SQL Server 2008 R2 comes with a lot of features and functionality. Even the Standard version has a long list of capabilities to set DBAs drooling. But then there’s the Enterprise version. A question that comes up, more often than we’d like...

One of the licensing options for SharePoint, including MOSS 2007, is the For Internet Sites license, sometimes referred to as MOSS FIS. There are a fair number of sites out there built using MOSS 2007, including Spinebreakers , the Bill and Melinda Gates...

One of the great things about InfoPath 2007 is that it allows people to design forms that can be opened in an internet browser. This means, if you have a SharePoint intranet, extranet or website, you can publish InfoPath forms to SharePoint and have people...

I’ve had a request to expand on my post about generating automatic numbers for InfoPath forms. I was asked to go into more detail about how to set up a SharePoint list to act as a counter. Go to the SharePoint site where you have your document library...

This video shows the new web part in SharePoint 2010. It's now easy to embed an InfoPath form as a web part within a SharePoint page.

Given that I spent a ridiculously long time trying to get an InfoPath form to interact with a spreadsheet published through Excel Services, I thought this was a suitable subject for a blog post. If I stop someone else feeling like they want to beat themselves...

With the 2010 version, a lot of work has been done to tighten up the integration between SharePoint and InfoPath. One example of this is workflow initiation forms. One of the things you can now do with SharePoint 2010 is create reusable SharePoint...

When I'm asked a question by a partner and feel that the answer is likely to benefit more people, I shall write a blog post about it. The question in this case was regarding checking out documents from a SharePoint document library and editing documents...

Previously in this series, I’ve talked about general Office documents, which might be Word files, PowerPoint slide decks and so on. In this post, I’m going to go a bit more specific. I’m going to talk about data connection libraries and how they are they...

I usually respond to that question with one of my own. Do you want the two hour answer or then ten hour answer? I’m not entirely joking when I say that. SharePoint is huge. It can do a wide range of different things and be used in an enormous number of...

In the previous blog post , I introduced the concept of Master Data Management as a methodology to improve data quality by creating a “master” version of important information. Master Data Services is Microsoft’s technology for implementing...

The previous two blog posts have been focusing on Master Data Services . Given the title of this series, it would be remiss of me to forget Data Quality Services, the second piece of the data quality story in SQL Server 2012. Data Quality Services is...

Data quality is important and data quality mistakes can be expensive. Imagine a situation where a company has two systems, each with their own data set. One system is for CRM, the other is a financial system. Both systems have information about customers...

The first in a series of video demos introducing the capabilities of InfoPath 2007. This video shows an example of a form to give an idea of some of the rich functionality offered by InfoPath.

I’ve had someone ask me about automatically giving InfoPath forms a unique number. The scenario in question was one where the forms were being saved to a SharePoint document library with a unique number attached. Documents in a SharePoint library do...

The best way to explain why I love InfoPath and InfoPath Forms Services is to explain why I hate other incarnations of forms. When I was a student, I spent the summer holidays doing temp jobs so that I had money for the rest of the year. Temp jobs...

Access Services is an interesting topic in the 2013 context. When this was described to me, my first reaction was, “but we could do that in 2010.” Then you scratch the surface and discover that everything has changed under the hood. The...

The Content Search Web Part is a new web part in SharePoint 2013 that lets you bring together data from across SharePoint into a single view. For example, you might have a page on your intranet for engagements with a particular customer. You can use the...

Data Quality Services, introduced in the previous blog post , includes two main components: DQS Server and DQS Client. There’s also a DQS Cleansing transformation included in SSIS in SQL Server 2012, but I won’t be going into that in this...

Sometimes, people that have been working with a technology for a while assume that something is so obvious, they don’t feel it needs explaining. This means that those who are trying to wrap their heads around something for the first time could be...

InfoPath allows you to create forms with very sophisticated logic. Some of this can be done using the out of the box features and formulae but there is always the option to write custom code. I would not recommend using InfoPath if vast amounts of custom...

I’m taking a break from talking about forms and workflow to share a simple idea which I think is quite useful around Visio diagrams in SharePoint 2010. One of the new features in SharePoint 2010 is Visio services, which enables you to display Visio diagrams...

Second in my series of demos introducing InfoPath 2010 and some of the new features. This demo shows some of the different ways you can add and manage rules to a form template. It shows quick rules, the rules management pane and copying rules, as well...

In MOSS 2007 and SharePoint Server 2010, it’s technically possible to set up an environment so that some users have the SharePoint Standard CAL and some users have the Enterprise CAL. Note the word “technically.” In order to get it to...

This video shows one of the new content management features in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010: multi-stage content management policies.