Microknowledge

Quick Update With Slides - SharePoint Saturday the Conference 2011

I'm just back from last weekend's SharePoint Saturday the Conference in Washington DC.  It was huge event, and I'll have a fuller recap shortly.  I'll briefly note my gratitude to organizers, sponsors, attendees, and fellow speakers for so much great content - and for letting me present five SharePoint sessions (plus one "non-technical" performance...)

It was a sprawling event - I won't forget the attached ground level map of destinations.

Anyway, as promised, here's a quick link to my slides from last week:

Together Forever - Project Server and SharePoint 2010
http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/spstcdc-project-server-and-sharepoint-2010-together-forever

See Beyond the Numbers - Data Visualization and Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010
http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/spstcdc-sharepoint-2010-business-intelligence-and-data-visualization-see-beyond-the-numbers

A Decade of SharePoint Adoption Best Practices
http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/spstc2011-adoption

SharePoint SpeedMetal - From Power User to Administrator in 75 Minutes or Less (Admin 101)
http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/spstc2011-admin101

Playing Tag - Managed Metadata and Taxonomies in SharePoint 2010
http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/spstcdc [MMS]

SharePoint Saturday New York 2011 Wrap-up

Hello from New York!   It was hot, it was rainy, it was busy – its New York in July.   What better place to be with 500 of your closest SharePoint friends?  (This is a few blocks away, truth be told.)

  

As hard as it may be to believe, SharePoint Saturday NYC was even more successful than last year’s model.  Many, many thanks to the attendees, the sponsors, the volunteers (ably captained by Tasha Scott) and conference organizers – Jason Gallicchio, Becky Isserman, Greg Hurlman and Tom Daly.  This year’s model was a resounding hit.  (This Years Model was also a hit…) 

 

It was a great honor to be able to co-present “Together Forever – SharePoint 2010 and Project Server” with KMA’s own Amy Talhouk.  In case you missed it, I’ve posted the slides below.  I’ll be presenting version 2.0 of the session at this week’s SharePoint  Saturday the Conference in Washington DC, and Amy will be reprising it at SharePoint  Saturday New Hampshire next month.  Stay tuned!

http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/spsny-project-server-2011

Some of the conference highlights for me:

• Michael Noel’s topnotch review of SharePoint farm design and architecture.  One key takeaway – you may be able to boost  the capacity of large SharePoint content database by breaking up the database itself into multiple files across multiple SAN spindle sets for greater IOPS performance. 
• Sadie Van Buren presenting trends and concepts to assess an organization's SharePoint maturity model.
• The “perfect union” or eager users and industry experts coming together in the Ask the Experts lounge…I was lucky enough to sit in for an afternoon session.  Always great to hear about new intentions in how people use SharePoint.
• Dining and dancing at Tatiana, a Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach.  Inna Gordin put it together, and Christian Buckley has the photos and video to prove it.
• Being interviewed by Jeremy Thake of AvePoint about SharePoint Governance for Nothing But SharePoint – you can catch the video here - https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/articles/Pages/What-is-SharePoint-Governance-to-YOU---Chris-McNulty.aspx

That’s all for now – see you this weekend at SharePoint Saturday the Conference!

SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata Webinar with BA Insight - Thursday 14 July 2011

Looking for more information about Managed Metadata and taxonomies in SharePoint 2010?  Join me for a free, BA Insight/KMA webinar this Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 2pm ET.   (Thankss to the team at BA Insight for inviting me!)  Register now at http://www.kma-llc.net/insights/Pages/KMAWebinarManagedMetadataServicesandTaxonomiesinSharePoint2010.aspx

In addition, you can catch me:

• 30 July 2011 - SharePoint Saturday NY - SharePoint/Project Server 2010 (www.sharepointsaturday.org)
• 10 August 2011 - Fairfield Connecticut SharePoint User Group - Data Visualization and Buiness Intelligence in SharePoint 2010  [Go Stags!](http://sharepointusergroup.corasworks.net/FCSPUG/default.aspx)
• 11-13 August 2011 - SharePoint Saturday The Conference DC - Speaking on Business Intelligence, Project Server, IT Admin, Adoption, and other topics (www.sharepointsaturday.org)
• 14 September 2011 - Princeton NJ Sharepoint User Group (http://www.princetonsug.com/SitePages/Home.aspx) - Business Intelligence
• 24 September 2011 - SharePOint Saturday New Hanpshire (www.sharepointsaturday.org)

Other future events are listed below - there are a few events still being finalized!

• SharePoint Conference 2011 (Anaheim CA, October 2011)
• KMWorld (Washington DC, November 2011)
• Puget Sound SharePoint User Group (Bellevue WA, December 2011)

Hope to see you soon!

SharePoint 2010 SP1 Coming in June 2011 – Why We Care

Microsoft has officially announced the June 2011 release of Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010.  SP1 will incorporate all the interim patches and bug fixes released since the original May 2010 release of SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010.

Microsoft Service Packs receive full regression testing, and are generally recommended for wide deployment.  However, we still recommend testing them on non-production environments in advance of any production releases.  Its may be advisable to wait a few weeks to see if any public bug reports surface.  And, please, don’t install them like this:

 

(The wrong way to fix a SharePoint 2010 server…no content types were harmed during the making of this photo!)

There’s more than patches – there are some essential new functions here.  Let’s take a look!

IE9 Native Support Call me silly, but having Microsoft’s primary web client natively support their primary web server seems obvious.

Chrome Support in OWA   I’ve gotten used to telling first year adopters, well, Google Chrome isn’t officially supported, but it seems to work.  Of course it should work – it shares the Firefox/Mozilla rendering engine – but it’s nice to see it become official.

Site Recycle Bin   Just like you can use a Recycle Bin to recover deleted items and files, you will now be able to recover site collections and sites quickly, without resorting to backup files or databases.  This is a big tine saver for administrators.

StorMan.aspx  Prior versions of SharePoint included the capability to drill down into sites, libraries or documents to discover the largest consumers of storage space.  This function is being restored and enhanced in SP1.  Admins and users will have a simple way to drill down and find out why sites are nearing or exceeding quotas, so you can remove inadvertently large files if warranted.

Project Sync Project Professional 2010 will now be able to synchronize schedules tasks with SharePoint task lists, instead of just publishing a copy.

Other new functions to be released include:

• Word Web App offers print support in Edit Mode
• Excel Web App allows charts to be inserted
• Outlook Web App offers attachment previewing in Exchange Online
• Improved browser support for Project Server
• Search Server adds support for PPSX files
• Optimized copy speed for content  in RBS-enabled databases (Shallow Copy)

Look for SP1 in late June – and, as always, I’ll have the announcement and version numbers here for you on Microknowledge…after some testing, of course!

Rebuilding PWA Site Collections in Project Server 2007

Quick note on Project Server 2007.  We were doing some reconstruction on an existing Project Server 2007 build where a new SSP (Shared Service Provider) had been inadvertently created inside the primary web application during a partial restore operation.

Repeated attempts to recreate the “/PWA” site collection inside the primary web application led to the error:

"The Project Web Access site specified can not be created because a site by that name already exists."

Even if the site collection had been deleted.   

Dropping and reattaching the original content database at the root was also unsuccessful.  (A new SSP and admin application had already been built.)  The fix was, ultimately:

• Drop the existing preexisting web application on port 80 (http://server)
• Add a new web application and content database for http://server
• Add a blank site collection at the root of http://server
• Create a new /PWA site collection using the four standard Project Server databases (ProjectServer_Draft, ProjectServer_Archive, ProjectServer_Published, ProjectServer_Reporting)

 

• Create an empty web application on port 81 and attach the old content database.

Although we could not navigate to http://server:81/pwa without error, we could navigate to other custom contents from the old site (e.g. a document library at http://server:81/pwa/reportpages.)  Then using standard SharePoint techniques we could transfer select custom content back to the new PWA application.

Good luck!

SPTechCon San Francisco 2011 Wrapup

It was great to see so many faces, new and old, at SPTechCon 2011 in San Francisco this month.  I presented two sessions – SharePoint Admin 101 and See Beyond the Numbers - Data Visualization.    Many thanks to my attendees – especially my day long SharePoint Admin 101 class – that was lot of material, and from your questions I know you all did really well.)

Here are my presentations:

http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/sp-tech-conbi2011

http://www.slideshare.net/kmallc/sp-tech-conadmin101

Many thanks to David Rubinstein, Ted Bahr, Whitney Grekin, Katie Serignese, and the rest of the crew for organizing a great event!  Can’t wait for SPTechCon 2011 in Boston (www.sptechcon.com)

 

I did get a bit of time to sample some of the other presentations and speakers.  A few highlights:

• Jared Spataro from Microsoft, in his keynote, reminded us about the importance of managing a lifecycle of applications on SharePoint, not just document content.  We’re accustomed to how to build documents on SharePoint – how to create them, share them, go through approval, archiving and deletion.  We should think the same way about our applications.
• Joel Oleson of Quest Software, graphically illustrating that one site collection DOES NOT fit all, and that a site without archiving can get really, really cluttered.
• Marc Anderson presented jQuery and SharePoint Web Services to a rapt audience.  One quick tip – minification, or optimizing your script code to be more compact and thus be downloaded and executed faster.
• Dux Raymond Sy (in addition to leading excursions to sample regional Mongolian cuisine!) showed his class how to start building project management systems using SharePoint collaboration sites and Project, without requiring the complexities of Project Server.  (And Dux is co-presenting with KMA’s own Amy Talhouk about SharePoint for PMOs on March 16 – details at www.kma-llc.net)
• Standup comedy from Shane Young and Todd Kilndt, with a little technology mixed in.

I’m writing this en route to my next speaking engagement at SharePoint Saturday San Diego on February 25, where I’ll be speaking and Managed Metadata and Business Intelligence.  Other places I’ll be over the next few months:

• SharePoint Saturday Redmond March 5 (MMS)
• Boston Area SharePoint User Group March 9 (Business Intelligence)
• SharePoint Saturday Boston – April 9 2011
• Microsoft TechEd Atlanta – May 2011
• SPTechCon Boston – June 2011 (BI & MMS)

Thanks again, and hope to see you soon!

SharePoint 2007 SP1 - Going, going, gone...

We're advising all clients who haven't yet updated their SharePoint 2007 environments, to upgrade to at least Service Pack 2 (SP2).  We told you only last week about the release of the June 2010 Cumulative Updates for SharePoint 2007.  One important note is buried in a related Microsoft article:

"Service Pack 1 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is nearing the end of its life cycle and will be retired on July 13, 2010. After that date you must upgrade to Service Pack 2, which is a requirement for the August 2010 Cumulative Update."

SP2 will be a minimum going forward support requirement from Microsoft.  Although we had recommended cautious deployment when SP2 was first released (April 2009), it should be considered stable now.  Also, "while the hood is up", you might as well install the most recent Cumulative Update.  All the most recent CU's (since October 2009) include an enhanced version of the STSADM command line preupgradecheck too.  This is essential to assess SharePoint 2010 upgrade readiness.

Stay cool out there!

Blizzard of 1978, Greenlawn, NY, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmcnulty/
 

June 2010 – SharePoint 2007 Cumulative Updates and Internal Version Numbers

Just in time for summer - Microsoft has finally released the June 2010 Cumulative Updates for SharePoint 2007 (yesterday!)  Sizzling hot summer fun!  (Not really, but we’re heading into a glorious Independence Day weekend, and its high time for some fireworks.)  

Again, if you ever need to confirm which update/revision of SharePoint you are running, without accessing the binary files themselves, these version numbers correspond to the version numbers reported in SharePoint Central Administration.  You can find this by going into the Operations tab, and under Topology and Services, select Servers in Farm. 

For more information on current patch levels, check TechNet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx  And, as always, test before deploying in production.

[And, yes, we beat TechNet in announcing this!]

SharePoint 2007 Version/Release	Microsoft Support KB Reference	Version Number from Central Admin	Release Date
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 June 2010 Cumulative Update	KB983310/KB983311	12.0.0.6539	29 June 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 April 2010 Cumulative Update	KB981042/KB981043	12.0.0.6535	27 April 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 February 2010 Cumulative Update	KB978395/KB978396	12.0.0.6529	23 February 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 December 2009 Cumulative Update	KB977026/KB977027	12.0.0.6524	15 December  2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 October 2009 Cumulative Update	KB974988/KB974989	12.0.0.6520	27 October 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 2009 Cumulative Update	KB973409/KB973410	12.0.0.6514	25 August 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 June 2009 Cumulative Update	KB971537/KB971538	12.0.0.6510	20 July 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 April 2009 Cumulative Update	KB968851/KB968850	12.0.0.6504	30 April 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 SP2	KB953334/KB953338	12.0.0.6421	28 April 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Cumulative update	KB956056/KB956057	12.0.0.6327	16 September 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Update	KB951695/KB951297	12.0.0.6318	15 July 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix	KB948945	12.0.0.6303	21 February 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix	KB941274	12.0.0.6301	31 January 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix	KB941422	12.0.0.6300	26 February 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 SP1	KB936984/KB936988	12.0.0.6219	8 December 2007
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Security Bulletin MS07-059	KB942017	12.0.0.6039	9 October 2007
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 24, 2007 hotfix package	KB941422 (updated)	12.0.0.6036	24 August 2007
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 RTM [Released To Manufacturing]	N/A	12.0.0.4518	16 November 2006
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2 TR	N/A	12.0.0.4407	2006
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2	N/A	12.0.0.4017	2006

 

Microsoft TechEd 2010 Day 2 Recap

Hello from steamy New Orleans!  More good food and more good details from this year’s premiere Microsoft technical conference.

Some picked up tidbits from around the sessions and the show floor:

Business intelligence and TSM integration are expected to be major areas where developers and integrators can add value in Project Server 2010, according to Christophe Fiessenger (Microsoft Product Manager for EPM).  In particular, user demand for integration with Team Foundation Server is also high.  Team Foundation Server allows a software development team to manage its code process for requests, user scenarios, builds, sprints, etc. – and, in concept, integrate their progress with an enterprise managed project on Project Server.

I thought it was really interesting that the line of business data (BizTalk) people were heavily touting SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services as a preferred way to open up Oracle data to end users.

Steve Fox, Microsoft Platform Evangelist, ran a great session on integrating SharePoint and Windows Azure.  (Details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/steve_fox/archive/2010/06/09/sharepoint-2010-amp-windows-azure-how-they-play-together.aspx)  There are three general ways, in increasing complexity order:

· Iframe (Content Editor Web Part).  Easiest, no code, but visually not well nitrated – the look and feel doesn’t match

· Use BCS to republish data from Azure into SharePoint

· Use a web part or Silverlight control or BCS to reach out to a custom, SharePoint aware data service in the cloud

Interested in simple business intelligence?  Teach your users to use Excel 2010, with or without PowerPivot.  It’s real simple to use slicers, Pivot Tables and Excel Services to build a simple web dashboard for data analysis – here’s one I pulled together in 10 minutes during the session, showing page views on my blog – discovering that Tuesday is my readers’ busiest day.  You can do even more with JSOM in the Excel file, and then using the REST syntax to extract essential elements of the sheet, such as charts.

Finally, I sat in on Joel Oleson’s presentation of extending the enterprise reach of SharePoint 2010 Shared Services applications – using centralized farms for common services like User Profile or Managed Metadata.  It’s important to understand the pros and cons of centralizing search – in some cases, you can construct a better performing model using federated search if you would have a lot of crawling across WAN connections.  In addition, although many folks think of a centralized approach to publishing service apps, in many cases farms might swap services as peers, based on operational topologies.

A lot to cover!  Off to my own session on SharePoint Adoption strategies! 

Why can't I deploy reports to SQL Reporting Services

A small but nagging issue to log today - coming from the Business Intelligence/SQL Server side of our world.  We set up a new SQL 2008 reporting environment to make use of some of the new out of the box components, such as Range Bar, for Project Server 2007 rollout.  This was a quick defautl installation, and we started seeing issues when we disabled encryption.

When setting up a default Native Mode SQL 2008 Reporting Services SSRS instance, you may see a few problems if you’re not using certificates and/or port 443 to secure communications.

So, if you’re not using encryption internally, you may remove port 443 links on Web Service (reportserver) and Report Manager (reports) URLs in the Reporting Services configuration applet (this fixes an error message about not being able to create an SSL/TLS connection.)

However, if you’ve done this, when deploying reports from Visual Studio or the Report Manager interface, you may be told “Unable to connect to the remote server”, even if the server is entered correctly in Visual Studio 2008 BIDS for Project | Properties.  If so, find the rsreportserver.config XML file.  (The default location is in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer)

Find the line:

<Add Key="SecureConnectionLevel" Value="2"/>

and change it to

<Add Key="SecureConnectionLevel" Value="0"/>

Restart RS and your deployments should be fine.