A few months back, I had written an article on using SharePoint Designer 2007 and InfoPath 2007 to automate business processes. The solution uses InfoPath to create a powerful electronic form, publishes it to a SharePoint form library, then routes that form through a workflow process using a workflow created in SharePoint Designer. Creating your business scenarios in this fashion will let you design true end to end solutions, without using any code, that will save you Tons of time!

This article has finally made it onto MSDN. Check it out here in its entirety: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff355359.aspx. You can also check out the video/screencast for this whole process here: http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/automate-business-processes-using-infopath-forms-and-sharepoint-designer-workflows/

Asif Rehmani presented this session at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 during the week of Oct 19, 2009.

SharePoint Designer 2010, a free application, is “The Preferred” tool to design powerful no-code solutions and applications in SharePoint 2010. In this session you will get a broad overview of the capabilities of the tool, from site customizations such as modifying Site Metadata, managing Site Security, or creating Site Content, to building List or Site based Workflows and connecting to a variety of Data Sources. You will also learn about the new ribbon interface of SharePoint Designer 2010 and shows how best to take advantage of this application by showing the new bells and whistles that come with this product.

Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/994486001

We are back once again with another free webinar. This one is going to be all about using Data Views in SharePoint Designer to get to… well Data of course . This presentation will focus on how you can get access to SharePoint List data and then manipulate it as needed. However, keep in mind that Data Views can be used to get to any type of external data as well (web services, databases, xml files, rss feeds and more..).

The webinar is scheduled for 10/1 at 1pm Eastern. Come join us if you got time: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/983842921

Chapter 15 from our book (Professional SharePoint Designer 2007) is now available for free on MSDN. Bryan Phillips wrote that chapter. Congrats Bryan!

Here is the location of that chapter:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd819165.aspx

My colleague at Captare Training, Coskun Cavusoglu, and I are presenting two free Webinars. Details are below. Hope to see you (virtually) there:

Yes You Can! Powerful Forms Creation

InfoPath Forms with Integrated SharePoint Designer Workflows – Live Webinar

Date: Wednesday, May 27th

Time: 2 to 3 pm Eastern (1 to 2 pm Central/11 to Noon Pacific)

Forms and workflows are essential to business processes. Companies usually rely on programmers to create the forms and workflows using code. NOT ANYMORE!

SharePoint MVP Asif Rehmani delivers this powerful webinar! If you have access to Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer you can create powerful data driven form solutions on your SharePoint sites. InfoPath gives you the ability to pull data from databases and lists, and create forms with data validation and conditional formatting. SharePoint Designer’s workflows let you then design multi-step workflows centered around the form collected data. In this presentation you’ll see how to design a robust form using InfoPath and then design a workflow using SharePoint Designer to route it appropriately.

You can register here for this webinar.

Put the Pedal to the Metal – Encore Presentation

Reporting through SharePoint – Live Webinar

Date: Thursday, May 21st

Time: 2 to 3 pm Eastern (1 to 2 pm Central/11 to Noon Pacific)

SharePoint guru Coskun “Cujo” Cavusoglu will be your driver and discuss how Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services has two gears: Native and SharePoint Integrated. Native mode is like driving on a highway (smooth and fast) but there is a speed limit. Incorporating Reporting Services into MOSS via SharePoint Integrated mode enables users to put the pedal to the metal and speed through tasks.

We will explore how the integration works and how to get the most out of your investment if you set up Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated mode. You will learn the functionalities that didn’t make it to the integrated mode, or unsupported scenarios, that you should be fully aware of before putting the foot to the floor. Both pros and cons will be discussed.

You can register here for this webinar.

Let me first start by saying that SharePoint Designer (SPD) is not for everyone. I believe it does have its place with the Power Users, and Site Administrators within the organization, but if not used properly, it can severely damage your sites and potentially your whole Portal.

My reasons for liking it are the following features in SPD:

1. Creating Sites and Lists and Libraries within those sites
2. Being able to backup your sites or site collections. Also, you can restore your site at any location
3. Designing powerful Workflows for a list or library within a site
4. Using the Data View web part to create mashups of data from a variety of sources
5. Reporting on site usage
6. Working with the Web Content Management features of SharePoint (creation of Master Pages and Page Layouts based on Content Types)
7. “Prettying” your sites using Cascading Styles – using SPD makes it pretty easy to manage this process

And that’s not all… there’s even more stuff you can do with SPD.

Over the years, I have presented many conference sessions (at Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference, SharePoint Connections and SharePoint Advisor) on a variety of topics within SPD. So it just seemed natural to foray into writing more formally about the product and educate people on the intricacies of using SPD. With that said, I would like to officially announce at this time that I, in conjunction with a couple of co-authors, am writing the Professional SharePoint Designer book by Wrox publications. The release date is set to the end of this calendar year. Here is a snapshot from the book’s web page on Amazon: