SharePoint 4 Biz - Saving Office Documents Directly to SharePoint

One of the quick options to save Office documents (such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint) to SharePoint is as follows:

1. Go to the SharePoint Web site, open the document library that you want to save your document to and copy the library URL to the Clipboard (Ctrl+C):

2. In the Office application - i.e. Excel - on document Save, paste the URL of the document library into the "File name" box of the file save dialog:

Click "Save" button.

3. In the appeared document library browser just click "Save" to save the document into the library directly or choose a folder within the library and then click "Save":

That's it.

#SharePoint 2013 Workshop

Facilitated another workshop with Ark Group today. This time it was Best Practice SharePoint Intranets 2013.

Great audience, interactive conversations and high level event organisation - as usual!

Moments during preparation before it started:

Data Quality APAC

Have facilitated a SharePoint and Data Quality workshop today for Ark Group @ Data Quality 2013 Asia Pacific Congress.
As usual - awesome audience and event organisation!

Google search for SharePoint training sydney

On Google page 1 search results for "sharepoint training sydney architecture" - a colleague has pointed out today :)

Office for Windows Vs Office for Mac

I have been using Office for Mac 2011 for a couple of years so far.
It is missing some features that I'd like to have in comparison to the proper Office suite for Windows.
But it is alright for daily office related tasks.

However, today something very interesting was brought to my attention. I suddenly looked at the file size change after I opened the files in Office for Windows (Word 2007 to be precise) that were created in Office for Mac, changed two sentences in one file and one word in another and saved both:

1. Files created on Mac

2. Same files saved in Office after very insignificant update

So the Windows version of Office compress the files more efficiently.
Something to consider when you choose the working platform.

SharePoint 2013 Development and Consulting - Laptop & Conferencing Experience with Lync

Have just jumped on a brand new SharePoint 2013 massive Intranet project and because of specific working conditions have found some items that required addressing almost immediately in order to continue the job.

Maybe this will be interesting to someone else who is about to start SharePoint 2013 development to have an idea of what might be necessary.

I started working with SharePoint using my own infrastructure in 2009. I used iMac with 320GB HDD and 4GB RAM running VMWare Fusion to virtualise Windows environment (SQL Server 2008, standalone SharePoint 2007, Visual Studio 2008, Office 2007).
It was all-in-one virtual machine. A bit slow, but enough for any SharePoint work that I had at that time.

For communication with colleagues and partners we used GoToMeeting. Great tool that worked (and still works) without any problems. Voice, video, screen-sharing - all worked well using built-in audio/video hardware.

In 2010 I got a MacBook Pro with 500GB HDD and 8GB RAM. Same VMWare Fusion to run SharePoint 2010 farm - Web Server, SQL Server and Domain Controller.
Office for Mac 2011 was installed and I used it very often for work and presentations.
GoToMeeting and Skype have been used for conferencing without any problems.

So up to now I have been very well with Apple infrastructure and OS which allowed my to work, test SharePoint stuff on Mac, present, communicate etc.
But here came SharePoint 2013.

From the very first look at the requirements it became obvious that even 16GB wouldn't be enough on the machine for comfortable run of SharePoint/Office development environment. I created a 6GB RAM virtual machine with all-in-one installation of SQL, SharePoint, Office and Visual Studio, but it is incredibly slow.
So it appears that Apple can't help anymore with the laptop that would hold more than 16GB of RAM.

But it's not the only problem. Second issue I faced was Lync. Specifically conferencing using Lync on a MacBook is an issue.
First, Lync conference call application couldn't pick up the audio properly. My peers couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear them.
Second, I wasn't able to type in the call dialog. I suspect that's the problem with Silverlight. I could type in text editor and then paste into the chat dialog window, but it's not the best way of communicating.

I had no idea about those limitations before and it took some time during the conference call to try and figure out the fix. By chance I got a separate laptop with me that had Windows 7 installed. I quickly fired it up, executed the meeting invite - same problem with audio, but i could type in the dialog that time.
15-20 minutes of the conference were spent trying to make the things just work.

I know that other alternatives could be used, but my peers have got a requirement to use Office 365 and Lync for communication.

So the solution is to get: 24+ GB RAM environment, Windows 8, Lync client and USB headset to use with it for communication.    

Here's what I have got at the end: http://traveloga.blogspot.com/2013/01/work-laptop.html
 

SharePoint 2013 - Setting Up External Content Type

There were earlier posts where we discussed External Content Types setup for SharePoint 2010:

Setting up External Content Type for SQL Server database using SQL Server authentication - SharePoint 2010 Foundation

External Content Types - Reload - Setting up for SQL Server database using SQL Server authentication - SharePoint 2010 Server

This one is about creating connection to the custom SQL Server database (External System) in SharePoint 2013.

1. Create Secure Store Service Target Application

1.1. Go to Central Administration -> Manage Service Applications -> Secure Store Service Application. Click "Generate New Key" if required:

1.2. Provide Pass Phrase:

1.3. Create "New" to create new Target Application:

1.4. Provide the name and other parameters and click "Next":

Note: It's good idea to specify "Group" for Target Application Type. In that case you would be able to manage access to the external data using Active Directory groups rather that individual user accounts.

1.5. Provide fields that are going to be used in this Secure Store Target Application. In my case it is just Windows User Name and Password fields:

1.6. Specify Administrators:

1.7. Set credentials for the newly created Secure Store Target Application:

Now we are ready to create new External Content Type to work with custom external data.

2. Creating External Content Type using SharePoint Designer 2013

2.1. Open SharePoint Designer -> Open Site -> External Content Types -> New External Content Type:

2.2. Provide the name and click External System link to specify external data parameters:

2.3. Click "Add Connection" button:

2.4. The choices are "SQL Server", "WCF Service" and "NET. Type":

We are selecting "SQL Server" in our case.

2.5. Specify data connection properties. Select "Connect with Impersonated Custom Identity" and provide the name of Secure Store Target Application name that was created earlier:

2.6. Specify the table, view or stored procedure that will be used in External Content Type and generate the necessary actions:

2.6.1.

2.6.2.

2.6.3. Select the field which will be used as identifier:

2.6.4. Specify filters if required:

2.6.5. Done:

2.7. Set the Title:

2.8. Set up permissions to manage and execute External Content Type. Go to Central Administration -> Manage Service Applications -> Business Connectivity Service Application:

2.9. Select the newly created External Content Type and click "Set Object Permissions" button for individual object or click "Set Metadata Store Permissions" to apply permissions to all objects:

Note: In order to use External Content Type in SharePoint as end user the "Execute" and "Selectable In Clients" permissions level is enough.

Now we are ready to use the new External Content Type on our SharePoint site.

3. Create an External List if necessary.

3.1. Select External Content Type in SharePoint Designer and click "Create Lists & Form" button:

3.2. Specify the list name and select an option to create InfoPath Form if necessary:

Done.

Stay tuned for more fun with SharePoint 2013.