Leveraging the power of the .NET Framework, Silverlight can go far beyond being simply a delivery tool for streaming video or animation. Strategically placed on a SharePoint page, developers can use it to deploy entire applications, widgets, or other useful tools.

Bob German and Paul Stubbs firmly believe in the viability of integrating the two and have documented it in their book, SharePoint 2010 Development with Silverlight . Their reason for writing the book was that they found little coherent documentation on the use of Silverlight in SharePoint development, and the documentation they did find was scattered across numerous Microsoft developer and third-party sites. They even went a step further.

“We also document stuff that didn’t exist, techniques that did not exist anywhere,” Stubbs said.

When SharePoint developers work with Silverlight, a prime advantage over other development tools is that they do not have to leave the Visual Studio environment. Everything they need: SharePoint, Silverlight, and .NET is already there and nicely integrated, ripe for innovative development.

Microsoft Silverlight is also ideal for enterprise because it works on multiple browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and the mobile Windows Phone 7 platform.   For those companies that need iPhone, iPad, or Android support, however, German and Stubbs acknowledge that developers might want to look to HTML5 standards for extended mobile development.

One of the advantages of Silverlight is that developers can ensure the cross-platform applications they develop will work as intended, whereas HTML and Javascript tools often vary in performance and functionality across various browsers and operating systems.

“It doesn’t add any new capabilities to SharePoint, but it lets you take the capabilities that are there and integrate them in a new way,” German said.

By Avastone Technology, Wisconsin Microsoft SharePoint Partner

SharePoint and Silverlight: A Perfect Match is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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By 2016, SharePoint will propel the global market for enterprise collaboration software to nearly $3.5 billion in revenue, the study found. One of the largest driving factors for this explosion of enterprise collaboration is the advent of cloud-based “freemium” services, many of which are offered by small vendors that provide integrated social tools for SharePoint.

In 2010, the enterprise collaboration market revenue increased by 51.7 percent, reaching $898.6 million. Much of that increase occurred as enterprise users saw the need to work more closely with social media, while also keeping a business-oriented focus, something enterprise collaboration solutions are now designed to do.

The other factor driving up revenue is the need to mobilize. Today’s business employees are often on the move and need, perhaps even demand, access to applications that are “always on”. With cloud collaboration tools like SharePoint Online, companies are able to meet those demands without tethering their employees to their desks.

As social media continues to become a mainstay in the modern IT world and enterprise collaboration becomes a necessity, Microsoft SharePoint will already have a significant edge on the competition. Moreover, Microsoft will provide customers with the comprehensive breadth of features and community of third-party vendors that dynamic enterprises will need for years to come.

By Socius, Ohio Microsoft SharePoint Partner

Microsoft SharePoint Leads the Way in Enterprise Collaboration is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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Problem Stated
You have two SharePoint Lists, data elements in List A are related to data elements in List B. You want to make a change to a singular item in List A and for every related element in List B, you want to effectuate a change as well.
In practical terms let’s say that you have a pool of candidates that you plan to hire, those candidates are in List A, they will go through a list of interviews with individuals and teams. You want a workflow such that if (1) During the process, the candidate drops out of consideration [Cancelled], is put on a wait list [Deferred], or “knows someone” so they don’t need all those formalities [Approved].
How would you do it if you were limited to creating the workflow in SharePoint Designer 2010?

Above: List A – The Candidates Table (Before Shot)

Above: List B- The Interview Board Tasks (Before Shot)

Solution Design
Now, there are several post and guidance’s out there in the Blog-osphere that speak to solutions that employ using Multiple List and Libraries to act as counters with delay activities to ensure that the timing is maintained between iterating through the items in LIST B when the helper table managing the counter is in a work state; now I have my opinions on those solutions, but notwithstanding that, I fully understand that those solutions in the past were necessary in order to get the job done. Enter today with SharePoint 2010 and Sandboxed Solutions; this affords us the ability to write targeted solutions that are scoped at the Site Collections level and accessible through SharePoint Designer tooling, here is an excerpt of what a Sandboxed Solution is taken from Microsoft’s site.
“A sandbox is a restricted execution environment that enables programs to access only certain resources, and that keeps problems that occur in the sandbox from affecting the rest of the server environment. Solutions that you deploy into a sandbox, which are known as sandboxed solutions, cannot use certain computer and network resources, and cannot access content outside the site collection they are deployed in. For more information about solutions, see Solutions Overview(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=156638).”

Approach
Using Custom Workflow Activities, create a loop structure to look for changes in List A (on changed event fires) and then traverse List B, looking for the qualifying criteria that will count as a match in List A, then update that item. Loop through the entire list until all every list item has been evaluated. This logic will be encompassed in a Method of a Class you will create, the class must be scoped “public” and the method will take as a parameter “SPUserCodeWorkflowContext” object and it will return a type of Hashtable, also remember that your feature needs to be Scoped at “Site”.
• Create a Visual Studio Empty SharePoint Project that is Scoped to the Sandbox
• Create Logic to use the SharePoint API to traverse items in List B based on changes in List A
• Deploy the Solution, open up SharePoint Designer for the Site Collection it is Activated on
• Use the Custom Activity in SharePoint Designer as you would for any other OOB Activity

Build
1. Create your SharePoint Project
Begin by launching Visual Studio and create an Empty Project, scoped at Sandboxed Solution in the Project Properties or as you are setting up your Project for the first time. Next add a Class to create the method.

You are not over quite yet, now you need to make this available to SharePoint Designer, we do that by adding an Empty Module to our project. In my example below I am calling it CASDefinition and it includes and Elements.xml file that I will modify as such…

You will notice that the structure of the file lends itself to how it will be viewed and used in SharePoint Designer; also there is a reference to the class file function names, class names[lines 4 through 8], what category (placement)[myself serving line 10] it will appear in SharePoint Designer. Next you have parameters, now certainly here I could have made this configurable by taking the List name as an input Parameter or maybe a specific parameter that I wanted to update rather than all, but this is a demo, you get the idea, for now I have an output parameter.
By now, your project should look like this below.

A few housekeeping notes here, I did mention it above but just to re-enforce it, please change the Feature File to “Site” Scope so it is available at the Site Collection level, and you can see in the project properties that the “Sandboxed Solutions” property is set to true. One more thing, you will see that there is another project in there, “CASTester”, that is just a console app I use for testing ANY solution logic, it is not necessary for this to work.
Assemble your SharePoint Designer Workflow
Now that you have deployed your package, you should see it as an available option in SharePoint Designer 2010 under Workflow Actions.

Notice the Fabian Custom Actions section and the Name of the Custom Workflow Activity therein. Now at this point you can set this workflow to run on a Changed Event in List A, or set it for Manual, either way, when it runs, it will subsequently change all items related in List B accordingly.

Above: List A – The Candidates Table (After Shot)

Above: List B- The Interview Board Tasks (After Shot)

Conclusion
So now you have a tried and tested way of doing Loops in SharePoint Designer 2010 albeit through a Custom Workflow Activity within the boundaries of a Sandboxed Solution in SharePoint 2010. In addition, if this solution goes rogue, then as it is indeed a Sandboxed Solution, a resource threshold may be set to halt it from running based on settings and rules configured by the Site Collection administrator.

Cheers, happy SharePoint-ing

Written by: Fabian Williams, Planet Technologies SharePoint Architect, Microsoft Dynamics SharePoint Partner

Solving Recursive Loops in SharePoint Designer Using SandBoxed Solutions is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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Here is what he had to say about demonstrating the value of social features for an organization:

“People get the value of social in their personal lives, and have this feeling it probably will help them at work, too. But the notion of a big free-for-all doesn’t always make sense. We’re finding that people “get it” most when you talk in terms of “task completion” — getting things done. So rather than talk about Facebook or Twitter for the org, I’d suggest you try to help them envision how social tools could improve team and project interactions…Enterprise social tools should be connected to things like team sites, email, instant messaging, and other communication tools — and centered on specific processes or projects. When you think about the scenario of following a document or a team site you can start to imagine how feeds, likes, and follows can help you get things done.”

Even if the leadership of an organization has embraced the social vision and put the tools in the hands of their employees, if the employees aren’t using those tools to connect and actually get things done, they are worthless.  That is why user adoption of social tools is so critical.  Here he identifies what some of the biggest barriers to user adoption have been in the past and are currently:

“I think familiarity was a big constraint. When we introduced My Sites in 2003, people literally didn’t know what to do with them. But another is ensuring that your social solution isn’t just another place to go. Solving for a more connected experience will definitely help people understand how (and where) social can help them get their jobs done.”

Finally, he provided a couple of tips for getting people to use the social tools at their fingertips:

“Adoption often happens faster when you make a social network “by invitation only.” When you roll something out broadly and make it available to everyone, it kind of feels less interesting, exciting, and (frankly) cool.”

“Make sure you identify a few exec-level proponents and make sure they are active. Their participation will drive a whole host of people to jump in.”

Still looking for more reasons to get social with SharePoint?  Download this white paper:  “People Working Together Drive Business Results”

By Socius, an Ohio SharePoint Partner

Removing Barriers to a Social Workplace with SharePoint is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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Microsoft took its time developing its social vision because it was trying to develop solutions that would not only facilitate social sharing but also ensure the success of the project by improving employee buy-in and adoption.  According to Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Senior Director of SharePoint Product Management, “It’s not just about technology, it’s about how you drive adoption, change management and getting the right people involved in the transformation.”

In light of that philosophy, Microsoft has finally released their vision for the social enterprise as a four pronged approach: the cloud, social technologies, mobile and analytics.  Fidelman points out that Microsoft is the only company currently positioned to deliver on this vision because they are the only organization that offers:

• The ability connect people and information to a socially enabled productivity platform via SharePoint
• The choice of deploying this technology on the desktop, on large touch surfaces or mobile devices
• All of these solutions in a flexible cloud environment
• The analytical tools to better understand both the social tools and their benefits

There is one other argument in Microsoft’s favor as the primary provider of social tools for the enterprise – Microsoft has a very strong foothold in the enterprise that would make switching technology providers cost-prohibitive for enterprise organizations.

Learn more about how your organization can get more social with Microsoft SharePoint.

By Socius, a SharePoint partner in Ohio, Kansas City, and California

Where SharePoint Fits in Microsoft’s Vision for the Social Enterprise is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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The SharePoint Web application has a number of settings that you can customize. These settings fall within a number of different group: General, Resource Throttling, Workflow, Email. While it is easy to configure each of these through the UI, you can alternatively elect to modify them through PowerShell.

This approach will allow you to have a consistent set of configurations for all of your SharePoint Web Applications without having to manually go through the UI to configure them.

In order to modify these settings, we simply need to use the Get-SPWebApplication cmdlet to retrieve the Web Application object, which will be assigned to a variable. Microsoft doesn’t provide a cmdlet to modify the actual application settings, but we do have access to the Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPAdministrationWebApplication object.

Once you have made the modification you need, you must call the Update() method. Below is an example of a script that shows how to modify many of the settings.

The Script

$siteURL = “http://lab.ps4sp.com”

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication $siteURL

# General Settings

$webApp.DefaultTimeZone = 12; # Mountain Time

$webApp.PresenceEnabled = $true

$webApp.AlertsEnabled = $true

$webApp.AlertsMaximum = 500

$webApp.SyndicationEnabled = $true

$webApp.MetaWeblogEnabled = $false

$webApp.MetaWeblogAuthenticationEnabled = $true

$webApp.BrowserFileHandling = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBrowserFileHandling]::Strict; # Permissive or Strict

$webApp.SendLoginCredentialsByEmail = $false

$webApp.MasterPageReferenceEnabled = $true

$webApp.MaximumFileSize = 100

$webApp.RecycleBinEnabled = $true

$webApp.RecycleBinCleanupEnabled = $true

$webApp.RecycleBinRetentionPeriod = 15

$webApp.SecondStageRecycleBinQuota = 25

$webApp.BrowserCEIPEnabled = $false

# Resource Throttling

$webApp.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperation = 5000

$webApp.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperationOverride = $true

$webApp.MaxItemsPerThrottledOperationWarningLevel = 2000

$webApp.MaxListItemRowStorage = 8

$webApp.MaxQueryLookupFields = 0

$webApp.DailyStartUnthrottledPrivilegedOperationsHour = 17

$webApp.DailyStartUnthrottledPrivilegedOperationsMinute = 0

$webApp.DailyUnthrottledPrivilegedOperationsDuration = 1

$webApp.IsBackwardsCompatible = [Microsoft.SharePoint.TriState]::false

$webApp.ChangeLogExpirationEnabled = $false

# Workflows

$webApp.UserDefinedWorkflowsEnabled = $true

$webApp.EmailToNoPermissionWorkflowParticipantsEnabled = $true

$webApp.ExternalWorkflowParticipantsEnabled = $false

# Email

$webApp.OutBoundMailReplyToAddress = “administrator@ps4sp.com”

$webApp.OutboundMailSenderAddress = “administrator@ps4sp.com”

$webApp.IncomingEmailServerAddress = “mail.ps4sp.com”

# Designer

$webApp.AllowDesigner = $true

$webApp.AllowRevertFromTemplate = $true

$webApp.AllowMasterPageEditing = $true

$webApp.ShowURLStructure = $true

$webApp.Update()

Summary

A SharePoint Farm may consist of many SharePoint Web Applications. To ensure consistency between your web applications, you can either use the SharePoint UI or PowerShell. The UI does not give you an easy way to review all of these settings at one time and you would have to visit each SharePoint Web Application one at a time.

While there are quite a few lines of code, you will only need to use the lines that are making changes to the default values in your web application. The above example shows the available settings to help give you an idea of the settings that can be configured through PowerShell.

Written by: Shannon Bray, Chief SharePoint Architect for Planet Technologies, SharePoint 2010 Microsoft Certified Master (MCM)

Modify Web Application Settings with PowerShell is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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Fortunately for smaller organizations and for the large organizations too, there are companies that host SharePoint. Hosting plans are based on the size (in GB) the SharePoint site requires for data storage and the richness of SharePoint features required. Foundation 2010 does not require additional Microsoft licensing, other than Windows Server and SQL, and includes document management, discussion forums, wikis, basic search and support for web parts such as workflows. SharePoint Server 2010 includes two additional and increasingly feature rich products, Standard and Enterprise, which require additional per user licensing called CALs (Client Access Licenses). Normally SharePoint is deployed in an intranet or closed user group environment where all users are authenticated. However some SharePoint sites are open to Internet access where users are not authenticated. In those cases an alternative SharePoint Internet Enterprise Sites license is required.

Most hosting companies offer SharePoint in a “shared” environment. That is the hosting company maintains root control of the servers that host the SharePoint environment and uses the “Multi-tenancy” feature to allocate private SharePoint sites to hosting customers. In addition, the Multi-tenancy feature maintains data security between customer sites in the shared environment. By using a shared environment, hosting companies can allocate data storage in much smaller amounts, usually starting at 500 MB, and share management, processing and database resources among multiple customers. The customer gets a much less complex application entry point and as a result a much lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for its SharePoint site.

Some hosting companies offer dedicated SharePoint 2010 sites to their customers. For those customers who require server root control, large data storage requirements (minimum 100 GB), 100% white label branding, or a requirement to use custom web part applications, a dedicated site is the best solution. The cost is higher than the shared solution, but not nearly as high as managing SharePoint on premises with a dedicated IT staff.

Not all SharePoint hosting companies are alike. It is important to note that many hosting companies do not offer dedicated SharePoint 2010 hosting plans, or offer Standard or Enterprise hosting plans, either.

Beyond flexible SharePoint hosting plans, the most important factor to consider in choosing a SharePoint hosting partner is their ability to service the SharePoint application. A reliable hosting partner is critical to a successful SharePoint hosting experience. Generally there are 5 essential hosting requirements to consider.

1. Reliability and Performance – A practical, achievable and enforceable Service Level Agreement with penalties. A 30 day, no obligation, free trial is the best way to test this.

2. Back-ups – Back-ups by the hosting company with options for customer back-ups.

3. Security – Dedicated SharePoint servers that only run SharePoint related applications, SSAE16 compliant data centers, comprehensive software and hardware maintenance programs, secure active directories, private networks for SQL transactions, fire walls.

4. Flexibility – Free data migration. Shared and dedicated plans for Foundation, Standard and Enterprise solutions that meet the customer’s specific need to maximize its SharePoint experience.

5. Support – When you have questions, the support team must get back to you with accurate answers in a timely manner. Again, a 30 day, no obligation, free trial is the best way to test this.

The SharePoint hosting alternative is the right choice for many companies. When executed correctly, a hosted deployment significantly lowers the TCO for many SharePoint applications. When considering the hosting alternative, pick a hosting company that offers plan flexibility (your needs will change), sign-up for the 30 day free trial, get comfortable with the hosting company’s support structure, and understand your requirements for a successful SharePoint deployment. It bears repeating, a reliable SharePoint hosting partner is critical to a successful SharePoint hosting experience.

Check out PlexHosted SharePoint Hosting. The PlexHosted solution is a cost-effective, secure, well managed, and highly available alternative to locally managed platforms, and achieves significant savings in infrastructure capital as well as running costs.

By Guest Blogger, John Wayt, PLEXHOSTED

5 Essential Requirements For Choosing the Right SharePoint Hosting Partner is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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When SharePoint Online (SPO) was initially released, it would only support up to 20,000 Active Directory entries (more specifically, user objects), meaning that enterprise organizations with over 20,000 employees could not roll out a single instance of SharePoint Online.  That is no longer the case, though!

SPO is currently rolling out its second update which, among other enhancements, allows customers to provision up to 500,000 Active Directory user objects.  Not only has this update broadened the scope of SPO’s current capabilities, but it lays the foundation for even larger scale limits in the future.

In order to help enterprise organizations take full advantage of SharePoint Online, Microsoft has created an interactive planning guide that will step you through:

• Managing SharePoint Online by using the Administration Center
• Planning sites and managing users
• Planning content on sites
• Planning customizations and solutions
• Creating and customizing customer-facing websites
• Training and supporting users
• Monitoring and maintaining site collections and sites

Access the SharePoint Online planning guide for Office 365 for Enterprises to get started developing your strategy for implementing SPO into your organization.

By Socius, a SharePoint Partner in Ohio, Kansas City, and California

Can SharePoint Online Really Support an Enterprise Organization? is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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I think that because SharePoint has so much to offer an organization, people tend to view it as a monster with multiple tentacles reaching out to devour their business and their bottom line.  I would like to submit a very different visual representation of SharePoint: the Swiss Army Knife.

I can’t take credit for this fitting comparison.  Recently on twitter, the folks at @Office365 posed the question, “What is the most valuable piece of technology you own/use?”.  While “SharePoint” was a common response, @bryanbolling said, “SharePoint – the swiss army knife of tech.”

Just as a Swiss Army Knife keeps several tools connected so that they are always handy and available to do their individual jobs, SharePoint is a collection of tools that can address a variety of needs you may have in the course of day-to-day business.  With SharePoint, you have six possible tools to work with all integrated into a single solution that fits into any business model (just like a Swiss Army Knife fits in anyone’s pocket):

Sites – A single infrastructure for all your business Web sites – intranets, extranets, and internet sites which enable you to share documents with colleagues, manage projects with partners, and publish information to customers.

Communities – A single platform to manage all of your collaboration tools, making it easy for people to share ideas and work together.

Search - Relevance, refinement, and social cues combine to help people find the information and contacts they need to get their jobs done.

Content – Manage content by setting up compliance measures behind the scenes and allowing people to work naturally in Microsoft Office.

Insights – Give people easy access to the information in databases, reports, and business applications so that they can make good business decisions.

Composites – Create do-it-yourself, no-code business solutions to quickly respond to changing needs.

With such powerful tools combined into one solution, SharePoint should empower your business, not intimidate you.  Everything from the implementation, to the customization, to the day-to-day usability of SharePoint is designed to be scalable and accessible to organizations of any size.

Learn more about how much SharePoint has to offer and how little there is to fear by attending our complimentary webinar on March 8^th at 1:00 PM EST!

By Socius, a SharePoint Partner in Ohio, Kansas City, and California

Are You Afraid of SharePoint? is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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According to Information Week the following are five pitfalls SharePoint users should avoid:

1. Failure to plan. Development is a stage-by-stage process, and any multi-stage process can go awry if even one stage is not planned well. Businesses are complex, and SharePoint has been designed to deal with a wide variety of complexity. Just as you would not start a new company without a business plan, you should also not start using SharePoint without a development plan in place.
2. A backlog of “site collections”. What you will soon realize is that company employees collaborate often. There are tons of projects going on all the time, and they can start to pile up if you do not set a quota on the number of active sites. It is safe to move a four-year-old project to the archives.
3. Underestimating Storage Needs. Just like a drinking glass, disk storage is finite, even on a dedicated server. With SharePoint, you have to account for your all of your storage needs and make sure you have enough capcity to handle it. Content will account for most of your storage space, possibly 120 GB, but you should also allow at least 4 GB for external application storage for every 1 GB of content.
4. Unmanaged recycling bin. On your desktop or laptop, the recycling bin is probably the last folder you would consider organizing or managing, but it is still very important, especially on a collaborative business platform. You should carefully consider how long you want to keep deleted content and how much storage space that content will consume. Remember, if the files are actually data you might need later, they should not be in the recycling bin. On the other hand, if you know they should be deleted, there is likely no reason to keep them beyond 30 days.
5. Unstructured site collections. Site collections are very important in SharePoint. Sites within a site collection have shared permissions, content types, and Web Parts. They function as part of a larger whole. Subsites are organized in a hierarchy. Therefore, it is crucial to make sure that hierarchy fits your business model. Organize site collections based on teams, projects, and departments to ensure that the right people are communicating with one another.

With the right amount of preparation and foresight into the pitfalls that can plague a business when using it, SharePoint can revolutionize the way your company does business. All of these issues can be easily avoided once you know about them. If you are ever in doubt or need extra help, contact your Microsoft partner. They have probably encountered whatever problem you have and may have a quick and easy solution.

By SharePoint Blog Editors, Find a Local Microsoft SharePoint Expert

5 Costly SharePoint Mistakes to Avoid is a post from: SharePoint Blog

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