Outlining SharePoint 2013 Improvements.

Microsoft today demonstrated some improvements in the new SharePoint that are found in the Office 365 previews.

Previews of the various Office 365 applications, served up from Microsoft's Internet cloud for the most part, were made available last month for testing. It's not exactly clear when the service will be rolled out as a final release. During today's demo for the press, Jared Spataro, senior director for SharePoint product management at Microsoft, offered a quick tour of some highlights in the new SharePoint.  

Spataro explained in the Q&A that Microsoft did not change the underlying architecture of SharePoint very much with this release, but it did add some upgrades and I/O performance improvements. However, based on what was shown during the demo, there also are user interface (UI) changes. Users of the new SharePoint see something like the flat, spare "Metro" or "modern" UI, except with a narrow menu bar at the top.

Quite a lot of the demo concerned the collaboration and social networking aspects of SharePoint, which are among the product's top uses, according to a Forrester Research survey. However, nothing was really said during the talk about Microsoft's Yammer acquisition, which will bring Yammer's enterprise social networking technologies across SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype. 

Better Tagging
In general, Microsoft has improved the metadata aspects in the new SharePoint, allowing users to tag content while posting, Spataro said. People are considered first-class objects in SharePoint. They can be followed, by SharePoint users, but it's also possible to follow documents, sites and tags across a Web site. SharePoint also points users to content based on a "suggested sites" feature. Users can hover over user profiles and get access to their contact cards, which bring in profile information, including info from LinkedIn and Facebook social networking pages.

My Site in the new SharePoint has its functionality split into three hubs: Newsfeed, SkyDrive Pro and Sites, as explained in this SharePoint team blog. The Newsfeed application has a sort of Facebook-like appearance with photos and e-mail threads, as well as a "Like" button. The Sites application is a tracker of site locations that are important to the user. SkyDrive Pro is a cloud-based storage place for files that works with SharePoint. Spataro said that SkyDrive Pro replaces what used to be called "SharePoint Documents" or "My Documents" in earlier editions, adding that it had been renamed to highlight Microsoft's investments in consumer cloud storage. Microsoft also offers a free SkyDrive service for consumers. 

SkyDrive Pro Replacing SharePoint Workspaces
SkyDrive Pro provides storage, synchronization and sharing capabilities for users. Cloud-based apps will sync to the desktop app by just clicking on the desktop. There's also drag-and-drop file uploading capabilities from the desktop to the browser-based app, and even drag-and-drop capabilities within the browser-based app, because of the richness of the applications. SkyDrive Pro works with various Office Web Apps, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

SkyDrive Pro has access to all of the new SharePoint capabilities. "All of the content manageable in SharePoint can be managed in SkyDrive Pro," Spataro said.

The fate of SharePoint Workspace (previously known as "Groove") in SharePoint 2013 got cleared up during the Q&A session. Groove was the invention of former Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, whose retirement was announced in October 2010.

"SharePoint Workspace was the way that we did document sync and offline access with the previous version of SharePoint," Spataro explained. "And in fact, SharePoint Workspace was the evolution of the Groove client. The document store, share and sync capabilities that I showed you are actually based on the next evolution of that SharePoint Workspace. We actually used the underlying component that came from Groove, part of the sync engine, to do it. And going forward, our strategy will be to focus on SkyDrive Pro that I showed you today."

He added that people can still get access to SharePoint Workspace, "but our go-forward strategy investment will be focused on SkyDrive Pro."

Team Site Gets OneNote
The Team Site is considered the "center of gravity for people in SharePoint," Spataro said, and Microsoft has enhanced it by adding a centralized OneNote built into it. OneNote is a Microsoft Office application that lets users store photos and text in a sort of digital scrapbook. The OneNote that's part of Team Site is capable of synchronization, and it can be viewed on various mobile devices with "the same rich view," Spataro contended. The Team Site also has its own newsfeed, which will sync up with a user's main Newsfeed. Users tend to use this newsfeed service as a replacement for e-mail, he added.

Spataro said that the new SharePoint is about task completion and using social interactions to do work, so there's a My Tasks interface that users can plot against a timeline. It's capable of drag-and-drop operations, so users can create a list of tasks in Excel and drop the file into tasks lists. It's possible to edit in real time and assign tasks to different people. The whole timeline is viewable in a "project summary" page. Spataro suggested this approach is an improvement over past SharePoint releases where it was "tough to track things."

There are some SharePoint business intelligence improvements enabled by SQL Server 2012. For instance, the Excel Web App can be used to display a Power View executive dashboard, which graphically displays data. It allows slice-and-dice operations to be performed using the data or the data can be plotted over time. With these capabilities, Spataro said that Microsoft is bringing together social, task management and business insights.

Lastly, Spataro pointed to the Microsoft partner ecosystem and the extra support users can get though SharePoint apps. The apps are available in the SharePoint library or they can be downloaded from the SharePoint Store.

Spataro said he left out a lot in his presentation, noting that FAST search in the new SharePoint now has e-discovery capabilities across SharePoint, Exchange and Lync file shares. Search was one of the SharePoint features that participants in Forrester's survey said they least liked. However, it's apparently improved in the new SharePoint. 

An overview of the new SharePoint features was described earlier in this blog post by Jeff Teper, corporate vice president of SharePoint.

Ref: http://redmondmag.com 

A Step Increase in Productivity via SharePoint and KnowledgeLake

To demonstrate the step change increase in productivity that is made possible through the implementation of the KnowledgeLake’s ECM imaging solution built on the SharePoint platform.  We will explain how an international company eliminated paper documents, automatically indexed documents into SharePoint and dramatically improved the ease of finding the right document.  KnowledgeLake is also one of the very few vendors that support Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud offering. By now many companies have realized the business benefits of the SharePoint platform through the four promises of Enable Collaboration, Find and Use Knowledge, Manage Business Performance and Streamline Processes.  With the implementation of third party tools such as KnowledgeLake, companies are seeing a real increase in productivity that drives real business results in efficiencies and cost savings.

Background

One of our long time customers is an organization that must handle and process a massive amount of documents (up to 500,000 new documents a year).  Until now, all of the documents were stored as paper documents in thousands of file folders.  They actually had a very good process, but it was all paper based.  Even email correspondence was printed and filed.  If someone needed a copy of a document to send to one of their partners, they would have to physically go to the file room, retrieve the document, scan a copy and send the copy to and send the copy to their partner.  This can now be done with a few clicks of the mouse without the person ever leaving their desk. The impetus for looking at an alternative approach was that the company was moving to a new location and they wanted to avoid the need for a high density filing system, plus the wanted an improved process.

The Solution

The solution involved the basic processes for managing the documents:

1. The documents are scanned and or captured electronically
2. The documents are easily indexed into SharePoint
3. Electronic documents (email attachments or Word documents) are effortlessly indexed into SharePoint without opening SharePoint
4. Documents are retrieved via a sophisticated efficient search, retrieval and viewing engine

The KnowledgeLake tools that handle the above are:

KnowledgeLake Connect

Connect for SharePoint allows a user to save a document from Microsoft Outlook or other Microsoft office products directly into SharePoint without ever opening SharePoint.

 

KnowledgeLake Capture

Capture allows for the storing of documents directly from a PC attached scanner or from a network file folder into which scanned documents are placed.  The functionality is improved through the use of Barcode separator pages.  Just like Connect, Capture allows for the entry of the proper attributes for each document and indexes the documents into SharePoint directly without having to open up SharePoint.  Other key features of Capture are:

• Batch Scanning
• OCR for either full text of just part of a document
• Barcode reading to separate documents or define content types

KnowledgeLake Capture Server

Capture Server allows for the scanning of a batch of documents and is intended for high volume scanning.  This tool integrates with multi-function scanners and provides many of the same features as Capture.  Capture Server is great for scanning batches of invoices, contracts or batches of documents that can automatically indexed into SharePoint through barcode integration. 

KnowledgeLake Imaging

A key component of KnowledgeLake is their Imaging product which provides rich search, retrieval and collaboration functionality.

  

With Imaging you can: Search and find documents or list items across the SharePoint farm

• Pre-configure and store save searches
• Perform full-text and column property searches
• View document thumbnails and SharePoint properties within the search results

The image below shows an example of the results of an Imaging search: 

 

Conclusion

Once the project is complete, the company will realize true efficiencies and cost savings by;

• Eliminating the need for the high density filing system and expense of reinforced floor structural support
• Reducing the cost of archiving and retrieving documents from offsite storage
• Reducing the unnecessary scanning and rescanning of the same document for electronic sharing.
• Allow the remote staff to access the documents, eliminating the need for them to call the office and request files to be sent
• Saving countless hours in searching for and retrieving  documents
• Reducing paper cost

Real business solution to real business problems!

Reference: http://www.abelsolutions.com.

                  KnowledgeLake.

How to add a database as a data source with SharePoint Designer 2010.

Before you begin to add a database as a data source, we will discuss about what is a data source.

Data Source:
A data store is a data repository of a set of integrated objects. These objects are modeled using classes defined in database schemas. Data store includes not only data repositories like databases, it is a more general concept that includes also flat files that can store data.

Connect to a database by saving the user name and password

When you connect to a database by saving the user name and password, SharePoint Designer 2010 generates a SQL-based connection string that stores the user name and password in the data source connection (a process known as SQL authentication). If your site is located on a server running Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010, this is the preferred option for generating a connection string.

You can also create a database connection by using a custom connection string. 

1. Click Data Sources in the Navigation Pane.
2. On the Data Sources tab in the ribbon, in the New group, click Database Connection.
3. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, on the Source tab, click Configure Database Connection.
4. In the Configure Database Connection dialog box, under Server Information, in the Server Name box, type the name of the server where your database resides.
5. In the Provider Name box, do one of the following:
• If you are connecting to an external Microsoft SQL Server database, click Microsoft .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server.
• If you are connecting to an external database that is OLE DB compatible, including versions of SQL other than Microsoft SQL such as MySQL, click Microsoft .NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB.
6. Under Authentication, click Save this username and password in the data connection.
7. In the User name box, type your user name.
8. In the Password box, type your password.
9. Click Next.

Because SQL authentication saves the user name and password as text in the data connection, any user with permission to open the site in SharePoint Designer 2010 can view these credentials. A security warning informs you that the user name and password are saved as text in the data connection and that other site members can access this data source. If you want other site members to access the database by using the same user name and password, click OK. If you do not want other site members to access the database by using the same user name and password, click Cancel.

10. In the Database list, click the database that you want to use as a data source, and then do one of the following:
• In Select a table or view, click the table or saved view that you want from the list, and then click Finish.

By using this option, you create a default query that selects all records in the table or view. However, after you click Finish, you can modify the default query by clicking Fields, Filter, and Sort in the Data Source Properties dialog box. 

• Click Specify custom Select, Update, Insert, and Delete commands using SQL or stored procedures, and then click Finish.

 Note   This option is available only if your administrator has turned on the Enable Update Query Support option in SharePoint Central Administration.

By using this option, you can create custom SQL commands. When you click Finish, the Edit Custom SQL Commands dialog box opens. In this dialog box, you can create commands and add parameters. After you create a custom SQL command, you can edit the query by clicking Edit Custom Query in the Data Source Properties dialog box. 

11. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, click the General tab, type a name for the data source, and then click OK.

The new database connection now appears in the Data Sources list.

 If you are trying to connect to an external server running SQL Server, make sure that SQL Server authentication is enabled on that server.

Reference: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/add-a-database-as-a-data-source-HA010355745.aspx

How to add a database as a data source: SharePoint 2007

Before you begin to add a database as a data source, we will discuss about what is a data source.

Data Source:
A data store is a data repository of a set of integrated objects. These objects are modeled using classes defined in database schemas. Data store includes not only data repositories like databases, it is a more general concept that includes also flat files that can store data.

Connect to a database by saving the user name and password

When you use Connect to a database by saving the user name and password, Office SharePoint Designer 2007 generates a SQL-based connection string that stores the user name and password in the data source connection (a process known as SQL authentication). If your site is located on a server running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, this is the preferred option for generating a connection string. You can also create a database connection by using a custom connection string. If the Data Source Library task pane is not visible, on the Task Panes menu, click Data Source Library.

1. In the Data Source Library task pane, under Database Connections, click Connect to a database.

If the Database Connections heading is collapsed, click the plus sign (+) to expand it.

3. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, on the Source tab, click Configure Database Connection.
4. In the Configure Database Connection dialog box, under Server Information, in the Server Name box, type the name of the server where your database resides.
5. In the Provider Name box, do one of the following:
• If you are connecting to an external Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database or an external Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database, click Microsoft .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server.
• If you are connecting to an external database that is OLE DB compatible, click Microsoft .NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB.
6. Under Authentication, click Save this username and password in the data connection.
7. In the User name box, type your user name.
8. In the Password box, type your password.
9. Click Next.

Because SQL authentication saves the user name and password as text in the data connection, any user with permission to open the site in Office SharePoint Designer 2007 can view these credentials. A security warning informs you that the user name and password are saved as text in the data connection and that other site members can access this data source. If you want other site members to access the database by using the same user name and password, click OK. If you do not want other site members to access the database by using the same user name and password, click Cancel.

10. In the Database list, click the database that you want to use as a data source, and then do one of the following:
• Click Select a table or view, click the table or saved view that you want from the list, and then click Finish.
  By using this option, you create a default query that selects all records in the table or view. However, after you click Finish, you can modify the default query by clicking Fields, Filter, and Sort in the Data Source Properties dialog box. 
• Click Specify custom Select, Update, Insert, and Delete commands using SQL or stored procedures, and then click Finish.

This option is available only if your administrator has turned on the Enable Update Query Support option.

 

By using this option, you can create custom SQL commands. When you click Finish, the Edit Custom SQL Commands dialog box opens. In this dialog box, you can create commands and add parameters. After you create a custom SQL command, you can edit the query by clicking Edit Custom Query in the Data Source Properties dialog box. 

11. In the Data Source Properties dialog box, click the General tab, type a name for the data source, and then click OK.

The new database connection now appears in the Data Source Library task pane.

If you are trying to connect to an external server running SQL Server, make sure that SQL Server authentication is enabled on that server.

Reference: http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/sharepoint-designer-help/add-a-database-as-a-data-source-HA010100908.aspx 

Current Calls may continue, but with reduced functionality

Recently I have seen many cases where a client are facing issues in which MOC reconnecting again and again & goes into loop of Sign in/Sign out with error “Current Calls may continue, but with reduced functionality”. Sometimes users are getting log off continuously and sign-in on MOC or Lync after several reboots.

Causes: The issue occurs because the Office Communicator 2007 R2 users getting moved between different pools servers.

Resolution: 

Basically users who were having this issue may them moved recently between different pool server and their config file was pointing towards OLD pool server.

Most of the times it is resolved by a reboot or multiple reboots, but sometimes (when user is working remotely) it doesn’t get resolve then try to locate the file “EndpointConfiguration.cache” under the location %userprofile\Local Settings\Microsoft\Communicator\Sip_username@domain.com and delete that, client should reboot their workstation and then try.

Details: The Office Communicator 2007 R2 client updates the user's EndpointConfiguration.cache file when the user signs out of the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 pool. If the sign-out process is interrupted, the EndpointConfiguration.cache file cannot be updated with the secondary Office Communications Server 2007 R2 pool’s FQDN and TCP port information. This causes the Office Communicator 2007 R2 client to do the following:

Try to automatically sign in to the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 pool by using the legacy FQDN and TCP port information that is listed in the EndpointConfiguration.cache file

Time out and not connect because the original Office Communications Server 2007 R2 pool front-end servers are offline

Perform a DNS lookup for the SRV records that are configured for the automatic sign-in process

So, please compare the entry in EndpointConfiguration.cache and user’s allocated pool, if difference is found then better delete that else he may face the issue while working remotely.