Monthly Archives: May 2013

avepoint, Migration, SharePoint 2013, Speaking

SharePoint 2013 Migration Webinar: Agenda & Demos

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Some folks have asked me about the agenda for the upcoming Migration webinar which I’m delivering on Tuesday 28th and whether I’m planning to show real-life migrations. This post is to answer those questions..

Here is the agenda :

  1. Planning Considerations (What questions you should answer before starting the migration project)
  2. SharePoint OOB/Native Upgrade (2010 –> 2013)
  3. SharePoint Upgrade Design Goals (safer, less downtime, more control to administrators, etc…)
  4. New Upgrade Features in SharePoint 2013 (Deferred Site Collection upgrade, Site Collection health checks, etc… )
  5. Different options for migration to Office 365 SharePoint Online

& here are the planned demos:

  1. New Upgrade Features in SharePoint 2013
  2. Direct real-life migration (SharePoint 2007 –> SharePoint 2013)
  3. Direct real-life migration (SharePoint 2010 –> Office 365 SharePoint 2013 Online)

Looking forward to “virtually” meeting you ..

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Successfully Completed Salem™ Certified Practitioner Online Course

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If we are connected on LinkedIn, you have most probably seen my announcement about beingSalem Certified Practitioner. After completing the course I’ve also been granted full membership of the World Association of SharePoint Business Strategists. This is something that I’m really happy to be part of, I believe that this group can do a lot to bridge the gap between Customers’ business needs and SharePoint as a technology platform.

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Since the announcement, I’ve received different questions from many SharePoint folks about the course & the certificate that I thought of publicly sharing the answer on my blog.

First of all, I’d like to note that I was given this opportunity complementary for my independentcontributions to the SharePoint community. I was never asked to write or tweet about the framework or the course in return so rest assured that what you are reading now is my unbiased point of view.

What is Salem ?

Salem™ (Sequenced and Logical Enterprise Methodology) is the unique, design protected visual consulting practical framework of 15 inter-related organizational business services that are themselves constructed of around 80 sub services. The framework is supported by a number of service channels that handle the delivery technologies. The Salem™ framework service modules are simple to understand for any audience and as the framework itself is factorial so it has huge numbers of sequential delivery variants so creating the ultimate flexible service roadmap for SharePoint or /and the social enterprise.

What made me really keen to learn and study the framework was Gartner’s rating for it in itsCompetitive Landscape: Microsoft SharePoint Consulting and Implementation Services, North America and Western Europe.

How was the course ?

The beauty of the course lies within its simplicity as well as the different learning formats it provides. I’m a fan of trying & mixing different formats for learning and studying. The course provides Word Documents,  PDF’s, Slide Decks, Videos and more. I really believe that what I’ve studied can be easily tailored to serve as a Consulting Framework for any Business Productivity/Collaboration platforms since it enforces simple business language for consultancy or pre-sales engagements.

Who is the course for ?

If you are seeking to learn how to strategize, design and build a highly-effective, business-aligned, task-driven, logical and sequential business service roadmap and strategy for any Business Productivity & Collaboration Platforms for your clients, this course is definitely for you.

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Next Steps:

This was my first Salem course and I’m really planning to take more courses in the near future, I’ll keep you updated about my thoughts on the following courses as well as my findings on how they can be leveraged on the ground in my next posts. Stay tuned and please feel free to drop me an email in case you have any questions.

Migration, SharePoint 2013, Speaking

[Arabic Webinar] Successful Migration to SharePoint 2013 – Planning Considerations & Migration Strategies

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Date: May 28, 2013 | Time: 14.00 – 15.00 (Dubai Time, GMT +4)

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Microsoft SharePoint 2013 will transform the way organizations connect their knowledge workers, business processes, and enterprise-wide content worldwide. Before organizations make the leap to Microsoft’s latest platform release, whether on premises or in the cloud, business goals must be carefully considered to ensure you are gaining the most value from your migration project as well as SharePoint 2013 enhancements. In this session, I will talk you through:

  • Options for upgrading or migrating to SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft Office 365
  • Strategies for moving to the latest releases of SharePoint, including planning, mapping, and validating migration projects
  • A look at available solutions for either upgrading or migrating to SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft Office 365, including DocAve’s Migration Solution

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avepoint, SharePoint 2013

AvePoint Meetings App for SharePoint 2013 is now available for free!

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AvePoint has released a new free app to the SharePoint Store called AvePoint Meetings. Not only does it offer SharePoint 2007/2010 Meeting workspaces functionalities which have been sadly deprecated in SharePoint 2013, but also it comes with many new features that allows for better collaboration and productivity.

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AvePoint Meetings is the latest addition to its line of Productivity Apps in the SharePoint 2013 App Store. AvePoint Meetings allows business users to collaborate with one another in real-time before, during, and after meetings by:

  • Creating single or reoccurring meetings
  • Allowing meeting attendees to adjust and update meeting agendas as well as discussion topics
  • Capturing meeting information and notes with multi-user support
  • Tracking meeting minutes with full auditing, allowing for historical search capabilities
  • Assigning, aggregating, and synchronizing tasks and actions

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For more information, you can watch Jeremy’s video or directly download the app to further explore it.

 

SharePoint 2013

Wiki Page Vs. Application Page Vs. Web Part page Vs. publishing page

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This is a question that I was asked three times during last week. The difference between the different types of pages very much depend on whether your view is as developer or as end user.Here is a very good post on SharePoint StackExchange that explains the differences in a very simple way. I’m cross-posting it here for your convenience.

SharePoint Pages from a developer point of view

From a developer point of view there are three main kind of pages in SharePoint: Application Pages, Master Pages and Site Pages

Application Pages

Application pages are pages stored in a folder below {SharePointRoot}\Template\Layouts they are accessed through a Virtual directory _layouts which is present below all SharePoint sites. The behave as completely ordinary ASP.NET pages except that they know which SharePoint site they are accessed as part of. They should be/are used for things which should be available on all sites like different kind of settings.

Master Pages

Master pages are just ordinary ASP.NET master pages which can be used to control the part of the html which is common to all pages in a Site Collection, like overall layout and navigation. The contain ContentPlaceHolders which is then replaced by the content of Content controls on the individual pages.

Site Pages

Site Pages are a very special kind of pages. They are (at least initially) usually stored in the folder for the corresponding Feature/Site Definition. They become available through a <Module> element in a Feature/Site Definition or though code like “add page”, which when the feature is activated (or the Site Definition provisioned)(or the code runs) will create a record in the content database for the site linking a URL to the file in the file system.
At this point the site page is uncustomized (or Ghosted (old terminology)). But using SharePoint Designer, the object model or browser the end user may change the content of the page for a specific URL (in a specific site). The changed page is then stored in the content database and is now customized (or Unghosted) and has some limitations due to security (can’t contain server side code in markup, may only inherit from safe base classes and may only contain controls which are safe).

Site Pages are the pages you’ll normally let the end users use. They come in a number of variations:

Pure site pages

(My own term) Standard ASP.NET pages where the developer controls what’s on the page. Very uncommon.

Web Part pages

Pages inheriting from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPage containing a number of WebPartZones where the developer/end user can add web parts to control what the page shows/can do. In previous versions of SharePoint very common and very powerful.

Wiki pages

The new way of creating content pages. Very similar to web part pages, but instead of having multiple web part zones it usually only have one which is hidden. It then has a Wiki field which can easily be edited and can contain markup which will make the web parts from the hidden zone appear inline in the content (as divs)

It can be combined with multiple WebPartZones to allow more control of placement of web parts.

Publishing Pages/Page layouts

From a developer point of view publishing pages isn’t really pages, but List Items which is bound to a Page Layout. The Page layout on the other hand is almost what I call pure site pages, but can only be displayed by a corresponding publishing page List Item, they contain controls which allows display/editing of the columns in the List Item.

SharePoint Pages from a end user point of view

Settings pages = Application pages

Pages where they can change some settings, but have no control of what’s on the page

Web Part pages

The standard type of page in a site which started as a blank site. Allows the end user to put web parts in different zone, which makes them ideal for building “mashup” application, but hard to create ordinary content in.

Wiki pages

The standard type of pages in collaboration sites. Allows very easy editing of content and the mix-in of web parts when needed. Very good for unstructured content.

Publishing pages

The standard type of pages in publishing sites. The structure of the content is very much controlled by the page layouts, usually very limited use of web parts. Very good for making the site look consistent.