Archive for the ‘Microsoft SharePoint Server’ Category

Webinar - Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Cloud computing is becoming an increasingly popular approach to driving down costs while making the business more nimble. With Microsoft cloud computing, you can:

  • Increase productivity and satisfaction by providing seamless experiences across the PC, Web, and phone and from the data center to the cloud
  • Remain confident that your data and services will be protected and available as you reap the efficiency, cost, and environmental benefits of the cloud

Interested in the potential of cloud computing for your operations? We invite you to join us for a webcasts to learn how our approach enables enterprise-class services, consistent connected experiences, and the power of choice.

Register here - http://www.ishir.com/microsoft-online-services-presentation-23-feb10.htm

Also,
Learn how “City of Carlsbad” uses BPOS to save cost – http://www.ishir.com/v7-case-form.asp?pdf=ISHIR_Case_Study_City_of_Carlsbad

Capabilities of SharePoint Server 2010

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Microsoft SharePoint is composed of a number of products forming different components and offering different functionality. Based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, SharePoint offers a fully functional portal post installation and hosted SharePoint application.

Many organizations have benefited from installing it. It gives a proper basic structure to build a single workspace. Server options include news, topic areas, catalogs, private websites, websites creation, and tools for searching or viewing information, employees, and work groups. SharePoint server can serve up to 1,000,000 end users, who are registered in Active Directory, all at the same time. It also has a capacity of 250 pages per second. The high performance and scalability have prompted many organizations to opt for SharePoint web application services.

Capabilities of SharePoint Server

Collaboration, Enterprise Portal Solutions, Enterprise Search, Enterprise Content Management, Business Process and Forms, Business Intelligence and Licensed for Internet/Extranet

SharePoint 2010 Sites delivers a single infrastructure to provide portal and collaboration capabilities across internet, intranet and extranet. Bring all users together to share information, and knowledgebase across organizations.

SharePoint 2010 Search gives users the ability to find the people, content, and information they need by combining an integrated, with enterprise search technology.

SharePoint 2010 Communities empowers organization to work with people in ways that are most effective for them. Allow employees to collaborate in groups, share knowledge and ideas, connect with colleagues, and find information and experts without difficulty.

SharePoint 2010 Insights enables users to access and act together with information across unstructured and structured data sources. Empower users to discover the right people and expertise to make better and more accurate business decisions.

SharePoint 2010 Content enables users to participate in a governed, compliant content management lifecycle. SharePoint Content makes it possible to skillfully balance user experience with organization policy and business process.

SharePoint Foundation 2010 is made for small business organizations or departments looking for a low-cost entry-level or pilot solution for secure, Web-based portal. Organization can use SharePoint Foundation to coordinate schedules, share, organize documents, and participate in discussions through team workspaces, blogs, wikis, and knowledgebase on the platform that is the underlying infrastructure for SharePoint Server.

SharePoint Designer 2010 is the tool of choice for the rapid development of SharePoint applications. With the help of SharePoint Designer, advanced users and developers can quickly create SharePoint solutions. Expert users can compose no-code solutions that encompass a variety of common scenarios, from collaborative sites and web publishing to line-of-business data integration, business intelligence solutions, and HR workflows. These great solutions leverage the building blocks available in SharePoint in an easy-to-use environment. Additionally, developers can use SharePoint Designer 2010 to get a rapid start on SharePoint development projects.

SharePoint 2010 is The Business Collaboration Platform

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Microsoft SharePoint is becoming ubiquitous. If it isn’t in your organization yet, it most likely will be soon. There are several beneficial reasons for this from an infrastructure and architecture standpoint.

SharePoint 2010 is The Business Collaboration Platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables you to connect & empower people through an integrated and rich set of features that can be deployed as Intranet, Extranet or Internet-facing solutions.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs which can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive enterprise search and content management, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight, whether deployed on-premise or as hosted services,

You can quickly create and manage SharePoint sites that support specific content publishing, enterprise portal solution, records management, or BI needs. You can also conduct effective searches for people and documents; participate in forms-driven business processes; and access and analyze large business data.

From a business perspective, SharePoint 2010 solves the need for a centralized solution that can be used in conjunction with existing software and applications.  By leveraging the BCS, SharePoint 2010 can natively connect to existing sources of information.  With the Multi-tenancy feature, organizations have more control with hosted environments (from the hosting side of things as well as the client side).

As an administrator, this release has made drastic improvements toward a solution that is not only manageable, but one that is easy to maintain.  The integration with Windows PowerShell allows for more administrative control, a more efficient command line, and improves productivity.  The new s makes it easier to locate and configure settings for your environment.  SharePoint 2010 has incorporated more performance controls, logging and reporting options, as well as a much desired improvement on the native disaster-recovery options.  The revamped service applications feature ensures greater flexibility with regards to the shared services being used within the environment.

On the Developer Front, whether the challenge that you are trying to solve is a simple one-off application with a few data tables or the front end for an enterprise solution that drives the organization, SharePoint 2010 and the Office 2010 clients provide the tools you need to manage your data, support your users, and connect the processes. As a developer using SharePoint you are not tied to tediously building interactive edit screens, buried in building architecture, or stymied by building security. Building on the benefits of the SharePoint platform allows you to get more done.

For More information click here to contact SharePoint Development Experts

Why Sharepoint Services are Need For Small Businesses

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Some years ago, Linux was often preferred by most webmasters. Systems running the Microsoft Windows NT4 were critiqued, neglected because of lack of security, and difficulty to administer. According to many, Linux has simplified core, which could be easily reduced to the sole purpose of web hosting, unlike windows.

Listening to those critics, Microsoft launched Windows 2000 server that is not only secure adequately, but also easy to use, even by computer newbies. With the development of Windows 2000, Microsoft offered webmasters (1) a more secure system based on a new core, and (2) an interface like Windows 98, but much easier to be administered. The development of Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server , which is easy to deploy, administer and use . With its familiar graphical interface, it is easy to use. In addition, Windows  SharePoint Server 2003 R2 is secure and reliable.

Converting your file server in a collaboration server - Microsoft SharePoint Services is the ideal platform for creating web sites for information sharing and productivity of teams. It can accommodate thousands of sites within an organization, manages the distribution of charge within a server farm and deployment of databases in cluster.

Small companies have found large gains in the use of SharePoint to address specific business problems with measurable results. In many cases the free version of the software (WSS) is sufficient to provide enormous value, and therefore the cost is very reasonable for the tightest of budgets.

Small businesses find documents and information that is common to all employees or employee groups. Make this content “Self-service”, sending the intranet site.

*Human Resources documents - manuals, employee vacation request forms, employee contact lists, emergency contact lists, etc.

* The files of clients - current contracts, contact information, meeting notes, forms, costs, etc.

* File Operations - reports, accounting files, procedures, contact lists from your suppliers, etc.

Web services easy to find, share and reuse - Windows Server 2003 R2 includes the multi-platform UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) for the establishment of a dynamic and flexible infrastructure for Web services.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Sever (MOSS) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) are vast platforms and thus in-depth product knowledge is inevitable for a successful, optimal yield, full life cycle implementation.

Companies like Ishir Infotech, Catapult system having expertise in Sharepoint Development, have been engaged in implementation and customization of this technology since its inception. Thus over the period of time have we have developed a unique methodology to understand the nuances of client requirements and match that up with best possible corresponding solution, be it with Out of the Box features or custom development.

Improve the protection and availability of documents- With its new restoration function, any user can instantly recover previous versions of their files, without the need of a computer technician.

Rapid Deployment of Applications with the Integrated Web Application Server - The integrated Microsoft. NET is deeply integrated into the operating system Windows Server 2003 R2, enabling the creation of high-performance Web applications without ambiguity.

Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite now for $10 per user per month (new pricing)

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Small and medium enterprises can now subscribe to Microsoft’s e-mail and collaboration solutions online, for $10 per user per month.

All one needs to do is log on to the online services center, add the chosen services that could range from Exchange Online Standard, SharePoint Online Standard, Office Communication Online and Office Live Meeting Standard, to their shopping cart.

Microsoft has announced the commercial availability of the online services offering from prices starting at $2 per user per month for deskless workers. This is something really unique offering from Microsoft for users within the enterprise traditionally neglected by IT departments due to software licensing costs. Deskless workers include people in the shop floor, truck drivers, factory workers, etc. A smaller business can access the suite online and start using it for a monthly subscription whereas mid or large companies can migrate from their legacy systems with the help of partners like ISHIR.

While the standard BPOS suite will cost the $10 per user per month, they could choose individual offerings at the rate of $5 per user per month for Exchange Online, $5.25 per user per month for SharePoint. The subscription fee for Office Communication Online is $2 per month per user and for Office Live Meeting is $4.50 per user per month.  Now there is a cost-effective way for your entire organization to communicate and collaborate.  You can adjust the mix of Standard and Deskless offerings to suit your needs and budgets.

As part of Microsoft Software + Services offering the customers will have the option to use flexible models of accessing enterprise wide software, both on premise and off the internet or a combination of both, at low prices. ISHIR already has over 100 businesses on board in the 30 day trial period. Clients already in trial claim that their businesses can experience increased operational efficiency and the savings could be between 10 and 50 per cent of the information technology costs depending their existing IT costs.

The mid to larger enterprises will now be able to leverage a combination of on premise and on the cloud based solution to bring about efficiencies and cost cutting benefits, not to mention be able to re-purpose their IT resources to more strategic initiatives within the IT organization.

To sign up for a 30 day risk free trial please visit http://www.ishir.com/ishir-microsoft-online-services-bpos-request-free-trial-form.htm

To learn about the services please visit http://www.ishir.com/microsoft-business-productivity-online-suite.htm

Microsoft BPOS Targets Google Apps, Agressively Cuts Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Price

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

Microsoft has agressively cut its per user per month list price for Exchange Online and SharePoint services and cut by 33 percent the price of its Business Productivity Online Services suite of online productivity applications.

The pricing of Microsoft Exchange Online from US $10 per user per month to US $5 for Exchange Online is significant because it brings Microsoft Exchange Online much closer to the price Google charges for its Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) suite that is anchored by Gmail product.

In addition to the price change, Microsoft said allowable mailbox sizes would go from 5GB to 25GB, a move that ups Microsoft’s stake “bottomless” inbox war with other online email providers.

The pricing for Microsoft Sharepoint Online will now cost US $5.25 per from US $7.25 per user per month.

Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) was previously priced at US $15 per user and will now be priced at US $10 per user. This is a very agressive move from Microsoft to further build on the momentum it has gotten from the launch of its Microsoft Online Services offering which entirely driven and demanded by Microsoft clients.

To sign up for a 30 day risk free trial please visit http://www.ishir.com/ishir-microsoft-online-services-bpos-request-free-trial-form.htm

To learn about the services please visit http://www.ishir.com/microsoft-business-productivity-online-suite.htm

Microsoft Unveils New Mission - SharePoint Server 2010

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a product installed on one or more servers that provides the basis for a series of solutions. These solutions, if correctly designed and implemented, help information workers to meet business requirements. Office SharePoint Server 2007 combine several technologies and features that have so far only been offered as separate products in one highly scalable, highly available offering. This combination of technologies has proven very successful, and SharePoint Server 2007 has become one of the most popular offerings in the knowledge support and collaboration markets.

We can summarize the mission of the SharePoint Server 2007 as this: SharePoint technologies are intended to organize the content in your environment and then present that content so it is relevant, and allows users to interact with the content in a dynamic and collaborative manner. It is not designed to meet a specific business objective, but to provide a platform of functionality that users request for many different business reasons. Now, as with all mission statements, this one is very general. To meet this mission, Microsoft launched the public beta of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 which will be available in November, and it will feature an improved developer platform that makes it easier to build rich content and collaboration applications to meet businesses’ needs.

SharePoint Server 2010 will also have enhanced website capabilities that help businesses drive revenue and retain customers on a single platform, according to Microsoft’s announcement at its SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. Additionally, it will feature the choice of on-premises and cloud solutions, giving organizations the flexibility to scale their applications.

SharePoint 2010 is the biggest and most important release of SharePoint to date. When paired with Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010 will transform efficiency by connecting workers across a single collaboration platform for business.”

At the SharePoint Conference, Microsoft showcased the breadth of SharePoint Server 2010, which ranges from wikis to work flows. SharePoint makes it easier to provide enterprise portal solution and  build dynamic websites with its built-in support for rich media such as video, audio and Silverlight. Its new ribbon-based user interface helps end users customize their SharePoint sites easily and be more productive. Also, new web content management features offer built-in accessibility through Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, multilingual support and one-click page layout that let anyone access SharePoint Server sites.

New SharePoint tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 give developers more tools, as well as rich APIs and support for Silverlight, representational state transfer (or REST) and Language-Integrated Query (or LINQ), to help developers rapidly build applications on the SharePoint platform. Business Connectivity Services allow developers to connect capabilities to line-of-business data or web services in SharePoint Server and the Office client.

There are also enterprise features such as Excel Services and InfoPath Forms Services, which make it simple to use, share, secure and manage interactive forms across an organization.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products, which includes Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Visio 2010, that are designed to give people the best productivity experience across PCs, phones and browsers. The public betas of SharePoint Server 2010, Office 2010, Project 2010 and Visio 2010 will be available in November 2009, and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 will be available in the first half of 2010.

Developing Microsoft Sharepoint Applications

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

The Microsoft SharePoint Applications helps architects and developers design, build and customize SharePoint applications that are both flexible and scalable.

SharePoint is a collaborative portal application allowing dashboard-style application components to be composited through the one interface. Often these component interfaces, otherwise known as portlets, are front pages into legacy applications. While users may initiate access to these applications through SharePoint, they are typically driven to the source application. Authentication and identity management are the hidden issues here. You can tailor SharePoint Web Services to fit your organizational needs. You learn to create and enhance new site functionality with hosted SharePoint Features. You also create sophisticated interconnected Web Parts that users can easily integrate with existing Solutions.

The goal of SharePoint portal application and SharePoint portal server is to help customers understand how to develop large scale, content-driven SharePoint applications that extend the value of existing line of business systems.  It essentially focuses on three primary objectives:

  • Large Scale - Show customers how to build a large scale SharePoint application.  This includes guidance on building in the manageability, configuration, migration , integration and performance expected from large scale applications.
  • Content Driven - More advanced SharePoint applications often include many sites and combine custom coded logic with created content.  The guidance demonstrates areas like custom navigation and publishing, composing web parts with published information, and managing a consistent UI.
  • Extend LOB Systems - Customizing SharePoint can aggregate and extend information from Line of Business systems to end users, enhancing structured business process with informal processes through collaboration.  The guidance shows how to integrate security considerations into business services, and demonstrate how to create collaborative sites that help manage business events like incident escalations and order exceptions.

If you are interested in the sharepoint training, development of Applications using Microsoft Sharepoint Services, contact Ishir Infotech, Microsoft Certified Gold Partner and reputed SharePoint Experts and Consultants.

SharePoint Online Standard Capabilities

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

SharePoint Online is offered as a collaboration and communications tool for organization’s Intranets. It offers the following types of functionality.

  • Collaboration
  • Portals
  • Search
  • Content Management
  • Business Process and Forms

In the standard version, we do not get all the functionality that we would if we implemented our own version of SharePoint on premise or if we subscribed to the Dedicated Version. Here’s a look at what we get and don’t get.

Collaboration  -

What we get:

  • Six default site templates (wiki, blog, team site, document workspace, blank, basic meeting) Surveys
  • People and Groups
  • Calendars
  • Issue Tracking
  • Document Collaboration
  • Site Admin templates

What we don’t get:

  • Presence awareness
  • social networking
  • Templates (all meeting templates except basic)
  • Site Templates (My Site, News Site, Internet Presence Site)
  • Templates requiring server side code
  • Server Admin Templates

Portals

What we get:

  • Client Integration
  • SharePoint Designer Integration
  • Audience Targeting to a SharePoint group
  • Portal Site templates
  • Site Manager
  • Site and Document Aggregation
  • Document Rollup Web Part
  • Mobile Device Support

What we don’t get:

  • My Sites
  • Audience targeting to distribution groups or the ability to create audiences
  • Membership web parts
  • User Profiles Import
  • Back and Restore via SP Designer

Content Management

What we get:

  • Document Information and Panel Bar
  • Site Authoring
  • Master Pages, Page Layouts, navigation controls
  • Some retention and auditing policies
  • Three State Workflow and all standard document workflows
  • WYSIWYG Editor
  • Standard Publishing Site Templates: Collaboration and Publishing
  • Site Variations

What we don’t get:

  • Content Staging, Publishing and Deployment
  • Standard enterprise site templates
  • Records repository and legal holds
  • Email content as records

Search

What we get:

  • Search within site collection
  • Security trimmed results
  • Configurable scope

What we don’t get:

  • Cross collection search
  • Enterprise content sources
  • People Search
  • Search Federation
  • Business Data Search

Business Process and Forms

What we get:

  • Form Libraries
  • Custom no-code workflows

What we don’t get:

  • Custom workflows that are coded
  • Browser-based forms
  • SharePoint Server OOTB workflows

Customization Capabilities

Probably one of the most important questions we may have about using SharePoint Online is what can we customize. We can do customizations, but we are limited to customizing only what doesn’t require coding.

SharePoint Designer is the tool to use to customize our SharePoint Online site. With it we can:

  • Create no-code workflows
  • Modify and create master pages, page layouts
  • Create content types and taxonomy
  • Create custom site templates
  • Use the Data Form Web Part to create mashups of SharePoint data or other data brought in using Web Services
  • Create InfoPath Forms - no code allowed

If we are using Visual Studio to build custom web parts, features or workflows, then we don’t want SharePoint Online:

  • No in-line code is allowed, including code in InfoPath Forms or custom coded workflows
  • Can’t create features, site definitions, web parts, solutions - anything that requires something be installed and configured on the server.
  • we also can’t modify SharePoint files, web.config settings or security
  • No custom database modifications
  • No configuration changes that affect the web server or the .NET framework


SharePoint 2010, A Business Collaboration Platform

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Microsoft branded some of its best-selling products to come with the “2010″ stamp. Many of the forthcoming 2010 editions - including Microsoft Office, Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010 which are being positioned as unified communications solutions.

The most awaited among these products is a whole new SharePoint edition called, Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 is the business collaboration platform for the Enterprise & the Web that enables you to connect & empower people through an integrated set of rich features. Whether deployed on-premises or as hosted services, SharePoint 2010 helps you cut costs with a unified infrastructure while allowing you to rapidly respond to your business needs. You can get a sneak peek here.

There’s been a lot of excitement building over SharePoint 2010 in the industry. Some SharePoint 2010 new features are:

New User Interface including new Ribbon
Office 2007 style ribbon interface

Web Edit
Allows users to easily customize a site

Silverlight Web Part
Easy Silverlight solutions into SharePoint

Rich Theming
Few office-style themes, just like in Word and PowerPoint.

Multiple Browser Support
IE 7-8, Firefox and Safari. No news about Chrome and Opera

Visio Services
Lets you share data linked diagrams in real time

SharePoint Designer
Comes with a new UI, improved workflow and improved collaboration between designers

Business Connectivity Services (the evolution of the Business Data Catalog)

SharePoint Workspace
Incorporate offline-online synchronizations

Rich Media Support
No matter what type of rich media you’re using, SharePoint 2010 will make your life easier

IT Professional

Streamlined Central Administration
Way better organized Central Administration site

SharePoint Best Practices Analyzer
Farm health monitoring at its best with “Problems and Solutions” page

Usage Reporting and Logging
Consolidated logging and usage reporting capabilities

Large List Resource Throttling
Performance management of big lists of thousands and millions of items

Unattached Content Database Recovery
Allows temporary use of content databases, useful for recovery and restore purposes

Visual Upgrade
Easy migration from 2007 to 2010 while retaining the 2007 themes and UI

Developer
- Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Tools
- Language Integrated (LINQ) for SharePoint
- Developer Dashboard
- Business Connectivity Services
- Client Object Model (OM)
- Silverlight Web Part