Rob Foster's House of Southern-Fried SharePoint

SharePoint Pod Show get some link love from MS Governance site!

Rob Foster — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:41:21 GMT

We got our first link love from the Microsoft Governance Resource Center today.

Check out the link to the SharePoint Pod Show on there and thanks again to Rob Bogue for doing a great interview on SharePoint Governance!

Surprising Results for a BDC Survey

Rob Foster — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:25:17 GMT

The Lightning Tools team did a recent survey on the usage of the BDC in organizations. The results of the survey were quite shocking to me as I thought that most people would use the BDC integration for searching their line of business data. The results indicate that search came in a distand 3rd next to BDC web parts and list integration (for list columns).

Get the survey here.

I know that I will be using the results of the survey to refine my approaches to using the BDC as it appears to paint a clear picture as to what companies want and need vs. what I thought that they need.

Thanks guys for opening the results of the survey to the world!!!!

SharePoint Pod Show Episode 4 is up!

Rob Foster — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:53:44 GMT

Get it here.

We are talking with Rob Bogue about SharePoint Governance, Engagement, and Taxonomy!

The Passing of Patrick Tisseghem

Rob Foster — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:33:07 GMT

We just got word that one of our fellow SharePoint MVP's and community leaders Patrick Tisseghem suddenly passed away this morning.

Patrick left a mark on the SharePoint community and influenced a lot of people around the world. Patrick will be missed very much and my thoughts and prayers are with his family. There is a posting on the U2U site (the company in which he co-founded) about his passing.

http://www.u2u.be/

Connect at Lightning Tools

Rob Foster — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:18:30 GMT

I co-host the SharePoint Pod Show with Nick Swan and Brett Lonsdale, who both work at Lightning Tools, but that doesn’t affect my feelings about their new service.

</disclaimer>

I want to just get the word out on the new service offering from Lightning Tools called Connect.LightningTools.com. Below is an excerpt describing the site (yes, I copied and pasted directly from the site):

“This site enables the users of Lightning Tools web parts and products to have an impact and provide feedback to drive the direction of development.

You can use this site to:

- get us to build web parts for you - free consultancy!

- give your feedback on existing products

- have an input with proposed features of existing products

- have input to specifications for completely new idea”

Ok, so why am I excited about this? I happen to work for a very large global company who often times gets access to provide direct feedback to product teams of various products. Most of the time, this isn’t an option for a lot of teams. Lightning Tools is offering this service so that they can connect with their clients on a different, more interactive level. As a customer, you have the ability to collaborate with the Lightning Tools product team to request features as well as help them design these new features. IMHO, this is something that is very progressive in the ISV market. Many times, you are just stuck with the product that you’ve bought with very little insight on what’s coming in the next version (not to mention having the ability to work directly with the teams to influence what gets put in the next version!).

My hope is that a lot of product vendors jump on board with this approach so that as a consumer, you can provide an impact to the next version of the tool or product that you’ve purchased. In all seriousness, kudos to the Lightning Tools team for stepping out there and allowing me as a consumer to help out with the brainstorming of new features and products!

SharePoint Pod Show Episode 3 is Live

Rob Foster — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:27:50 GMT

Nick, Brett, and I just went live with another episode of the SharePoint Pod Show. In this episode, we interview SharePoint MVP Eric Shupps who was recently in London to speak to the SharePoint Users Group.

Also, we got new recording equipment, so this time the show quality is 1000% better than any of our previous episodes! Thanks to MVP Keith Elder of Deep Fried Bytes for helping me out with questions and showing me how they record their show. I really appreciate it! :-)

Click here to go to the show!

SharePoint Pod Show Episode 2

Rob Foster — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:52:07 GMT

Nick, Brett, and I just went live with Episode 2 of the SharePoint Pod Show. Check it out here, the topic is "what is SharePoint and the differences between WSS 3.0 and MOSS (standard vs. enterprise)".

Applying patches to SharePoint? READ THIS!

Rob Foster — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:46:21 GMT

I just read a VERY good article called "The Zero Downtime SharePoint Patching Myth" by Todd Carter. If you are applying patches (SP1, Infrastructure Update), you should read this article immediately.

Great post, Todd!

SharePoint Pod Show -- Behind the Music

Rob Foster — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:21:49 GMT

First of all thanks to all that are providing feedback on the show and suggestions on future shows!

So far, we've had several questions/comments about about the intro which have ranged from cool music, where did you get it....to dude...WTF is up with your intro music? :-) Ok, ok...I must come clean here...it's actually all me.

Nick, Brett, and I bought some pretty decent USB Mics to record the show with and I was actually testing out all different audio situations that included me talking right into the mic, me talking in the same room with the mic, etc...you get the idea. Being a music guy, I started grabbing guitars and plugging them in to see how the mic performed when recording live music.

Before I plugged my guitars in, I found an old drum loop that I had recorded years ago and queued it up a bunch of times in Audacity. Once I had it looping, I picked up my Strat, plugged into my '65 Deluxe Reverb and laid down the rhythm guitar part. It was a pretty dry mix with a very small amount of reverb (maybe set at like 2 or so). The rhythm guitar part that made it through was actually take #1 before I had a chance to really warm up.

Once the drums and rhythm guitar part made it through, it was time to record the lead line...you guessed it...Les Paul time! For the lead, I used my Les Paul and played around with a couple of different pickup combinations (bridge, neck, bridge+neck) and settled on the bridge position (nothing better than a searing Les Paul in the bridge position, right?). The lead line took maybe 5 or so takes and still need work IMHO, but hey...I don't pay the bills with my guitar, eh? :-)

At this point, I sent off the rough cut to Nick and Brett...not sure what they really thought, but they were very kind in their comments. :-) The track still needed something else to fill it out, so I grabbed my Vox Wah Wah pedal and added the third part which adds that late 70's sound.

So as the final cut that made the show last week, here's the breakdown of equipment:

Guitar 1: Fender Stratocaster--clean, neck+middle pickups used

Guitar 2: Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul--dirty with an Ibanez TS-808 pedal, bridge pickup

Guitar 3: Custom Shop Gibson Les Paul + Vox Wah Wah, bridge+neck pickup

Amp: Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

So love it, hate it, or just tolerate it to get to the content of the show...that is the story behind the music. Nick plays guitar too, so the next time that we are both in the same physical location with access to guitars, I'm sure that we will lay down something new and cool with a more modern British/Oasis type sound. :-)

Announcing SharePoint Pod Show!

Rob Foster — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:20:25 GMT

I would like to announce the launch of the SharePoint Pod Show!

Nick Swan, Brett Lonsdale and I (Rob Foster) will be hosting the show and will be bringing you the latest and greatest SharePoint news and topics relating to SharePoint. We have a lot of great topics lined up and are looking forward to doing the future shows.

In the first show, you will meet us as well as learn what the show will be about. Episode 1 is now live and you can expect new shows to be available every two weeks. Please let us know what you think!

Free Vista SP1 Support

Rob Foster — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:20:09 GMT

Free, unlimited installation and compatibility support is now available for all worldwide customers using Windows Vista SP1, until March 18, 2009. Telephone support is available worldwide. Chat and Email support in US and Canada only.

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Effective dates

From now until 18 March 2009.

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Location

Find out more and access the service at http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx?rdpath=1&prid=11274&gprid=500921

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SharePoint Infrastructure Update is Live

Rob Foster — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:16:51 GMT

The SharePoint Infrastructure Update was released yesterday. My advice: install SP1 and then install the Infrastructure Update IMMEDIATELY! There are a lot of bug fixes and features in both of these updates that can make your SharePoint experience much better.

The updates can be downloaded from the links below:

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) - x86

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) - x64

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) - x86

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) - x64

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) - x86

You can read more about the release announcement on the SharePoint team blog here.

Announcing the International SharePoint Professionals Association

Rob Foster — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:05:54 GMT

I would like to announce the launch of the International SharePoint Professionals Association (ISPA)!

This organization has been formed to support all SharePoint-based user groups and you can read about it in Bob Fox's post here.

I have been named as a Regional Evangelist for the Heartland district which covers Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. In my role, I will be helping support the user groups in my region so that they get what they need to build a successful community. I am looking forward to my role with ISPA and working with user groups in the Heartland district!

You can view the ISPA site at the following link: http://www.sharepointpros.org.

Thoughts on a SharePoint 2007 Operating Model

Rob Foster — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:06:53 GMT

What is it about "SharePoint" as a platform that is so difficult? I hear this almost every time that you get more than zero SharePoint people in a room. Quite possibly the most frustrating thing about SharePoint for me is the way that companies (not all, but some) view the SharePoint platform as well as staff and train for an operating model around SharePoint itself. A lot of companies are somewhat inadequately staffed or at least inadequately skilled for a full on SharePoint implementation, so I have a list of thoughts that I see out there in the trenches.

#1:
First Question: "SharePoint IS built around a bunch of technologies that we already have in house (referring to ASP.NET, C#, IIS, SQL Server, etc.). We have these skills...it's just about learning another object model, so let's just send our people to class and then they will be SharePoint people too."

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!...This is quite possibly the first and easiest mistake that is made with a SharePoint implementation. Yes, you are likely to have ASP.NET and C# skills in house, but that's not all that is required. SharePoint is a platform that builds on top of ASP.NET. This means that your teams will need to be proficient in ASP.NET before beginning to learn how to develop SharePoint applications (yes, I’ve actually talked with people who think that they can just jump into SharePoint development with no prior web development experience).

With the SharePoint platform, there are MANY disciplines in development, so pick one or two development areas to begin with and then expand from there (TIP: start with web parts, event receivers, and FEATURES). Design for performance and scalability is an essential skill with SharePoint, especially when developing for lists that contain a lot of data.

You will still need to staff for operations, support, usability (e.g. screen designers, which could also be developers), architects, etc. Rolling out SharePoint is a big deal both technically and organizationally (once your users get a taste of the platform, it WILL take off like wildfire). Point of this question...GET YOUR PEOPLE THE PROPER TRAINING!!!! There are several companies that offer training and I would like to highlight 4 of the best: Ted Pattison Group, MindSharp, Combined Knowledge, and SharePoint Solutions. All offer a great lineup of classes with world class instructors, so don't be afraid to reach out to these guys for help, it just could save you a lot of time and effort later on down the road.

So Exchange is a platform and SharePoint is a platform, why can't we just build out our infrastructure like we did for Exchange and be done? Well, technically the first part of the question is correct in that SharePoint and Exchange are both platforms...That's about it. Mind you, they are two different platforms. Exchange is a fairly static platform in that (in most cases) you are basically managing email and calendars for a relatively fixed set of users in your organization (yes, user count will go up and down, but it's not a major deal to capacity plan for users and their mail/calendars/public folders/etc.). SharePoint, on the other hand is a very dynamic platform in that you can have many users and at the same time, those users can have the ability to create sites (which can contain sub sites, documents, lists, workflows, etc.). This means that whatever your SharePoint infrastructure looks like today will not be what it looks like tomorrow, and will definitely not be what it looks like a month from now.

Comparing the operating model of SharePoint to Exchange is very bad, even though it's done a lot. Let's step back a little bit...Shouldn't we really be somewhat comparing the operating model to a product like SAP (not on as large of a scale with much different disciplines, of course)? I think that the SAP guys have it right. With SAP, there are developers that are specialized in a module of SAP (HR, Finance, etc.) and a configuration team that help “customize” or configure each module. There is also very specialized support staff, as well as administrators; all of these people are dedicated resources to any platform.

Arguably, the SAP model this is a correct approach for the SharePoint platform. Developers should specialize in a discipline of SharePoint development (BDC, Excel Services, Web Parts, etc.), you can also have configuration experts that are experts in setting up and operating the platform as well as administrators that are responsible for the platform governance. My point in answering this question is that SharePoint is a very large platform and no one can know it all very deeply…you will find little pockets of expertise with the platform, but at this time people just can’t be an expert in all things SharePoint.

What about Development tools for SharePoint? I love this one, actually because it somewhat highlights something that I have seen building up over time as the development tools get better and better. Let me start off by saying that I think that Visual Studio 2008 is the best IDE that the world has ever seen, hands down. This yields both good and bad results, though. Good results are better developer productivity (and so on...too many to list, VS2008 really rocks). Bad results are developers are not always required to understand what is happening behind the scenes. Yes, Visual Studio does a lot of stuff for you. For example, When was the last time that you compiled a project using the CSC.EXE command-line tool? You don't really have to understand what is happening during compilation because Visual Studio takes the pain out of this process. Developer productivity has never been at a higher level.

So if Visual Studio 2008 is so great, why does development suck for the most part for the SharePoint developers? As bad as I hate to say it, the out of the box Visual Studio development experience for SharePoint is somewhat lacking. Out of the box, there just isn’t a lot of cool SharePoint dev stuff that ships with Visual Studio. We all know it and Microsoft has heard your feedback on this topic. We will just have to see what happens in the Visual Studio roadmap to compensate for this need. So if there is a need for a tool for Visual Studio and developers are the primary users of Visual Studio, you’d better believe that tools will start to pop up to help us out.

Two of such tools to get you started (there are > 200 on CodePlex alone!) are WSPBuilder and STSDev. These are both tool that will help you develop features in Visual Studio and I have used them both extensively. While you are on CodePlex, search for SharePoint and see what you get returned. At the time of this blog, there are over 200 tools that are out there specifically for SharePoint! Granted these are open source projects but don’t be fooled…a lot of these things really rock and can save you a lot of time, so go check them out now (after you finish reading this blog of course!).

Ease into your SharePoint implementation. Another common mistake that companies make with SharePoint implementations is that they want too much too quickly. Start out slow with a base SharePoint deployment and slowly make your way into the custom development stuff. You might consider rolling out out of the box features such as Team Sites, My Sites, and Search to your users first before you start into your first custom SharePoint application. Trust me, your operations folks will thank you for waiting so that they can get their arms around MOSS before developers start chunking there newly developed DLLs at the platform.

These are only 4 (really) random thoughts to consider when creating an operating model (administration, operations, development, etc) for MOSS. Please let me know your thoughts, challenges, and successes by implementing SharePoint in your enterprise. We can all benefit from more of these types of conversations.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2008 Extensions, Version 1.2 available now

Rob Foster — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:40:25 GMT

Get them here.

There are no new features, other than this works with Visual Studio 2008.