tech ed Developers| 2008 I’ll be there – will you?

And it’s time for the alltime necessary post to let you know that I’ll be attending tech ed 2008 for Developers from 10 to 14 November in Barcelona Spain. I’ll probably will be following most of the MOSS 2007 sessions there and take a look at the future as well (what is coming, what is going on). I’ve seen that quite a few partners are there as well, so it’ll be a nice time to catch up. If you are interested to meet and have a beer (in Belgium we only drink beer ) let me know at “digitallion connected to an @ and then Microsoft’s email service (hotmail.com). Sorry about the cryptic message but I don’t want to be flooded with spam See you there!   Koen

Update Fantastic 40 released

Microsoft released an update to the “Fantastic 40″. The Fantastic 40 is a set of application templates for WSS 3.0. You can find them here. They include (a few examples):

IT Team Workspace

Call Center

Job Requisition and Interview Management

Change Request Management

Knowledge Base

Compliance Process Support Site

Lending Library

Contacts Management

Physical Asset Tracking and Management

Document Library and Review

Project Tracking Workspace

…

Enjoy!

Setting the default Excel version for Export to Spreadsheet of Lists in MOSS 2007

Since I’m using two versions of Office at the moment, 2003 and 2007 I sometimes get updates which overwrite several settings, resulting in certain actions being opened in Exel 2003 instead of Excel 2007. One of the annoying things was the Export to Spreadsheet of SharePoint lists opening with Excel 2003 instead of Excel 2007. Smart as I thought I was, it would be the xlsx files opening with Excel 2003 (with compatibility pack) instead of opening them with Excel 2007. And yes, they were set to default opening with 2003. Problem solved. I thought The next export to spreadsheet resulted in opening in 2003 instead of 2007. What was the underlying problem. The iqy files (Excel Web Query Files according to my OS, although iqy stands for internet query) were set to default opening with 2003 as well. Changing that to Excel 2007 did solve my problem. Pretty straightforward to fix, but easy to miss. Hope this helps some people out there :p

Filter Pack for Search

Microsoft released a new filter pack for Search. It will install and register IFilters with the Windows Indexing Service. It includes IFilters for the following formats: .docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .zip, .one, .vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, and .vtx.

Because Windows Desktop Search (WDS) consumes IFilters from Windows Indexing Service, the IFilters will be automatically registered and available for use by WDS. The following products that include search are supported:

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Office SharePoint Server 2007 registration steps
• Search Server 2008 – Search Server 2008 registration steps
• SharePoint Portal Server 2003 – SharePoint Portal Server 2003 registration steps
• Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 – Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 registration steps
• Exchange Server 2007 – Exchange Server 2007 registration steps
• SQL Server 2005 – SQL Server 2005 registration steps
• SQL Server 2008 – SQL Server 2008 registration steps

Linq4SP – RC1 Available

Dotneteers reports that Release Candidate 1 of Linq4SP has been released. What is it? Linq4SP is a readable-writable Linq provider to SharePoint (WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007), with a lot of interesting and useful features: support the handling of list items, documents, folders, content types, enumerations usable for choice columns, … Basically it allows you to use LINQ on SharePoint objects. I haven’t tried it out yet, probably will this weekend, but it looks promising. Get it here.

SharePoint whitepapers released

Microsoft published four whitepapers concerning MOSS 2007

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Document Management Whitepaper

Brief Description

Microsoft delivers an integrated solution that extends document management to all employees. By recognizing that a document’s lifecycle begins the moment it is created and does not end until it is destroyed, organizations can achieve wide adoption and enforcement of enterprise standards, resulting in decreased management costs and reduced corporate risk.

Overview

Most large enterprises rely far too heavily on shared drives and e-mail as the primary mechanisms for storing and sharing enterprise documents. While these solutions work somewhat effectively when dealing with moderate volumes of documents, they cannot scale to meet the evolving needs of most companies. In today’s world, document volumes are growing exponentially, resulting in skyrocketing management costs and inability to find relevant information.

Microsoft has responded to these challenges by delivering an integrated solution that extends document management to all employees. By recognizing that a document’s lifecycle begins the moment it is created and does not end until it is destroyed, organizations can achieve wide adoption and enforcement of enterprise standards, resulting in decreased management costs and reduced corporate risk.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Whitepaper

Brief Description

Microsoft delivers a WCM solution that combines the rich features of a traditional content management system with a unified, enterprise WCM platform—all delivered with the usability of Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007.

Overview

Over the last few decades, Web technologies have dramatically changed the way that companies conduct business with their customers, partners, and employees. What began as a static store for public information has become a dynamic, evolving environment for managing customer relationships, collaborating with partners, and communicating with employees. Because of the explosive growth of online channels, companies are struggling to manage Web sites and applications, especially in terms of managing content targeted for different audiences in a global environment. As the reliance on Web content has increased, so has the demand for a solution that empowers both business and IT users with the tools they need to efficiently and effectively manage multiple, complex Web sites.

Microsoft has responded to these changes by delivering a WCM solution that combines the rich features of a traditional content management system with a unified, enterprise WCM platform—all delivered with the usability of Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Workflow Whitepaper

Brief Description

Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 Workflow solution delivers highly flexible tools like InfoPath Forms Services for data collection and workflow interaction and SharePoint® Designer for easy workflow design and customization including robust out of the box features to enable the rapid deploy solutions across the enterprise.

Overview

Over the last decade, business process management solutions have been gaining considerable momentum as organizations are struggling to maintain consistency and efficiency in executing their core business processes. Workflow for automating formal business processes has been built into enterprise solutions and line-of-business applications, and business process management point solutions have emerged for more comprehensive process management capabilities. Despite these advancements in business process management technologies, workflow and business process management solutions are typically used to address only a small percentage of the work that is done within an enterprise. By focusing exclusively on highly structured business processes designed by a small number of employees, organizations have historically neglected to address and enable the less formal and more iterative work that is completed by the vast majority of employees.

Microsoft has responded to these industry challenges by providing the Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 Workflow solution that delivers highly flexible tools like InfoPath Forms Services for data collection and workflow interaction and SharePoint® Designer for easy workflow design and customization including robust out of the box features to enable the rapid deployment and adoption of business process solutions across the enterprise. By supplementing formalized process execution with collaborative human interaction, employees can work more effectively in the context of the larger goals of the enterprise.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Records Management Whitepaper

Brief Description

Microsoft delivers a records management platform that can be extended to every information worker. By viewing retention and records management as a component of the overall document lifecycle, organizations can reduce risk and improve compliance with increased adoption of records management practices.

Overview

Records management is the practice of identifying, classifying, archiving, preserving, and destroying records according to a set of pre-defined standards. The primary driver behind records management solutions is to reduce risk through improved regulatory and corporate compliance.

Microsoft delivers a records management platform that can be extended to every information worker. By viewing retention and records management as a component of the overall document lifecycle, organizations can reduce risk and improve compliance with increased adoption of records management practices.

SharePoint and Silverlight

Kirk Allen’s blog has a very nice post regarding the hosting of a silverlight application in a web part. Definetely a must read if you want to add Silverlight to your SharePoint environment. I’ll be adding quite a lot of stuff on how to combine SharePoint and Silverlight soon and where it can actually be of value to a customer More on that later.