Will Craddock's Technology Adventure in Ireland : Office 2007

PerformancePoint 2007 to become part of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise

will.craddock — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:16:31 GMT

I read this morning some very interesting news over on Kurt Shintaku's Blog. Be out of the office for a few days and you can really miss some big happenings. Kurt has been one of my favorite Microsoft bloggers for a couple of years as he covers a very wide range of interesting news and technology

NEWS:

Announcement:
Microsoft is announcing an update to its Microsoft Business Intelligence roadmap. Microsoft’s strategy is to deliver BI to everyone in the organization through the broadly adopted tools of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office Excel, and built on the scalable Microsoft SQL Server BI platform.

Based on customer feedback, we are moving the scorecard, dashboard, and analytic functionality from Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server into Office SharePoint Server Enterprise, making these capabilities available throughout the organization at a lower TCO.

In mid 2009, we will release PerformancePoint Server 2007 “service pack 3” which will include updates to the current product’s planning module. Thereafter, customers should not expect further investment in standalone versions of PerformancePoint Server. However, ongoing support of our planning customers is a high priority. These changes enable customers to deploy a complete BI solution with existing investments in SharePoint Server, SQL Server, and Excel, the most widely used analysis and planning tool in market today.

Q&A:

What will happen to PerformancePoint Server?
PerformancePoint Server 2007 will no longer be a standalone item on the Microsoft price list as of April 1, 2009. For organizations interested in PerformancePoint Server, it can be obtained by purchasing SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL with Software Assurance. In the future, the monitoring and analytics capabilities will be included in the next release of SharePoint Server and will be available to SharePoint Enterprise CAL customers. Customers with rights to PerformancePoint Server SP3 will be able to download it mid 2009 (please contact your account manager for details). Performance management is a critical component of business intelligence and Microsoft will continue marketing and R&D investment in this area in future product releases.
What about from now until SharePoint ‘v-next’?
How will I obtain the current PerformancePoint monitoring and analytics functionality for broad BI deployment?
From the date of this announcement, PerformancePoint Server will be a license entitlement for SharePoint Server 2007 E-CAL customers with Software Assurance only. The technical requirement to use PerformancePoint planning will continue to be SQL Server Enterprise Edition. Customers will be able to use BI throughout their entire organizations simply by deploying SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and Excel.
What about support for existing PerformancePoint Server planning customers?
Customer care is our primary focus during this transition. We will keep our commitments to deliver improved planning capabilities in PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP3 in mid 2009 that addresses many of the features and functionality required by our customers to leverage in their planning projects. We will continue to support all PerformancePoint customers per our existing support policy. For further details on this policy visit: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=12922.
What about legacy products such as ProClarity and Business Scorecard Manager?
ProClarity Analytics Server is part of PerformancePoint Server 2007. ProClarity Desktop Pro is a separate product and is not connected with PerformancePoint licenses, with or without SA. Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) is a downgrade right of PerformancePoint Server 2007. The core ProClarity capabilities that made that product successful will migrate to SharePoint and Excel over the coming releases. As for Business Scorecard Manager and ProClarity Desktop Pro, we don’t anticipate any further customer demand for this.
Will customers still be able to purchase PerformancePoint Server if they require more licenses for an existing deployment?
No, not as a standalone product. If customers require additional PerformancePoint Server 2007 CALs, they should purchase SharePoint Server 2007 E-CALs with Software Assurance to be entitled to PerformancePoint Server 2007 CALs.
If I have additional questions, who do I contact?
If you have additional questions, please first work with your Microsoft account team. If you have additional questions following that, you can contact PerformancePoint Server Roadmap Announce team pps_an@microsoft.com.

Fix it for me blog on Microsoft TechNet

will.craddock — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:58:45 GMT

I just happened to find this new blog posting in the TechNet Blogs feed:

Have you ever come across a Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article or been presented with a Windows Error Reporting (WER) solution and asked yourself, why can't Microsoft just fix this for me? Today KB articles and WER solutions provide you with a list of steps that can be followed to resolve your issue. However, tomorrow looks much different and we hope it helps you resolve any issues you have with our products faster and easier.

Our team's purpose is to automate the steps in Microsoft KB articles and Windows Error Reporting (WER) solutions so you can click a button and have the issue resolved.

I was hoping that maybe they came out with some cool new technology that let you run a script to fix these issues, but alas, it’s just a standard Windows Installer MSI file that modifies the registry or runs a script or whatever. But it’s still incredibly useful for non-techies who don’t need to know or care about the Registry.

Check out the the FixIt4Me blog to see what solutions for common problems are listed and hopefully the feed provide you help whenever a new article is published.

-W

TechNet Subscription Discounts

will.craddock — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:01:59 GMT

In my role here at Microsoft I make presentations to customers and partners alike every day of the week. One of the things that strikes me in these is the limited number of people who are taking advantage of TechNet Plus subscriptions.

In my last number of roles within different organizations I have always ensured I had budget allocated to have a TechNet subscription, in fact I had a personal TechNet and MSDN subscription for the last year. The reason is simple....value. For a very insignificant price I have access to full versions of Microsoft software for the desktop and server for me to test with. In today's virtualized world, having access to Exchange, Server 2008, OCS, SharePoint, etc to install into a lab and test with no time bombs associated is invaluable. You also have access to Office 2007, Vista in its various versions to test with these server technologies. I am a person who learns by doing, and for the less than the price of Office 2007 I am able to install, play and learn with all the technology I can consume. That is value.

I came across the following discounts today and wanted to spread the information regarding them. TechNet Plus is ordered online through the TechNet site and are payable in US Dollars. Subscription is either online only or with media at differing prices and are good for 1 calendar year from date of purchase, so please take a look and find what is right for you.

These are 3 different discount offerings that I have seen are below:

15% off New TechNet Plus Subscriptions – Code: TMSAM15
$100 discount New TechNet Plus Direct Subscriptions (essentially 15% off) – Code: TMSAM03
$70 discount off new TechNet Plus subscriptions – Code: TNPV07

Check out what the TechNet Plus subscription gives you:

Full-version software for evaluation - without time limits – including Microsoft operating systems, servers, and Office System software.
Pre-release versions of Microsoft operating systems, servers and business applications.
Complete access to a technical information library including knowledge base articles, resource kits, technical training, and security updates.
Two (2) technical support calls and a 20% discount on additional phone support incidents to help you quickly resolve mission-critical technical issues.
Unlimited managed newsgroup support and online concierge chat to provide the extra assistance you need to be successful.
A free subscription to TechNet Magazine with hands-on information for the IT Professional.

Visio 2007 Add-in's

will.craddock — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:58:55 GMT

I am not sure if everyone knows about some of the great add-in's for Microsoft Visio 2007 there are available to download. There are lots of add-ins specifically for Visio 2007. If you’re interested in diagramming topology or schema, this is the tool to do it in.

Exchange Server 2007 Visio Add-in
The Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Professional Add-In makes it easy for Exchange administrators to visualize, explore, and communicate complex information. Instead of viewing single user data, administrators can create data-connected Visio diagrams that display data at a glance and dramatically increase productivity. You can diagram a Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 site topology, including sites, servers, and connections for an organization.
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=547

Disk Space Monitoring Add-in
(aka Near Real Time Server Storage Monitoring)
Microsoft Visio 2007 Add-in for Near Real Time Monitoring (NRTM) of Disk Space uses the new Data Graphics feature of Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Professional to display the results of server monitoring. This add-in auto generates diagrams from Microsoft® Office Excel® or Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager 2007 as a data source. Let’s you decide on optimal threshold values for disk space and then monitors your hardware for disk space using WMI or Ops manager in near real time.
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=61

Folder Access Rights Map Add-in
Folder Access Rights Map helps you see a shared folder's setting conditions at a glance. It outputs the configurations and the Folder Access Rights of the shared folders on your file server to Microsoft Office Visio or Excel.
With Folder Access Rights Map, you can:
- Obtain shared folders from the Active Directory, list them and select them individually.
- Specify the number of layers in the folder hierarchy for output to Microsoft Office Visio or Excel.
- Display the setting conditions of shared access or NTFS access.
- Visually retrieve and display a folder which has a designated account.
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=586

Active Directory Topology Diagrammer Add-in
With the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer tool, you can read your Active Directory structure through Microsoft ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO). The Active Directory Topology Diagrammer tool automates Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Professional to draw a diagram of the Active Directory Domain topology, your Active Directory Site topology, your OU structure or your current Exchange 200X Server Organization.
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=538

Server Virtualization Add-In for Visio 2007 Pro
With over 70% of server hardware being under-utilized, this very valuable tool can draw a clear picture of your hardware utilization. This tool auto-generates the diagram of your rack and provides clear server details from a linked Excel template. Analyze your racks and servers using WMI or get the utilization data over time using the Operations Manager connection.
Use the virtualization button to see the before and after detailed diagram of your racks. See clearly where you have the opportunity to save on space and power.
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=546

SQL Server Add-In
The SQL Assessment Add-In for Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Professional is a tool for IT administrators who need to continually interact with users during SQL server installations in any IT infrastructure.
This add-in takes the input of SQL configuration prerequisites from users for SQL Server installations and shows them in a clear, easy to read diagram. The tool also allows you to see whether you can update your server configurations to the latest version of Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008

Baseline Security Analyzer Add-in
This Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Professional Add-In for Microsoft® Baseline Security Analyzer
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2&aid=59

Software Upgrade Assessment Add-in
Visio Add-in for Software Upgrades will help the IT/Datacenter Administrators and manager to assess the hardware and software installations on the Servers and user computers/laptops.
Use this valuable Add-in to assess your client and server infrastructure easily and simply using Visio 2007. Evaluate what hardware on the client side you can upgrade to the latest versions of Windows Vista of on Microsoft Office 2007. Assess your server infrastructure to check and see which versions of Windows server 2008 or SQL server 2008 you can run on your current infrastructure. All of this in an easy to use and understand Visio 2007 diagram which is automatically generated from and Excel template. Save time and money using this simple client and server assessment Add-in for Visio 2007.
http://visiotoolbox.com/downloads.aspx?resourceid=2

OneNote and Live Mesh

will.craddock — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:06:00 GMT

I am a very big user of OneNote. I first became aware of this product when I bought my first Tablet PC back in 2004 and have been a big supporter since the day I installed it. I love the ability to manage my notes for all meetings, conversations and thoughts in a single place. This gives me the ability to have at my finger tips every meeting note for every meeting I have ever (with OneNote) attended. That is pretty powerful stuff and has come in handy on more than one occasion as I am able to reference back while in a phone conversation or meeting. As a big Tablet user, I also love the handwriting ability built into the application.

I have also been participating in the Live Mesh Beta program for sometime now but it just dawned on me today how the 2 products could work together when using more than one device. OneNote has the ability to share documents via a network share, but I am able to share my OneNote's from work and home computers in one common file store via Live Mesh.

I setup a OneNote Notebooks folder in Live Mesh and uploaded all of my OneNote note book file and folders. I then made a local sync copy of the folder in my users\name\documents folder on all my computers, to replace the old one installed by the product. It was as easy as that and I now have a single repository for all notes

just sharing how to link all of these great technologies together

Will