A much anticipated and awaited information portal SharepointPedia goes live.  So what is Sharepointpedia. It’s basically a source of information for Sharepointers and is based on MOSS. It is meant to be a catalog of information and content on the web that is related to Sharepoint. You can direct other people to sharepoint related websites and blogs. You need to have a windows live ID to contribute content to this portal.

A lot of my friends and MOSS consultants ask for the steps needed to create an enterprise level document management site. Most of them do not agree when I ask them to start thinking about content types first. This sounds weird for them as the normal roadmap of creating a doc management site would be to create  document libraries and then to add documents to those libraries but for me that’s just ordinary.

Even before the introduction of content types by MOSS, it was obvious that you must first analyze the type, content and behavior of your documents and data before even starting to get your feet wet with a DMS. After the implementation of content-types and the incorporation of workflows and metadata with those content types, life is a bit easier for system analysts and consultants who are in the process of DMS analysis. I would recommend the following sequence of steps for you and please comment if there is a disagreement

• Think of the content types
• Think of the broad document document categories
• Think of the metadata and behavior of each document category
• Think of possible content in each category
• Think of permissions and policies in each category.

It is obvious that once you are done with this planning and the document management plan is ready, you can easily map these to MOSS content types, document libraries, versioning strategies, information rights management policies and workflow.

A lot of sharepointers are mesmerized while making the choice between site collections, top level sites and subsites. While I have discussed in my previous blogs about the guidelines of when to use site collections and when to use subsites, I will advise my friends to view the planning roadmap for sites and subsites on the Microsoft official website.

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/21dcf8aa-8a6e-4325-aa17-0188e491361c1033.mspx?mfr=true

Microsoft recently created chain of content for end-users as part of the program Everyday Productivity Education (EPE). These customizable productivity aids were built for MS products so that employees can make best use of the technology. They also contain content specific to SharePoint products and technologies specially in the context of improving productivity in an intranet culture.

The details can be found at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687781.aspx

Business Data Catalog is a feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that allows integration of LOB applications with MOSS. For those who have worked or tried to work with BDC know that the most time consuming part is writing the application definition file. Application definition is done through an XML file that describes the metadata of entities to be retrieved from the LOB system.

Microsoft recently released a tool called Microsoft BDC Definition editor which facilitates creation of this file through a wizard. This  tool has been released as part of the MOSS SDK 1.2 release (Aug 2007). To download the tool and learn more about it, please read the following MSDN article:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb736296.aspx

Recently, I saw many how-to posts on forums where people asked for custom formatting of alert emails in MOSS 2007. I thought sharing it here will be a good idea.

SharePoint maintains the alert configuration in AlertTemplate.xml which can be found in the <12 hive>\XML folder.

In this file, there are <AlertTemplate> elements for each specific list type i.e. Document Library, News, Announcements etc. There is also an <AlertTemplate> section with type <SPAlertTemplate.GenericList>. This can be used to apply settings to all the lists.

To change the format of emails, one should update the <Format> Element of the specific list type.

To publish the changed file to Sharepoint, use the ever useful command STSADM

stsadm -o updatealerttemplates -url

Hi there, those who have been following me might know that I am in Dubai. No blogs posted for sometime but now I am back and will be coming with nice things soon. So keep your finger crossed:)

Microsoft recently released the SDK for WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007. Here is the brief overview of both and also the relevant links.

 WSS 3.0 SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05e0dd12-8394-402b-8936-a07fe8afaffd&displaylang=en

Overview

The Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on Windows SharePoint Services as a platform. The SDK includes information about the following technologies:

• Web Part Framework   Create, package, and deploy Web Parts on SharePoint sites.
• Server-side object model   Work with individual lists and sites or manage an entire Windows SharePoint Services deployment.
• Web services   Use default Web services, or create custom Web services, to interact with Windows SharePoint Services from external applications.
• Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML)   Customize the schemas that define lists and sites, define queries for use with members of the object model or Web services, and specify parameters for use with methods in Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol.
• Master Pages   Specify all of the shared elements of your site in the master page or pages, and add content page-specific elements to content pages.
• Workflows   Create workflows that encapsulate business processes to be performed on items in Windows SharePoint Services, and attach those workflows to items in Windows SharePoint Services.
• Custom Field Types   Create custom field types that conform to your business data. These custom field types can be based on the base field types already included in Windows SharePoint Services, and can include custom data validation, field rendering, and field property rendering and processing.
• Information Rights Management (IRM)   Specify IRM for files located in document libraries and stored as attachments to list items. Create IRM protectors for your own custom file types.
• Document Property Promotion and Demotion   Use the built-in XML parser to synchronize the document properties and list column data for XML documents. Create document parsers to do the same for your custom file types.
• Search   Use the new Query object model and Query Web service to retrieve search results. Search in Windows SharePoint Services now shares the same SharePoint search technology used by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Also included is the Workflow Developer Starter Kit for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which helps solution providers, independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and other developers write custom workflows for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. It contains the following:

• Visual Studio Project Templates
  • Sequential Workflow Library
  • State Machine Workflow Library
• Sample Custom Workflow
  • Simple Collect Feedback using ASPX forms

MOSS SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6d94e307-67d9-41ac-b2d6-0074d6286fa9&displaylang=en

Overview

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK is designed for solution providers, independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and other developers to learn about the new Office SharePoint Server 2007 enterprise application and platform. It features conceptual and “How to” articles, sample code, and programming references.

The download file OfficeServerSDK.exe provided for the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK contains the following:

• Compiled HTML Help files (updated with new content since RTM), OSSSDK2007.chm and WSS3sdk.chm, which contain conceptual topics, Class Library and Web Service References for SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
• Code samples that relate to topics in the SDK: Business Data Catalog metadata samples, Custom Single Sign-On Provider, SampleWebService, and Custom Filter Web Parts. The sample projects use Microsoft Visual C# and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
• Enterprise Content Management Starter Kit.

Also included in the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK, the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Starter Kit is designed for solution providers, independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and other developers to learn about how to extend the new ECM features and platform in Office SharePoint Server 2007. It contains the following:

White Papers

• 2007 Office System Digital Signatures Developers Guide
• 2007 Office System Encryption Developers Guide
• Information Rights Management – Pluggable Rights Management, Technical Overview
• Importing Custom Actions into SharePoint Designer
• Workflow Security Topics

Code Samples

• Content Processing
  • Term Replacement Document Inspector Module
  • Document Converters (server-side custom property remover, docm-to-docx converter)
• Records Management and Policy
  • De-Duplication Router
  • Document Integrity Verifier
  • Records Repository Web Service Console Application
  • Search, Collect, and Hold Tool
  • Default Site Policy
• Workflow
  Note: The following workflow samples are meant to demonstrate concepts and provide a starting point for extension. They are not the same workflows that are included with Office SharePoint Server 2007.
  • Custom Reports
  • ECM Activities
  • List Item Activities
  • Hello World Sequential Workflow
  • State Based Approval Workflow
  • Modification Workflow
  • Replication and Contact Selector Workflow
  • Intersystem Purchase Order
  • Confidential Approval
  • Group Approval
  • Review Workflows
  • Collect Feedback Workflow
  • Multi-Stage Workflow
  • Server-side Collect Signatures Workflow

Visual Studio Project Templates for SharePoint Server 2007 workflow

• SharePoint Server Sequential Workflow Library
• SharePoint Server State Machine Workflow Library

Windows Workflow Foundation is the new and innovative framework for workflow applications to be developed in upcoming years. It is based on XML based language called XOML which is commonly used for declaring a workflow. The building blocks for Workflows based on WWF are called activities. Windows Workflow Foundation is one of the three components that make up the WinFX framework

KalSoft – A renowned development and consultancy firm has taken a step ahead. They have developed a Workflow solution named DeXpert based on WWF along with BPR capabilities. Having a great attractive user interface based on Windows Presentation Foundation, this product branches in two ways. One, you can use the Workflow Designer to design complex business workdflows without writing a single line of code. An Organization Chart designer enables dynamic mapping of roles and users. The second branch involves simulation of the designed process based on user inputs in order to find out bottlenecks and ineffeciencies in the process. To conclude,  this product is a true testimonial of Microsoft’s approach towards partner enablement.

I recently was invited for evaluation of final year projects at Open House 2007 in FAST NUCES. Open House is a demonstration of final year projects to examiners who belong to the software industry. This is an excellent step in my opininon as students get a touch of industry and meet professionals. In addition, the final year projects for which they put a lot of efforts, these projects can then be evaluated by professionals who can assess the project work and also suggest future changes/ enhancements for these projects.

I along with few other colleagues Wajahat and Nawaz reached FAST at about 10:30 AM and evaluated two projects.

Flowchart to Code Generator

This was a project developed for newbie developers to help them design flowchart instead of writing the code first. The application converts the flowchart to code. It first generates IL code in PASCAL and then generates the final C++ code. This, again was a good effort by students Umair Khan, Hussain Jaffer and Saad Usmani. There were a few things missing though, related to design and implementation. The project abstract can be found here

Electronic Edification

This was a sort of e-learning solution developed by three girls named Mehwish Ali, Mehwish Aziz and Munazzah. It was a good effort comprising an administrative application for admin, teachers and students for registration and activation of courses. It also had webcast facility for delivering lectures. They produced good documentation but could not implement the design properly and this was the advice from us (examiners) to limit the scope but concentrate on good design. The project abstract can be found here 

Overall, it was a good day and we enjoyed meeting with students, teachers and of course, a heavy rain afterwards.