Chris Bortlik's Blog : Training

SharePoint and Office 2010 Developer Training Courses on Channel 9

cbortlik — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:13:00 GMT

Yesterday, Channel 9 launched two new training courses for SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 created by developers for developers. Channel 9 has always been about giving direct access to the engineers and future technologies from Microsoft, and now we’re extending this successful formula to bring you training that will allow developers to get started on learning about emerging technologies at their own pace. Today you’ll find extensive instructor recordings from top MVPs on how to develop against both SharePoint and Office 2010. We’ll also be publishing more content at the beginning of December that will include hands-on labs, source code, and much more! All of this free for you to consume or download at your own pace.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Training

See how SharePoint 2010 has evolved into a first-class developer platform. Also, learn how SharePoint 2010 provides the business collaboration platform for developers to rapidly build solutions using familiar tools such as Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 through this self-paced course.

Office 2010 Developer Training

Discover how Office 2010 Beta is a broadly extensible platform for building information worker productivity solutions and see how developing for Office with Visual Studio 2010 makes this easy. See online presentations with demos that will help you get started developing solutions from Add-ins to full featured Office Business Applications (OBAs) using Visual Studio 2010 with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 as the core platform.

We hope you enjoy this initial set of training videos and will check back with Channel 9 in the near future as we build the learning center out to support SharePoint and Office 2010 development.

“Learning Snacks” for SharePoint 2010 Now Available

cbortlik — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:22:27 GMT

Want to quickly learn about SharePoint 2010 products in preparation of the new Beta release? Try these new “Learning Snacks”; bite-sized online readiness courses provided by Microsoft Learning, on the following subjects:

Developing Solutions with Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 enables developers to build rich solutions easily, rapidly, and efficiently. This Learning Snack demonstrates how you can use Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 to create and deploy your solutions. It also demonstrates how you can build Silverlight applications using the SharePoint 2010 client object model and use LINQ to SharePoint to create SharePoint entities

Experiencing the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 User Interface

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 includes an enhanced user interface that provides IT professionals with a streamlined administration experience. This Learning Snack describes the features of the SharePoint 2010 user interface. It demonstrates how the new Central Administration console enables you to perform several administrative tasks from one central location. The Learning Snack also describes how Shared Application Architecture can be used for flexible deployments in SharePoint 2010

Managing and Troubleshooting with Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 facilitates administration by providing several tools that help IT professionals efficiently manage data and troubleshoot any issues. This Learning Snack describes the Large List Resource Throttling feature, which helps you manage large lists. It demonstrates how a SQL Server logging database can be used to log SharePoint events. The Learning Snack also demonstrates how the SharePoint Best Practices Analyzer can be used to detect and automatically fix common issues

SharePoint Consulting and Training Resources

cbortlik — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:02:00 GMT

Over the past few months I have been meeting and working with customers to help them with Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) and to plan for SharePoint 2010. Our discussion usually starts with generic questions such as:

How do we architect and setup our SharePoint environment?
What features should we turn on and what’s the impact of doing so?
How do we move content from one environment to another?
What are the best practices for governance, security and information architecture?
How much disk space do we need and what should we think about when planning for search and content databases?
What about backups?
How do we train our end users?

While there are some quick answers to these questions, most of the time there is much more to think about than just the surface level questions. Discussions that go well beyond a quick conversation.

In some ways getting started with SharePoint is a lot like building a new house for the first time. Just like how you would never build a house without having detailed architectural blue prints and plans, and involving subject matter experts (plumbers, electricians, etc.) to help with the construction, so too should you consider engaging certified SharePoint partners to help with the detailed architectural design, training and implementation.

What many customers do not realize is that there are often a number of free benefits and services available to them that are designed to assist with the up front planning. These include:

Packaged services consulting benefits: Prepaid consulting days that many customers have available to them based on their contract with Microsoft. Key ones to note for SharePoint:

SharePoint Deployment Planning Services (SDPS) is designed to help your organization plan an effective deployment that can optimize the core capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
Business Value Planning Services (BVPS) helps your organization's business decision makers develop a plan to maximize the business value of the Microsoft Office system through structured, multi-day engagements.

There are also a number of different IT and end user training resources available. Most of these are at no additional charge as well:

Training vouchers can be used to attend training classes with Microsoft certified training partners.
E-Learning courses can be used for self paced training.
The Productivity Hub can be downloaded, installed and customized in your SharePoint environment to both provide training resources and showcase key SharePoint capabilities.

One final note: many of the resources above are provided to Microsoft customers that have Software Assurance (SA) for SharePoint. If you don’t currently have SA for SharePoint, now may be a good time to get the above resources as well as the rights to use SharePoint 2007 now and SharePoint 2010 after it is launched next year.

Free Office, SharePoint and Windows training resources for your Intranet

cbortlik — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:32:00 GMT

We have recently released the Productivity Hub as a free download. A number of my customers have been beta testing this Hub over the past few months and it has received great feedback and helped to accelerate the deployment, adoption and training for Office and SharePoint 2007.

The Hub is a SharePoint Server 2007 site collection that serves as a learning community and is fully customizable. It provides a central place for your training efforts, and includes training content from Microsoft’s core products. Microsoft also provides ongoing and updated content packs.

The Hub uses SharePoint Server’s social networking capabilities, such as blogs and discussion groups. In addition, it offers the Coach program, a change management feature to help you train end users to self-help, reducing the burden on your training and IT staff. The Coach program impacts productivity in a collaborative and positive way.

What the Productivity Hub is:

Format: Pre-loaded SharePoint site collection, optimized for Web 2.0 functionality and easily deployed within SharePoint Server 2007 environment.
Content: Convenient end user productivity training in a variety of formats (documents, videos, podcasts, etc.). Receive free quarterly updates of content that you will learn about through the Productivity blog.
Blog: The Productivity blog offers tips and tricks for end user productivity. Use it as is, or your training staff can use the posts as their own to help them get started in running an internal blog.
Train the trainer: Includes IT/Manager section to aid with deployment of the site collection, and guidance to develop the Coach program.
Products: Office 2007 System applications including SharePoint Server 2007. Windows 7 and others will be added in the future.

Want to get Office Enterprise 2007 for $9.95?

cbortlik — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:30:28 GMT

We recently rolled out changes to the Microsoft Home Use Program (HUP) that may enable you to download Office Enterprise 2007 for your home personal use for just $9.95!

Details can be found on the Home Use site.

Not familiar with the Home Use Program? Home Use is just one of the many Software Assurance (SA) benefits that many of our customers enjoy.

In addition to getting upgrade rights to newer versions of Microsoft software, SA benefits also help with training and deploying Microsoft software.

June 26 - Office 2007 Deployment Hands On Lab in Waltham, MA Office

cbortlik — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:02:52 GMT

On Friday, June 26, 2009 from 8:30am – 4:00pm, I will be leading another 1 day technical hands-on lab related to Office 2007 deployment.

The event will be held at the Microsoft offices at 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor, Waltham, MA 02451

Space is limited and attendance is restricted to Northeast enterprise customers only. Register Today!

Click here to register or call 877.673.8368 and reference Event Code 1032400099.

Event Summary

Join us for the Deploying and Managing Office 2007 in the Enterprise hands on lab to learn about the new tools and technologies to deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office System. In this event, you will receive practical technical information and proven techniques necessary to design, customize, and deploy an Office 2007 installation in your environment. You will be given the deep technical assistance required to better plan your organization’s deployment, and have the opportunity to work with experienced resources that can help resolve potential deployment blockers and other upgrade related issues.

Join us for this one-day hands-on-lab and get technical information and experience on the following:

Planning for the deployment of Office 2007
Office Resource Kit
Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system with the Deployment Workbench
Office Customization Tool (OCT)
Multi-language integration
Local installation source
Group Policy Object templates and accelerators
Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM) scanning tool
Detecting add-ins
Handling macro and Access database concerns
Converting documents to Office 2007
Compatibility of Office 2007 with prior formats
Strategies and tools for ramping users up on the new Office 2007 fluent user interface
Best practices in the Enterprise

What is a hands-on-lab?

These aren't your typical IT training class. They are delivered by Microsoft Field Technical Specialists with real world deployment experience. These hands-on labs are for experienced IT Pros who want to gain hands-on practice and experience with Microsoft’s Office deployment technologies. You can expect to spend the majority of the time interacting with the deployment tools / technologies in your own virtual lab environment with a moderate level of instructor presentation.

Who Should Attend?

These courses are for IT Professionals and Technical Decision Makers who require a in-depth knowledge of Microsoft’s deployment technologies and tools.

Prerequisites?

To get the most from this course, you will need to be familiar with the Windows and Office desktop environment.

Register Today! This special, no charge training event will fill quickly and space is limited, so be sure to register as soon as possible to reserve your seat. Note that attendance is restricted to Northeast enterprise customers only.

Office, SharePoint and Exchange 2007 – Better Together

cbortlik — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:48:00 GMT

One of the topics that I frequently present on at conferences is the Office system and why it is “better” to use the Office 2007 client with the 2007 versions of the SharePoint and Exchange server products.

The presentation that I use for most of these sessions is a summary of many of the key items discussed in the Office/SharePoint “better together” whitepaper. It also touches upon some of the areas discussed in this Exchange 2007 feature comparison for the Exchange server with different Outlook and Outlook Web Access clients.

Here are some of the highlights:

Enterprise Content Management: Content Management process integrated into the Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 clients. This helps increase the adoption and usage of your SharePoint site and integrates critical functionality such as workflow and document properties, including metadata that is used to drive SharePoint views and improve search results.
PowerPoint Slide Libraries: Publish slides for central storage, reuse and change notification. Slide libraries add a great amount of business value by making sure that key corporate messages, content and branding are being reused and kept in sync.
Excel Services: Publish spreadsheets for server hosting, web viewing and component access control. The Excel Services whitepaper and my recent Excel for Business Intelligence (BI) blog post have additional details.
Outlook / SharePoint Integration: Bi-directional sync of calendars, tasks, contacts, and discussion boards. Offline access to document libraries. The Outlook Exchange website has a great article that walks thru all of the details.
Outlook / Exchange 2007 Utilization: Unified communications, Managed folders, Scheduling enhancements and more. This article reviews these and other new Outlook 2007 capabilities in greater detail.
Electronic Forms: Publish e-forms for e-mail and browser based form completion. My InfoPath blog post provides more information on this and other ways to leverage InfoPath.
OneNote / SharePoint Integration: You can have OneNote automatically synchronize shared notebooks with SharePoint, which can then be searched and viewed by people with the appropriate permissions. More information on OneNote can be found in this blog post.
Groove / SharePoint Integration: Direct synchronization between Groove workspaces and SharePoint document libraries. This whitepaper demonstrates how you can use Groove to securely collaborate and extend SharePoint to customers and partners that are outside of your organization and those with the need for off-line functionality or access to content in low network bandwidth scenarios.
Access / SharePoint Integration: Host Access data on SharePoint sites, use either browser or Access client to work with data. This enables you to move Access data to SharePoint lists and also helps with querying and joining multiple SharePoint lists and other data sources. More details can be found here.

April 24 - Office 2007 Deployment Hands On Lab in Waltham, MA Office

cbortlik — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:50:54 GMT

On Friday, April 24, 2009 from 8:30am – 4:00pm, I will be leading another 1 day technical hands-on lab related to Office 2007 deployment.

The event will be held at the Microsoft offices at 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor, Waltham, MA 02451

Space is limited and attendance is restricted to Northeast enterprise customers only. Register Today!

Click here to register or call 877.673.8368 and reference Event Code 1032400097.

Event Summary

Join us for this one-day hands-on-lab and get technical information and experience on the following:

Planning for the deployment of Office 2007
Office Resource Kit
Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system with the Deployment Workbench
Office Customization Tool (OCT)
Multi-language integration
Local installation source
Group Policy Object templates and accelerators
Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM) scanning tool
Detecting add-ins
Handling macro and Access database concerns
Converting documents to Office 2007
Compatibility of Office 2007 with prior formats
Strategies and tools for ramping users up on the new Office 2007 fluent user interface
Best practices in the Enterprise

What is a hands-on-lab?

Who Should Attend?

These courses are for IT Professionals and Technical Decision Makers who require a in-depth knowledge of Microsoft’s deployment technologies and tools.

Prerequisites?

To get the most from this course, you will need to be familiar with the Windows and Office desktop environment.

March 26 - Microsoft Northeast SharePoint Seminar

cbortlik — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:12:19 GMT

This Thursday, March 26, I will be presenting at the Microsoft Northeast SharePoint seminar. Registration information and the full event details are below.

I will be presenting on the subject of “SharePoint & Office Better Together”. The purpose of my talk is to discuss what “better together” really means. This session will provide you an overview of how to maximize your SharePoint investment by leveraging the out of the box integration with SharePoint 2007 and Office 2007.

Full Event Details and Registration Information

You're Invited...

As most companies identify areas to reduce spends, successful IT departments are staying ahead of the curve by leveraging strategic technology projects that deliver cost savings, productivity gains, and impact on business success. This seminar is designed to educate you on Microsoft’s SharePoint Products and Technologies, and how companies are applying them to deliver results. You can’t afford to miss this event!

Included Sessions

The Microsoft Enterprise Search Platform

Do you want to create new revenue streams, improve business decisions, and increase productivity? This session will cover the new offerings for Microsoft Search technologies, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, FAST, and Search Server. We will discuss the roadmap for these technologies, demo Search features within the products, and examine customer success stories so you can determine how to build a scalable Enterprise Search solution that balances the demands of people with IT manageability.

SharePoint for Public and Extranet Sites

More and more customers are extending their SharePoint solutions off of the corporate network and out to the Internet as public-facing web sites and Extranets for customers and business partners. This session will provide an introduction to SharePoint’s Web Content Management capabilities, branding, rich user experiences, Extranet security, and hosting options. We will examine several live sites and customer success stories as examples.

Understanding the SharePoint Enterprise Features

The enterprise features of SharePoint Server 2007 can dramatically add to your SharePoint-based solution, with features like Forms Services, Excel Services, Business Data Catalog, Key Performance Indicators, PerformancePoint Services, and optional access to FAST search technologies. This session will provide demonstrations of how to use business data in document libraries and search, Excel as a tier-one development tool, and how to integrate forms into your Web-based applications.

Building visually appealing and impactful Business Intelligence solutions with SharePoint

Most people are aware of the meaning of a dashboard, but few focus on delivering the most appealing dashboards for visual and business impact for business users. In this session we will explore key attributes that make an impactful solution by showing examples that leverage a variety of Microsoft tools with SharePoint as the key delivery mechanism. Tools shown will include PerformancePoint Services, Excel Services, Report Center, SQL Server Reporting Services 2008, OLAP Filter and Microsoft Silverlight.

Microsoft Northeast SharePoint Seminar

Thursday March 26, 2009

Registration: 8:30am

Event Start: 9:00am

Closing and Prizes: 4:30pm

Microsoft Waltham Office

201 Jones Road, Ste 601

Waltham, MA 02451

or call 877-MSEVENT

and reference event code 1032405061

Note: There is no charge for this event and space is limited, so be sure to register as soon as possible to reserve your seat.

March 20 - Office 2007 Deployment Hands On Lab in Waltham, MA Office

cbortlik — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:28:30 GMT

On Friday, March 20, 2009 from 8:30am – 4:00pm, I will be leading another 1 day technical hands-on lab related to Office 2007 deployment.

The event will be held at the Microsoft offices at 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor, Waltham, MA 02451

Space is limited and attendance is restricted to Northeast enterprise customers only. Register Today!

Click here to register or call 877.673.8368 and reference Event Code 1032400096.

Event Summary

Join us for this one-day hands-on-lab and get technical information and experience on the following:

Planning for the deployment of Office 2007
Office Resource Kit
Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system with the Deployment Workbench
Office Customization Tool (OCT)
Multi-language integration
Local installation source
Group Policy Object templates and accelerators
Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM) scanning tool
Detecting add-ins
Handling macro and Access database concerns
Converting documents to Office 2007
Compatibility of Office 2007 with prior formats
Strategies and tools for ramping users up on the new Office 2007 fluent user interface
Best practices in the Enterprise

What is a hands-on-lab?

Who Should Attend?

These courses are for IT Professionals and Technical Decision Makers who require a in-depth knowledge of Microsoft’s deployment technologies and tools.

Prerequisites?

To get the most from this course, you will need to be familiar with the Windows and Office desktop environment.

Additional 2007 Microsoft Office System Tips and Tricks Live Meetings Scheduled February – June 2009

cbortlik — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:32:00 GMT

Tips and Tricks for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Get the most out of Office 2007! You’re invited to attend a Live Meeting. Learn about timesaving features to help you in your day-to-day work. Suitable for beginner or intermediate users. Everyone will learn something!

The Ribbon

The Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, called ‘the Ribbon’ will help you find the features you need to complete tasks quickly and easily. This presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint and help you get familiar with the Ribbon.

Save time

The time you take to attend this session can help save you time later. Past participants reported saving from 15 to over 30 minutes a day after attending a Tips and Tricks session. That adds up! Led by an expert Microsoft presenter, the session is not only informative, but entertaining.

Ask questions

Take advantage of our expert – join the live version of this meeting to ask your burning questions!

Tips & Tricks for the 2007

Microsoft Office System

Schedule 2009

All sessions are Office 100 Level

Wednesday, February 18

8:00 am – 9:15 am (PST)
11:00am – 12:15 am (PST)

Wednesday, March 18

8:00 am – 9:15 am (PST)
11:00am – 12:15 am (PST)

Wednesday, April 22

8:00 am – 9:15 am (PST)
11:00am – 12:15 am (PST)

Wednesday, May 20

8:00 am – 9:15 am (PST)
11:00am – 12:15 am (PST)

Wednesday, June 17

8:00 am – 9:15 am (PST)
11:00am – 12:15 am (PST)

Please use your computer for the audio portion of the presentation for best results.

First Time Users:
To save time before the meeting,
check your system to make sure it is ready to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

New Horizons Presents: Office 2007 and Vista Tips and Tricks

cbortlik — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:14:09 GMT

New Horizons is delivering a series of FREE Office 2007 and Vista Tips & Tricks seminars designed to help you find the latest and most helpful pointers for the Microsoft Office and Vista programs that you use every day. Whether you are new to the 2007 Microsoft Office System and/or Vista, or you are ready to use their more advanced features, these 2-hour seminars will help you work smarter. You'll learn new ways to manage documents and meeting notes, coordinate schedules and instantly search for files.

Date: Friday, February 20^th, 2009

Location: Waltham, MA

Start Time: 9:00 AM

To register, visit http://www.nhboston.com/seminars or call them at 781-487-3200.

Date: Friday, February 20^th, 2009

Location: Waltham, MA

Start Time: 1:00 PM

To register, visit http://www.nhboston.com/seminars or call them at 781-487-3200.

Office Shop Has Launched …

cbortlik — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:36:32 GMT

THE OFFICE SHOP has LAUNCHED!

This is a one stop shop for all of your “Office” needs. Posters, Pens, Hats, T-shirts, Tips & Tricks Documents, just to name a few.

The site has both orderable and FREE downloadable materials to help our customers and partners with generating internal excitement around their Office 2007 deployment along with training resources to support the process.

Office 2003 Mainstream Support Ending in April 2009

cbortlik — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:40:51 GMT

Mainstream support for Microsoft Office 2003 is scheduled to end on April 14, 2009. Extended support for the 2003 release will be available until January 14, 2014. The Office 2003 Frequently Asked Questions and Support Lifecycle pages have more details regarding Office 2003 support plans and options.

If you have not looked at the Office 2007 release recently, here are some prior blog posts that you may want to review and consider:

Office 2007 Deployment Hands On Lab in Waltham, MA Office

cbortlik — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:08:28 GMT

On Friday, February 20, 2009 from 8:30am – 4:00pm, I will be leading a 1 day technical hands-on lab related to Office 2007 deployment. This is an event that we are scheduled to offer once per month from February – June 2009.

The event will be held at the Microsoft offices at 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor, Waltham, MA 02451

Space is limited and attendance is restricted to Northeast enterprise customers only. Register Today!

Click here to register or call 877.673.8368 and reference Event Code 1032400093.

Event Summary

Join us for this one-day hands-on-lab and get technical information and experience on the following:

Planning for the deployment of Office 2007
Office Resource Kit
Deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system with the Deployment Workbench
Office Customization Tool (OCT)
Multi-language integration
Local installation source
Group Policy Object templates and accelerators
Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM) scanning tool
Detecting add-ins
Handling macro and Access database concerns
Converting documents to Office 2007
Compatibility of Office 2007 with prior formats
Strategies and tools for ramping users up on the new Office 2007 fluent user interface
Best practices in the Enterprise

What is a hands-on-lab?

Who Should Attend?

These courses are for IT Professionals and Technical Decision Makers who require a in-depth knowledge of Microsoft’s deployment technologies and tools.

Prerequisites?

To get the most from this course, you will need to be familiar with the Windows and Office desktop environment.