Book review: Business Intelligence in SharePoint 2010

Business Intelligence in Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 by Norm Warren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a very worthwhile read and reference but it does have a limited audience. That audience is restricted to those with access to the high end version of SharePoint Server 2010. Basically SharePoint Server 2010 will all the options enabled. It is however a very worthwhile reference for the simple reason that there are few books that dive into that level of detail on these high end features of SharePoint Enterprise.

Initially I was going to say that this book focused more on talking about the capabilities of BI (business intelligence) in SharePoint Server but as I got more into the book I found there were more and more hands on examples which made it really great. The only problems with these examples is that they require a high level of product and setup to really take advantage of but they certainly do give insight into what BI is possible with SharePoint especially when combined with SQL server.

This book is therefore great for people looking to understand the high end features of SharePoint Server 2010 (and to some extend Office 365) but it does require an investment in products such as Visio, SQL Reporting and so on that in many cases are not readily obtained or implemented. This is certainly not a book for end users and is more aimed at the IT Professional looking to bring the integration required for BI into the workplace. However, for the IT professional looking to scale up their SharePoint skills to the higher level of product and potentially to the abilities provided by Office 365 this is more than a worthwhile reference for the library.
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Windows Phone Challenge at CES

Yes, I know it is all staged and managed and blah, blah, blah …. BUT what these video continue to indicate to me is:

 

1. Windows Phone is as good if not better as the others

 

2. Microsoft is not in game of bashing the competition. It acknowledges that other brands and models are good as well.

 

This shows me they are truly confident about their product, which they need to be to compete. As I said in a previous post, don’t write Windows Phone off just yet.

 

Take a look at these videos and see what you think:

 

Don’t write Windows Phone off just yet

Many people have completely written off Windows Phone but I’m seeing more and more reason that this might not be such a forgone conclusion. One of the more recent reasons why in my mind was the partnership with Nokia which has resulted in Nokia releasing a whole swag of phones, including the Lumia range. Here’s a video of the new Lumia 900:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Nfh9bl0Z8

 

These phones look pretty nice and are available now I believe in the US. I hope they won’t be long for our shores here in Australia as I reckon they will make a big impact. Sure, Windows Phone still has a mountain to climb to catch up BUT as far as I can see it is moving the right direction and there indications from others in the market that they face major challenges as well.

 

So I wouldn’t write off Windows Phone just yet.

We need to do more marketing

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How many times have I heard that in response to a downturn in income? The problem is that it is generally only going to make things worse because if a business isn’t already marketing then it can’t simply solve its short term cash flows issue but suddenly doing ‘marketing’.

You know what else? Marketing is not making sales, thus marketing alone isn’t going to magically restore the bottom line. In most cases it is going to make a business spend additional money and devote time away from the core parts of their business in the vane hope it will result in more income.

Marketing is something a business should be doing all the time. If you haven’t started then you should immediately and keep doing it no matter what your cash flow situation. Problem is that when many businesses think marketing is only about doing letterbox flyers and sending out ‘buy now’ emails and guess what? The chances of that working are very slim. Don’t believe me? How much junk email and postal mail do you read? Chances are not a lot, so why do the same thing? You could argue that it must work because others are doing to which I’d contend there is HUGE difference between ‘must’ and ‘does’. If you don’t know about something do the research don’t just follow the crowd. Good business is based on fact not here say.

If you want to have effective marketing you firstly need to determine what you are going to offer. That is going to be determined by the customer not by the business. You should be asking, ‘what does my customer need that I can provide?”. If you don’t know then you should do your research up front to find out. At the end of the day you only make money if someone buys what you have to offer. It maybe the best product in the world but if nobody buys it then it no help to your business now is it? Remember the value is in the eye of the customer only!

Now that you have something to offer you also need to ask yourself if someone else is already providing it. If they are how is your offering different? If it isn’t then the only way you’ll compete is on price and that is simply a race to the bottom. You need a USP (a unique selling position). What makes what you offer different or more appealing than everyone else. Focus on that one thing rather than everything else that everyone else does as well.

Studies show that you have to show something to people 6-7 times before it begins to stick. Most businesses that ‘resort’ to marketing to lift their cash flow, try something once, typically fail and then wonder why. This is why it is so important that marketing is an ongoing process and process that occurs through a variety of mediums. But most importantly of all, any marketing that is done needs to have its results MEASURED. How else do you know what works if you don’t measure it?

Why do most small businesses think marketing is a waste of time? Because they don’t see immediate results to their bottom line. That is their only measurement criteria, we did this letterbox drop, did we make more money? No. Therefore marketing is a waste of time. Q.E.D.

The first step in any marketing is to work out what your customer needs that you can potentially supply. Next step is to work out if anyone else can offer the same product. Third, requires tailoring the offering to be as unique as possible. Next you need to keep at it and measure the results and continue to fine tune the offering.

Unfortunately, that is not a quick fix and it requires continued work. However, if you can get the process refined and automated then it can become a very effective tool. Unfortunately, unless you have done the ground work any ‘marketing’ effort is going to be wasted and this is what I unfortunately see as being the case too often.

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Inside Out

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out by Errin O’Connor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A pretty good book on SharePoint Foundation 2010 overall. What distinguishes this book from others is that it deals with some more advanced topics that you normally don’t find in other SharePoint books. These advanced topics include SharePoint Designer and development with Visual Studio.

Have these advanced topics probably makes the book less appealing to those new to SharePoint but is worthwhile for those looking to improve their experience with SharePoint beyond the basics. The books contains plenty of examples and is easy to read. It is also focused specifically on SharePoint Foundation 2010 which makes it different from most generic SharePoint books you find.

All in all a worthwhile read but perhaps more so for that person with an existing exposure to SharePoint who is looking to extend not only the capabilities of SharePoint but also their own experience with the product.
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Office 365 keeps getting better


One of the big advantages I have always seen with Office 365 (or any online service for that fact) is its ability to improve quickly over time. Having the servers in a hosted data centre makes it much quicker and easier to roll out new and updated features over anything that is installed on site.

Here is a list of a few improvements that have been made recently that you may not be aware of:

Maximum number of email recipients has been increased for the P Plan

Previously, those on a P Plan were restricted to only sending to 500 recipients a day via email. This has now been increased, as of the end of December, to 1500 which is the same as for those on the Enterprise plans. Some may still complain that this is unacceptable, even though it is probably more than enough, I reckon this number will be increased further down the track.

Lync online web scheduler now available

On of the frustrating things I found when organizing meetings was that it could only be done via Outlook and only be done by logging into Outlook as a valid Office 365 user. I longed for the old Live meeting days when you could schedule a meeting directly via a web site. Well now you can with Lync after Microsoft announced the availability of the Lync online web scheduler. To organize a meeting now all you need to do is visit https://sched.lync.com.

Health dashboard supports per tenant status

When Office 365 had services issues you could examine the health dashboard to see what was going on. The only problem with that was that the health dashboard was regional. This meant that it only told if something was an issue in the Office 365 region. I did have cases where issues were exhibited with clients and it didn’t shown on the dashboard which was frustrating. However, according to this blog post that has now changed so that the dashboard shows the health information of the specific tenant that it is launched from.

The K plans have been improved

As this post outlines the K Plans (diskless worker) have been improved. This means that K Plans now have a storage limit of 1GB (used to be only 500MB). They now also support activesync, meaning devices like smart phones can be utilized. Also importantly, the ability to apply legal hold and unlimited mailbox storage can be added as an add on to these mailboxes. This greatly improves the flexibility of the K Plans and means that they are more likely to be adopted with an organization since they are so cheap and probably all that most users need.

Office 365 trust center has been updated

If you aren’t already aware you’ll find that Microsoft has created a site dedicated to answering question around the security and privacy of Office 365. You’ll find it at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/trust-center.aspx and is worth remembering so you can refer customers to it who may have concerns about how Microsoft manages and secures their information.

So just a few updates recent from Microsoft on Office 365 but it impressive to see these continue to roll out and improve the product. I expect we’ll see a whole range more in the very near future.

Image: http://carolyncholland2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/smileyfacek.jpg

SharePoint workshop

SharePoint – Beyond the Basics

 

About:

 

To really make the most of SharePoint you need to take it beyond the basics. This means connecting data, creating and utilizing metadata, customizing the look and feel of sites, add web parts and implement workflows. This course will show you how to do all that plus work effectively with products like SharePoint Workspace and designer to take any SharePoint installation from default to a true productivity and communications hub.

 

The aim of this hands on course is to provide you with the technical ability to work with SharePoint at an intermediate to advanced level as well as understand the tools that are required to craft advanced SharePoint solutions.

 

Venue: North Ryde RSL Club, 33 Magdala Rd, North Ryde, NSW 2113

 

Date: Wednesday 22nd of February 2012, from 8.30am – 5.30pm

 

More details and registration at – http://bit.ly/wgsAcW

The difference between P and E

One of the most common questions customers ask about Office 365 is the difference between the P (Small Business and Professional) and the E (Enterprise licenses). Hopefully, this will help.

 

1. P Plans cannot be upgraded to E Plans

 

Probably the most important thing to consider when selecting between P and E Plans. Once you move onto a P Plan the only way to change to another plan is to migrate the data out, cancel the P plan, buy a new plan and migrate the data back.

 

2. P Plans do not support advanced Exchange features

 

The P Plan does not support the following advanced Exchange features:

 

– Unlimited inboxes

– Legal hold

 

3. P Plans are aimed at no more than 25 users

 

The absolute maximum limit for P Plans is 50 users but it is recommended that they don’t exceed 25 users.

 

4. Plans do not support all the advanced SharePoint features

 

P Plans do support the following advanced SharePoint features:

 

– Office Web Apps read/write

– Access Services (for databases in the cloud)

 

P Plans do not support the following advanced SharePoint features:

 

– Form services

– Visio Services

– Excel services

– Encrypted traffic for SharePoint (i.e. all sites are http:// not https://)

– Multiple intranet sites (they have a single site collection only).

– Addition of extra space for SharePoint sites. P Plans only have 10GB to start with + 500MB per user max.

– My site

– Unlimited external (non-Office 365 users). P Plan is limited to 50.

 

5. P Plans do not support identity synchronization

 

P Plans do not provide the ability to link your local user list (Active Directory) to Office 365. Thus, with P Plans you will always have two distinct sets of users, on premises and one in Office 365 that both require maintenance. This typically means with P Plans you need to main 2 sets of user logins and passwords.

 

6. P Plans require DNS moved to Office365

 

DNS is basically a record of where information about Internet servers are located (i.e. web servers, email servers). By default, the P Plans require that these records be moved to and managed by Office 365.

 

7. P Plans only have community support (outside Australia)

 

For regions outside Australia P plans have not support apart form that found on the Internet. In Australia however P Plans are supported by Telstra via phone 24/7.

 

8. P Plans do not allow the management of mail security

 

Exchange Online as part of Office 365 is protected by Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange (FOPE). P Plans do not permit the administration or customization of this. Thus, with P Plans you are unable to set custom email white and black lists, block IP, etc.

 

9. P Plans have lower email receipt limits – limits removed Feb 2012. see – http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2012/02/09/recipient-rate-for-office-365-p-plans-goes-up.aspx

 

P Plans have a reduced amount of email that can be sent per day per user. Limits can be found at:

http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd630704.aspx

with P Plans the limit is basically 500 1500* mail recipients per day. Now *1500 as of the end of December 2011.

 

10. P plans are limited to 50 online meeting participants

 

P Plans have access the Lync client software but are limited to having only 50 participants maximum attend any meeting. Thus, if you are planning to do webcasts to large audience 50 will be the limit with a P Plan.

 

Hope that makes things a little cleare.