SharePoint Conference-Day 4

Final day of the conference and the information still keeps coming. The first session of the day started off with a look into Access Services and how to develop solutions that will run on Office 365. It is really impressive to see how easily you can move applications from Access to the cloud.

The great part about this for smaller businesses is that Access Services comes with the P license (which I don’t generally recommend) and the E3 license. It demonstrates how much additional functionality a small business can get if they move to Office 365 as trying to implement the same functionality on site is simply too expensive.

Next up was another fantastic presentation on Excel services and what can be achieved here. I was amazed at how little effort is required to get a really powerful dashboard that includes pivot tables, slices, interactive graphs and more. The presenter even showed some of functionality of Excel from Skydrive including how to embed Excel spreadsheets on just about any web page. Really, really impressive stuff that inspired me to return and implement something similar.

Although it was a significant cost to attend and although the majority of the content at the conference was focused on the enterprise I’m glad that I attended. There is just so much around this product as I have said before. There is simply so much opportunity, even in the SMB space., even more so going forward with the move to Office 365.

Perhaps the most exciting thing is what Microsoft have planned to bring to Office 365 in the future and all of that will be available to all subscribers, big and small. Now I need to start reviewing al the other sessions I wasn’t able to attend but are available on the conference we site. Certainly can’t complain about the ongoing value of this conference. I’m sure it’ll keep me busy for at least another 12 months.

SharePoint Conference–Day 2 and 3

Phew, it’s been a hectic 2 days full of SharePoint goodness. Most of the content is aimed at enterprise types but is becoming more relevant with Office 365 (which provides enterprise SharePoint in the cloud).

I also finally managed to spend some time with all the vendors who are also here and must say that I found plenty of opportunities. Again, most are focused on the enterprise with enterprise level pricing but there are also a few option here that would suite SMB. I’ll need to spend some time digesting all this information before I post my findings.

After Day 2 we also had the opportunity to attend Disneyland (which closed off for everyone except the SharePoint conference attendees). Most of the rides were open, there was free food and drink which everyone took advantage of. It was a good time.

While I am here I also took the opportunity to sit the Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Configuring (70-667) exam. I am also please to report that I passed the exam and now have a SharePoint 2010 competency under my belt.

The event has been jammed packed with information and I realize now how much more there is to SharePoint and what an opportunity it presents. From configuring, to administering, implementation and development, there is just so much to this product.

Tomorrow is the final half day of the conference and then it’ll be over for another year. They have announced the one next year will be in Las Vegas in November. Roll on 2012!

SharePoint conference–Day 1

If you want an idea of just how BIG this conference is check out the dining hall or the keynote address attendance.

There are over 7,500 attendees here for 4 days of SharePoint.

The day started early with breakfast followed by the keynote. No major reveals but some nice additions coming along the track.

From there it was into a number of sessions including information about SharePoint Online, Business Intelligence Dashboards and improved productivity. All extremely worthwhile.

An even bigger day tomorrow with a full day of session followed by a party in Disneyland. Obviously Mickey must be a big SharePoint user to throw open his park (free) to all attendees!

CIAOPS SharePoint bootcamp comes to Melbourne

I am proud to announce that the next full day CIAOPS SharePoint bootcamp will be held in Melbourne, VIC. Here are the details:

Date: Thursday 27th of October 2011

Time: 8.30am – 5.30pm

Location: St Kilda Road Parkview Hotel, 562 St Kilda Rd Melbourne VIC 3004

Registration and details: http://www.ciaops.com/bootcampmel

There will be a limit on the number of attendees and demand is expected to be high. Don’t forget that all attendees also get a 12 months subscription to my SharePoint Guide (www.wssops.com) as well an external USB3 hard disk full of information, files and virtual machine images used during the course.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Office Web Apps coming to Exchange Online

Office Web Apps provides you an online preview of documents created by Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This is available with SharePoint Online as part of Office 365. Exchange Online will soon be enabling Office Web Apps as well.

This is one of the major benefits of a cloud offering like Office 365, new features become available and are automatically rolled out.

I’m looking forward to bringing you details of how this works.

Optimizing Windows SharePoint v3 Search book

I’ve decided to re-release my “Windows SharePoint Master Class:Optimizing Search” e-book given that SharePoint Foundation 2010 is now available. Here’s the description:

This book is designed for those that want to take Windows SharePoint Services v 3.0 Search beyond the default. Did you know that Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 could index the contents of Adobe Acrobat documents and TIFF files? It normally can’t do either of these by default but the information inside this book will show you how to that and more. You’ll learn how to configure Search Server Express 2008 (free from Microsoft) to index information beyond SharePoint sites including Exchange Public folders, web sites and network shares. Implemented correctly Search Server Express can provide you the power of an internal search engine allowing you to make better and faster use of your digital information. If you want to make the most of Windows SharePoint Services then this book is for you.

I’ve made the price only $2.99 now so if you want a copy visit:

http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/windows-sharepoint-master-classoptimizing-search/16967915

I plan to release an updated version focusing on SharePoint Foundation 2010 real soon.

Feature must be activated

Installing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) onto a Windows Server 2008 R2 all went fine but when I attempted to create a Collaboration Portal site collection I was greet by the message:

The Office SharePoint Server Standard Web application features feature must be activated at the web application level before this feature can be activated.

After trying a few things I came across this:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadmin/thread/8b96663a-ed87-4ab4-bd59-33c7245a76d4

which basically confirms the issue and attributes it to the MOSS setup configuring IIS on Windows Server 2008 R2 incorrectly.

The solution? Re-install MOSS, only this time manually configure IIS before running the MOSS installation OR simply re-apply MOSS Service Pack 2.

Once I reapplied the service pack I could create the Collaboration Portal site collection.

Failed to create configuration database for MOSS

Working with a test Windows 2008 R2 server with SQL 2008 R2 installed, onto which I was trying to install Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). Every time I tried I get the error:

“Failed to created the configuration database”

during the setup and configuration wizard.

However, when I looked in the SQL manager the configuration database was there.

Tried many, many things thinking it was a software compatibility issue with Windows Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2008 R2. Nope, not those those applications BUT I also had Office 2010 installed on the machine (since I was using it as a stand alone demo).

Problem turned out to be Office 2010, which I uninstalled and everything then worked fine.

Today’s lesson = MOSS and Office 2010 don’t work together on same machine.