun 25

Asif RehmaniInfoPath DVD, InfoPath 2010 No Comments

The InfoPath 2010 video tutorials DVD contains all of our video tutorials on InfoPath 2010. This DVD contains demonstrations showing you exactly how you can build form solutions using InfoPath 2010 by itself or on SharePoint 2010… without using any programming! Here are some of the topics you will learn by watching the videos on this DVD:

• Introduction to InfoPath 2010
• Convert Word and Excel forms to InfoPath
• Enhance forms using Validation and Formatting
• Fetch data from SharePoint Lists and Databases into your forms
• Publish form templates to form library
• Publish forms using content type
• Create SharePoint list forms using InfoPath
• and more…

Note: Just in case there is any confusion – this is a DVD to be played on a computer and not your DVD player.

You can use the following coupon code to get 10% off the price of the single user license DVD: SPVideos10.

The complete list of all videos and purchase information are available on the site: http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/products/

If Customize Form button is not working in List Settings…

Jun 17

Asif RehmaniInfoPath InfoPath 2010, Tricks and Tips No Comments

The Customize Form button in the List Settings page lets you customize the list form using InfoPath 2010 (if InfoPath 2010 is installed on your computer and you are running SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise). If this button is not working, your site is not trusted by your computer and that’s why it is not letting you open up the form in InfoPath. Check out the animated image below to see how you can add your site as a trusted site.

InfoPath 2010 Webinar Recording

Jun 08

Asif RehmaniEvents InfoPath 2010 No Comments

On Thursday, June 3rd, we conducted a webinar on How and Where to Deploy InfoPath 2010 forms. In this webinar, it was demonstrated how to use InfoPath in a variety of ways with SharePoint – making list forms, library forms and even rendering it within the InfoPath form web part.

You can watch the recording of the webinar in its entirety by clicking on the Webinar video on this page:

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/free-sharepoint-sharepoint-designer-and-infopath-2010-videos/

Lots of InfoPath 2010 Videos posted

Jun 03

Asif RehmaniInfoPath InfoPath 2010 No Comments

The InfoPath 2010 Video page is now ready. We now have 13 videos already on the page and more to come in the future. Check it out here:

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/infopath-2010/

Topics include the following:

• Introduction to InfoPath 2010
• Converting Microsoft Word documents to InfoPath 2010
• Enhance InfoPath 2010 form with Rules (Validation, Formatting and Action Logic)
• Use cascading drop-downs in InfoPath to display parent-child information
• Create a SharePoint List form using InfoPath
• Publish InfoPath form through a site Content Type
• Fetch data from Databases and SharePoint Lists into InfoPath form
• And more…

Free SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010 Videos

Oct 20

Asif RehmaniGeneral InfoPath 2010, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 No Comments

With so much new information on the SharePoint 2010 Products and Technologies, it’s hard to talk about all of it using just words or screenshots. To that end, I have produced several videos showing demonstrations of the new functionality, which I covered at my sessions at SPC, on the following page:

http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/free-sharepoint-sharepoint-designer-and-infopath-2010-videos/

More videos soon! Enjoy!