Top 4 Signs that your Users are embracing SharePoint

{my article published at EndUserSharePoint.com – June 2011}

Have you ever been in an organization, big or small, where SharePoint has been in place for months (or years?), but when you look around, you realize it’s not being used to its full potential? I’m not talking about something big like they’re not using InfoPath for their forms automation, or not using Business Connectivity Services to expose their data through external content types. I’m talking about the organizations who are simply storing old archived documents in a library still named “Shared Documents”, and whose most elaborate web part is the one that shows today’s weather forecast. :) I’m talking about the organization that installed SharePoint, but obviously never heard a good speech about how SharePoint can be used effectively to make their work life more productive.

So let’s say, one day they finally get to hear the speech, and they’re now armed with enough knowledge to get some good end-user SharePoint collaboration going. Other than seeing someone running down the hall with a cowbell screaming “I gotta have more SharePoint, baby!”, how do you know that your users are finally starting to drink the SharePoint kool-aid and use it collaboratively? Well, in true Letterman-style, here are my Top 4 Signs that your Users are embracing SharePoint:

InfoPath: Team Development

InfoPath can be your best friend when it comes to building dynamic and engaging forms in SharePoint that your customers can use to interact with their data in a rich and visual manner.  In many ways, it’s suitable even for the Power user to quickly produce a feature-rich form.  But I think it becomes even more powerful in the hands of a team of SharePoint Developers, who can fully explore advanced design options like data integration, complex rules generation, and even incorporation of code-behind files.

As with any SharePoint development technology, it’s important to follow good practices when developing in a team environment.  This series (which you can follow with the infopath-TeamDev tag) will look at several aspects of InfoPath team development, and attempt to offer helpful advice on best practices.

Some of the challenges we’ll look at will include:

• versioning your team work
• working in parallel
• managing data connections

We’ll also explore useful team dev tips, like incorporating Template Parts, using data field naming conventions, and maximizing the power of InfoPath Rules.

Let’s see where this ride takes us!  More posts to come.

Heartland SharePoint Conference Redux

Ever since ICC presented the Microsoft Heartland Region SharePoint Conference 2011 in February, and even after a mini encore presentation via online webinar in March, I’ve had a few people ask me where they can get all the presentation slide decks from ICC’s SharePoint team in one convenient location.  Poof! Your wish is granted!:

		Make Your Developers Love You! (aka SharePoint 2010 ALM for Dev Managers) -Ricardo Wilkins
		Success with SharePoint 2010 – Over and over and over again! -Mario Fulan
		Getting SharePoint 2010 Deployments Right -Veenus Maximiuk
		Social Networking Features and Governance in SharePoint 2010 -Chris Rygielski

Talking with the Buckeye SPUG

No, not a Pug – a SPUG. :)  That’s right, on Thursday March 17th I’ll be the guest speaker at the Buckeye SharePoint User Group (formerly the Central Ohio SPUG), discussing SharePoint 2010 development and ALM.
For those that have heard me speak on this topic before, never fear!  You won’t be bored, because this time I should have a little more time to do some nice demos featuring the ease with which you can deploy solutions to SharePoint from Visual Studio 2010, as well as showing some of the koolness you get when you incorporate TFS into your SharePoint dev festivities.
Hope I see you there!:

Buckeye SharePoint User Group
Microsoft Polaris Office
March 17th, 2011
5:30pm-7:30pm

Best Practices Conference 2011

This past week I attended the Best Practices Conference (BPC) for SharePoint in La Jolla, California. This is a 3-day conference that discusses not only “how'” to do things in SharePoint, but also asks the question “should you”.

SharePoint Conference Mania!

Well, it looks like March is turning out to be a very big month for SharePoint in terms of conferences.  Seems like other geeks like myself just can’t get enough of that SharePoint goodness. :)  Here are the March conferences I’m aware of:

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