Understanding Search Features Available in Out of the Box SharePoint
June 20, 2012
In “SharePoint 2010 Search: Relevance, Refinement, People,” Jennifer Mason takes a closer look at powerful search features available in SharePoint to help you locate and access the data and content you’ve added to the farm. Mason explains her approach to the topic:
Search is everywhere, and SharePoint is no exception. By providing your users with a way to easily find their content you are able to greatly increase the usability and user adoption within your organization. This article will highlight the specific ways that SharePoint search enhances your environment.
She also explains basic content and people search options in out-of-the-box SharePoint that can be a big help to many users. But she also points out that any advanced and higher level search functionality that can make the search and navigation experience better for your users lies in the type of licensing you have and if you choose to invest in implementing FAST Search Server for SharePoint.
Mason goes on to comment on search strategies:
In most organizations a Search strategy is developed that includes information on what content sources need to be created as well as what scopes should be implemented. A good practice is to also have a primary resource that is responsible for reviewing the Search Analytics reports and taking steps to provide continuous improvements to the overall search experience. Search is an area in SharePoint that can potentially cross many teams and require multiple resources so it is a good idea to spend some time planning to ensure that your environment is scoped appropriately.
We agree that search is always deserving of improvement and attention as it is users’ means to access and reuse valuable business knowledge. Depending on your organization, you may not want to devote the time and effort for extensive configurations and training to develop a powerful search feature. We think it would be easier to go with a simple third-party solution like Mindbreeze, cutting down on the costly man hours.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides consistent and comprehensive information access to both corporate and Cloud sources and . . .
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.
The seamless Cloud solution makes sure you find the right information you need at any time. Check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, June 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
New SharePoint Book Features Business Connectivity Services
June 13, 2012
The InfoZine story, “Microsoft Sharepoint 2010: Business Connectivity Services,” introduces us to a new book by the same name. Ideal for all manner of SharePoint engineers and developers, the guide is a good resource for maximizing all the potential that SharePoint has to offer.
The review gives us an introduction:
Led by a team of SharePoint experts, you’ll learn how to integrate data from several systems—such as sales, accounting, and inventory—and then search, display, combine, and modify the information using code and no-code SharePoint solutions. This hands-on guide is ideal for SharePoint project managers, business analysts, architects, and administrators.
Customization is a big part of utilizing SharePoint, and no doubt this book provides a lot of customization details and tips. However, many users find that customization is too consuming in terms of time and staff to be able to do it properly. For these users we recommend a smart third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or more precisely understands exactly what the most important information is for you at any given moment . . . The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud together . . . Information pairing brings enterprise information and information in the Cloud together. This gives you an overall image of a company’s knowledge. This is the basis for your competitive advantage. In this way you can act quickly, reliably, dynamically and profitably in all business matters.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can stand alone or work alongside an existing SharePoint infrastructure, making it a seamless way to add a level of intuitiveness and efficiency without the added investment in customization. Furthermore, Fabasoft offers an entire suite of additional solutions, seamlessly weaving your SharePoint installation together with your other systems.
SharePoint is no doubt the industry leader, and readers will always be interested in more tools, tips, and tricks. However, for the organization that needs increased efficiency and user experience without the added hassle, a smart third party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze is worth consideration.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 13, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Dirty Secrets of SharePoint Online
June 11, 2012
SharePoint Online is getting a lot of buzz, and rightfully so. For many, the simplicity of a fully online solution is desirable. However, despite the hype, there are some seemingly essential features that have been overlooked, or have been poorly drawn.
Pankaj Taneja provides the details for Sys-Con Media in, “5 Dirty Sharepoint Online Secrets You Didn’t Know About.”
When you go through vendor feature datasheets, you get a view of features at a very high level. It’s only once you dive deep and actually start using the software do you get a sense of how it works. The experience might sometimes yield unexpected surprises . . . So while you might have absorbed some of Sharepoint Online’s marketing hype, here are some things they failed to mention.
The negative feedback ranges from the inability to cut and paste to customization difficulties to the fragmented overall structure.
For those who desire the low overhead of an online enterprise deployment, but the intuitiveness and customization of an on-site installation, we encourage you to explore Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. Mindbreeze has both Cloud and on-site installations, both of which are updated are far more regular intervals than SharePoint. Mindbreeze can stand alone or work alongside an existing SharePoint installation.
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.
In addition, Fabasoft Mindbreeze finds strengths in its seamless integration with other auxiliary services. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Connectors incorporates all manner of electronic data repositories. Mobile search and public-facing web site search are all done with Mindbreeze, while full attention is given to security concerns.
For a flexible and intuitive third-party enterprise solution, consider the offerings of Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Live Data and Web Site Design Considerations in SharePoint Deployment
June 6, 2012
We’ve been covering Robert Schifreen’s SharePoint 2010 series of posts on his SharePoint deployment experience. In his eleventh installment, “Countdown to Launch: Importing Data,” he continues the topic of security and how to manage it alongside live data and a public-facing web site.
Schifreen has this to say about importing data:
There’s a good bulk upload tool, which improves on the facilities in out-of-the-box SharePoint, available for a couple of hundred dollars, which will make it easy for users to copy stuff across. Or they can just use WebDav from Windows. Or I could probably do the whole thing in PowerShell, because there’s enough information in our Active Directory for me to find their current files, check that they are staff rather than a student, and copy the files to the correct SharePoint library.
And he goes on to comment on developing a public facing web site,
A SharePoint site, especially one that isn’t a public-facing website, tends to look like every other SharePoint site on the planet. You can, if you wish, customise it in any way you want. At the simple level you can replace the SharePoint logo with your own.
Importing data and branding your SharePoint site are both important steps in the overall SharePoint deployment. If you’re in the same process, you may want to read the article for some handy tips and guidance. You may also consider a third party solution to extend the capabilities of your SharePoint system. It seems that the experts at Fabasoft Mindbreeze understand the importance of a web site brand and design.
An attractive website serves as an effective digital business card. Surprise your website visitors with an intuitive search. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is intuitive and user friendly and is instantly ready for use as a Cloud service. It turns your website into a user-friendly knowledge portal for your customers and recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise “finding experiences” and is the perfect website search for your company.
And with no installation, configuration, or maintenance required, the comprehensive and cost-effective solution will save you valuable time and training resources. Navigate to http://www.mindbreeze.com/ to read more about the full suite of solutions.
Philip West, June 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Security Concerns and Account Permissions in SharePoint 2010 Explained
June 5, 2012
Robert Schifreen brings us the tenth installment of his SharePoint 2010 series in his ZDNet.co.uk post, “Security on the Farm: Accounts and Permissions.” Shifreen explains that SharePoint’s most important database is SharePoint_config but that if it breaks, you’re best bet is to rebuild from your notes and restore backed-up content databases. Why? Schifreen points out that restoring a backup of SharePoint_config isn’t actually supported by Microsoft and rarely works in practice.
The author also has this to share about the nuances of a SharePoint deployment:
When you start building and running a SharePoint farm, you will come across dozens of seemingly unsolvable problems that turn out to be merely down to permissions.
He goes on to say,
Best practice is then to use separate accounts for installing various underlying services, databases, and so on…The most tempting option, of course, is to forget best practice and just use one account for running all the SharePoint internal stuff. The upside is that things will work a little better, with fewer permission-related errors. There are two downsides. First, if a hacker manages to penetrate the account he’ll have access to the entire farm rather than just a half or a third of it. Secondly, splitting everything across multiple accounts can actually aid troubleshooting in some cases because, by glancing at the server’s security log, the account that caused the problem will give you a clue as to why things are going wrong.
Schifreen’s topic of security is a valuable one in the world of big data that is continuously growing across on-premise and cloud platforms. Consider a comprehensive out of the box solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze, to extend your SharePoint system with the added certified security benefits.
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.” Further, Mindbreeze offers certified security and reliability with regular external audits of their relevant standards ISO 27001, ISO 20000, ISO 9001, and SAS 70 Tup II. The solution is worth a second look at www.mindbreeze.com.
Philip West, June 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Understanding Microsoft Specifications for Designing a SharePoint Farm
June 1, 2012
In the eighth part of his SharePoint 2010 series, Robert Schifreen explains how he found that reading between the lines is an essential part of understanding Microsoft’s approach to specifications. His full account is relayed in, “Designing a SharePoint Farm: Tiers before Bedtime.” Schifreen decided on the three-tier model as the best architecture for performance in his farm: the first tier for SharePoint server IIS processes, the second tier for three more SharePoint servers doing all non-IIS things, and the third tier for an SQL Server.
Schifreen goes on to explain:
Having decided on a farm architecture, we also needed to think about the storage architecture too. The web, and especially TechNet, is full of warnings that storage can be the major bottleneck, and that it’s best to split the major data paths across separate physical drives. We originally drew up a plan that saw us using around 20 separate drive volumes on the SQL server, to include content databases, non-content databases, search indexes, transaction logs, tempdb, and so on.
But after further research, the team came up with a different method:
A subsequent session with SharePoint 911 convinced us that this was not a wise move because it would be too difficult to manage. Also, our SAN should be able to take care of ironing out any storage bottlenecks anyway. So we decided to start off with a couple of 1.6TB volumes, to put all the databases on those, and then to request further volumes from our SAN people as and when required. Moving a database from one volume to another, within the same SQL server, is relatively painless.
Overall, the post provides some practical insight into the design process. While SharePoint is a powerful and ubiquitous program, Schifreen points out that the data limits are a little deceiving as there are limitations with 1.6 terabytes. To round out your SharePoint system, consider a third party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise.
Here you can read about the cost-efficient solution:
Company knowledge and the information in the Cloud are constantly growing. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Fabasoft Mindbreeze web client is the driving force behind the information pairing. It makes the access to knowledge user-friendly and easy. Correlations and links are semantically recognized and displayed. This provides your employees with a flexible, dynamic, yet still easy to use platform that grows with you. This is the professional implementation of Unified Information Access.
Navigate to http://www.mindbreeze.com/ to learn more.
Philip West, June 1, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Considerations before SharePoint Migration
May 30, 2012
The world of enterprise is now humming with news of migration – migration to the upcoming SharePoint 2013 release and also the currently available SharePoint Online. Writer Steven Pogrebivsky on CMS Wire gives his take in, “4 Considerations for Migrating to Office 365 and SharePoint Online.”
Pogrebivsky tackles the first, perhaps most important step, deciding what needs to move:
Chances are your content is not organized well, or tagged appropriately, so what’s the point moving it as is and having a big grey cloud? It doesn’t make sense. What makes sense is to carefully plan what content you really need to move, how it’s going to be used and by whom. Once you’ve done that, then work on your SharePoint Information Architecture. Plan your content types, metadata and keywords. If you are going to make the move to the cloud, move only the content you need and migrate it right from the start.
The author goes on to discuss security issues and having a proper backup system in place. These are all valid considerations. However, choosing a smart third party solution could mean that an organization does not have to address these challenges independently. We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Mindbreeze offers an entire suite of solutions, centering around Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or more precisely understands exactly what the most important information is for you at any given moment. It’s a center of excellence and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud together.
Additional offerings from Mindbreeze surround the central product and offer features such as Connectors to other solutions. The Mindbreeze suite is now fully mobile and security is guaranteed based on the highest EU standards. Explore the Mindbreeze solutions for yourself and see how it can improve or supplant your next migration.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Challenges for Microsoft SharePoint Integrators
May 22, 2012
I don’t care too much about outfits who surf on other company’s software. Been there. Done that. In my experience with Infozen, an outfit with which I was affiliated during the wild and crazy “index the Federal government” years, I learned:
- Integrators and resellers take advantage of clients who lack the expertise, time, and management acumen to get a job done in a cost effective manner during normal work hours
- Partners, integrators and resellers sell what generates money. Investing in research and development is a PowerPoint or Keynote slide, not a business practice. Clients pay for the resellers and integrators to solve a problem. If the solution works, the integrator or reseller will resell the solution, emphasizing that it is an invention.
- Integrators and resellers are trying to avoid the “pay to play” model enforced by a number of software giants. A good way to determine if the outfit requires integrators or resellers to pony6 up hard cash for the privilege of selling enterprise software is too look for print advertising in various trade publications.
- Integrators and resellers use a tie up as an occasion for a news release. A good example is the “Oracle Endeca Getting Started Partner Guide.”
At a recent briefing I gave in New York, I had an occasion to talk to a very energetic investment type. I picked up three signals about the Microsoft SharePoint reseller and partner ecosystem. Like most information floating around after 6 pm in Manhattan, I suspect there is mostly baloney in the observations. But I wanted to snag them before they slipped from my flawed short term memory bank:
First, it seems that Microsoft is not putting much wood behind Fast Search & Transfer technology. I believe the phrase the MBA squirrel used was “end of life.” If true, the $1.2 billion and messy Fast situation may be in the midst of a rethink. What will Microsoft do? With the juicy search companies gobbled up, Microsoft may have to pull some rabbits out of its many hats. Open source, non US search and content processing vendors, making a cake from its own search ingredients, leveraging Powerset and other technologies?
Second, some Microsoft partners are starting to “go off the reservation.” In the free blog, I do not want to mention names. I learned that one prominent Microsoft Certified Partner had quietly embraced non Microsoft technologies. The “quietly” suggests to me that Microsoft could choke off a flow of sales leads if the shift caused big waves. The reason to “go off the reservation” boiled down to the sense that some Microsoft centric shops were starting to demonstrate “fee fatigue.” What do resellers do when revenue from Old Faithful slows, resellers and integrators look for what will sell.
Third, after decades of having a sure-fire business model, some partners and integrators see that alternatives exist and may be worth exploring. Examples include cloud alternatives to on premises Microsoft solutions or – hang on to your hat – open source solutions.
The impact of the lousy financial climate is taking a toll on some Microsoft centric vendors. The toll will be more burdensome going forward. In short, integrators and resellers are in play.
Stephen E Arnold, May 22, 2012
Sponsored by Polyspot
Building a SharePoint Farm
May 22, 2012
Continuing our coverage of the SharePoint series by Robert Schifreen, we turn our attention to, “Building the Farm: From learning to Testing,” on ZD Net UK Edition. (See our coverage of Robert’s first installation in the series, “SharePoint Deployment: Pitfalls of a Pioneer.”) In this piece, Schifreen discusses the details and hardships of starting the actual SharePoint farm.
You’ll need servers set up, SAN storage provisioned, new domain accounts created, DNS entries adding, access to your Active Directory database, firewall holes punching, server licences purchasing, Active Directory security groups creating, installation DVDs downloading, workstations being put into domains for testing, access to VM management consoles granting, servers adding into the load balancer pools, IP addresses allocating, users’ home drives re-mapping, SSL certificates applying for, login scripts amending, and more.
All of the necessities listed above are quite overwhelming. Schifreen goes on to mention the value of expert advice, including paying for outside consulting. For many organizations, expert advice is a sound investment. However, we have another suggestion.
Among the leaders in third-party enterprise solutions is Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. Mindbreeze can work alongside an existing SharePoint installation, or as a standalone solution. Implementing any new infrastructure will take planning, but a smart third-party solution has built-in customization options, making it a much smoother and intuitive process than trying to get SharePoint to the point of viability.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or to be more precise, understands what the most important information is for you at any precise moment in time. It is the center of excellence for your knowledge and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud data together.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze also offers a suite of complimentary solutions to link together all aspects of an organization’s information management: mobile solutions, cloud, email management, web site search, etc. While SharePoint is capable of these auxiliary features, too much time and attention has to be devoted to customization.
So if your organization is looking for an effective but less painful way to manage information storage and retrieval needs, consider the offerings of Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 22, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Prepare in Advance for SharePoint 15
May 18, 2012
Much like the discussion that flowed before the release of SharePoint 2010, the same voices are now chattering about the impending release of SharePoint 15, likely launched in the first quarter of 2013. Many experts are already weighing in on how to best prepare your enterprise for the move. David Roe of CMS Wire talks with Chris McNulty of Quest Software in, “SharePoint 15: 8 Things to Help You Prepare.”
Everything, McNulty said, is about planning; you can’t just jump into SharePoint 15. But you couldn’t just jump into SharePoint 2010, or 2007 or 2003, for that matter. So just like the last time, Quest is advising companies to plan any future deployments, even if many companies appear to have had their head in the sand when that lesson was being given out the first time.
Chris McNulty goes on to suggest eight major categories of preparation: optimized environment, consolidate content, data externalization, governance plan, enterprise content management, be social, custom coding, and cloud strategy. While each of those categories comprises a good bit of advice, we think that they could extend to any number of enterprise offerings, and many organizations are looking beyond SharePoint.
Consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze. This smart third-party enterprise solution can stand alone or work alongside an existing SharePoint infrastructure. Furthermore, Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers Connectors that work to seamlessly integrate all electronic data.
As the optimum search and information access solution, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise facilitates the comprehensive incorporation of all electronic data repositories. Data sources and storage systems are connected to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise via Fabasoft Mindbreeze Connectors. The standard product scope includes Connectors for the most common data sources. Additional Connectors are available to purchase as required.
While many will still consider SharePoint as the flagship of the enterprise market, many organizations are eager for more agile, intuitive solutions that update more frequently than the typical three-year Microsoft cycle. These organizations would do well to consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their suite of solutions.
Emily Rae Aldridge, May 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
