Claims Based Authentication in SharePoint 2013
July 23, 2012
The Web is buzzing with the release of SharePoint 2013 Preview, which was recently announced. Wictor Wilen, a SharePoint certified architect, takes on analysis of the new product with special attention being given to Claims-based authentication mode in his blog entry, “SharePoint 2013: Claims is the New Black.”
Wilen explains how the authentication mode has become less flexible:
Now in SharePoint 2013, Claims-based authentication mode is the default authentication method. You cannot from the web interface create content web applications using Classic mode. If you need to create a Classic web application you need use PowerShell – but you should not do that (unless you have some specific requirement) since Classic mode is now considered deprecated, and will likely be removed in future releases of SharePoint.
Wilen goes on to explain how the SharePoint team has made a number of improvements in Claims-based authentication since it has become the default. Lastly, he lists the next steps that users need to make to keep up with the changes from 2010 to 2013 SharePoint offerings.
For users who need efficient and intuitive enterprise search, but do not have the time to navigate SharePoint’s infrequent and upsetting changes, a third party solution may be a better fit. Check out the award winning Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. With quarterly seamless updates and a more intuitive interface, Fabasoft Mindbreeze might be a more time and cost efficient solution for your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 23, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
IDC Open Source Search Reports Announced
July 23, 2012
IDC has released the first of a series of analyses of open source search vendors. The subject of the report is LucidWords Platform. Lucid Imagination has become one of the key open source search vendors. Data for the IDC “situation overview, future outlook, and essential guidance” is a result of a painstaking process. The IDC research team interviewed principals of Lucid Imagination, conducted a technical analysis of the Lucid technology platform, and used a range of data analysis methods to pinpoint key information from open source content. In addition to detailed, jargon-free information about the Lucid Lucene/Solr approach, the report provides an unvarnished analysis of the firm’s business model.
Order the full report at tp://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=236086.
One of the important facts uncovered in the course of the research is the strong uptake of Lucid technology in specific market sectors. Also, Lucid, unlike some proprietary and other open source search vendors, has strong venture backing, revenue growth, and a full-time professional open source search technology team. Each of these issues is explored in the IDC report number 236086. You can get additional information about the for-fee report from IDC’s “Get Doc” online service.
The team working on this project included Sue Feldman, who specializes in research on information access technologies including, including search engines, text analytics, categorization, unified access to structured and unstructured information, Big Data, visualization, and rich media search. Her research analyzes the trends and dynamics of the search and discovery software market and also quantifies the costs of information work to the organization. Ms. Feldman won IDC’s James Peacock Research award for her work on modeling and forecasting the search and retrieval technology markets, and an Innovation Award from IDC in 2007 for developing a new research program on the digital marketplace. She is a frequent speaker at industry events, and has won several national and international awards for her writing. She wrote the chapter on search engines for the 1999 volume of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science and was the first editor of the IEEE Computer Society’s Digital Library News. She is currently writing a book, The Answer Machine concerning the future of technology for information access. Before coming to IDC in 2000, Ms. Feldman was President for twenty years of Datasearch, an independent technology consulting firm, where she consulted on new retrieval technologies such as natural language processing, search engines, usability of online systems, and digital libraries.
Microsoft Acquires Yammer to Develop Social Business Features for SharePoint
July 20, 2012
Byron Acohido discusses Microsoft’s recent Yammer acquisition in his USAToday.com article, “Microsoft’s Yammer Deal May Cost Too Much, Come Too Late.”
The author comments on the development:
Microsoft has been trying futilely for years to popularize social networking within SharePoint, its collaboration server that comes bundled with versions of its Office productivity suite sold to large businesses. By acquiring Yammer, the software giant is attempting to ‘fill a gap,’ says Wesley Miller, analyst at research firm Directions on Microsoft. Similar to Facebook, Yammer connects users and claims more than 200,000 corporate customers, including Ford, Orbitz Worldwide and 7-Eleven.
Yammer will come onto Microsoft as a new division and David Sacks, a former PayPal exec and Yammer founder, will stay on as CEO. Social business is no doubt becoming a ubiquitous topic in the enterprise search world. To tap into new SharePoint possibilities, consider a third party solution to complete your enterprise search system.
We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Managing director Michael Hadrian explains the Mindbreeze solution:
Fabasoft Folio Cloud enables quick, secure and mobile collaboration both internally and between international companies. Business processes with customers and partners cannot be realized any quicker or more cost effectively…This enables worldwide connected collaboration and secure data exchange in protected team rooms.
For a complete search solution with the power of information pairing, check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, July 20, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
The TREC 2011 Results and Predictive Whatevers
July 20, 2012
Law.com reports “Technology-Assisted Review Boosted in TREC 2011 Results” how technology-assisted review boasts that it may be capable of ousting predictive coding’s title. TREC Legal Track is an annual government sponsored project (2012 was canceled) to examine document review methods. From the 2011 TREC, participants voted in favor of technology-assisted review, but it may have a way to go:
“As such, ‘There is still plenty of room for improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of technology-assisted review efforts, and, in particular, the accuracy of intra-review recall estimation tools, so as to support a reasonable decision that ‘enough is enough’ and to declare the review complete. Commensurate with improvements in review efficiency and effectiveness is the need for improved external evaluation methodologies,’ the report states.”
The 2011 TREC asked participants to test three document review requests, but different from past years the rules were more specific in requirements by having participants rank documents as well as which were the most responsive. The extra requirement meant that researchers were able to test hypothetical situations, but there were some downsides:
“TREC 2011 had its share of controversy. ‘Some participants may have conducted an all-out effort to achieve the best possible results, while others may have conducted experiments to illuminate selected aspects of document review technology. … Efficacy must be interpreted in light of effort,’ the report authors wrote. They noted that six teams devoted 10 or fewer hours for document review during individual rounds, two took 20 hours, one used 48 hours, and one, Recommind, invested 150 hours in one round and 500 in another.”
We noticed this passage in the write up as well:
“`It is inappropriate –- and forbidden by the TREC participation agreement –- to claim that the results presented here show that one participant’s system or approach is generally better than another’s. It is also inappropriate to compare the results of TREC 2011 with the results of past TREC Legal Track exercises, as the test conditions as well as the particular techniques and tools employed by the participating teams are not directly comparable. One TREC 2011 Legal Track participant was barred from future participation in TREC for advertising such invalid comparisons,’ the report states.”
TREC is sensitive to participants who use the data for commercial purposes. We wonder which vendor allegedly stepped over the end line. We also wonder if TREC is breaking out of the slump which traditional indexing seems have relaxed into. Is “predictive” the future of search? We are not sure about the TREC results. We do have an opinion, however. Predictive works in certain situations. For others, there are other, more reliable tools. We also believe that there is a role for humans, particularly when the risks of an algorithm going crazy exist. A goof in placing an ad on a Web page is one thing. An error predicting more significant events? Well, we are more cautious. Marketers are afoot. We prefer the more pragmatic approach of outfits like Ikanow and we avoid the high fliers whom we will not name.
Stephen E Arnold, July 20, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
Developing a Framework for SharePoint Success
July 19, 2012
In “The Art of SharePoint Success: Epilogue – The Call to Action,” Symon Garfield writes his 20th and final installments of the Art of SharePoint Success series. The series explains a framework which aims to ensure long term, measurable return on your SharePoint investment with four elements: governance, strategy, architecture, and transition.
Garfield explains his consulting approach:
Broadly the aim of these engagements is to align SharePoint investments with strategic objectives and deliver a high-level medium term SharePoint roadmap. Depending on the client and their particular strategic lens I call the engagement something along the lines of, ‘Knowledge & Information Management Roadmap,’ ‘Collaboration Strategy,’ ‘SharePoint Roadmap.’…Regardless of the size of the organization, the numbers of people involved, or the size of the budgets, I aim to deliver the engagement in five days of work.
Garfield’s in-depth article may be worth bookmarking if you are in any stage of a SharePoint deployment. And we know budgets are tight and the economy has been shaky for a while. Everyone is taking a close look at dollars coming in and out of the business. The series may be worth a read to help you develop a roadmap for measuring ROI. Consider adding a comprehensive and cost-effective solution to your system for maximum ROI. Mindbreeze snaps seamlessly into the SharePoint system to give your users an enhanced search and navigation experience with secure, reliable, and efficient action. Read more about the solutions at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, July 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Text Analysis and Text Mining Are Powerful Tools
July 19, 2012
Text analysis and mining is one service that many data analytics firms offer their clients. AME Info has the latest news on how “SAS to Add High Performance Text Mining to Its Powerful In-Memory Analytics Software in Q3 2012.” SAS is one of the leading big data analytics companies and soon they will add Hugh-Performance Analytics to their Teradata and EMC Greenplum platforms to perform even more complex big data analytics. The new technology with new text-mining technology will give new insights into unstructured data from emails to social media quicker and more efficiently.
SAS is proud of the advancement:
” ‘High-performance analytics is the most significant SAS technology advance over the last 10 years,’ said Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS. ‘We realized that organizations were accumulating massive amounts of data that could provide answers to questions they could never ask before. The analysis took so long to process, answers were irrelevant by the time the computer spit them out. High-performance analytics provides answers when the information is still useful and leaves time to explore multiple possibilities.’ “
Text analysis is a basic service and many companies are trying to find ways to make their services stand out in the crowd. We suggest that you look at the next generation text analysis vendors; for example, Ikanow.
Whitney Grace, July 19, 2012
Sponsored byIkanow
Now Business Intelligence Is Dead
July 18, 2012
I received a “news item” from Information Enterprise Software, an HTML email distributed by InformationWeek Software. The story was labeled “Commentary.” I did not think that “real” journalists engaged in “commentary.” Isn’t there “real” news out there to “cover” or “make.”
Read the article. Navigate to “If BI Is Dead, What’s Next?” The “commentary” is hooked to an azure chip consultant report called “BI Is Dead! Long Live BI” which costs a modest $250. You can buy this document from Constellation Research here. First, let’s look at the summary of the report and then consider the commentary. I want to wrap up with some blunt talk about analytic baloney which is winging through the air.
Here’s the abstract so get your credit card ready:
We [Constellation Research] suggest a dozen best practices needed to move Business Intelligence (BI) software products into the next decade. While five “elephants” occupy the lion’s share of the market, the real innovation in BI appears to be coming from smaller companies. What is missing from BI today is the ability for business analysts to create their own models in an expressive way. Spreadsheet tools exposed this deficiency in BI a long time ago, but their inherent weakness in data quality, governance and collaboration make them a poor candidate to fill this need. BI is well-positioned to add these features, but must first shed its reliance on fixed-schema data warehouses and read-only reporting modes. Instead, it must provide businesspeople with the tools to quickly and fully develop their models for decision-making.
I like the animal metaphors. I must admit I thought more in terms of baloney, but that’s just an addled goose’s reaction to “real” journalism.
The point is that business intelligence (I really dislike the BI acronym) can do a heck of a lot more. So what’s dead? Excel? Nah. Business intelligence? Nah. A clean break with the past which involved SAS, SPSS, and Cognos type systems? Nah.
Information about point and click business intelligence should be delivered in this type of vehicle. A happy quack to the marketing wizard at Oscar Mayer for the image at http://brentbrown98.hubpages.com/hub/12-of-the-Worst-Sports-Logos-Ever
So what?
Answer: Actually not a darned thing. What this report has going for it is a shocking headline. Sigh.
Now to the “commentary.” Look a pay to play report is okay. The report is a joint work of InformationWeek and the Constellation report. Yep, IDC is one of the outfits involved in the study. The “commentary” is pretty much a commercial. Is this “real” journalism? Nah, it is a reaction to a lousy market for consulting studies and an attempt to breathe controversy into a well known practice area.
Here’s the passage I noted:
We all saw the hand wringing in recent years over BI not living up to its promise, with adoption rates below 20% or even 10% of potential users at many enterprises. But that’s “probably the right level” given the limitations of legacy BI tools, says Raden. I couldn’t agree more, and I’ve previously called for better ease of use, ease of deployment, affordability, and ease of administration. What’s largely missing from the BI landscape, says Raden, is the ability for business users to create their own data models. Modeling is a common practice, used to do what-if simulation and scenario planning. Pricing models, for instance, are used to predict sales and profits if X low-margin product is eliminated in hopes of retaining customers with products A, B, and C.
So what we are learning is that business intelligence systems have to become easier to use. I find this type of dumbing down a little disturbing. Nothing can get a person into more business trouble faster than fiddling around with numbers and not understanding what the implications of a decision are. Whether it is the fancy footwork of a Peregrine or just the crazy US government data about unemployment, a failure to be numerically literature can have big consequences.
Community Comments on Need for Expanded SharePoint Blogging Features
July 18, 2012
In “Never Mind Microblogging, SharePoint Needs to Support Plain Old Blogging,” Chris Wright comments on social features in the SharePoint platform. Wright, founder of the Scribble Agency, shares his hope for the upcoming SharePoint 15 release,
With SharePoint 15 right around the corner we can only hope for some improvements from Microsoft. So what would be nice to see? Scheduling of posts would be a good start. Anyone who writes regularly will know it is often best to do it as and when ideas come to you, not necessarily when you want to publish. Scheduling would really help with this. Plus a dedicated stats component, just for blogging, would be good.
Wright also discusses Microsoft’s recent Yammer acquisition and the potential for the microblogging platform to expand SharePoint blogging features.
An out of the box design that keeps users in mind may not be SharePoint’s strongest characteristic. But it doesn’t take much to customize your farm to work for the masses. Instead of bogging down your SharePoint system with third party applications, save time and money on implementations with one lean solution. It seems the experts at Mindbreeze understand the importance of social business and continue to develop solutions to increase customer satisfaction.
Philip West, July 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Tips for SharePoint Integration from EPC Group Leader
July 17, 2012
Errin O’Connor, Founder and CEO for the SharePoint consultant firm EPC Group, focuses on implementing Microsoft technologies in organizations throughout the United States. In a recent Q & A article, “SharePoint Integration Considerations for Every Exchange Organization,” O’Connor provides some insight into taking full advantage of the SharePoint system, as well as Exchange and Outlook, in your organization.
O’Connor explains some lesser-known ways to use Exchange and Outlook with SharePoint,
SharePoint 2010 supports two-way synchronization. With that comes the ability to email-enable SharePoint lists like calendars, tasks, document libraries, discussion boards and contacts. Of course, you can also create custom alerts for actions taken on said lists. A lot of users don’t always take advantage of the option to manage SharePoint contacts from Outlook and don’t add SharePoint tasks or calendars into Outlook. Of course, we also want users to minimize the number of passwords or applications they interface with on a daily basis.
O’Connor also discusses SharePoint in large versus small companies, and that no matter the organization size, the IT team needs a passionate advocate for SharePoint and improved collaboration. The brief Q & A may be worth the read if you are embarking on increased SharePoint integration.
To increase user adoption, look to save employees’ time by connecting them to the right information via a user-friendly interface. We like the good reviews for the Fabasoft Mindbreeze suite of solutions. With clear navigation and a self-explanatory interface, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise facilitates findability.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
Navigate to http://www.mindbreeze.com/ to read more.
Philip West, July 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Inteltrax: Top Stories, July 16 to July 20
July 16, 2012
Inteltrax, the data fusion and business intelligence information service, captured three key stories germane to search this week, specifically, some breaking news in the industry.
Our story: “Data Mining and Other Issues on Slate at 2012 Joint Statistical Meetings” showed that analytics is rightly on statistic experts’ radar.
“Mike Miller Joins Digital Reasoning as VP of Sales” provided a glimpse into the wisest hiring minds in the business.
“Florida Community Benefits Medically and Financially from Analytics” gives a glimpse at the immediate impact analytics is making on the community level.
News crops up in all areas of analytics, so it’s helpful to have stories wrangled up that might slip through the cracks. We’re here everyday, monitoring just such stories so you don’t have to.
Follow the Inteltrax news stream by visiting www.inteltrax.com
Patrick Roland, Editor, Inteltrax.
July 16, 2012
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