Skip to main content

Bob Fox's SharePoint Blog

Go Search
Home
Bob Fox's Sharepoint Blog
  

Bob Fox, Microsoft SharePoint MVP > Bob Fox's SharePoint Blog
NYC SharePoint User Group May Meeting Agenda

So this one im really stoked about as my buddy Natalya  and her associate Paul Galvin will be presenting a deep dive into the Content Query Web Part and all its magic :)

Here is a summary of the topic:

MOSS 2007's Content Query Web Part (CQWP) enables users to create custom views of data queried from many sources, and present that data in one place. Despite its powerful query & content refinement options, CQWP is often an underrated and overlooked feature. CQWP is both a "data extraction engine" (find documents or list items anywhere in a site collection) and also a first-class presentation tool that enables users to control how content is presented by wrapping HTML and styles to format the display nearly any way you wish.

In this demo-heavy session, they will show how to use the CQWP to solve business problems by showing off core features.

  • use default CWQP features, including audience targeting

  • use CWQP as a reporting tool anywhere in a site collection via filter criteria such as "all documents created today".

  • change look & feel of query results to highlight business data, show additional columns of information, display information in a grid format, and others.

  • show how CQWP can aid in content type administration (i.e. find all documents of a particular content type so as to understand potential impact of changing a CT definition).

  • describe some limitations of CQWP

  • provide a list of resources for advanced CQWP techniques, including blogs, ECQWP Codeplex project & MSDN documentation.

Meeting is on Wednesday, May 7th in NYC at the Microsoft Offices on 51st and Ave of the Americas.   Meet and greet starts at 5:30 and the presentation will kick off at 6 PM.   As is usually the case after the meeting we will be at the Heartland Brewery across the street so make sure you come up and say hi.

Announcing the SharePoint Administration Toolkit

Just a short post to announce a new toolkit for us Admin types.  (MSFT)  cross-posted over to the  on a hot new tool called the SharePoint Administration Toolkit.  

In upcoming posts I will provide some feedback on my testing but I am pretty excited about the two  features this tool brings.

Batch Site Manager and Updatealert

More add-in tools are promised.  Go read the full MSDN article .

Enjoy!

Where is that Joel guy

So for those that are not aware our good friend Joel Oleson has left the building errrr Microsoft that is and is not out in the world with the rest of us shlubbs.  For those that religiously read his posts (yes im still a fan)  and are wondering where the heck Joel is blogging now I can shed some light on this matter and folks he hasnt slowed down one bit.   Keep up the great stuff Joelo.

You can find his blog

Couple of Cool New Offerings from our friends at MSFT

Was browsing this evening and saw the had an interesting post from Lawrence Liu.... The which is powered by SharePoint is now up and running and has two really sharp offerings for those of us that fumble through life searching for hidden command in the ribbon bar.....  and .

Community Clips:

"If you've ever struggled with a feature in Office, if you want to increase your Office know-how, if you want to show others your favorite feature or trick, or if you've had trouble explaining to your friends how to do something, start using Community Clips today!

Community Clips is a portal for viewing, sharing, and discussing informal "how-to" videos (screencasts) on Microsoft Office products. It also includes a client application for easy recording of screen views and voice."

Search Commands:

"Search Commands helps you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need. Search Commands also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks."

I downloaded the Search Commands right away and found them to be pretty useful actually.   I might add that I downloaded them even after watching what had to be the cheesiest video demonstration I have ever witnessed.... This tool is pretty sharp so check it out.

Cha Cha

MVP SUMMIT Final Notes

Let me start off by explaining what the Summit is.  The MVP Summit is a typically yearly gathering of MVP's from all disiplines from around the world.  For all the groups its a place to go to engage personally with the product teams and provide feedback on the products and in some cases to learn about upcoming releases which is the case for SharePoint MVP's.   Because we are tied to a strict NDA you will see no information on what was discussed in this blog or any of the other SharePoint MVP's.

So what can i say about this.... I can say that this is the one conference that i really look forward each year to attend because its hear that I get to see all the people from my group that I rarely get to interact with outside of IM or email. 

Sunday:  I arrived to chilly weather early Sunday afternoon and as I usually do i hit the ground running looking for everyone.... the Brits were all out playing golf but I found my little brother Eric Shupps down the street at the Fox Sports Grill with Dan Attis, Darren Bishop, Brendon Schwartz and his wife Heidi. We ended up back at the Sheridan and as more filtered in we headed out for dinner to someplace that now escapes me.

Monday is one of the highlights of the week... the annual paintball game.  As was to be the case for the rest of the week it was raining and muddy and very little wood line which unfortunately was not what Brad Smith planned for when he donned his ghilly suit... silly ex marines :)   But he and i teamed up and provided some great strategies we gained from our military training to cause some havoc :) Some of the memorable moments i witnessed:

  • Todd Bleekers mad unarmed dash for the flag....... so you have seen him bouncing around energetically in his classes and presentations... we felt he could pull this off and he did perfectly..... Im thinking of buying him a cape to wear next year for the game.
  • Adam Buenz and I were behind an obstacle and spotted someone running from cover directly in front of us and while laughing our asses off we peppered the person with paintballs.
  • I felt somewhat youthful and nostalgic so i was doing some bounding and in one case did a knee slide across obstacles and became encased in mud..... pictures are on AC's Recap.
  • I cheated at one point and was walking off the field and spotted Ben Robb behind and obsticle and i lit him up from 10 feet away with a load of paintballs.... he got me back the next round but it was fun to see him dance  :)
  • The women were incredible and both Agnes Molnar and Penny Conventry kicked some major butt. 

Tuesday kicked off the sessions on campus (nothing more to be said here)  Dinner was a blur and a late night evening full of conversation was the order of the day.  Did i mention how cold and miserable the weather was all week?  :)  That was the only downer of the week.

Wednesday night was a huge night.... Brad Smith and I held the Bob and Brad Show or the Brad and Bob Show :)   Both of our companies ( and ) along with Eric Shupps who owns and operates hosted this event and a good time was had by all.  I will include links to various photo streams at the end.   Personal Thank You to for generously contributing (I say this so he doesnt deduct from my bonus checks) :)

Thursday held the closing Keynotes and i sat through most of Steve Balmers but grew tired of the Q&A and headed off.   Thursday also kicked off the start of yet another summit..... UserGroup Summit.. for both Thursday and Friday we discussed the ongoing efforts to build UserGroups worldwide.   Although the main focus was on INETA and CUMULUS (which i am a part of neither)  I found that alot of the stuff i am doing currently with my UserGroup work is in line with others.   I wanted to speak on a new organization myself and a few others are forming for SharePoint Professionals but we are still in the beginning stages of this.... We hope to announce around TechEd (US) time frame.  Stay tuned and feel free to email me if you are really curious.

Friday was a weird day... I was on MSFT campus in Bulding 34 and Spence ringed me up to get a cab together back to Seattle... he was in a nearby building..... I walk out and its frigging snowing.   A friend told me it was 80 degrees and gorgeous back home and im watching snow.... i sent her a picture to prove it she didnt believe me.

Friday night we were treated by Spence to a nice dinner at a nice meal establishment.  Food was fantastic but i had to have my interpreter Andrew Woodward explain every dish i was grabbing  :)   Great way to end a fantastic week.

So ends my week in Seattle... Im already looking forward to next year.

April TechTarget Article Published

In this months TechTarget article I give an overview of Incoming and Outgoing Mail in Microsoft Office 2007.

Enabling incoming and outgoing email within Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 can create a powerful collaboration tool. It can increase productivity -- allowing users to remain on-task within Microsoft Outlook while pushing content directly into SharePoint. Users also can do all of this without having to access individual team sites. Although the incoming and outgoing email capabilities of MOSS 2007 may seem similar, they have nothing in common with one another.....

Read more here

Full Article

Enjoy

A Full week of Connell and how i survived

Wow what a week! Just to prove to all you naysayers out there about how it is completely impossible to teach Bob (whatever version) anything related to Development my "Boss" Chris Regan (or Krissy as i like to call him)  decided to send me in for an edumication.   At first even i thought he was joking but after some prodding by him and AC i decided to go and cement the fact that I am not in any way shape or form cut out to be a Dev type.  Funny thing happened though..... sitting?  I uhmm actually enjoyed what i was learning and understood it.  Hats off to the Ted Pattison Group and especially my good buddy Andrew Connell for such a wonderful class.  It was not only very well put together and informative but also fun and interactive at the same time.   For the other students in the class they had a rare opportunity to hear both sides of the fence.  I was able to step in and provide the pains we Admin types face when working with Devs :)  I think the other students found alot of benefit in this.   Andrew is one of those trainers that really knows how to make the student GET what the subject is about and the labs were superior to any course i have taken thus far in any IT Discipline i have been associated with.

The course was very dev centric but it wasnt purely doing code.... What i really wanted to get out of this was a deeper understanding of the publishing aspects of MOSS and this is exactly what i got.

You can see all the topics covered here.   Bottom line is if your interested in WCM this is THE guy to learn from (besides Spence of course)

So why the funny title... what the hell do you mean by how did you survive?   Ok so the week wasnt all classroom related.......

One of the jokes i was telling around was that Connell hasn't been to NYC since he was a kid and I made it sound like his first day in the city he appeared to have that deer in the headlights look about him... and he did.   As the week progressed and he learned from his mistakes on the Subway he started acting like one of us locals.   Tuesday night after class we decided to go find a tavern for a quick drink and i swear the boy has Irish radar.... "Uhm Hey Bob look over there isn't that an Irish Flag?"  (for those not in the know that is an indicator for a bar)  Sure enough 5 hours later and many pints of Guinness (mostly me) we called it a night.  We  also brought with us some of the other students and gave them some an additional "from the field view of MOSS".  Back to Jersey for me and to the hotel for Andrew.  On Wednesday night we had him present at the NYC SharePoint User Group and with a turn out of between 125 and 150 he was a big hit.   After the meeting a small group of us headed over for a dinner at Gallagher's Steak House on 52nd street and another late night getting home for Bobby but it was a great night.

So now i have a break from seeing the lad for 2 weeks where we again regroup at MVP Summit.   Im Connell'd out :)

TechTarget starting a SearchSharePoint Online Magazine?

A few months ago my friend Kimbers Shepard from TechTarget  approached me to start writing some articles for their SearchExchange online magazine.  Now mind you i have in the past subscribed to many of the different magazines these guys offer such as SearchWindows, SearchSecurity, Search Exchange..... as before SharePoint I was Bobby the Tech Boy.  You know.... they guy that wore many different hats and was a Jack of all, master of.... (some ok?).   Anyway when Kimbers asked i was like huh?  SharePoint living in the Exchange camp?  Take a trip back in history with me,  Exchange once was the collaborative end all be all... before SharePoint reared its magnificent head.  So i was agreeable to do this but under one condition... they seriously consider look at spinning up a SearchSharePoint magazine as well in the future.  This is being worked on and discussed as you read this.

My first article "Improve SharePoint 2007 Design and Navigation with Managed Paths"

"Managed paths give Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 administrators a powerful, yet easy mechanism for building a corporation's collaboration environment. But proper planning that includes an understanding of the needs of all business groups is crucial to the execution of a successful SharePoint design and taxonomy structure. This tip explains what managed paths are, the benefits of using them, and how to define and implement managed paths in a Microsoft SharePoint 2007 portal. "

 

Enjoy!

NJ SharePoint Users Group March Meeting

New Jersey will be holding our User Group Meeting on Wednesday, March 19th

New Jersey SharePoint User Group

You can register at the above link.   The topic this month is:

“Architecting SharePoint Shared Services Provider”

Guest Speaker: Sonya Zidek, Microsoft Consulting Services

Presentation:

Design Decisions and implementing MOSS Shared Service Providers

Description:

· SSP Overview

· Search and Index

· User Profiles

· Excel Services

· Farm level SSP

· Inter-farm SSP, Parent-Child farm, Geo Deployments

· Other SSP Services

 

Should be an interesting one and one that is near and dear to me.   So along with Sogeti and Microsoft being in attendance to answer questions my co worker and fellow MVP  Jason Medero and I will also be around to hobnob... answer questions....and mingle with the attendees.... wait... isnt mingle and hobnob like the same thing?

Meeting starts promptly at 6PM but get there around 5:30 for food and drink.

See you all there.

Andrew Connell Presenting and Teaching in NYC

What the heck can I say to beat the heading here.  Connell is heading up to hang out with all us Nothern Folk for a solid week and while enjoying the greatest city in the world.... i mean next to Trenton NJ.... he will be both teaching on the week of March 31 his WCM Course through the Ted Pattison Group...

WCM401: Developing Publishing Sites with SharePoint Server 2007 WCM

...But he will also be presenting at the NYC SharePoint User Group on Wednesday April 2.   The topic of his presentation is:

Structured Approach to Building MOSS 2007 Publishing Sites

“SharePoint doesn’t support source control.” “SharePoint doesn’t follow good SDL or change control processes.” “Developers have to use SharePoint Designer to create Publishing sites.” Heard these before? Guess what? All these myths are completely untrue. Unlike many traditional SharePoint projects, Publishing sites frequently require following an organizations change control process, software development lifecycle processes and integration within source control. Not only is it possible to follow all of these common development guidelines in SharePoint, it is a lot easier than you may think. In this session we’ll take a look at how this is possible by obtaining a better grasp of the inner workings of SharePoint, how you can make sure your development team leverages this, as well as some tips and tricks in how to achieve it.

Ok so I promised Andrew I would keep this post clean and professional and I also told him i would try to get the word out about the TPG course WCM401 there are still a few seats left and once filled... thats it... cant get in... cant experience AC.   In all honesty I have seen him present quite a few times and on occasion helped him out as a prop (yeah he sometimes uses me as a prop)   You really need to come see this session.

Register Here

1 - 10 Next

 ‭(Hidden)‬ Admin Links

MVP

 My TechTarget Articles

  Improve SP Navigation with Managed Paths
  Enabling Incoming and Outgoing Email in MOSS2007

 B&R BLogs

  Michael Lotter
  Chris Regan
  Nas Ali

 MVP Blogs

  Spence Harbar [MVP]
  Andrew Connell [MVP]
  Heather Solomon [MVP]
  Scot Hillier [MVP]
  Robert Bogue
  Mark Krugers [MVP]
  Agnes Molnar
  Dustin Miller [MVP]
  Jason Medero [MVP]
  Todd Klindt [MVP]
  Shane Perran [MVP]
  Nick Swan [MVP]
  Bil Simser [MVP]
  Ishai Sagi [MVP]
  Adam Buenz [MVP]
  Amanda Murphy [MVP]
  Todd Baginski [MVP]
  Liam Cleary [MVP]
  Eli Robilard [MVP]
  Joris Poelmans [MVP]
(More Links...)

 MSFT Bloggers

  Joel Oleson
  Lawrence Liu
  Sharepoint Team Blog
  Arpan Shah
  Ian Morrish
  Mike Gannotti
  Aaron Weiker
  Mike Watson
  Dan Winter
  Bill Baer
  Jingmei Li

 My Other Favorite Bloggers

  Joel Oleson
  Daniel McPherson
  David Mann
  Eric Shupps
  Asif Rehmani
  Brett Lonsdale
  Nat's Blog
  IC from SharePointHosting
  Paul Galvin
  Muhanad Omar

 ‭(Hidden)‬ Fox Annaylytics