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I LOVE the ability to view my SharePoint calendars in Outlook right with my Exchange calendars.  This is one of the greatest features ever in my opinion.  The problem now is that I expect to be able to do the same thing on my smartphone devices – but cannot.

Playing with the Windows Phone (pre-Mango) tonight and was hoping to be able to display a SharePoint calendar in my phone’s calendar view.  You’d think if anyone could do it, it should be the MS device but no go. 

Here’s the official post/statement:  http://community.office365.com/en-us/w/sharepoint/527.aspx

Ok.  It’s lame, but Mango isn’t that far out, so we’ll just wait and see. 

To be fair, I haven’t found a way to get this to work on the iPhone/iPad either, though there are a number of 3rd party apps available to assist with access to SharePoint sites.  On the iPad, the screen is big enough to actually navigate to the calendar site itself, which is better than nothing, but I still would like the one-stop-shop available with Outlook. 

Bamboo got close at one point – it looks like a product called MashPoint actually allowed some functionality for ‘real’ SharePoint servers for 2007, but nothing is available for 2010 or the Office 365 solution (sandbox solution).    

If Mango can pull this off – major points to them.  It still won’t solve the problem of my wife wanting to access our family SharePoint calendar on O365 though… Her employer doesn’t allow browser access to O365 – #FAIL. 

I was working on a project where I need to create additional forms for a SharePoint 2010 list. 

The list is a custom list with a number of fields added – nothing fancy (yet). 

I open up SharePoint Designer from the list ribbon and select New form, enter a name and hit OK, only to receive the following error:

“Could not save the list changes to the server.”  This translates into “something happened and we don’t have any more details for you.  Virtually useless. 

There are a lot of posts and forum entries out there for this, many of which were resolved with things like cleaning out the recycle bin.  Not so in my case. 

Just for kicks, I wanted to see if the problem was on my end.  I opened up an Office 365 site I had easy access to and repeated the same process of opening a list, then jumping into SPD from there to add a new form and it worked flawlessly.  So, pointers back to something on the server-side. 

Back to the server.  Next, I tried editing the existing forms.  Normally I like to leave the existing stuff alone, but I was early enough in the process where it wouldn’t make a big difference for me to delete everything and start over if I messed anything up.  Anyhoo – I got another error message:

And clicked “Details”, which gave me the following:

“soap:ServerServer was unable to process request. —> Value does not fall within the expected range.”

This error was more helpful and turned up some better information.  I found the following forum post related to the latest error:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepoint2010customization/thread/aa093ec9-e491-4fdf-b233-a1ba3eba0f75

The URL for my web application was listed as:  “http://servername/”

The URL that I have been using to access the environment looks more like “http://servername.domain.company.com”.  Per the suggestion in the forum post, I added an alternate access mapping of the long name for an intranet zone, refreshed my browser, opened the list in SPD and was able to create a new form. 

Hopefully this post will help someone with the same issue find the resolution more quickly… 

At last week’s SharePoint ShopTalk, the organizer asked me to do a quick overview of SharePoint Online and Office 365 – nothing too formal, just enough to start the conversation.  So, I jotted down some notes, which I threw in to PowerPoint for my own purposes… which evolved into uploading them to the ShopTalk Live Meeting and was then asked to make them available – so I dropped them on SlideShare. 

Now, a few days later they’ve had over 350 views.  I even got a note from Slideshare on Friday that it was ‘trending’ on LinkedIn, so they put a link on the SlideShare homepage.  Neat. 

Kind of cool, though not as crazy as Spence’s Pod Show that had over 500 viewings in the first HOUR.

The recording of the ShopTalk session is now available HERE.  Keep in mind, this isn’t something we did a lot of preparation for, so I’m kind of rambling.  Hopefully someone might find it useful.   

If you’re interested in SharePoint Online and Office 365, check back as I should have a case study for small business posted soon. 

Enjoy the launch tomorrow! 

And another set of interesting links to check out…

First, the latest and greatest from Microsoft on SharePoint:
http://www.iusesharepoint.com

Why are Small Businesses Choosing Office 365 Over Google Apps?
http://blogs.technet.com/b/whymicrosoft/archive/2011/06/21/why-are-small-businesses-choosing-office-365-over-google-apps_3f00_.aspx

Remember Microsoft Tag?  Maybe?  Maybe Not?  It came out years ago, but seems to be making a surge.  I’ve even seen them on plants at Home Depot… 
http://tag.microsoft.com/consumer/index.aspx

I particularly enjoyed this quote:  “If you are implementing a SharePoint initiative with the idea that you will begin with customization, your org will never realize the full benefits of SharePoint”
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/eusp/Pages/SharePoint-for-Nonprofits-Part-III.aspx

Have you visited the SharePoint Pod Show?
http://www.sharepointpodshow.com/

Love this example of Crawl, Walk, Run solutions for BI.  I’d put this in the ‘walk’ category. 
http://sympmarc.com/2011/06/20/one-of-the-most-impressive-web-pages-i-have-ever-seen-in-sharepoint/

Some getting started with Office 365 references:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/devschool/archive/2011/06/05/free-training-kit-for-sharepoint-and-office365.aspx

Very cool wire-framing tool.  There’s also an iPad app that will export to Balsamiq format (From @ruveng)
http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups

Microsoft calls them “Information Workers”.  Interesting article from 1.5 yrs ago…
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1212813

Application Template from MS for Absence Requests and Vacation Schedules:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26212

Nice overview of Office 365
http://www.zimmergren.net/archive/2011/06/12/office-365-part-1-what-is-office-365-and-how-can-my-organization-benefit-from-using-it.aspx

July 6th Webinar coming up… Using SharePoint 2010to create a highly developed Learning Gateway for education:
http://sharepointineducation.com/using-sharepoint-2010-to-create-a-highly-developed-learning-gateway-for-education-free-webinar

List comparisions: Lists, Excel, InfoPath and Access
http://www.sharepointsharon.com/2011/06/managing-data/

A month ago (May 2011), I started a new venture called ‘TrecStone’ -  under which I’ll be doing consulting work, potentially adding other folks to the team down the road.  As you may imagine, I’ll be spending a lot of time in the Microsoft SharePoint space.  More specifically, I’ll be assisting organizations with their SharePoint platform strategy and utilization of out-of-the-box capabilities. 

The short story is that many organizations start their SharePoint implementation with a specific project or goal in mind. Once that solution is in place however, efforts to expand use of the platform tend to fade.  With much of the cost of SharePoint being up-front in hardware, software, training and customizations, it should be a priority for the business to make the most out of the platform they’ve already invested in. Yet, many times the enormous potential of the SharePoint platform remains unfulfilled.  My passion is to help organizations better understand their business needs and how SharePoint’s out-of-the-box capabilities can be aligned with those needs. 

I’m particularly excited about Office 365 entering the marketplace, as it will introduce new users and new use-cases while at the same time removing significant efforts to get started and manage server environments. 

Check back to see how things evolve as we get ramped up:  http://www.trecstone.com

Please let me know how I can help you or your organization!

Background:  One of the challenges we face when talking about SharePoint – any version – is that there are not only several versions, but several products with SharePoint in the name.  It’s not often we confuse SharePoint Workspace or SharePoint Designer for something in Foundation or Server.  However when someone brings up ‘SharePoint’ it is often unclear if they are referring to SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Server – Standard or Enterprise versions.  It may seem like a simple issue, but when someone is talking about SharePoint features or solutions that are part of Enterprise, it’s important to make the distinction so that Foundation users don’t think they can do something they don’t have access to.  The MNSPUG crowd has gotten pretty good at calling this out during presentations, and we are all glad for the distinction. 

Now to the point of this post:  A similar confusion seems to be brewing in the Office 365 space.  There are several versions of Office 365 that have similar, but different feature and capability offerings – with SharePoint Online as well as Exchange Online.  I haven’t seen any differences in Lync Online yet, but I haven’t used it as much as the other two yet.  During the Beta, we’ve been exposed to the Small Business and Enterprise plans, with an Education offering also apparently on the way.  Users need to be aware that when someone is referring to ‘Office 365’ that there can be significant differences between versions. 

Most often when I hear people talking about ‘Office 365’ they are referring to the Enterprise version.  While the Small Business version is certainly capable and appropriate for the target audience, it is definitely different from what is offered in the Enterprise edition. 

One blog site has compiled a list of the feature differences between SharePoint Online in the Small Business Plan vs. the Enterprise Plan.  There are also significant differences in the Exchange management as well, like when setting up forwarding, etc. More information will undoubtedly come out as the platform reaches public status. 

More details on version capabilities and differences will come out.  Just something to keep in mind for the time being. 

Saturday June 11th was the suburban edition of SharePoint Saturday Chicago.  Raymond (@iwkid), Phil (@pjirsa) and I made the trip with a handful of others from Minnesota.

The organizers did a wonderful job and the weather turned out great as well.  Lots of great sessions and speakers.  They also tried some new things, which was cool.  We had a 101 track and a deep dive room in addition to some of the more traditional IT Pro and Developer tracks.  Also in the mix, and well timed – was an Office 365 track.

I was lucky enough to kick off the 101 track.  We started the day aimed at folks who don’t know much, if anything, about SharePoint.  Hopefully this was useful and enough information to get folks started for the rest of the day.  The track was as follows:

• What is SharePoint? (Me)
• Future Proofing your SharePoint Success – Richard Harbridge (@rharbridge)
• Effective Requirements Gathering Workshops – How to organize and run them – Ruven Gotz (@ruveng)
• Ready, Set, ROI: A survey in SharePoint use cases and ROI Calculations – Sarah Haase (@sarahhaase)

Before getting started, my session was also dubbed “the SharePoint session you should send your mom to…”  and someone did. 

The track seemed to go over well.  We had 20-30 people in each session throughout the day.  The intro topic is a little tough for SharePoint Saturday’s because generally the only people that know about SPS events are those that are already in tune with the SharePoint community.  I think there is a LOT more potential for this track/area, but it might require different or additional marketing to get the audience that it’s really targeted at.  Hopefully we can repeat and expand on the 101 track in other events as well.

My slides are available on Slideshare HERE.

In case you don’t already have it on your schedule, the next MVP chat will be next week.  These are helpful and crazy events where folks pepper the MVP panel with questions for an hour with MVPs responding as quickly as they can.  Having seen both sides of the event, it’s crazy, impressive and helpful.  So, if you haven’t participated, give it a shot.  Transcripts are also made available after the event so you can take a breath and go back to see what you may have missed in the dialogue. 

Wednesday June 22nd at 9am PDT / 11am CDT. Visit the MSDN event page:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/aa497438.aspx

Twitter: #spmvpchat

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=218219718208348

Enjoy!

This past weekend (4/30) was the SharePoint Saturday event in St. Louis.  The folks in charge did a wonderful job organizing and bringing in attendees.  We had a beautiful day in St. Louis.  While great weather usually translates into lower attendance, we still had over 170 folks signed in.  Campus was beautiful and the logistics were well organized.  Thanks to all the organizers, which included, but were not limited to: Matt Bremer (@mattbremer), Becky Bertram (@BeckyBertram), JD Wade (@JDWade) and others.

I delivered my SharePoint Lists: Used, Abused and Underappreciated session.  It’s a 100 level session talking about list best practices and constructed around the Best Practices Conference approach. 

Next stop will hopefully be the Chicago SharePoint Saturday event on June 11, though I’ll also be in attendance at the Minnesota SharePoint User Group meetings between now and then. 

Great job guys!  Thanks for the invite and hospitality!

SharePoint Basics: I came across a few sites/links that I really like for explaining and demonstrating some of the basic SharePoint and SharePoint Online basics.  For the most part, much of the content will overlap with SharePoint Online as a part of Office365, though some of the site templates may be different:

Site and List Templates – Todd Baginski
http://www.toddbaginski.com/blog/archive/2009/11/20/which-sharepoint-2010-site-template-is-right-for-me.aspx

Managed Metadata – Myles Jeffery
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2011/03/07/mvps-for-office-365-organize-your-information-better-in-sharepoint-online-office-365-with-managed-metadata.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

And then, just some other stuff:

XMind – Mind-mapping software that I’m looking at since I’m using a iPad based tool.  I’d like something to use on the laptop as well to edit, etc…  http://www.xmind.net/

Proper Sync – I ran into these guys at the St. Louis SharePoint Saturday event last weekend and need to dig into this product to see what it really offers.  http://www.propersync.com/default.aspx

CodePlex: Sandboxed Solutions – Came up in conversation as a potential tool for printing list content.  Could be interesting.  http://sandbox.codeplex.com/

MetaVis Migration tool – Everyone and their brother was tweeting about the free offer for migrating content to 365.  Check out the details here:  http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/metavis-announces-office-365-migration-program-moving-content-sharepoint-online-1507500.htm

Mark Rackley’s Wrap up from St. Louis: Presenting on jQuery
http://www.sharepointhillbilly.com/archive/2011/05/02/sharepoint-saturday-st.-louis-wrap-up.aspx