Using Excel Services - some random links

• Extending the Excel Services Programmability Framework
• Developing User Defined Functions for Excel 2007 and Excel Services
• Excel Services Slidedeck from Kristian Kalsing - Brisbane SharePoint User Group
• Excel Services Technical Overview on MSDN. This technical article includes a good introduction to exactly what Excel Services is.
• Creating Custom Solutions with Excel Services on MSDN. Here you can find links to information about the Excel Web Services and how to use them to develop custom applications.

 

tags: sharepoint, sharepoint+2007, moss, office, excel

Windows Live Writer update for Blogger Beta

I just upgraded to Blogger Beta and my Windows Live Writer stopped working - find the Windows Live Writer fix over here ... Worked like a charm for me

tags: blog, blogger, windows+live, live+writer

Forrester Research - ECM market 19% growth rate

Interesting quote - ECM growth outpaces the overall software market - too bad that these reports are always so expensive ;-) ... I guess that SharePoint Server 2007 will take a large cut out of this market.

The market for enterprise content management (ECM) license software will exceed $3.9 billion in 2008, outpacing the overall software market with a forecasted 19% compound annual growth rate. Fueling this growth is recognition by $1 billion-plus companies that ECM is requisite technology for addressing their compliance, governance, and process efficiency needs. As larger infrastructure vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft provide ECM capabilities, the expansion of the ECM market to currently underserved geographies and vertical markets will also drive growth.

tags: ECM, Microsoft

Belux Developer & IT Pro Days - Doing session about InfoPath, SharePoint and workflow

Yes, spring is almost upon us and so are the Dev&IT Pro Days. This year I will be delivering a session about "Working with browser-enabled InfoPath forms and workflows in MOSS 2007" - here's the session abstract

This session will start with highlighting how you can quickly design application user interface (UI) forms with InfoPath 2007 and embed them within a SharePoint application. Afterwards it will show how you can combine these browser-enabled InfoPath forms with the out of the box user-configurable workflow templates in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Finally it will focus on how you can extend the available functionality with SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Workflow Foundation.

Don't miss it - this year there's also a pre-conference scheduled - for more info take a look at the blogs of Tom Mertens and David Bosschmans.

tags: devitprodays, belgium, microsoft, sharepoint, infopath, sharepoint+2007, moss

SharePoint Test Data Load Tool

I noticed a reference to the SharePoint Test Data Load Tool on TechNet in november but I couldn't find the tool itself. Just found this posting from Joel about the SharePoint Test Data Load Tool - apparently it has been released on Codeplex.

tags: Sharepoint, sharepoint+2007, moss, wss3

Office 14 beta 1 in 2008?

Interesting post on AreoXP about Office 14 -  which states that we can expect Beta1 to reach us in 2008.  Also see this quote from TechNet Radio with Eric Vigesaa:

Michael: So now that Office 2007 has RTMd you are taking a vacation?

Eric: I actually am taking a vacation for two weeks and then, it may sound strange but the next version of Office is already in the planning stages, we want to make sure that our IT perspective and apps are represented in the new product focus and offerings so we’re going to be very involved with that.

Michael: So that’s Office 13 in development huh?

Eric: Well, 13 is unlucky so we’re calling it Office 14.

tags: office14, office

InfoPath 2007 developer reference

I was actually looking for the InfoPath 2007 SDK but I could not find - but I did fin the InfoPath Developer Reference for Managed Code which provides some nice info as well.

tags: infopath, office, infopath+2007, sdk

SharePoint 2007 - The Definitive Guide

The past couple of weeks I have been working as a co-author on a book for O'Reilly - SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide . The book will only appear June 8, 2007 but you can already preorder it on Amazon.

tags: moss, sharepoint+2007, sharepoint, wss, office, book

SharePoint Application templates available

Lawrence already mentionned it about a week ago - 20 of the Fantastic 40 Application Templates have been released . Download them all here all . There are also a couple of role based templates for MOSS 2007 My Sites - 2 of them are already available as well:

• Sales Account Manager - The Sales Account Manager template helps managers streamline the process of analysis of sales and opportunity information for their overall decision making. The template assists in customer account tracking against a set of performance metrics, such as quarterly revenue, growth and opportunity. It also provides a graphical view of the geographical distribution of product sales and opportunities. The objective of this Role-Based My Site Template is to help the Sales Manager attain their goals of customer satisfaction and revenue augmentation. 
• Controller/Financial Analyst - The Controller / Financial Analyst template helps Controllers to automate the process of analyzing financial data and information, helping them in their overall decision making process. The template assists in tracking top performing products and opportunities at different geography levels. It also provides a graphical view of product sales and revenue. The objective design of this Role-Based My Site Template is to help the Controller achieve their goals of communicating overall corporate performance, budget and future growth projection to the management, investors and other stakeholders.

tags: sharepoint, moss, wss, mos, sharepoint+2007

MSDN Community Content - Runwithelevatedprivileges example

Did you know that you can now add your own community content to the MSDN pages? Well for an excellent example take a look at the page about Runwithelevated privileges where Daniel added his own content - Elevation of Privilege.

 

tags: sharepoint, sharepoint+2007, msdn, community

Moving from Notes to SharePoint/Exchange

Microsoft has recently released  a public beta of new utility suite which will assist in doing a move from Notes/Domino platform to SharePoint Server 2007/Exchange - Microsoft Transporter Suite for Domino - available on http://connect.microsoft.com - the next snippet is taken from the Connect site:

The Microsoft Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino is an integrated set of tools and resources for planning, coexistence and migration, including;

· Application Planning: Application Reports

· Directory Coexistence: *NEW: Directory Connector for Lotus Domino

· Messaging Coexistence: Native SMTP and iCal

· Free/Busy Coexistence: *UPDATED: Free/Busy Connector for Lotus Domino

· Directory Migration: *NEW: Domino account migration to Active Directory

· Mailbox Migration: *NEW: Mailbox migration to Exchange 2007

· Application Migration: *NEW: Application migration to SharePoint 2007

All this functionality is combined into a single management console making it easy to manage. In addition, everything is exposed through a set of PowerShell tasks and objects that will make it extremely easy to automate and script the migration process. This will be a huge benefit for anyone who must perform large migrations or repeat the migration many times.

Parts of the code of the Microsoft Transporter Suite for Notes has been developed by  Proposion,  a company which offers also other migration tools. One goal of this offering is to analyze existing Domino applications and assess how difficult they will be to move to Microsoft's stack, namely Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 foundation, Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2007.

To get an overview of the available functionality taka a look at the video - Transporter Suite Video (290 MB)

tags: sharepoint+2007, migration, notes, exchange, domino, lotus, sharepoint, MOSS

Free SharePoint 2007 at WebCentral

It seems that you can try out the new SharePoint 2007 at WebCentral - click here to try it out untill march 2007.

tags: sharepoint, sharepoint+2007, sharepoint2007

BIWUG on Workflows in MOSS2007

I know, we haven't been very active the last couple of months but one of our New Years resolutions was more BIWUG sessions for Belgian Information workers. We are starting next thursday (februrary 8th) at 18:30 where we will cover the new workflow capabilities in SharePoint Server 2007.

 

WORKFLOW IN MOSS 2007
18:30 Welcome and Introduction
18:45 MOSS Commercial perspectives
19:15 AgilePoint
19:45 break
20:00 MOSS 2007 Workflow

Register on the  BIWUG web site - first register for general membership (it is free) and afterwards use the Register for next event link. The session will be hold in the Microsoft Belux offices in Diegem.

tags: office, office2007, sharepoint, sharepoint2007, moss, workflow, biwug, sharepoint+2007