Asif's Blog

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!

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.

Review for book ‘Beginning SharePoint 2010’ by Wrox

Mar 10

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Books, SharePoint 2010 No Comments

Just starting out with SharePoint 2010 or even SharePoint in general? The book ‘Beginning SharePoint 2010 – Building Business Solutions with SharePoint’ is an Awesome resource to get your hands on to get you up and running quickly!

First of all, this book is written by veterans (Amanda Perran, Shane Perran, Jennifer Mason, Laura Rogers) in the SharePoint community and not just from an outsider’s perspective which helps tremendously since it has been my personal experience (teaching on SharePoint for 6 years now) that it is not the easiest thing to teach effectively.

This book starts directly by hitting on the major areas of SharePoint that a beginner should understand real well to make good use of this platform. Topics like Sites, Workspaces, Lists, Libraries, Workflows, Site Columns, Content Types, Branding and more are discussed in detail. Not only how to use these things, but in which scenarios would you want to utilize each. The business reasoning for using, for example, a particular site or list template is extremely important for the long term success of your SharePoint deployment.

Another really good thing about this book is that it can be used just as well by people who already understand the fundamentals and now want to dive deeper into advanced topics like Records Management, Business Connectivity Services, Forms Server, Search management and of course the understanding of implementing a plan for governing the whole thing. Once you go through these topics in this book, then you get a better understanding for how these pieces all fit together on the platform. However, if you do want a deeper dive on each of these topics, I would recommend picking up a book which covers just that subject.

One more thing I would like to mention is the inclusion of exercises in this book – a great idea in my mind for folks who learn kinesthetically (like myself). Following these exercises, you can actually experience the beauty (as well as the gotchas) of SharePoint.

My recommendation: Buy it for yourself or your end users. It’s worth the price!

SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide for End Users

Sep 29

Asif RehmaniGeneral SharePoint 2010 No Comments

The lack of end user adoption is one of the main reasons that most SharePoint projects fail. That is a fact! If the end user working with SharePoint has a ‘cheat sheet’ that they can look through for the common tasks that they need to accomplish in SharePoint, it would increase their comfort level tremendously.

This is exactly what the SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide for End Users, written by SharePoint MVP Robert Bogue, offers. A quick and easy reference for the most common end user tasks within SharePoint. It’s definitely worth checking out to see how this can help your organization.

Download the Video Article Package on Introduction to SharePoint 2010

Aug 16

Asif RehmaniSharePoint SharePoint 2010, Videos 2 Comments

We have created and made available for download a video article package on Introduction to SharePoint 2010. This article has a total of 5 videos, each about 10 minutes long. This package is available at no cost to you. So what’s the catch you ask…? Well, the only thing we request is that you help us spread the word about it. So go ahead and feel free to forward this email to others or download the video article package and share it on your intranet or file share.

Here’s the location of the download:
http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/free-video-article/

Are you coming to #BPC2010 Best Practices Conference?

Aug 09

Asif RehmaniEvents SharePoint 2010 No Comments

With only a couple of weeks away now, the Best Practices Conference is sure to be a blast! Just check out the lineup of speakers: https://www.bestpracticesconference.com/Event%20Speakers.aspx. It is not very often that you see so many expert speakers from USA and abroad together for a conference. Also, now that SharePoint 2010 has been in the market for a few months, this is a really good time to see how best to implement it and also what to watch out for.

Even though the product itself is of course Awesome, there are still quite a few gotchas that you need to be aware of. I’ll be talking about the best practices as it relates to my favorite products: SharePoint Designer 2010 and InfoPath 2010. Check out the full agenda here:

 https://www.bestpracticesconference.com/Agenda.aspx .

Hope to see you there!

Videos on configuring Lookup Columns and enforcing column relationships

Aug 06

Asif RehmaniSharePoint SharePoint 2010 No Comments

Watch the following videos to make the best use of Lookup Columns in SharePoint 2010.

Configuring Lookup Columns

Lookup column is a very powerful type of column that can be used in any list or library to get information from another list or library on the site. This functionality can be used to centralize and protect your information (for example list of your Customers) and then do a lookup to it from various lists and libraries. This video goes more in depth to show how you can allow multiple values to be selected or enforce unique values in the lookup column.

Enforce Column Relationship in Lookup Columns

Lookup columns offer the capability to enforce column relationships and referential integrity. Two types of relationship behavior can be set: Restrict Delete or Cascade Delete. Both of these settings and their impacts are demonstrated in this video.

These videos are available for free until 8/10/2010. They will then be returned to the subscribers only area.

SharePoint MVP Chat- July 21st

Jul 15

Asif RehmaniEvents SharePoint 2010 No Comments

Blog repost from: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2010/07/15/live-chats-to-learn-more-about-sharepoint-with-the-mvp-experts.aspx

“Do you have questions about SharePoint? Want to learn more about the recently launched SharePoint 2010?  By popular request, SharePoint MVPs from around the world are participating in a live chat event about SharePoint. These Q&A events are a great opportunity to tap into the vast knowledge of these industry professionals who are regarded as the best in their field.

Please join us on Wednesday July 21st at 9am PDT to chat with MVPs from around the world.”

New Videos posted related to SharePoint Lists and Libraries

Jul 15

Asif RehmaniSharePoint SharePoint 2010 No Comments

These videos have been posted today on the SharePoint-Videos.com site.

• Utilize Content Types to define and organize your content

  Organizations create multiple types of content. For example, in any business, you have expense reports and status reports that need to be filled out by employees. In other organizations, you might have legal contracts, marketing proposals and more. You can get a handle on all this type of content and organize and manage it throughout your organization, utilizing content types in SharePoint.

• Utilizing Site Columns

  Site columns are reusable column definitions. They are template of columns which are defined at the site level as opposed to list columns which are created one at a time to be used in a list or library. Watch this video to learn why you would want to use site columns and how exactly to utilize them.

• Enforce Column Relationship in Lookup Columns

  Lookup columns offer the capability to enforce column relationships and referential integrity. Two types of relationship behavior can be set: Restrict Delete or Cascade Delete. Both of these settings and their impacts are demonstrated in this video.

• Configuring Lookup Columns

  Lookup column is a very powerful type of column that can be used in any list or library to get information from another list or library on the site. This functionality can be used to centralize and protect your information (for example list of your Customers) and then do a lookup to it from various lists and libraries. This video goes more in depth to show how you can allow multiple values to be selected or enforce unique values in the lookup column.

• Working with List and Library Columns

  When working with a list or library, you want to first make sure that you have the columns configured properly. There are many types of columns that you can create. This video shows how you can create new list/library columns and use that information to filter the data in a list or library.