Microsoft Digital Marketing Platform | The Edge of SharePoint

New SharePoint for Internet Sites Case Study: Copenhagen Airport

2012-04-05T12:28:00Z

We just recently launched a new case study outlining the great success of Copenhagen Airport with our Digital Marketing Platform. Copenhagen Airport recently deployed SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites with Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Commerce Server and ExactTarget to deliver an end-to-end Digital Marketing solution targeting passengers moving through Copenhagen's Katsrup Airport. This new CXM platform provides Copenhagen Airport with the ability to connect to its customers in new and exciting ways and provide much greater control over their customer experience both at the airport as well as before and after their trip through Copenhagen Airport.

View the full Microsoft Digital Marketing and Copenhagen Airport Case Study.

Site Details: Copenhagen Airport Advantage Copenhagen Airport Tax-Free Shop	Organization Size:	1900 employees
	Organization Profile:	Copenhagen Airports (CPH) owns and operates the airports at Kastrup and Roskilde, Denmark. More than 22.7 million passengers used the Kastrup airport in 2011, making it the busiest in the Nordic countries
	Business Situation:	CPH wanted to improve its service to passengers and also increase retail revenue, but it had no data on passengers that it could use to sell them products and services.
	Software and Services:	Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 For Internet Sites Standard Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
	Vertical Industries:	Transportation and Logistics Industry
	Country/Region:	Denmark
	Partner(s):	Netcompany

End-to-End Digital Marketing and Customer Experience Management (CXM) with SharePoint for Internet Sites and Dynamics CRM

2012-04-04T18:57:00Z

Long post title, right? I've been doing quite a bit of work recently looking at ways to extend SharePoint for Internet Sites and deliver more capabilities aimed at marketers. One fantastic way we've been doing it recently is through the integration between Dynamics CRM and SharePoint for Internet Sites.

I've already discussed at length about how SharePoint for Internet Sites provides a fantastic platform for Digital Marketing and CXM capabilities. I haven't talked much about the backend sales and marketing aspects, however.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has a free add-on extension available on CodePlex called the Customer Portal Accelerator for Dynamics CRM. This accelerator provides integration hooks into the Dynamics CRM application data to use in any portal environment. Because Dynamics CRM and SharePoint share a common development environment, Visual Studio, SharePoint makes a great platform for building internet and customer-facing websites which expose and use Dynamics CRM data.

The integration points between the two applications allows the following scenarios:

1) Lead capture and scoring from your SharePoint-based internet website into Dynamics CRM.
2) SharePoint website user profile data synchronization with Dynamics CRM customer records.
3) Transactional data storage in commerce-driven SharePoint sites into Dynamics CRM.
4) Closed-loop marketing with email marketing campaigns to drive traffic back to your website.
5) Personalized content and personalized customer experience management and customer engagement management in your SharePoint-based website using any data stored in Dynamics CRM.

There are already several organizations using the Microsoft Digital Marketing Platform - SharePoint for Internet Sites and Dynamics CRM to power their online customer experiences. A couple of examples include:

Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada - Case Study
Copenhagen Airport - Case Study - http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=710000000308
Copenhagen Airport Duty Free

A couple of weeks ago, at the Dynamics Convergence Conference, I presented an hour long session the Microsoft Digital Marketing Platform and its integration points with Dynamics CRM. I've made the recording of this session available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2NG3tNL16I

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Best Practices for Creating Publishing Page Layouts in SharePoint for Internet Sites

2011-10-20T17:38:05Z

I delivered a session @ the SharePoint Conference 2011 focused on Best Practices for Creating Publishing Page Layouts in SharePoint for Internet Sites.

The impetus behind this session is that there have never been any best practices produced from Microsoft on this topic, so I assembled the following session from mine and my colleagues own experiences. I hope you find it useful:

(Please visit the site to view this video)

CAML intellisense in Visual Studio 2010

2011-09-23T02:55:00Z

Earlier today I was creating some Content Types in Visual Studio for inclusion in my upcoming SharePoint Conference 2011 session, Best Practices for Creating Publishing Page Layouts, and I found a great tool that is quite amazing. It's called caml.net.intellisense and it provides detailed documentation in context of writing CAML in elements.xml, very useful stuff for doing feature stapling on a SharePoint for Internet Sites WCM Publishing site.

You can download and install the tool here: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/15055544-fda0-42db-a603-6dc32ed26fde/

Happy coding!

Installing Windows Phone SDK and Emulator on Windows Server 2008 R2 | Workaround

2011-09-19T13:18:00Z

I wanted to do some development work today with the Windows Phone SDK and SharePoint for Internet Sites. I discovered in the process that the setup bootstrapper prevents you from installing on Windows Server. As SharePoint for Internet Sites Enterprise requires an install on Windows Server 2008 R2, I had to find a workaround.

I located a workaround which worked quite well. Since I spent quite a bit of time banging my head against the wall trying to figure this out myself, I thought I would share a link to the workaround here, in hopes that more people find this workaround more easily.

From Aaron Stebner's blog on MSDN blogs: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2010/05/02/10005980.aspx

Thanks Aaron!

Microsoft Digital Marketing & SharePoint for Internet Sites tracks @ Sharepoint Conference 2011

2011-09-17T12:43:17Z

The Microsoft Digital Marketing Platform, SharePoint for Internet Sites and FAST Search for SharePoint teams are delivering over 30 hours of brand new content at the SharePoint Conference in Anaheim in just two weeks. The Digital Marketing Platform team has six team members delivering eight of the sessions below including me, Geoffrey Edge, delivering two of the eight sessions below. Come meet our team at the SharePoint for Internet Sites demo kiosk on the conference exhibit hall floor; there will be at least two members of our Digital Marketing Platform team at the booth all day.

Hope to see you there!

Featured Sessions for Microsoft SharePoint for Internet Sites

The Microsoft^® SharePoint^® 2010 platform delivers tremendous value to all areas of your organization. Did you know that SharePoint 2010 can also be used to power your websites, extranets, and portals? Thousands of companies have already discovered the value using a single platform to provide both internal and external business needs. At the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 in Anaheim, there are 24 different sessions showing how SharePoint is used outside of the corporate firewall with topics ranging from high level overviews of Brand Management to technical deep dives on architecting for the internet. Come find out all there is to discover about SharePoint for Internet Sites.

Categories:

Branding, UI and Extranets

Advanced Topics

Architecture and Administration

Branding, UI and Extranets

Session Title	Level
Planning for the Lifecycle of Your SharePoint 2010 Website	200
Applying a Brand to your SharePoint Web Site	200
With SharePoint 2010 Your Extranet is Easy	200
Campaign and Experience Management on a SharePoint 2010 Website	200
Creating Beautiful and Engaging Web Sites with SharePoint 2010	200
Hallmark Retail Connect ® - Connecting Hallmark Gold Crown Stores	200
One Content Library, Multiple Websites with SharePoint 2010 at D&M Holdings	200
Branding a Public Website on Office 365	200
How We Built Community Site NothingButSharepoint.com	300
Best Practices With jQuery and SharePoint	300
Packaging SharePoint Branding Elements for Deployment	300
Search Engine Optimization on a SharePoint 2010 Internet Site	300
Best Practices for Creating Publishing Page Layouts	300

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Advanced Topics

Advanced Search

Session Title	Level
SharePoint Internet Sites that Integrate FAST Search	300
Content Targeting with the FAST Search Web Part	300
Taxonomy Based Content Targeting for a SharePoint Internet Site	300

Mobile Applications

Session Title	Level
Making your SharePoint Websites Sing on Smartphones	300
Creating a FAST Search Driven Windows Phone 7 Application for a SharePoint Internet Site	300

Social Networks and eCommerce

Session Title	Level
Integrating Social Networking Sites with a SharePoint Internet Site	300
Integrating Commerce Server with a SharePoint Internet Site	300

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Architecture and Administration

Session Title	Level
Best Practices for Building your Website for Scale with SharePoint 2010	300
Building Language-Based SharePoint Internet Sites Using Variations	300
Customizing Content Publishing Approval Workflows	300
Performance Testing and Optimizing SharePoint Websites	300

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Web Content Management Design Time Sessions @ the SharePoint Conference

2011-08-26T03:17:00Z

Nina, over at To the SharePoint just posted about how to request a SharePoint Design Time Session at the SharePoint Conference 2011!

If you are a SharePoint Conference 2011 registered attendee, the Microsoft SharePoint documentation teams are offering a limited number of dedicated solution-design sessions for individual customers that are not currently engaged with Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS). These sessions are intended to help IT professionals envision and plan a solution based on the 2010 family of SharePoint products and technologies.

Sessions will last 60 minutes. If you are selected, you will meet with one or more product experts (Microsoft product team members, consultants, or MVPs) and one or more SharePoint documentation team members to discuss your solution goals, get advice on current challenges, and envision how to enhance your solution using SharePoint 2010 products.

I'm excited that the Web Content Management Design Time Sessions will include me and other members of my team on the panel to design solutions in real time using SharePoint for Internet Sites. It's going to be a lot of fun!

CXM? Yep, Customer Experience Management | The evolution of Digital Marketing Platforms

2011-08-26T03:07:00Z

Forrester recently released a new report extolling the potential of CXM platforms and solutions.

Along with the new report, they have created a great graphic positioning the components of a CXM solution.

Source: Forrester, The Forrester Wave: Web Content Managment for Online Customer Experience

Forrester lists six cogs in the CXM wheel:

Web Content Management
On-site search
Personalization and Marketing automation
Commerce platforms
Customer service interaction management
Analytics, test and optimization

These areas really validate Microsoft's Digital Marketing Platform strategy. With SharePoint for Internet Sites, Microsoft is focused on delivering core Internet Sites platform capabilities including Web Content Management and best in class search capabilities out of the box with FAST Search for SharePoint, built into SharePoint for Internet Sites Enterprise.

For personalization capabilities and marketing automation, we have many capable System Integrator (SI) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) who provide solutions including Intlock, with their SharePoint Marketing Suite.

From a Commerce platform perspective, there are many capable ISV and SI partners delivering integrated commerce capabilities both with and without Microsoft Commerce Server including Orckestra, with their Overture Digital Marketing Suite and Cactus, with their CommerceLive offering, which includes a hosted, cloud-based offering; both solutions are built on SharePoint for Internet Sites and FAST Search for SharePoint.

Customer service interaction management capabilites can be delivered through Microsoft partners, SharePoint360 and Telligent's Community platform.

Finally, Microsoft recently announced a strong alliance with Webtrends, the godfather of Internet Web Analytics, who quite literally founded the Web Analytics business and now provide a suite of analytics, test and optimization tools for SharePoint for Internet Sites with their new offering, Webtrends Analytics for SharePoint 2010.

What all this shapes up to is an integrated Digital Marketing Platform and a wide breadth of CXM capabilities delivered piecemeal; not everyone needs the entire CXM stack, end-to-end. The flexibility provided by the Microsoft Digital Marketing Platform and our vast ecosystem of partner offerings allows you to start small and grow over time, plugging in components as needed, customizing your SharePoint-based website with components as you require functionality.

Address the basics out of the box with SharePoint for Internet Sites and FAST Search, and leverage our vast partner ecosystem as you innovate and grow your digital marketing presence.

Want to learn more? Come visit us at the SharePoint Conference 2011 in Anaheim at SPC206: Campaign and Experience Management on a SharePoint 2010 Website: http://bit.ly/ozzht7

SharePoint for Internet Sites Implementer's Course

2011-08-24T20:34:00Z

As the foundation of the Microsoft Digital Marketing Platform, implementing core Web Content Management capabilities on the SharePoint for Internet Sites platform will likely be the first step in your journey to a Digital Marketing Platform built on SharePoint.

The recently released SharePoint for Internet Sites Implementer's Course provides a great walkthrough including step by step videos on how to implement core Web Content Management capabilities and great branding on top of SharePoint for Internet Sites. The course is logically broken down into several sections:

Content Query Web Part

JavaScript

Custom Publishing Artifacts

Putting It Together

Social Media

Multi-Lingual Sites

Performance and Caching

Security

Managing Deployment

If you're looking for a great introduction to SharePoint for Internet Sites' core web content mangement capabilities, I'd highly recommend this content.