Tuesday, September 16, 2008
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Mark Schneider's focus is on on how to guide your organization through reasonable change.
Mark spoke to change in an organization as a skill. Mark stated that, "Share point is an agent of change." The point is that governance makes change more managable. Overall, an organization need to be forthcoming and open. It is the empowerment of people." With that in mind, we have to provide guidance for that change.
You need. 5 things to properly manage change.
1. Support of A champion
2. Grassroot support
3. Approved and funded budget
4. Clear objective and goals
5. Control over the project
Most importantly, Mark expressed that an organization should ensure that people are trained. Mark encourages an organization to communicate leveraging the SharePoint technologies -Blogs - and provide an example by leveraging a Team Site template. That is, project managers should lead by example.
Best practices in a nutshell is to work to ensure that people don't result to using their imaginations to fill communication gaps. The psychological effect of ,an unmanaged, SharePoint implementation in an organization prompts negative responses at time. That is, you need to balance your approach for changing both technologies and processes. Overall , you want to avoid a chaotic impact. The fact that people naturally respond negatively to unplanned change encourages governance.
Submitted from the Blackberry....
http://www.youtube.com/user/cdriskell
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Corro'll Driskell
Thursday, September 11, 2008
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Be sure to monitor the SharePoint Best Practices Blog (http://bestpracticesconference.blogspot.com) for all podcast, videos and blogs....
Earlier, I was reading Phil blog titled, "Consolidating Master Pages Customized By SP Designer". The main point of Phil's blog was to promote his opinion referencing the use of SharePoint Designer 2007. His point..... "Designer means inconsistency and costliness in the long run". Phil provides guidance on building a more centralized solution for the overall branding of an enterprise SharePoint solution. Overall, Phil's posting provides excellent guidance.
For all whom have had the pleasure of attending any of my SharePoint Designer presentation, understand and know how passionate I am in using SharePoint Designer 2007 as a branding tool. Yes. I said it. I am proud to use SharePoint Designer as a branding tool.
What drives that passion, Corro'll? That is a great question. I am honestly driven by the business requirements of an organization. Many organizations are mandated to provide a SharePoint based solution with a minimal amount of planning. Let us all face it, obtaining the skills to build site definitions requires time and training, That... my folks doesn't exist in many cases.
I would have to agree with Phil that SharePoint Designer is more of a decentralize tool that is scoped on a site by site basis. SharePoint Designer, somewhat, overcome the scoped limitations when the publishing infrastructure and publishing features are activated. All in all, the decentralized use of SharePoint Designer is not as attractive as the centralized deployment of solutions developed and packaged by Visual Studio. But, it serves its purpose as long as the business requirements demands it.
I would recommend that all read SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007 Customization Policy, by Sean Livingston. All in all, Seans whitepaper provides guidance for managing custimizaton in the enterprise. I wouldn't want anyone to share Phil's thought.
Thanks Phil for encouraging me to post.
Monday, June 02, 2008
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There are a number of customers working to properly secure their SharePoint implementations. The Security Hardening documentation from Microsoft titled, "Plan and Design for Security (Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server combined".
In fact, the Security Hardening guide recommends restricting access to the SQL ports: TCP port 1433 and UDP port 1434. Also, there are a number of SharePoint Technology - Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 - related recommendations; for example, Block UDP port 1434, Configure SQL Server named instances to listen on a non-standard port; block TCP port 1433 and re-assign the port; Configure SQL client aliases on all Web Front End and Application layer servers - ES, Index, Query and others in the farm.
This approach provides a greater degree of protection for your SQL Server communications. It also ensures that all servers in the SharePoint Farm follows a more restricted communication model.
Let's say that after properly configuring your security strategy your organization decides to use the Microsoft Single Sign On (SSO) technologies. You navigate to the SharePoint Central Administration v3 web site. You locate the configuration link for the SSO. You configure all of the settings and click on OK button.
Your browser refreshes. You notice that there is an error message. The error message encourages you to verify your SQL Server name and other configuration on the page.
You begin to bang your head against the monitor gently. As you take a look at the event logs - on the WFE server and the SQL Servers - and troubleshoot the TCP/IP stack. You notice that there is not an indication of of a notable error.
What we found that was encouraging the return of the SQL Server error message was the organization's security hardening policies. If your organization plans to use the SSO, the 1434 port must remain open. Of course, it would have been great to receive an error message that would provide more - specific - information that would have saved quite a few man hours.
In order to get rid of this error message, you would need to unblock port 1434 on your SQL Servers.
That is just my $19.11 worth.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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I have worked with many organizations building web based applications on the SharePoint Technologies platform. We have used tools such as Visual Studio, Front Page and, now, SharePoint Designer. Equally important, I present at a number of SharePoint summits across North America. The presentations delivered range from Designing and Implementation – of the various SharePoint related solutions – to branding – using SharePoint Designer. So, it is safe to say that I have quite a bit of experience in working with customers that are resistant to using SharePoint Designer as a customization (some would say branding) tool.
Many of those customers and attendees moved from the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 platform to the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 platform. Not only did they migrate the content, but also the skepticism associated with customizing the pages in a SharePoint environment. Or, they have heard about the nightmares associated with rendering customized - back then called unghosting - pages.Therefore, I decided to blog about the new features provided by the ASP.NET 2.0 framework and how it eliminates the problems experienced in the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 environment. That is, Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 – due to the limitations of ASP.NET 1.1 – had a difficult time parsing pages from the database. As a result, all user requests - for SharePoint sites - were routed to the SQL Server database. All together, that means that Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 had a difficult time parsing and caching pages on the Web Front End servers.
For all that, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 integration with ASP.NET 2.0 has been completely redesigned. First, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is built on ASP.NET 2.0, which provides significant enhancements over ASP.NET 1.1. Furthermore, the routing infrastructure was improved by removing the ISAPI filter and by adding an HttpModule and an HttpHandler that are registered with ASP.NET using entries in the web.config file.
When a SharePoint Administrator creates a Web Application, the SharePoint Administrator is extending an IIS web site to function as a Web application. Also, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 adds a wildcard application map to the IIS Metabase file.
That is, all incoming HTTP requests are always processed by the ASP.NET runtime environment and are fully initialized with the ASP.NET context before the HTTP Requests are forwarded to the code that processes all Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 related requests. For the most part, the map routes are due to the wildcard application maps in the IIS Metabase. As a result, all incoming HTTP requests to the ASP.NET runtime- regardless of file types .pdf, .doc, … etc
Overall, the ASP.NET 2.0 framework addressed a number of gaps from the previous – Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 - version of SharePoint Technologies. The most notable gap addressed by the newASP.NET architecture addressed the gap related to how .aspx pages are parsed and compiled. The problem in SharePoint Technologies was that it could not leverage the .aspx page parser used by ASP.NET 1.1. The fact that Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 stored .aspx pages in the SQL Server database presented a problem. ASP.NET 1.1 worked only with pages that reside on the local file system of Web Front End servers. As a result, Windows SharePoint Services could not take advantage of the ASP.NET 1.1 page parser.
Virtual Path Providers were introduced in the ASP.NET 2.0 framework. The new framework allowed developers to write their own custom virtual providers. The value add allowed the SharePoint Product team to write a customized virtual provider – SPVirtualPathProvider - that retrieves .aspx pages from the SQL Server Database. Also, the PageParserFilter affords the SPVirtualPathProvider the capability to control how pages are parsed and compiled.
Once the SPVirtualPathProvider retrieves a .aspx page from the SQL Server database it leverages the ASP.NET 2.0’s .aspx parser. So then, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 does not fall victim to the performance reduction, with respect to the limited page parsing, experienced by the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 environment.
Figure 1 Page Rendering Using the SPVirtualPathProvider
In simplier terms, the perceived problems with customizing pages in a SharePoint environment has been addressed from page rendering view point. Despite the negative perception of the ASP.NET 1.1 limitations and how it affected the page rendering in the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 environment, I think that it is time for the masses to accept the fact that ASP.NET 2.0 addressed those limitations. Whether pages are rendered from the Web Front End file system or from the SQL Server Database, ASP.NET 2.0 ensures that all pages are properly parsed.
That is just my $19.11 worth....
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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There are a number of blogs that focus on configuring ( Create a Contributor group) the the Contributor Settings in SharePoint Designer 2007. It is not my intentions to provide the step by step to create and configure contributor settings.
Also, I can site a number of sites that clearly define the intentions of Contributor Settings (Introduction to Contributor Settings). In summary, the intent of the Contributor Settings is to control the use of SharePoint Designer on a site by site basis.
I am posting this blog to discuss the limitations of the Contributor Setting configurations and proposed work arounds. The fact that contributor settings are configurable on a site by site basis is not a great option in a number of site deployments. The fact that new sites are created within site collections at an alarming rate, is a compelling reason to ask for more of a centralized capability to set the contributor settings at the site collection level and to push it down throughout its namespace. In fact, it would be great to ensure that all sites across all web applications - scoped at individual sites - are dynamically configured with the required contributor settings.
The fact remains that Contributor Settings can only be set by using SharePoint Designer as the Site Manager. After the [contributorsetting].htm - generally named using the GUID of the site - is created, the [contributorsetting].htm can be added to a site template using the File element in the ONET.XML file.
But, in the event that Designers do not have access to the Web Front End (WFE) servers, adding the [contributorsetting].htm as a file element to the ONET.XML file, is not a viable option.
What we have found that adds some value for our SharePoint Designers - using SharePoint Designer 2007 - is that you can create a site - using the Browser or SharePoint Designer 2007 as a tool. After creating and customizing - it is titled Branding in some eyes - the site.
Once the site is customized, the Site Manager can create Contributor Groups and Region Types. After configuring the Contributor Settings, the Site Manager, Site Owner or Site Collection Owner - that all depends on the level of the site and the tools - Browser or SharePoint Designer - can save the site as a template.
To ensure that the save template(s) are used, the Site Collection Administrator or Site Owner can limit the template choices to the template(s) configured with the Contributor Settings.
The option presented is not the most centralized way to ensure the use of a consistent contributor settings across a number of sites within a site collection. But, it presents an option to ensure the authorized use of SharePoint Designer 2007 on each sub-site.
I hope that this helps.....
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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After reading the January 2008 edition of KM World, I was compelled to blog my thoughts about a great article I read. The title of the article is, "Web 2.0 kick it up a notch", by Judith Lamont from Zantech Corp.
Judith made a number of great points in her article about knowledge management. I was taken by her statements referencing the influence designers has on the behavior of its users. Specifically, stating that designers encourage the use of the search features and contributing to the overall interest of an individuals acceptance of a solution that increases productivity.
Who am I to argue the facts? Especially, when I believe the points to be true.
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Corro'll H. Driskell
Sunday, May 11, 2008
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All,
I am on my way to the Norfolk - Hampton Virginia area. I will speak at the Hampton Roads SQL Server User Group on Thursday, May 15th, 6:30 PM at INFOTEC. I am speaking about SharePoint Designer and InfoPath Form Services support for a number of connection scenarios. It is going to be a great presentation.
Location: (Click her for the directions)
INFOTEC
5501 Greenwich Rd
Virginia Beach, VA 23462-6540
Sunday, April 06, 2008
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Configuration of the BDC text
For the full text: http://mossfaq.blogspot.com/2008/01/configuration-of-bdc-in-testing.html
Note: Additional documentation will follow for demonstrations for, both, SharePoint Designer and Excel Services. If you are familiar with the existing Excel Services and Business Data Catalog (BDC) Web Parts, you can start using the BDC.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
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During many of my seminars, I have spoken about the scheduled DoD 5015.2 certification exam for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, specifically the Records Management Application. Microsoft is now DOD 5015.2 certified. Now, we have to await the Add-on updates. I have copied the URL for more information.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102314141033.aspx
Congradulations Microsoft!!!!