To the SharePoint

New SharePoint search column: The View from the Crawl Space

DavidLongmuir — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:55:00 GMT

One of the things I love about SharePoint Conference and TechEd is hanging out with and learning from people who are tops in their field—the gurus. My favorite search guru is Jeff Fried, who came to Microsoft as part of the FAST Search acquisition and was technical product manager for all of our enterprise search technologies. Jeff is a search geek extraordinaire, but he has the gift of being able to talk about search in a way that we non-geeks can understand.

A few conferences ago I had a chance to catch up with Jeff, who's now CTO of Microsoft partner BA Insight. In the course of our conversation he said, "One thing that’s been opening my eyes now that I’m outside Microsoft is the general degree of low awareness around search." This surprised me because enterprise search is one of the top three capabilities that people want when they implement a SharePoint solution. Do people really just set it and forget it? So I asked Jeff if he would help us solve the awareness problem by writing a column that demystified SharePoint search and gave tips and guidance to make enterprise search more useful. I caught him at a weak moment, and he said yes.

Everybody needs a guide. Just as Virgil guided Dante through Inferno and Purgatorio, so we have Jeff Fried to guide us through the arcane world of SharePoint search. For his column—Enterprise Search: The View from the Crawl Space—Jeff has proposed several articles that will help us 100- and 200-level folks do simple things that will make search better quickly—for example, what to do with query logs, branding, tabs, and scopes. And for you who are already search geeks, he's proposed advanced articles about federation, search analytics, customization, search-driven applications, and mixing search with other workloads.

You can get Jeff's column from two different places on TechNet:

On the right rail of the Enterprise Search Resource Center
In the Enterprise search administration node of the SharePoint Server 2010 library

The first article—The Search Journey–went live this week. When Jeff writes each new article, I'll update the pages and link to the Download Center where you can get a Word or PDF version. Here's a quote from the first article:

"When search works well, people use it…the search journey gets richer and richer as you progress. Fielding great search—search that users love, search that makes everyone much more effective—isn't hard. It just requires awareness of the technology, sensitivity to the users, and a commitment to continual improvement."

I hope you enjoy the journey and like the column, and let us know what you think Jeff should write about next.

SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Test Lab Guide published

Joe Davies — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:28:32 GMT

The Test Lab Guide: Install SQL Server 2012 Enterprise is a new building block Test Lab Guide (TLG) that steps you through the default installation of SQL Server 2012 Enterprise on APP1 or another domain member server in the Base Configuration test lab.

There are step-by-step instructions for the following:

Configuring the Base Configuration test lab (if you have not already done so).
Installing SQL Server prerequisites.
Installing SQL Server 2012 Enterprise.
Verifying the installation.

Thanks to my esteemed teammate Jim Morey for making this happen!

The current SharePoint Server 2010 TLGs (3-tier farm, single-server) can use this new TLG instead of the TLG for SQL Server 2008 R2. Here is the current SharePoint Server 2010 TLG stack showing the use of this new building block TLG.

If you have a suggestion about a SharePoint Server 2010 TLG that we should be considering, let us know at tlgfb@microsoft.com.

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

SharePoint Server 2010 TechCenter (http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ee263917)
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc303422)
SharePoint Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint/aa905688)
Getting Started with SharePoint Server 2010 (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/?CTT=97)

Enjoy!

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Server Platforms and Infrastructure Writing Team

Three-tier farm Test Lab Guide (TLG) for SharePoint Server 2010 published

Joe Davies — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:37:00 GMT

The Test Lab Guide: Configure SharePoint Server 2010 in a Three-Tier Farm describes how to install and configure SharePoint Server 2010 in a three-tier farm configuration (web front end/application server/database server), starting with the computers in the Base Configuration test lab.

Here is the resulting test lab configuration.

This TLG takes you through a default installation of SharePoint Server 2010 in a distributed capacity that is more suited to a typical enterprise SharePoint deployment. This TLG is in contrast to the previously published Test Lab Guide: Configure SharePoint Server 2010 as a Single Server with Microsoft SQL Server, which is designed to get SharePoint Server 2010 installed as quickly as possible on a single server.

There are step-by-step instructions for the following:

Configuring the Base Configuration test lab (if you have not already done so).
Installing and configuring a new server named SQL1.
Installing SQL Server 2008 R2 on the SQL1 server.
Installing SharePoint Server 2010 on APP1.
Installing and configuring a new server named WFE1.
Installing SharePoint Server 2010 on WFE1.
Demonstrating the facilities of the default Contoso team site on WFE1.

The resulting test lab is a place for you to begin learning more about SharePoint Server 2010 in a distributed installation and how it can help your business.

Here is the set of TLGs in the three-tier SharePoint TLG stack.

If you have a suggestion about a SharePoint Server 2010 TLG that we should be considering, let us know at tlgfb@microsoft.com.

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

SharePoint Server 2010 TechCenter (http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ee263917)
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc303422)
SharePoint Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint/aa905688)
Getting Started with SharePoint Server 2010 (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/?CTT=97)

Enjoy!

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Server Platforms and Infrastructure Writing Team

Updates to Plan browser support

Kirk Stark - MSFT — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:13:26 GMT

Hi. This post is to let you know of the changes to the “Plan
browser support” article for SharePoint 2010 Products.

Unless otherwise stated, all browser versions are
supported. Period.

The browser support matrix table of supported, supported with known limitations,
Not tested, and Not supported has been removed.

The only browser that will clearly state known limitations
is Windows Internet Explorer.

For any third-party browser (including Google Chrome, Firefox,
Apple Safari, etc.) we will support the latest publically released version.
There is no more distinction regarding version numbers.

For additional information about
Plan browser support, see http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc263526

For additional information about
Planning for server farms and environments, see http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc789337

If you have any questions, let us know.

Kirk Stark
Senior Writer, SharePoint Server Platforms Team

The first Test Lab Guide (TLG) for SharePoint Server 2010 is published!

Joe Davies — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:54:00 GMT

I am proud to announce the publication of the first Test Lab Guide (TLG) for SharePoint Server 2010, titled Test Lab Guide: Configure SharePoint Server 2010 as a Single Server with Microsoft SQL Server. This document in the Microsoft Download Center describes how to install and configure SharePoint Server 2010 on a single server with Microsoft SLQ Server 2008 R2 using the computers in the Base Configuration test lab.

The following figure shows the resulting test lab configuration.

If you are relatively new to SharePoint, this TLG is for you. It takes you through a default installation of SharePoint Server 2010 on a single server that also has SQL Server 2008 R2 installed. There are step-by-step instructions for the following:

Configuring the Base Configuration test lab (if you have not already done so)
Installing SQL Server 2008 R2 on the APP1 server
Installing SharePoint Server 2010 prerequisites on APP1.
Installing SharePoint Server 2010 on APP1.
Demonstrating the facilities of the default team site on APP1.

The resulting test lab is a place for you to begin learning more about SharePoint and how it can help your business.

The following figure shows the set of TLGs in the single-server SharePoint TLG stack.

Microsoft TLGs

Seeing a product or technology work in a TechEd session or TechNet Virtual Lab is fine, but nothing beats the understanding gained by building it out with your bare hands. TLGs allow you to experience the configuration and functionality of a Microsoft product or technology in a standardized and simplified test lab. TLGs are reusable, extensible, and stackable to configure complex scenarios and multi-product solutions that more closely align with what you actually do. Over 50 TLGs exist for Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server “8” Beta, Forefront products and technologies, System Center, and now SharePoint Server 2010.

TLGs are a key piece of our product evaluation content portfolio, which allow you to create a simplified working configuration and experience firsthand the infrastructure requirements, such as AD DS groups and accounts, DNS records, certificates, additional servers, etc. You can then save the functioning test lab environment for further customization and experimentation when learning about and evaluating a new technology, feature, product, or multi-feature or product solution.

For more information about the TLG initiative, see the following resources:

If you have a suggestion about a SharePoint Server 2010 TLG that we should be considering, let us know at tlgfb@microsoft.com.

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

SharePoint Server 2010 TechCenter (http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ee263917)
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc303422)
SharePoint Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint/aa905688)
Getting Started with SharePoint Server 2010 (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/?CTT=97)

Enjoy!

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Server Platforms and Infrastructure Writing Team

SharePoint 2010 Databases and Windows PowerShell

stevehord — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:51:16 GMT

There are several ways to maintain and configure, and backup and restore SharePoint 2010 databases. The obvious way is with SharePoint Central Administration, however, the easiest and perhaps best way is to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets. There are many cmdlets available to use with SharePoint databases.

In an earlier blog I showed how to find active databases in a SharePoint 2010 farm. In this blog I’ll show more things you can do to SharePoint databases using Windows PowerShell.

The following list is a mere sample of the SharePoint database tasks you can do by using Windows PowerShell:

Disconnect a local server computer from a farm — Disconnect-SPConfigurationDatabase
Connect a local server computer to a farm — Connect-SPConfigurationDatabase
Create a new configuration database — New-SPConfigurationDatabase
Remove a configuration database — Remove-SPConfigurationDatabase
Dismount a content database — Dismount-SPContentDatabase
Mount a content database — Mount-SPContentDatabase
Backup a SharePoint farm’s configuration — Backup-SPConfigurationDatabase -Directory <BackupFolder> -DatabaseServer <DatabaseServerName> -DatabaseName <DatabaseName> -DatabaseCredentials <WindowsPowerShellCredentialObject> [-Verbose]
Backup a complete SharePoint farm— Backup-SPFarm -Directory <BackupFolder> -BackupMethod {Full | Differential} [-Verbose]
Backup a SharePoint service application — Backup-SPFarm | -Directory <BackupFolder> -BackupMethod {Full | Differential} -Item <ServiceApplicationName> [-Verbose]
Restore a SharePoint farm’s configuration — Restore-SPFarm –Directory <RestoreShare> -RestoreMethod Overwrite –ConfigurationOnly
Restore a complete SharePoint farm — Restore-SPFarm –Directory <BackupFolder> -RestoreMethod Overwrite [–BackupId <GUID>]
Restore a SharePoint service application — Restore-SPFarm –Directory <BackupFolder> -Item “<ServiceApplicationName>” –RecoveryMethod Overwrite –BackupId <GUID> [-Verbose]

This list merely shows a small sample of what you can accomplish using Windows PowerShell when working with SharePoint 2010 databases. For more details see the following topics:

Database cmdlets http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee906544
Backup and recovery cmdlets http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee890109
Import and export cmdlets http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee906557

For help building and using Windows PowerShell cmdlets, see Bill Baer’s Windows PowerShell Command Builder available here,

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/TechNet/en-us/Office/media/WindowsPowerShell/WindowsPowerShellCommandBuilder.html

Thanks for reading,

Steve Hord, Technical Writer, SharePoint Content Publishing

Making Sense of PerformancePoint Services

dstendera [Msft] — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:53:00 GMT

Maybe you’ve heard about PerformancePoint Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, but you don’t really know too much about what it is and how it works. To help make sense of this thing called PerformancePoint Services, we recently published a few downloadable tools that might help.

PerformancePoint Services Process Diagram

This is a downloadable PDF file that can serve as an end-to-end guide, from evaluating PerformancePoint Services through implementing it through using it to create reports, scorecards, and dashboards, to using PerformancePoint content to make more informed decisions. The diagram depicts all the tasks involved in each phase of the process. You can use it as a checklist or as a high-level overview. Hyperlinks to detailed content are listed for each task, so there’s no guesswork on what to do.

To learn more and download the diagram, see PerformancePoint Services process diagram.

PerformancePoint Services SuperFlows

A SuperFlow is an interactive, self-contained Help file that you can download and install on your computer. Once you’ve installed them, your SuperFlows are available even if you are not online. In addition, the SuperFlows include interactive flowcharts to guide you through each step of a task. Two SuperFlows for PerformancePoint Services are available:

PerformancePoint Services IT Configuration SuperFlow, which guides you through configuring PerformancePoint Services and getting the environment ready for dashboard authors to begin creating content using PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer.
PerformancePoint Services Dashboard Creation SuperFlow, which guides you through how to use Dashboard Designer to create and publish reports, scorecards, and dashboards.

To learn more and download the SuperFlows, see PerformancePoint Services SuperFlows.

We hope you find these tools helpful. Please tell us what you think by using the Comments feature.

Happy Dashboarding!

Denise Stendera

Configurable policy settings for user profile properties

Reeza Ali — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:27:00 GMT

Each user profile in SharePoint Server 2010 contains 46 default user profile properties. These user profile properties store information about a user. An administrator can apply a policy to a user profile property to configure how personal information is used. Depending on the selected user profile property, some policy settings are configurable, while others are not.

For more information about user profiles and profile properties, see the following articles on TechNet:

Plan for user profiles (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee721054)
Configure policy settings on user profile properties and personal and social features (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc262930)
Default user profile properties (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh147513)

Use the table that follows as a guide to understand which properties are configurable and which are not:

The column for Policy Setting indicates whether the default value for Policy Setting is configurable. The values for Policy Setting are Required, Optional, or Disabled.
The column for Default Privacy Setting indicates whether the default value for Default Privacy Setting is configurable. The values for Default Privacy Setting are Only Me, My Manager, My Team, My Colleagues, Everyone.
The column for User can override indicates whether the checkbox to allow users to override a value is configurable. The values are Yes or No.
The column for Replicable indicates whether the checkbox to replicate user information across all sites is configurable. The values are Yes or No.

Property	Policy Setting configurable	Default Privacy Setting configurable	User can override configurable	Replicable configurable
Account Name	No	Yes	No	Yes
First Name	No	No	No	Yes
Phonetic First Name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Last Name	No	No	No	Yes
Phonetic Last Name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Name	No	No	No	Yes
Phonetic display name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Work phone	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Department	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Title	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Job Title	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manager	No	Yes	No	Yes
About me	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Personal site	No	Yes	No	Yes
Picture	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Web site	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Public site redirect	No	Yes	No	Yes
MemberOf	No	Yes	No	No
Dotted-line Manager	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ask Me About	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
SIP Address	No	No	No	Yes
My Site Upgrade	No	Yes	No	Yes
Don't Suggest List	No	Yes	No	No
Proxy addresses	No	Yes	No	Yes
Hire date	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Display Order	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Last Colleague Added	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Outlook Web Access URL	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Distinguished Name	No	Yes	No	Yes
Source Object Distinguished Name	No	Yes	No	Yes
Last Keyword Added	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Work e-mail	No	No	No	Yes
Mobile phone	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Fax	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Home phone	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Office	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Office Location	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Time Zone	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Assistant	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Past projects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Skills	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Schools	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Birthday	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Status Message	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Interests	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Notifications	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

How does Microsoft IT do it? Check out these IT Showcase resources for SharePoint Server 2010

Joe Davies — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:14:16 GMT

One common question we get from customers who are evaluating SharePoint Server 2010 or a specific SharePoint scenario is: “How did someone else do it?” Or, more specifically: “How did Microsoft IT do it?”

Fortunately, Microsoft IT documents and publishes a set of resources known as Microsoft IT Showcase, which describes how they designed and deployed various Microsoft technologies and products. These resources include Webcasts, TechNet Edge videos, and Quick Reference Guides.

Here is a list of Microsoft IT Showcase resources for SharePoint Server 2010:

This is the same list from the SharePoint Server MSIT Showcase page (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/bb687797). Check this page for the most current list and for links to IT Showcase resources about SharePoint Server 2007.

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

SharePoint Server 2010 TechCenter (http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ee263917)
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc303422)
SharePoint Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint/aa905688)
Getting Started with SharePoint Server 2010 (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/?CTT=97)

Enjoy!

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Server Platforms and Infrastructure Writing Team

Fabulous SQL Server connection troubleshooting article in the TechNet Wiki!

Joe Davies — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:06:00 GMT

Check out How to Troubleshoot Connecting to the SQL Server Database Engine in the TechNet Wiki. Author Rick Byman takes you step-by-step though the troubleshooting process when you get the “Connect to Server” error. I strongly encourage you to bookmark this article and use it for the next time you see this type of error. Additionally, because it is a TechNet Wiki article, all it takes is a Windows Live ID and you can add to it and improve it based on your experiences.

This article is a great example of what I like to call “troubleshooting methodology” content. When you get a general error, troubleshooting methodology content takes you step-by-step through the system, configuration, and process requirements, typically from the most general and basic to the more complex and specific problem sources. Here is an example of a troubleshooting methodology topic I authored for DirectAccess in Windows Server 2008 R2: General Methodology for Troubleshooting DirectAccess Connections.

Question to the SharePoint community: Would you like to see troubleshooting methodology content for SharePoint 2010 Products? If so, what specific troubleshooting situations would you like to see covered?

Please leave a comment on this blog post with your answer. Thanks!

See Troubleshooting resources for SharePoint Server 2010 for a recent blog post that describes our current troubleshooting content for SharePoint Server 2010.

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

SharePoint Server 2010 TechCenter (http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ee263917)
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/cc303422)

Enjoy!

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Platform and Infrastructure Writing Team

Find active databases used by SharePoint Server 2010

stevehord — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:08:00 GMT

One of the best ways to know what databases your SharePoint deployment uses is to keep a record and add database names each time you create a new database.
This isn’t always easy as there usually isn’t enough extra time during the day to keep records. Plus, more often than not your SharePoint database maintenance tasks tend to occur either late at night or in the pre-dawn hours when no users are accessing the system, so remembering to add a new database name to an ongoing list is really tough.

Luckily, there are several tried and true methods you can use to find not only the active databases used in your SharePoint environment but also find the properties for each.

If you only need a list of all content databases, use SharePoint Central Administration.

In the Application Management section just click Manage content databases to go to a page that lists content databases used in your farms.

To see the complete list of all databases on a SQL Server instance or in a farm, use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

This is a good way to find the databases but isn’t always feasible for one reason or another. Since SQL Server Management Studio lists all databases, it can be hard to out which ones are the SharePoint Server databases.

See Database types and descriptions for a complete list of the names of all the databases supported by SharePoint Products.
Download the Databases That Support SharePoint 2010 Products poster.
View the Databases That Support SharePoint 2010 Products poster online.
See other published SharePoint Server 2010 posters access Technical diagrams (SharePoint Server 2010).

If you want a report of all of your SharePoint databases that includes the GUIDs and related property values, use the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

There are several Windows PowerShell cmdlets you can use to find all of the SharePoint databases and then print this report to a text file. The quickest and perhaps easiest cmdlet is “Get-SPDatabase”. Run this cmdlet in the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell to list all of the SharePoint Server databases with properties for each one. From this potentially large list you can then obtain specific information such as the database ID by using additional syntax in your cmdlet. Similarly, also in the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, run “Get-SPDatabase | Sort-Object disksizerequired -desc | Format-Table Name” and you will get a simple list of the names for each database. You can then print this list to a text file by adding, “| out-file c:\db.txt” to the end of the command. For detailed information, see Windows PowerShell for SharePoint Server 2010, Database cmdlets, Get-SPDatabase, and Get-SPContentDatabase.

A unique way to find all databases used by a SharePoint 2010 farm is often overlooked mainly because it provides a backup of your farm.

In Central Administration, in the Backup and Restore section, access Perform a backup. This page lists all of the items that you can backup in your farm. In this list are all of the databases used by SharePoint Server. Just expand all of the components and then look through the Type column to find the SharePoint database names. Of course, if you do not want to perform a backup, just click Cancel after you’ve listed all of the databases in your SharePoint farm.

Credit for some of these tips goes to where I discovered them, in the SharePoint 2010 – General Questions and Answers forum.

Thanks for reading,

Steve Hord, Technical Writer, SharePoint Content Publishing

Windows PowerShell Script: Download SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites

Joe Davies — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:36:00 GMT

This is the first in a new series of posts that puts the spotlight on Windows PowerShell scripts for SharePoint 2010 Products that are stored in the TechNet Gallery. In each post, we will describe a script’s functionality and use and look under the hood at specific Windows PowerShell programming techniques that you can learn for your own scripts.

Download SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites
The Download SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites Windows PowerShell script (http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/bcf3332d-f726-4ac7-b01a-eeda4b7ece8e) downloads and stores all of the files for the prerequisites of SharePoint Server 2010 in a specified location. This is useful when installing SharePoint Server 2010 in an offline environment or as part of an automated setup and is a Windows PowerShell alternative to using the PrerequisiteInstaller.exe tool, as described in Install prerequisites from a network share.

You can test this script by copying the code into a text editor (click Copy Code on the script page, then paste it), saving it as a .PS1 file, then executing the script by specifying its path and .ps1 file name for the Windows PowerShell prompt (example: PS C:\users\default> c:\users\joedavies\sp2010prereq.ps1).

For those of you honing your Windows PowerShell programming skills, notice how this script loads the $UrlList object with the set of download URLs and then uses a Foreach{} structure to download each file into the specified folder with the Start-BitsTransfer Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) cmdlet.

See the TechNet Gallery for a list of Windows PowerShell scripts for SharePoint 2010 Products.

For more information about Windows PowerShell support in SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010, see the following:

Enjoy!

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Platform and Infrastructure Writing Team

Extra! Extra! Apple iPad Users Can Now View SharePoint Business Intelligence Content

dstendera [Msft] — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:23:00 GMT

In the recent blog post, December 2011 CU for SharePoint 2010 has been released, Senior Escalation Engineer for SharePoint Stefan Goßner provides an overview of Cumulative Update 2011-12 (CU 2011-12) for SharePoint Server 2010 (thanks, Stefan!).

For SharePoint business intelligence users, CU 2011-12 for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is particularly exciting because it opens the door for people to get business intelligence content on Apple iPad devices. People can now view PerformancePoint reports and scorecards and Excel Services reports on iPad devices running the iOS 5 Safari browser.

We just published an article on TechNet that provides more details about which kinds of reports and scorecards will and won’t work on your iPad, how to configure business intelligence content to display with best results, and how to navigate content on your iPad. For more information, see Viewing reports and scorecards on Apple iPad devices.

We’re very interested in your feedback, so please add a comment and tell us what you think.

Happy Dashboarding!

Denise Stendera

Writer, Business Intelligence in SharePoint

P.S. If you’re interested in viewing more business intelligence solutions and scenarios, see our Business Intelligence Resource Center.

Microsoft TechNet documentation for SharePoint Server 2010 Storage

stevehord — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:28:00 GMT

Since Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is an application that relies on Microsoft SQL Server database software, we strive to provide IT pros comprehensive documentation about storage.

The TechNet SharePoint Server 2010 Library contains the following articles:

Storage and SQL Server capacity planning and configuration gives guidelines to help organizations plan and configure their storage needs on SQL Server databases in a SharePoint Server 2010 environment.
Backup and recovery links to content about planning, best practices, and configuring permissions for backup and recovery tasks.
Database management links to content covering all facets of SharePoint databases. Included is adding, attaching, and moving the databases: how to maintain, monitor, and rename databases, and how to scale out SharePoint sites.

The following white paper written by the SharePoint product team is a great resource:

SQL Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint 2010 Products: Better Together shows what SQL Server 2008 R2 edition has what advantages and tells you how to choose the edition that is right for your SharePoint Server 2010 implementation.

Or click one of the following resources.

SQL Server and SharePoint Server 2010 Databases contains lots of good information about SharePoint Server storage requirements.
Capacity Management for SharePoint Server 2010 provides many resources to help you plan capacity managements for your SharePoint Server 2010 environments.

We try to provide complete documentation, but let us know if we missed something. Write us at itspdocs@microsoft.com to ask questions, to tell us about your SharePoint Server 2010 storage requirements, or to give us recommendations.

Thanks,

Steve Hord, Technical Writer, SharePoint Content Publishing

Upgrade – how can we help you get started?

Samantha Robertson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:10:00 GMT

Hi – SharePoint Server 2010 has been out for over a year, and many of you have upgraded to take advantage of the new user interface, ease of administration, and new features. But many organizations are still evaluating whether and when to upgrade. We’d like to get a little information from those of you who haven’t yet upgraded to find out how we can help. We’re conducting an informal e-mail survey to collect data and figure out how we can help make upgrade a little easier for you.

Just send an e-mail to upgradesp@microsoft.com with your answers to the following questions:

Are you planning to upgrade?
- If so, what’s your timeline for upgrading?
- If not, what are the top issues blocking you from upgrading?
What would make it easier for you to move forward with an upgrade?
What support do you need from Microsoft to make it easier?
What version of the Office client applications are you running, and does that affect your decision or timeline for upgrading?
What browser software and what version of that browser are you running, and does that affect your decision or timeline for upgrading?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

By the way, if you’re not sure what you get with the 2010 version, you can see some lists of what’s new for each audience segment here:

For IT Pros: http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ee518662
For Developers: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ee539826 and http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ee557323
For end users: http://officebeta.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/whats-new-in-microsoft-sharepoint-server-2010-HA010370058.aspx

And if you’re looking for resources to get started with an upgrade, see:

- Samantha Robertson

Feature Pack 1 for Duet Enterprise is available

SharePoint Blog Admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:47:00 GMT

Feature Pack 1 for Duet Enterprise is available for download. Feature Pack 1 adds the following solutions to Duet Enterprise for Microsoft
SharePoint and SAP.

Aggregated Business Calendar
User profile-based List Forms

Note that you can choose to install either of these solutions or both of them.

To get Feature Pack 1, do the following:

Go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/default.aspx. Make sure you’re signed in to your MSDN subscriber account.
In the menu, click Subscriber Downloads.
In the search box, type “Duet Enterprise” and then click the “Duet Enterprise” link that appears.
In the Feature Pack 1 for Duet Enterprise 1.0, SharePoint components (x64) - DVD (Multiple Languages) row, click Download.
Note that if you’re not already signed in using your MSDN subscriber account, the link will be named “Sign in” instead of “Download”. If this happens, sign in to your account and then click the “Download” link.

If you’re not familiar with Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP, the Duet Enerprise product information page and www.duet.com are both good places to start. Documentation and other useful resources about Duet Enterprise can be found on the Duet Enterprise for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP Tech Center.

The Aggregated Business Calendar solution enables you to work with multiple calendars at the same time. Site Owners can aggregate up to four of any of the following types of calendars into the Aggregated Business Calendar web part: SAP calendars, SharePoint calendars, Exchange calendars, and custom calendars. For example, a site owner can add two SharePoint calendars, one Exchange calendar, and one SAP Business calendar, or four SAP Business calendars. Any combination of these calendar types is supported. To have these calendars aggregated into one place helps you avoid switching between different calendars, and you can easily compare schedules and avoid schedule conflicts.

The User profile-based List Forms solution is a sample solution that demonstrates how you can expose different fields in a list form to different users based on their SharePoint user profile. This enables a solution developer to design a solution that only displays the fields in a form that a particular user needs to work with, thus increasing the productivity of the end user. Note that this solution is intended to be customized by a developer before you deploy it into a production environment.

Feature Pack 1 is available as an MSDN subscription. Note that you must already have Duet Enterprise for Microsoft and SAP deployed before you can deploy Feature Pack 1.

The TechNet library has documentation about how to deploy and use Feature Pack 1.

Dan Evers
Senior Technical Writer
SharePoint Content Publishing

Using the TechNet Gallery to publish your content

SharePoint Blog Admin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:41:00 GMT

Back in June, Andrea Bichsel blogged about the TechNet Wiki and how you can join with only a Windows Live ID and contribute written content about SharePoint 2010 Products.

Another venue for publishing your content is the TechNet Gallery, which can hold all kinds of content (scripts, videos, code files) in addition to written content in the form of uploaded white papers. Here are some examples of community members who have published their content as white papers in the TechNet Gallery:

When publishing written content, the choice between the TechNet Wiki and the TechNet Gallery is not necessarily an either/or choice. Both venues have their advantages:

Content in the TechNet Wiki is easy for the community to correct, modify, or extend over time
Content in the TechNet Gallery can be more easily printed, customized for personal use, or shared offline (such as an attachment in an email message or a file in a folder)

In some cases, it is appropriate to post content in both places: in the TechNet Gallery for a self-contained, portable, and printable version and in the TechNet Wiki for a version that can be more easily discovered and augmented by the community. The original author of both cross-links to each version so that readers of the white paper know how to modify the community version in the TechNet Wiki and readers of the TechNet Wiki topic know how to obtain the self-contained version for printing, customization, or offline sharing. Here is an example: SSAS: Explaining the GetClusterCharacteristics Stored Procedure for Sequence Clustering Models

For more information, see Ed Price’s blog post titled "Should I use the Gallery or TechNet Wiki?" to determine the right publication venue(s). Regardless of the venue, your community content helps us on the writing team determine customer issues and possible content gaps that we can address in the SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Library on TechNet.

Here's hoping I see some of your great content in the Wiki, the Gallery, or both!

To get started with SharePoint Server 2010 or to verify that the content that you intend to publish is not already in the TechNet Library, see the following resources:

Joe Davies
Principal Writer
SharePoint Platform and Infrastructure Writing Team

Tip: Take a moment to rename databases during a database attach upgrade

Samantha Robertson — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:19:00 GMT

SharePoint Products automatically generate GUID-based database names when databases are created, such as WSS_Content_ 2a24a7ecde1744d4823e31d77b266653. When you're ready to upgrade, if you don’t have a handy farm inventory, it can take a little time and research to identify each database and map them to your Web applications and site collections. It sure would make farm management a bit easier if the database names actually meant something that you could more easily identify. Why not take a little time to make the database names more meaningful while you’re doing a database attach upgrade?

Note This tip does not apply to an in-place upgrade.

When you’re not in the middle of an upgrade, renaming databases requires detaching them from the SharePoint Web applications in SharePoint Central Administration, then using SQL Server Management Studio to rename them (or back up and restore them with a new name). Either action requires some down time to accomplish, and renaming databases might not be your top priority for your down time opportunities.

However, when you do a database attach upgrade, you are either detaching the databases while you move them to the new farm, or backing them up and restoring them to the new farm, so you have an opportunity to rename them. Why not straighten them out then? It's as easy as typing a new name in the "To database" box if you're restoring a database or using “Rename” when you attach the database to a new SQL Server instance.

Restore:

Rename:

Before you rename the database to just anything, take a moment to decide on a naming scheme. For example, you could include any of the following in your database names:

The port number for the Web application associated with the database, such as WSS_Content_2133.
The type of sites that are stored in the databases, such as WSS_Content_Collab or WSS_Content_MySites.
The name of the site collection in the database, if there’s only one per database), such as WSS_Content_ContosoHome.

Of course, even if you're not doing an upgrade, you can take time during a service outage to rename databases to lose the GUIDs and make them make more sense. Here are some blog posts to help you rename databases at any time:

Renaming crazy SharePoint Database Names (includes screenshots of the process)
Renaming Content Databases (also discusses using Stsadm backup/restore in the comments)
Getting rid of GUIDs in SharePoint 2010 database names (links to procedures for renaming all kinds of databases in SharePoint Server 2010)

Also, see more info on:

Database attach upgrade: Perform a database attach upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010, Upgrade and Migration for SharePoint Server 2010
Managing databases in SharePoint Server 2010: Database management (SharePoint Server 2010), SQL Server and SharePoint Server 2010 Databases

- Samantha Robertson

Thoughts on User Adoption and Governance from the SharePoint Conference 2011

Samantha Robertson — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:37:00 GMT

Did you know that there were 22 sessions at the SharePoint Conference devoted to governance? Me either, until I started building my schedule and found that there were way more talks than I could possibly attend. I did manage to catch three of the governance sessions, one each on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and found a couple of common themes to mull over about user adoption and governance that I thought I’d share with all of you.

Here are the specifics about the talks I attended:

SPC290 - The City of SharePoint: What SharePoint Planners Can Learn From City Planning
Speaker: Craig Roth - http://blogs.gartner.com/craig-roth/
SPC297 - True Business and IT Partnership: Best Buy Governance and SharePoint 2010
Speakers: Matthew Ruderman, Sarah Haase, Fred Baer. More from Sarah Haase: http://www.networkworld.com/podcasts/com/2009/081009com-sarahhaase.html
SPC261 - Practical Approach to SharePoint Governance: The Key to Successful SharePoint 2010 Solutions
Speaker: Susan Hanley. More from Susan Hanley: you can get her chapter on governance from the book "Essential SharePoint 2010: Overview, Governance, and Planning" at: http://www.susanhanley.com/books.htm and she contributed to the following white paper available from the Microsoft Download Center: SharePoint Server 2010 Adoption Best Practices

Theme 1: User adoption: It’s not "build it and they will come" but rather "build where they are"

In "The City of SharePoint", Craig Roth spoke about how in city planning, to be successful the process needs to follow the pattern “first life, then spaces, then buildings – the other way around never works” (quote from Jan Gehl, Gehl Architects). In other words, you can’t build the buildings and hope people come populate them. You need to structure the city around the people. The same goes for SharePoint:

First, find out what the users need – business activities and priorities
Then, plan the spaces (design the services and applications)
And finally, plan the buildings (the architecture and topology needed to support it)

This was echoed in the “Best Buy Governance” talk when Sarah Haase talked about how their completely decentralized system was getting deeper use in certain departments due to specific enthusiastic site administrators who figured out how to improve their business processes by switching them from spreadsheets and e-mail to SharePoint lists. These administrators later banded together and became a steering committee that started to work together and start a user group and training, and started calculating the return on investment for their SharePoint applications. Although it didn’t follow the same pattern, the successful sites concentrated on specific business needs and processes, then worked out how to support those processes in SharePoint and how to understand the impact the change to those business processes was having on the bottom line.

Susan Hanley’s talk “Practical Approach to SharePoint Governance” also emphasized the need to establish the clear business goals and business outcomes you want to achieve by using SharePoint. She has this as part of the mission of the governance committee, but I think really that this work is part of the planning for the sites and infrastructure – you have to know what you want to build and why before you can build it.

Theme 2: Training is key to success

In the “Best Buy Governance” talk, one of the things that really opened up the use of SharePoint in the organization was providing training and “open labs” to get info about how to use SharePoint in the organization. They’re also establishing common metadata in the organization and providing training about how to use that.

Following up on this in the “Practical Approach to SharePoint Governance” talk, Susan Hanley emphasized that training about governance concepts really needs to come in context. Bite size chunks of training on roles and responsibilities, policies and guidelines for authoring and design, and so on, need to happen in context of the how to training for those areas, targeted to the people who are going to do the work. No one’s going to read a 100-page governance plan from front to back and absorb it, but if you incorporate the policies of which tools to use or best practices for authoring in the training for content authors, then it’s all in one tidy package and they absorb both.

More info from Microsoft on Governance and Training

Of course, this is only scratching the surface of what was covered in these three talks, and what was covered overall at the SharePoint Conference 2011 on Governance, but it got me thinking, and I thought it might get you thinking too. If you’re interested in more information on Governance, check out the Governance Resource Center and Governance content on TechNet. If you want information about what training is available from Microsoft on SharePoint Server 2010, see the Learn SharePoint Server 2010 page on TechNet and the Training Courses and Videos available on Office.com. And let us know your thoughts on governance and training in the comments on this blog or on those pages, or by e-mailing us at itspdocs@microsoft.com.

- Samantha Robertson

Hybrid SharePoint Environments Whitepaper and Windows PowerShell Command Builder

Nina Ruchirat — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:41:00 GMT

Our teams recently worked with our partners in SharePoint Product Management to publish two new content offerings that were announced earlier at SharePoint Conference this week.

One of them is a whitepaper called Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365.

Download the whitepaper here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27580

For more information, this post "Guidance to Move to the Cloud on Your Terms" on the SharePoint Team blog gives a good overview.

Here is an excerpt:

As of June 28th, 2011, Office 365 introduced the ability to achieve single sign-on (SSO) via Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). Once established, this enables end-users to securely move between on-premises and online boundaries. The “Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365” whitepaper provides step-by-step guidance for extending SharePoint and SharePoint Online beyond SSO – covering best practices for planning your cross-domain information architecture, direction for approaching security and compliance requirements, and insights on the ways branding & navigation play an important role in building a consistent end-user experience. The paper equally weighs a variety of business scenarios providing clear guidance about which deployment approach might make the most sense in your organization.

The other item is the Windows PowerShell Command Builder for SharePoint 2010 Products and Office 365.

This Silverlight application can enable IT pros and power users to visually assemble commands in the browser and then take those commands to their respective products.

Download the getting started guide: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27588

This application and more Windows PowerShell resources can be found on the TechNet Resource Center Windows PowerShell for SharePoint Server 2010

Meet SharePoint Content Publishers at SharePoint Conference 2011

Nina Ruchirat — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:22:00 GMT

It’s a great week for a SharePoint Conference!

Several members of the Microsoft SharePoint and Office technical documentation teams are in Anaheim, CA this week and we are all hoping to connect with conference attendees and talk about the content we produce on TechNet, MSDN and Office.com.

If you are an attendee, we’d love to give you tours of our SharePoint content for IT Professionals, Developers, and Information Workers – just in case you weren’t aware of the vast amount of technical documentation and resources currently available. If you are not an attendee, this recent post is an excellent primer.

We would also like to get your feedback on how we can improve the information you or your customers consume about our products, partner with subject-matter experts on content projects, find customer technical case studies to publish, and discover any content gaps that we could try to fill.

Here is a breakdown of some of our onsite activities:

Design Time Sessions

We are hosting dedicated in-person solution design sessions with more than 30 IT Professional customers who are not currently engaged with Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS). The sessions are intended to help these customers envision and plan solutions based on the 2010 family of SharePoint products and technologies. The selected customers get to meet with product experts (Microsoft product team members, consultants, or MVPs) and SharePoint documentation team members to discuss solution goals, get advice on current challenges, and envision how to enhance their solutions using SharePoint 2010 products. We are very much looking forward to the learnings of these interactions. More details on these activities are on this post we published last month to recruit the customers.

TechNet Library Table of Contents Survey

One of the most common content needs that customers have conveyed to us is the importance of being able to find our content quickly and easily. We have heard the Table of Contents (TOC) for IT Professional SharePoint Server documentation in the TechNet Library can sometimes seem daunting because of the sheer volume of content we produce.

So, for SPC, we have created an interactive in-person survey that showcases three TOC options that we are considering for how to organize SharePoint Server content in the TechNet Library going forward. We are asking people to examine these options with “where would you find this” questions and to record their preferences.

Content publishers will be roaming throughout the conference to conduct these surveys. There are also two areas you can drop by at any time throughout the week to fill one out (self-service):

SharePoint Readiness booth on the Product Pavilion floor in the Exhibition Hall
Hilton Anaheim meeting room El Capitan A

Product Pavilion Booths

Several of us are going to represent Content Publishing at the Microsoft Product Pavilion booths in the Exhibition Hall. Please come visit any time the Exhibition Hall is open.

Booth areas we are staffing are:

SharePoint Readiness (Microsoft Learning,certifications, technical content) SharePoint Composites
SharePoint Online
SharePoint Business Intelligence: Dashboards and Reporting
SharePoint Business Intelligence: Self Service BI and Analytics
SharePoint Search
Duet Enterprise for SharePoint and SAP
SharePoint Express sessions in the Tips and Tricks Lounge

Ask the Experts

Many of us will be available to answer questions at this evening event and reception in the Exhibition Hall on Wednesday evening, 6-7:30 p.m. We will most likely be in the Microsoft Product Pavilion booths.

Look for the special “Expert” t-shirts!

Birds of a Feather

Some of us are participating in these topical sessions:

Monday 12:45-1:45 – What is the role of Social in the Enterprise?
Tuesday 12:15-1:15 – Leveraging SharePoint in Education
Wednesday 12:15-1:15 – Going Green with SharePoint

Disneyland

Of course, a SharePoint Conference wouldn't be what it is without a little fun. Looking forward to some good times in the Magic Kingdom tonight with more than 7,500 SharePoint folks!

If anyone would like to request to meet up with any one of us, please feel free to contact me directly on Twitter. My profile is @MSNinaR.

SharePoint content tour: key SharePoint resources on TechNet, MSDN, and Office.com

Reagan Templin — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:45:00 GMT

Recently, I had the opportunity to present to the Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group about our SharePoint content. We often get questions about how to learn about the product, where to find the best information, and how to give us feedback. Not surprisingly, some of the things that we think of as obvious are not always so obvious to others, just like any field where you are close to the action. That’s why we find it so helpful to get away from our desks and talk to you directly (or read your comments on our articles and blogs).

With the SharePoint Conference coming up next week, some of us will be headed down to Anaheim to connect with all of you, gather feedback, and provide help. So this seemed like a good time to spread the word about our content, and how you can help us to improve.

We know that we (and others) have a lot of content available about SharePoint. We also know that with this breadth and depth of content comes complexity—complexity around relevance, reliability, clarity, discoverability, and more.

As an official voice for the product, we want you to find our content, use it, and give us feedback on it. I’ve designed this post to be both a cheat sheet of key links as outlined in the presentation, as well as a resource for more information about those various key links and locations.

I’ve broken this down into sections that relate to our content sites: TechNet, Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), and Office.com. I also have information about how we use social media, and how to contact us and give us feedback.

There are lots of goodies in this post, but if you want to skip the explanation and grab just the key links, here they are:

	TechNet / IT Pros	MSDN / Developers	Office.com / End Users
Overall product resources	SharePoint Products TechCenter	SharePoint Developer Center	SharePoint Products Page
Scenarios and tasks	SharePoint Server 2010 resource and solutions centers SharePoint Foundation 2010 resource centers	SharePoint Server resource centers	SharePoint Server Productivity Centers
Blogs	To the SharePoint	SharePoint Developer Team Blog	Get the Point
Twitter	@MSOffice_ITPro @MSOfficeResKit	@sharepointdev @MSDN_Office
Contact us	itspdocs@microsoft.com (SharePoint IT Pro) feedork@microsoft.com (Office client IT Pro)	MSDN Office & SharePoint Developer Centers on Facebook

TechNet

TechNet is the site where we publish content for IT Professionals who are evaluating, planning, deploying, configuring, and troubleshooting the SharePoint platforms and solutions.

TechCenters

At the top level, we have TechCenters that align to various products and specific versions of products:
http://technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint
http://technet.microsoft.com/office
http://technet.microsoft.com/lync
http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange
http://technet.microsoft.com/projectserver
http://technet.microsoft.com/sqlserver

Use the top level navigation to easily access the version-specific TechCenters, or to go directly to the SharePoint content in the TechNet library or SharePoint forums:

Some of the version-specific TechCenters contain second-level navigation to help you locate information such as training or support for the product.

Resource Centers

TechCenters contain resource centers, which are more targeted to features and functionality or logical groups of content for the product. The list of resource centers is available from:

The second-level navigation of the SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 TechCenters.
The Resource Centers tab on the SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 TechCenter pages.
Directly from links: SharePoint Server 2010 resource centers and SharePoint Foundation 2010 resource centers.

For example, the Enterprise Content Management resource center pulls together information about managing enterprise content such as documents and records, metadata, and media. The Best Practices resource center pulls together a logical grouping of content that provides best practices for deploying and managing SharePoint.

Solution Centers

Solution Centers are a newer type of resource that we’re experimenting with. Solution Centers are a place to gather tasks that span audiences and content across our sites to accomplish a solution from end-to-end.

Right now, we have one solution center available called Published Intranets in SharePoint Server 2010. It contains a task map that identifies the roles responsible for tasks across the lifecycle of the solution project. You can zoom in to the areas on the task map from your browser or download a copy in several different formats. The page also lists out the tasks by lifecycle phase (evaluate, plan, develop, deploy, and operate) so that you can learn more about each task and find related content.

Scenario Content Hubs

Scenario content hubs are larger in scope than TechCenters and resource centers. Even though we are organized in the company around our product division, you know that we have a lot of integration points with other products. While we don’t write content for those products, like SQL Server or Windows, we do rely on those content teams to have documentation that helps us tell the bigger picture.

Business intelligence (BI) is a perfect example of an area where a scenario content hub can help you understand the integration points and benefits of an integrated approach.

Some of the scenario content hubs include:

Library table of contents (TOC)

One of the lesser-known facts is that our content is arranged in the table of contents (TOC) according to the IT service lifecycle and specifically the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF). The top-level groups in our content aren’t called the exact same thing, but they do align to this framework.

This is true for our current SharePoint 2010 release. It’s a content model used by many content teams across Microsoft server products, though you’ll probably notice that some follow it more closely than others or that one team interprets the groups differently than another team. And with each new release a team adjusts the TOC based on feedback and need. In other words, don’t get too comfortable.

Though we get a lot of feedback that everyone is using search now, we still put effort into the TOC because the content needs to be organized somehow in the library. We use the TechCenters, Resource Centers, and so on to give alternate views into the content, but the library TOC is still what you’ll end up seeing when you click links to a topic. You may as well be taken somewhere that makes some sense.

The problem is that TOC organization is more difficult than it looks. Throughout my time at Microsoft, I’ve seen the TOCs go from very feature-oriented to lifecycle-oriented to more scenario-oriented. Inevitably, each time we get feedback from someone (or many someones) that we got it wrong. Turns out that you can’t please everyone, but rest assured that we do try. In fact, we’re already talking about what to do with the TOC for our next release—let us know what you think so we can include your feedback in our discussions.

Key Library Pages

There are a few pages in the library that I highly recommend checking often:

Newly Published Content: This page is a goldmine. Every time we publish new or significantly updated content, we keep track of it on this page. You’ll see history for several months in the past as well as the most current update. We provide the topic title, link, and a summary of the reason it’s being published. This page contains an RSS feed so you can subscribe to changes when it is updated.
SharePoint Content Roadmap: If you’re an IT Pro and forget where something is, this page is useful and visible right near the top of the TOC.
Downloadable Content: This page points you to the wealth of resources available for download, including our technical diagrams, books, white papers, and even our content set in a compiled Help file (CHM).
Video Demos and Training: This page contains sections that outline the various demos and training videos to help you learn about SharePoint.

Office.com

Office.com is the site where we publish content for end users who are using the SharePoint platform and solutions. These are the users who are creating sites and using them to solve business problems, such as reporting, managing documents, collaborating with others on their team or in their organization, and so on.

SharePoint Products pages

The SharePoint Products pages on Office.com are similar to the TechCenters on TechNet. They are hubs for the various products including SharePoint Server, SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Designer, Dashboard Designer, and SharePoint Online offerings.

Use the links under Current Products & Services to easily delve into product-specific pages that group content by version and area into a table of contents (TOC) and other related resources.

SharePoint Server Productivity Centers

The SharePoint Server product has productivity centers that help you locate information that is specific to related tasks and features in SharePoint. These productivity centers are Sites, Communities, Content, Search, Insights, and Composites. Productivity Centers on Office.com are similar to Resource Centers on TechNet.

You can access them from SharePoint Server page on Office.com, and from each of the individual productivity center pages.

Videos and Training

Office.com provides links to many videos and training resources. You can access these pages from the support on the Office.com menu and clicking Office Training and Office Videos. These pages provide a different type of content than traditional articles.

In-Product Help

SharePoint products contain in-product Help. You can access this Help by pressing the Help icon (). When you click the Help button on a SharePoint 2010 site, you are looking at the latest Help from Office.com, unless the server administrator has turned off the Help from Microsoft or customized Help in some way. This same Help is also published directly to Office.com.

MSDN

MSDN is the site where we publish content for developers who are extending and customizing for the SharePoint platforms and solutions.

Developer Centers

Developer Centers are analogous to the TechNet TechCenters and Office.com product pages. They contain resource centers for the developer audience along with content to help you get started with development for SharePoint. Like TechNet and Office.com, adding “/sharepoint” to the main URL gets you to the SharePoint Developer Center page:

Resource Centers

Like TechNet resource centers and Office.com Productivity Centers, MSDN has resource centers that contain resources specific to various capabilities and functionality in SharePoint.

You can access the resource centers on MSDN by:

Clicking the List of Resource Centers link at the top of the SharePoint Developer Center page.
Clicking Resource Centers in the top navigation bar.
Directly from links on the Resource Centers page.

SharePoint Developer Community

MSDN also has a SharePoint Developer Community page that combines useful information about social media, conferences, code samples, and other resources.

Social media

In addition to all of the resources above, we have blogs and Twitter accounts set up to help you keep informed about our content and the product.

Blogs

IT Pro: To the SharePoint

End users: Get the Point

Developer: SharePoint Developer Team Blog

Twitter

@MSOfficeResKit – Office Resource Kit for IT Pros

@MSOffice_ITPro – Office & SharePoint IT Pro

@MSDN_Office – Office & SharePoint Developer

@sharepointdev – SharePoint Developer Content

In addition to these pages, you’ll find that a lot of our team tweets individually as well. You can find us by checking out the @MSOffice_ITPro page and viewing the list of co-tweet members, such as me (@arkaytee) and our trusted Technical Audiences Community Contact for Content Publishing, Nina Ruchirat (@msninar).

Getting involved

We can’t tell you enough how much we appreciate it when you give us feedback on our content. We really do pay attention to your ratings and comments.

Here are some tips that can help us get the most from your feedback:

Be specific. Ratings are great, but specific verbal feedback is a bonus that tells us why you were or were not satisfied with the topic.
Think about what you’re rating. Ratings and comments are specific to the article that you’re on and they are tied to the content, not the library experience or product issues.
Give us feedback. If you found an article that really helped you or if you found an issue in a topic, let us know. Both kinds of feedback help us to prioritize when planning other content.

Additionally, we love it when you want to work with us on content. Think you know of a gap that you’d like to fill or have some great content that you’d like to share? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas. We love to hear from you.

Here’s how you can contact us:

SharePoint products IT Pro: itspdocs@microsoft.com
Office client IT Pro: feedork@microsoft.com
Office and SharePoint Developer page on Facebook
Lync and Exchange Server content teams: lyncdoc@microsoft.com and edafdbk@microsoft.com

Happy reading, and we hope to see you at the SharePoint Conference next week!

Design considerations for planning variations sites

Cern McAtee — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:48:00 GMT

We recently published an article that describes important design considerations for implementing variations with publishing sites. The article, Variations design considerations (SharePoint Server 2010), was written by Steve Walker on the Microsoft SharePoint Customer Advisory Team. Steve was formerly a Consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services working with many of our largest customers implementing SharePoint solutions for Internet facing scenarios. In the article, Steve encourages readers to carefully consider the impact that storing large amounts of binary data such as documents and images in the content database will have on performance, particularly if content deployment is used. He also explains the difference between the Reference existing resources and Copy the resources options when configuring variation settings, and gives general guidelines for when to use each option. Steve describes three different design scenarios, for small, medium and large sites, and gives examples of how using the Reference existing resources and Copy the resources options could potentially affect the size of the content database, depending on which option is selected.

Read the full article at Variations design considerations (SharePoint Server 2010).

I want to thank Steve for allowing us to publish this article. As always, we love to hear your feedback about our content. Please feel free to add comments to this blog post, or to the article, or send mail to itspdocs@microsoft.com.

Cern McAtee
Technical Writer
SharePoint IT Pro content publishing

Request a SharePoint Design Time Session at SharePoint Conference 2011 in Anaheim

Nina Ruchirat — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 01:10:00 GMT

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. Design sessions are offered for the categories listed in the table below.

Proposed Focus Areas	Description
Automated Deployment and Updates	Are you implementing an environment for automating deployment and updates? We want to hear your challenges and work through design issues. Special consideration is given to environments that automate updates from a test environment to a production environment using Windows PowerShell and scripts.
Business Intelligence and Office Services in SharePoint	Share how your organization currently uses or wants to use business intelligence (BI). Come to this session to discuss a BI solution that meets the needs of your entire organization, ranging from executives to teams and individuals.
Designing Virtual Architectures	Review your plans for deploying SharePoint in a virtual environment. Prerequisites for this session include virtual architecture design plans or a representation of your current SharePoint 2010 virtual environment.
Enterprise Search	Share how your organization currently uses or wants to deploy or improve enterprise search to help your people be more productive. Let's discuss how you design a search solution that is optimized to help users and that meets your performance, scalability, and security requirements.
Geo-distributed Environments	Are you scaling across the globe? Share your business requirements and we’ll discuss recommendations for scaling beyond a single farm, including: optimizing the collaboration experience, deploying service applications, and optimizing farms for WAN connections.
Mixed Deployments (On Premises and Cloud)	Do you want to move parts of your business infrastructure to the cloud and keep other parts in on-premises deployments. What new user scenarios are you trying to enable by doing this? How do you decide which parts stay on-premises and which go to the cloud? At what point does a standard cloud plan become insufficient and a private cloud becomes worth the additional investment? What are the main considerations driving all these decisions? This session aims to explore these sorts of questions.
Office Web Apps for SharePoint	Do you have a need for browser-based viewing and editing of Office documents from anywhere you have a connection to your organization’s SharePoint site? Do you have questions regarding PowerPoint Broadcast Slide Show. Come to this session to discuss Office Web Apps and deploying into your current environment.
Social Computing at Scale	Are you planning or implementing social computing features, such as user profiles, profile synchronization, and My Sites, in your SharePoint environment? Do you have questions about implementing these features in a complex environment, such as cross farm or with multiple regional farms? Come to this session to review your plans and understand when to you should use multiple User Profile service applications and how to configure your environment to stay in sync as things scale out.
Web Content Management - Internet Presence	Review your existing Web Content Management/Internet solution, or your plan for implementing a new Web Content Management/ Internet site. Get feedback on your solution design from the experts, as well as input about using WCM features in SharePoint Server 2010, such as content deployment and publishing.

Sessions will focus on your design and implementation choices. You will meet with product experts who specialize in your focus area.

To be eligible to participate, you must meet the following criteria:

Your organization must be planning or maintaining a solution that fits at least one focus area.
Your organization must not be currently working with Microsoft Consulting Services.
You must bring either a draft of your intended solution or a representation of your existing SharePoint solution. For example, your draft can include the proposed physical topology, logical farm architecture, hierarchy of sites, plan for database sizing and settings, search settings, plan for security and isolation, etc.

To nominate your company or organization for a design session, send e-mail to spcdesign@microsoft.com by September 9th, 2011 (EXTENDED!) September 16, 2011, and include the following information:

Name of your company or organization
Contact information: name and title or role in your organization
One or two focus area(s) you are interested in and any specific questions you have about that area now
Brief description of your solution goals and the challenges you’d like to discuss in the Design Time session

Information that you share with the product experts and documentation team either in e-mail or during a design session will be treated confidentially. If you are selected, we will contact you with the day and time of your session by September 26th, 2011.

We look forward to seeing you in October!

Use Excel and PowerPivot for Excel to analyze SQL Server Analysis Services data

stevehord — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:14:00 GMT

Analyzing data that you import from an external source such as SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) can be complicated. The Microsoft TechNet article, Analyze data from SQL Server Analysis Services explains how to use Excel or PowerPivot for Excel to analyze this data.

This newly published article includes three sections:

Analyzing data in Excel 2010

This section illustrates how to create an Office Data Connection (ODC) file to store the connection string and then how to use the ODC file to import external data from SSAS. Next, this section explains how to create and use PivotTables and PivotCharts to analyze this data in Excel.

Analyzing data in PowerPivot for Excel 2010

This section demonstrates how to use PowerPivot for Excel to import data from an SSAS cube and analyze the data with PivotTables and PivotCharts. Then this section shows methods for preparing and analyzing the imported data with PowerPivot.

Saving the PivotTable or PivotChart to SharePoint Server 2010

The third section shows how to save the PivotTables and PivotCharts that you created to a SharePoint Server 2010 site.

This article is a follow-up to the previously published article, Configure Excel and Excel Services with SQL Server Analysis Services.