Office365 User Group - April 2019

Had a very interactive discussion with the Columbus Office365/SharePoint User Group this month. Slides posted below. We discussed some of the ways that SharePoint has changed over the years, and agreed that today's SharePoint [Online] brings a lot of new value to the collaboration landscape, even if it means us SharePoint Old-Heads have to sometimes change the way we're used to doing things. :)

Columbus SharePoint User Group - April 2019 from Ricardo Wilkins

ICYMI - here's the "promo ad" I posted to LinkedIn:

Talking Teams with the Columbus Office365 User Group

Here's my presentation I delivered to the Columbus Office365 User Group this month:

Microsoft Teams - The Missing Manual from Ricardo Wilkins

SharePoint Cincy 2018

Great time presenting this week at SharePoint Cincy 2018! Slides below:

SharePoint Cincy 2018 - Site Management - Notes from the Field from Ricardo Wilkins

Office365 Security & Compliance at the BSPUG

**UPDATE: I'll be giving this talk again at SharePoint Saturday Cincinnati on Oct 14th 2017!**

Thanx to the Buckeye SharePoint User Group for letting me come speak on security and compliance in the Microsoft cloud!

You can find a summary of this talk over on the CEI Blog, or find the slides below:

When Your CISO Says No - Security & Compliance in Office 365 from Ricardo Wilkins

DogFood 2016 presentation posted

Below is the link to my “SharePoint, PowerApps, Flow and Azure Functions” presentation from this year’s DogFood Conference. I had a room packed with attendees interested in trying to figure out what all this new stuff is all about. Look forward to future posts from me on these topics!

SharePoint, PowerApps, Flow and Azure Functions - What Does It All Mean? from Ricardo Wilkins

Up Up and Away at SPS Columbus 2015

As you might have guessed by now, this year’s SharePoint Saturday Columbus was super-hero themed! All the speakers were given capes, and asked to wear the T-Shirt of their favorite super hero. I decided to choose Dragon Fly Jones from the 90’s sitcom Martin. : )

In addition to the fun stuff, SPS Columbus was also packed full of great info. Notable talks included Mike Smith’s discussion regarding REST, Seb Matthews Taking Your Business to the Cloud, and Doug Hemminger with Visual Studio and the Office365 REST API.

In my session we had good conversation re: Office integration, OneNote+SharePoint, and Yammer governance. And thankfully my demo’s went very smoothly. : )

Check out the other speakers super-hero pics on the BuckeyeSPUG Facebook page. My slides can be found below, or on slideshare.

Columbus SharePoint Roundtable

Last week my colleague and I presented in Cleveland at Bennett Adelson’s SharePoint Roundtable event. The topic: The End-User Guide to SharePoint & Office365: Features & Integration. We had a great turnout, and a very lively discussion.

We had so much fun we’re doing it again – this time in Columbus! If you’re in town, check us out Thurs April 30th, 2pm in the Columbus Microsoft offices!

Moving Your SharePoint Development to the Cloud

I enjoyed my trip to Cleveland last nite to speak at Bennett Adelson’s .NET SIG event on the topic of developing for SharePoint in the Cloud. When I say Cloud, I specifically mean SharePoint Online and Windows Azure. With such a big topic, I was glad to be able to fit a coherent presentation in 1 hour. There’s probably 10 more presentations I could do as jump-offs from this one – we’ll see what the future holds.

You can find my presentation on slideshare.net, or below on OneDrive:

 

SharePoint to feature at DogFoodCon 2014

Once again, Columbus Ohio will host the 2-day Microsoft Dog Food Conference on Sept 29-30th 2014. Many technologies will feature, including of course SharePoint and its related technologies.

First, let’s get the important news out of the way:

• July 9th is the deadline for speaker’s to submit topics
• July 29th is when Registration opens
• Sept 29th is the beginning of your mind being blown by the tons of topics at #DogFoodCon being given by great speakers and experts!

Next, let’s take a look at some of the posts from last year’s conference from many of it’s participants, speakers and fans (click images to view the posts in their entirety):

And for a view of all the slide decks from last year, check it out here!

Looking forward to seeing you all at this year’s conference!

Speaking at DogFood Conference 2013

Once again, I’m honored to be speaking at the DogFood Conference in Columbus, Ohio on November 21-22.

Dogfooding is all about using the very tools that you produce, and this year Microsoft will show once again how they make use of many of the products and technologies that they sell to us. Whether it be Windows 8, SharePoint, Surface, Xbox, or the Cloud, the Dog Food Conference this year will showcase tons of topics presented over 2 days by community IT professionals.

This year I’ll be teaming up with SharePoint Ryan to give a new talk called:

SharePoint PowerShell for the Admin and Developer: A Venn Diagram Experience

As you may have guessed, this talk will be about the koolness of Powershell, and how it can be a powerful tool not just for the SharePoint Admin, but also for the SharePoint Developer, and with some kool scenarios in-between. In addition, I’ll be giving a refreshed version of my SharePoint 2013 Dev Features talk as well.

Also, be on the lookout for talks from my fellow Blue Chip colleagues, including:

Eric Grover:	Strategies for sharing code with Windows store & Windows phone apps
John Azzolina:	Get Into The (Data) Flow: Using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to Move Data Around Your Organization

The evite can be found here – remember, registration begins October 21!

Overview of SharePoint 2013 Development Features

Last week, I spoke at the DogFood Conference 2012 in Columbus, OH on the topic of InfoPath, as well as on the new development features in SharePoint 2013. The DogFood Conference was a great event, with over 90 different sessions on all things Microsoft.

As I prepared this talk, I thought back to my last SharePoint Dev Features presentation, where I compared SP2007 with the new features of SP2010. My analysis now is that, while SP2010 was a huge leap forward from SP2007, SP2013 is more of a ‘somersault vault’ off of the vision that SP2010 started, in terms of maturing the development model and empowering the developer.

If you were to ask me to sum up my SharePoint 2013 Development presentation in 30 seconds, here’s what I’d say:

SharePoint Saturday Atlanta–Medley, Marketing, and… Murder???

This weekend I completed one of my two speaking commitments for this month by presenting at SharePoint Saturday Atlanta on the topic of SharePoint & Azure integration (slides below). Overall, I thought the event was great because it had a good combination of all the right ingredients – a medley of sessions to attend, a great marketing campaign, and… a mystery murder!

SharePoint Crash Course webinar with BDPA Atlanta

On Tuesday, April 3rd at 7pm EST, I’ll be delivering an online webinar for the Atlanta chapter of the BDPA as part of their Tech Talks series. I’ve got 90-minutes to give a crash course to attendees on everything that is the wonderful world of SharePoint – that’s right, from calendars to content types, from lists to libraries, from RBS to BCS.

My intent is do a 60-minute lap around the “wheel”, then wrap up with some live demo of solutions that attendees can do as soon as they get back to their office or friendly-neighborhood VPN. Q&A will also be included.

To join the webinar on Apr 3rd, 7pmEST:
   Go to URL http://www.anymeeting.com/bdpaatlanta1
   Call conference call toll free number: (218) 339-2409
   Use Attendee Access Code: 471 4295

[Update 4/4/12 – slide deck added below, and on Slideshare:]

So strap yourself in and join the ride – I’m gonna show you all the stuff you didn’t even know you didn’t know, and weren’t sure you ever wanted to know, but now you know – and knowing is half the battle.

Update: Webcast with Quest Software

Last week’s webcast with Quest Software and Improving Enterprises was very successful – over 100 people attended the online event to hear about SharePoint customization best practices, and get a live demo of some of the features that Quest web parts bring to the SharePoint landscape. The on-demand video recording should be available soon – stay tuned.

Below is a copy of the slides used, or you can find them on Slideshare. Check here to see the whitepaper.

[[UPDATE 3/26/12: Click Here to view the recording.]]

Webcast on SharePoint Customization Best Practices

On Wednesday March 14th, Improving Enterprises will be teaming up with Quest Software to help deliver a webcast on SharePoint customization best practices. This is a follow-up to the whitepaper I co-authored last year with SharePoint MCM Mario Fulan. Not only will we be able to elaborate on the topics from the whitepaper, but you’ll also get to see a live demo of some of Quest’s web part products. Click here to register for this free event!

InfoPath 2010 presentation at Buckeye SPUG: May the FORMS Be With You…

Last nite I gave my InfoPath 2010 talk to the attendees at the Buckeye SharePoint User Group. Despite a nasty snow storm that swept in inconveniently right at the evening rush hour, lots of folks braved the cold and joined me in an engaging and entertaining talk about the untapped power of InfoPath 2010.

The end of the talk included a demo of a form I created call the Dog Lover’s Application. It’s simply a way to demonstrate some standard, and some not-so-standard, features of InfoPath. I used SharePoint 2010’s built-in InfoPath Web Part to embed the form on the homepage of my site. I then asked the audience – “how do you know this isn’t a custom-built web part??” The point I was trying to make is that, with enough clever design, InfoPath forms designers can create some pretty fancy composites that might otherwise normally only be associated with the realm of the all-powerful Developer. : )

My goal was to hopefully make people see the value that InfoPath delivers as another tool in their SharePoint arsenal, and to show that it can be used for more than just the basic form.

The slidedeck can be found below, or on Slideshare::

Using Team Foundation Server with SharePoint Teams

This week I gave a presentation to my SharePoint team on Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), and how they could be used to grow our practice. I’ve been a fan of TFS since version 2005, and have watched it mature thru 2008 and now version 2010. I’ve also seen it begin to give more due respect to the SharePoint world – initially it seemed to be almost oblivious to the unique needs of the SharePoint development team. Some of the highlights of my presentation included the mention of using the automated Build Server to help SharePoint teams manage the WSP that results from their SharePoint dev. We also discussed how some non-traditional files, like InfoPath forms and CSS files, fit into typical source control story. And we talked about how SharePoint infrastructure engineers could also make use of Team System by incorporating work item tasks specific to server installations into a customized process guidance. Stay tuned to this blog in future posts as I elaborate on many of the topics included in my talk.

SharePoint Saturday–Columbus 2011

Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that SharePoint Saturday Columbus 2011 was a great success.  A great list of speakers and topics, and oh, yeah – great food too!   Nice raffle prizes for lucky winners, including a brand new Kindle, free consulting services, and even a great SharePoint 2010 book giveaway from ICC (my employer, and a platinum sponsor of the event).

And oh yeah – in case you’re wondering, the SharePoint Cowbell was on display!

(Ricardo Wilkins speaking on SharePoint 2010 Dev at SharePoint Saturday Columbus 2011; photo credit – Brian Jackett)

Memoires of a Tech Speaker

I was reflecting on the presentations I’ve given over the last 12 months, and thought it might be helpful to list them all in one place, including links to the slidedecks.  I think I’ll also keep this particular post updated with future presentations as well.
Now you can’t say I never did anything nice for you… : )

2016	SharePoint, PowerApps, Flow and Azure Functions - What Does It All Mean? Microsoft Dog Food Conference 2016 – Columbus, OH
2015	Getting Information from SharePoint - A 365 Degree View Microsoft DogFood Conference 2015
2015	InfoPath - I Ain't Dead Yet SharePoint Saturday Cincinnati 2015
2015	Moving Your SharePoint Development to the Cloud Microsoft DogFood Conference 2015 Bennett Adelson .NET SIG – Cleveland, OH
2015	SharePoint Futures: Processing the MS Ignite Conference Announcements Bennett Adelson SharePoint Roundtable – Cleveland, OH
2015	End-User Guide to SharePoint and Office365 SharePoint Saturday Columbus 2015
2014	JavaScript & CSS in SharePoint: Lessons Learned from the Field SharePoint Saturday Cincinnati – Cincinnati, OH SharePoint Saturday Columbus – Columbus, OH Bennett Adelson SharePoint Roundtable – Cleveland, OH
2013	SharePoint PowerShell for the Admin & Dev Microsoft Dog Food Conference 2013 – Columbus, OH
2013	What’s New for Developers in SharePoint 2013 Microsoft SharePoint/Visual Studio 2012 Tour – Columbus, OH Microsoft SharePoint/Visual Studio 2012 Tour – Cleveland, OH
	An exclusive look at the new development features and functionality in SharePoint 2013, including the new Cloud App Model, development tools, platform enhancements, additional APIs for full trust solutions, and the different extensibility opportunities available to the developer
2012	Bridging the Gap between Development & Operations Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Launch Event – Columbus, OH
	Overview of how tools like Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server, and System Center Operations Manager can help the application lifecycle management experience
2012	SharePoint 2013 Development Features  Microsoft Dog Food Conference 2012 – Columbus, OH Buckeye SharePoint User Group – Columbus, OH
	Overview of the new tools, options, and development model for development in SharePoint 2013
2012	Azure and SharePoint Integration AgileDotNet Conference – Columbus, OH Buckeye SharePoint User Group – Columbus, OH SharePoint Saturday - Atlanta, GA
	Overview of integration options for development with Azure and SharePoint
2012	The Power of Infopath 2010 Buckeye SharePoint User Group – Columbus, OH Microsoft Dog Food Conference 2012 – Columbus, OH Dayton SharePoint User Group – Dayton, OH SharePoint Saturday - Los Angeles, CA
	Overview and live demo of many of the features of InfoPath 2010
2011	Introduction to SharePoint 2010 Microsoft and K2 SharePoint 2010 Solutions Roadshow – Columbus, OH
	Overview of the features and opportunities in SharePoint 2010
2011	SharePoint 2010 - A Game-Changer for your Business National BDPA Conference 2011 - Chicago, IL
	Value proposition of SharePoint 2011, as well as discussion of Office 365.
2011	SharePoint Development Enhancements in 2010 Microsoft Heartland SharePoint Conference 2011 – Lewis Center, OH Buckeye SharePoint User Group – Columbus, OH SharePoint Saturday - India SharePoint Saturday - Washington, DC SharePoint Saturday - Columbus, OH
	SharePoint 2007 vs 2010 as it relates to development What part Team Foundation Server can play in SharePoint development How Silverlight has become an important technology for SharePoint
2011	Business Automation with SharePoint Dayton SharePoint User Group – Dayton, OH
	Workflows in SharePoint 2007 and 2010 InfoPath 2007 and 2010
2010	Document Management Using SharePoint SharePoint Saturday – Columbus, OH
	SharePoint 2007 SharePoint 2010 InfoPath Forms
2010	Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Columbus region Microsoft Launch Event: Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, with Steve Caravejal
	Discussed new features of Office 2010 and Exchange 2010 Discussed the integration enhancements with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Discussed Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7
2010	How to Use Facebook Effectively BDPA Information Exchange Meeting
	Discussed advanced features of Facebook A portion of my presentation talked about the [then] upcoming integration with “Docs”, ie Office Web Apps. Demonstrated the advantages of Office Web Apps in general.
2010	The Challenges of Real-World SharePoint Central Ohio SharePoint User Group
	Discussed challenges related to using SharePoint outside of the corporate enterprise Discussed how SharePoint 2010 addressed and improved the issues that I mentioned
2010	S.O.L.I.D. Principles in Software Development nPlus1 Architects Summit
	Discussed the Single Responsibility and Open Closed principles Also showed how the principles could be applied to SharePoint development
2009	Application LifeCycle Management and Team Foundation Server; Team System Webinar; nationally-broadcast
	Team Foundation Server 2005 Application Lifecycle Management principles

SharePoint Workflow for Cowboys: my slide deck from DaySPUG

I had a great time hanging with the members of the Dayton SharePoint User Group this past Tuesday.  We discussed “Business Process Automation with SharePoint and Workflow – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”.  I talked about how the tools and development experience of automating process using SharePoint have improved in SharePoint 2010 (the Good) versus SharePoint 2007 (the Bad, the Ugly).  [I gave them the disclaimer that the “Bad” and “Ugly” bit was just for effect – MOSS 2007 is still awesome] :)