Wow! TechEd is over and demo gods were kind and I actually was able to run two complete demos of In-Place upgrade and a Database attach upgrade on stage! As promised to all those who were at my session here are the links and the session slides from “OFS308 SharePoint Upgrade Deep Dive”. Download the session slides for OFS 308 Resources for upgrading. Upgrade Planning Center – IT Professionals > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee517214.aspx Developer Resource Center for upgrading SharePoint 2007 solutions to SharePoint 2010 > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee514557.aspx Upgrading from SharePoint 2003 to 2010 > http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee947141(office.14).aspx Download of the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Hyper-V Virtual Machine (Upgrading from 2003 to 2010) > http://www.microsoft.com/d ...[Read More]

Some eons ago.. I wrote a blog post about the same topic on SharePoint 2007 which still gets a fair few hits and one of the comments on that post recently was asking about SharePoint 2010 databases and why there was so many of them. And incidentally  I was preparing for a talk  on the same topic at the Wellington SQL Server user group so that comment couldn’t have come at a better time. If you are just starting out with learning SharePoint the chances are you will not need to know about SharePoint 2007. So I am going to *try* and not mention anything about 2007 but keep this post only on the topic of SharePoint 2010 and why SP2010 has so many databases. The new and improved architecture of SharePoint 2010 uses a concept called Service Applications. If you are struggling to understand this fundamental concept in SharePoint I suggest y ...[Read More]

A few people have asked me via email about where they should go to learn about SharePoint Foundation 2010 (SharePoint Foundation was formerly Windows SharePoint Services aka WSS). All of the links that are out there directly focus on the full SharePoint 2010 suite and rarely have I seen any SharePoint Foundation 2010 only resources. SharePoint Foundation 2010 as it’s name obviously suggests is the core technology for all of the SharePoint stack. Sure it may not have all the whizzy bang that comes with the ueber versions but implemented well it can be equally useful for your organisation. If you are on a tight budget this is your best option to try out if this kind of technology can be implemented in your organisation. Remember you still need to plan accordingly based on your scenarios you want to use the technology for your business. S ...[Read More]

The biggest SharePoint event to hit New Zealand is only weeks away! If you are still humming and arrhing about getting registered here is my sales pitch to get you registered. I’m a .Net developer/Web Developer I don’t really care about SharePoint.. Well if you are  then you have that attitude you are probably wrong! (Now I don’t want to have a fight on this) but here me out. Over the last two years if you happen to look at Job adverts you will have noticed that one in eight “Developer” positions advertised will have “SharePoint Skills Preferred” or at least a preference given to candidates who are “SharePoint Savvy”. Bottom line is if you are looking to advance your career you will have to learn SharePoint sooner or later. So what’s better than coming to a New Zealand focused SharePoint event so you can talk with these mysterious fol ...[Read More]

WOW! What a conference! Despite ash clouds and travel disruptions the Combined Knowledge team led by Steve Smith put on one of the best conferences that I have attended. I was one of the lucky few to get on a Eurostar train from Paris to London on Friday 16th just before the major travel disruptions started. Our original flight was not due to fly till Friday evening from Paris but I was not about to take any chances so we got next available Train tickets straightaway from Paris to London. That was lucky since some of the other speakers were unfortunately left stranded in parts of Europe. AC @andrewconnell) was in Norway trying to get out. Joel, Paul Swider and Michael Noel was stranded in Dubrovnik. Bob Fox’s plane was turned away half way through from US to London. It was chaos. Steve called a “War Room” session on Saturday (17th) aft ...[Read More]

Via the SharePoint ECM Team. Continuing from my post series about Records Management in SharePoint the following information outlines how SharePoint 2010 provides enhanced eDiscovery. How SharePoint Server 2010 supports eDiscovery There are two parts to eDiscovery in SharePoint Server: finding relevant documents, and restricting what users can do with the documents once they have been identified. A hold is a set of documents that might be produced as part of an eDiscovery request. Within SharePoint Server, you enable or disable the Hold and eDiscovery feature at the level of an individual site. This feature is enabled by default in a Records Center site, and is disabled by default in all other types of sites. The Hold and eDiscovery feature enables you to create and manage holds, to add items to a hold, and to use search to disco ...[Read More]

Continuing on from my last post here are some more details about In-Place Records management in SharePoint 2010. Using a Records archive vs in place records management in SharePoint 2010 In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 you can manage records in an archive, or you can manage records in the same document repository as active documents. With the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 in-place approach, when you declare that a document has become a record, the record remains in place, but Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 now manages it as a record. For example, a document might get a different retention policy when it is declared to be a record, or users might not be able to edit it. Designing for in-place records management with SharePoint 2010 In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 you can manage records in an archive, or you can use ...[Read More]

There is much talk about PRA (Public Records Act) Compliance and it usually comes up in so many conversations that I’ve been having. Lot of the times I get the following question “So is SharePoint 2010 PRA Compliant?” Now for my readers who are NOT from New Zealand go over to NZ Archives site on what PRA compliance guidelines have been set out for NZ [ http://archives.govt.nz/advice/digital-continuity-action-plan ]. In a previous post many moons ago I did an overview on “SharePoint DoD 5015.2 and what it means to New Zealand public agencies who are looking at PRA compliance” . Which was just an overview. You’d also notice that some of my previous links to Archives.govt.nz has changed which I’ve updated as well. (Hmm change.. PRA.. ) This current post is most relevant to anyone who is working in the NZ public sector who are using or pla ...[Read More]