Customizing the SharePoint Search Box
April 24, 2012
Customization of SharePoint is almost a necessity in order to extract the full benefit from such a large and broad enterprise implementation. Christian Stahl addresses customization of one very important component, the search box, in his piece, “Brand the Search Box in SharePoint 2010.”
Stahl begins:
I have written some blog posts, in the past, about branding the global navigation which is an important part of the SharePoint user interface. The search box is another part of the user interface that often needs a bit of branding especially if it concerns a public faced web site where the search box could be one of the most important elements in the user interface.
Stahl has a good point; the search box is an important branding piece, especially when used in a public facing web site. However, the complications of customization can be daunting, especially if designated staff is not available. Third-party solutions can be a smart add-on solution to an existing SharePoint implementation.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze has an especially attractive web site search feature in Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite. Read what Dr. Manfred Weiss of Computerwelt had to say about customized web site search with Fabasoft Mindbreeze Insite:
We want to stand out from the crowd with a top internet presence. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is part of this strategy. Our readers value the service of a perfect search. Regardless of which of our portals the information is on, Mindbreeze finds it. Since the search function is operated as a Cloud service, we save time and money.
Put your best public foot forward with a customized web site search, made possible by the intuitive solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
A Book Review of Managing Records in SharePoint 2010
April 19, 2012
Mimi Dionne, a records and information management project manager and Consultant/Owner of Mimi Dionne Consulting, reviews a recent Bruce Miller publication in, “Managing Records in SharePoint 2010: An ARMA Report Review.” Bruce Miller’s 93 page book, “Managing Records in SharePoint 2010,” examines the capabilities and limitations of recordkeeping with out-of-the-box SharePoint 2010.
Miller’s report is divided into sections, starting with the use case, assessing record keeping requirements, and key underlying record keeping principles for SharePoint. Then the report shifts to implementing a file plan, folder structure and management, declaration and classification, classification accuracy, disposition, and concludes with recommended best practices and project implementation. Dionne’s review takes a look at all of these sections.
Dionne shares her overall summary:
This is a deeply-considered report that has useful, practical gems of advice scattered throughout. For example, if you’ve never fully considered metadata (beyond Dublin Core), you will find some listed in Appendix B quite valuable. However, blink and you miss them. I wish he had highlighted them better. Investing in Mr. Miller’s report is a wise move by ARMA International. The reader does get very useful advice — his hints on records management in MySites are worth the price of the publication alone — but if you seek a cookbook to teach you how to assemble a SharePoint 2010 Records Center, this is not it.
If you’ve been considering purchasing Bruce Miller’s book, Dionne’s comprehensive review may be worth a look. If you’re looking to save time and resources spent on training materials, consider a third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze, to round out your SharePoint system.
Mindbreeze can also help you connect the dots in your SharePoint adoption. The Fabasoft Folio Connector integrates all your business information from the intranet, Cloud, internet, and knowledge portals in the corporate-wide search, while maintaining your strict access rights by integrating all information objects, including metadata. The Microsoft SharePoint Connector connects the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and enables the search for documents stored in that application. With Mindbreeze, users can easily search and reuse information from documents, contacts, projects, Wiki articles, conference agendas, and more.
Philip West, April 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Branding a SharePoint 2010 Infrastructure
April 16, 2012
Frequent SharePoint author, Yaroslav Pentsarskyy has authored a new book, SharePoint 2010 Branding in Practice: A Guide for Web Developers. Pentsarskyy contends there are few guides or best practices for how to implement branding in SharePoint 2010, and yet branding is an important marketing priority for any organization. PR News gives more details in the story, “New Guide Helps Developers Implement Branding Concepts.”
“‘My book explores how to brand collaboration sites as well as publishing sites,’ says Pentsarskyy. ‘It also demonstrates how you can brand sites that are hosted not only on a dedicated server but on a shared infrastructure in a cloud.’ Written for web developers or user interface developers who already know CSS, JavaScript and HTML, the book discusses publishing masterpage structure, applying common design artifacts and settings on existing specialized sites, publishing page layout structure, applying branding to SharePoint list views and much more.”
Pentsarskyy is right, branding and presentation is important for both your internal structure and your external appearance. However, there may be an easier solution than struggling through a SharePoint customization process. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a smart third-party solution with a number of integrating components to improve an enterprise infrastructure.
Consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite. Requiring no installation, configuration, or maintenance, an organization can improve the efficiency and appearance of their external websites.
“An attractive website serves as an effective digital business card. Surprise your website visitors with an intuitive search.”
To satisfy employees and internal users, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise is service-oriented and cost-effective. End users are pleased with the intuitive interface.
“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.”
Pentsarskyy’s book is no doubt informative, and readers will learn a great deal about how SharePoint branding can be achieved through customization. However, for users who need less investment and more return, Fabasoft Mindbreeze might be just the solution to consider.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Amazon CloudSearch
April 12, 2012
Well, some of the folks working to bolt a search and retrieval system into “big data”, mobile apps, and cloud vendors’ systems are trying to figure out what to do about Jeff Bezos. The head of Amazon has taken time from his space flight activities to disrupt the world of cloud-based search and retrieval.
The announcements were handled in Amazon’s typical mode. Those who were privy to the new service, which is based on A9 with what looks like some open source goodness inside, had to keep quite. Then Amazon published a chunk of Web pages about the service. You can find most of the basics in this CloudSearch documentation collection.
There are two general interest type blog posts. You may want to check out Dr. Werner Vogels’ “Expanding the Cloud—Introducing Amazon CloudSearch” and the AWS Blog story “Amazon CloudSearch—Start Searching in One Hour for Less Than $100 / Month.”
The system is the “old” A9 search service which received some early life support from Udi Manber, now a Googler. But the features and functions referenced in the documentation suggest that additional work has been done to make facets, snippets, highlighting, and graphic features take advantage of some open source goodness. However, Amazon takes some care to make sure that the provider of the open source goodness is tough to grab. The best example of this method is Amazon’s handling of the Android operating system for the Kindle Fire. Beneath the sluggish interface of the Kindle Fire beats the heart of Android 2.x. Even the Amazon app store runs certain apps, not all of them. The approach works and keeps many of Amazon’s secrets from turning up in Gawker or trendy Silicon Valley blogs. Amazon secrecy is not quite Apple grade, but Amazon is familiar with the orchard.
According to Expanding the Cloud – Introducing Amazon CloudSearch:
Developers set up a Search Domain — a set of resources in AWS that will serve as the home for one collection of data. Developers then access their domain through two HTTP-based endpoints: a document upload endpoint and a query endpoint. As developers send documents to the upload endpoint they are quickly incorporated into the searchable index and become searchable.
Developers can upload data either through the AWS console, from the command-line tools, or by sending their own HTTP POST requests to the upload endpoint.
There are three features that make it easy to configure and customize the search results to meet exactly the needs of the application.
Filtering: Conceptually, this is using a match in a document field to restrict the match set. For example, if documents have a “color” field, you can filter the matches for the color “red”.
Ranking: Search has at least two major phases: matching and ranking. The query specifies which documents match, generating a match set. After that, scores are computed (or direct sort criterion is applied) for each of the matching documents to rank them best to worst. Amazon CloudSearch provides the ability to have customized ranking functions to fine tune the search results.
Faceting: Faceting allows you to categorize your search results into refinements on which the user can further search. For example, a user might search for ‘umbrellas’, and facets allow you to group the results by price, such as $0-$10, $10-$20, $20-$40, etc. Amazon CloudSearch also allows for result counts to be included in facets, so that each refinement has a count of the number of documents in that group. The example could then be: $0-$10 (4 items), $10-$20 (123 items), $20-$40 (57 items), etc.
For more information on the different configuration possibilities visit the Amazon CloudSearch detail page.
Automatic Scaling: Amazon CloudSearch is itself built on AWS, which enables it to handle scale.
Okay, automatic. This sounds like the standard line from every cloud vendor with knowledge of sharding, distributed computing, and work allocation. We noted that the system supports Boolean logic and math operations. That’s good news and long overdue from Amazon.
Our take on Amazon CloudSearch is that Amazon has introduced a service which will allow developers to get out of the business of figuring out how to bolt a third party search solution to their Amazon content. For organizations looking for a silver bullet to kill the on premises search systems, Amazon has taken a quick step into the search disco.
Will Amazon’s CloudSearch become a viable alternative for on premises search? Will Amazon’s new service put additional pressure on the big enterprise companies like Hewlett Packard and Oracle. Both of these outfits have spent big money buying ageing findability solutions. What about Microsoft with its ubiquitous search solutions included with SharePoint? What happens to mid tier vendors like Lexmark Isys or start ups like DataStax and its Enterprise 2.0 service?
We don’t know. What we do know is that Amazon, unlike Google and Facebook, has found a way to enter a service space without looking much like a head on competitor to any other company. Google has not moved too far from its on premises Google Search Appliance. Facebook continues to dither when it comes to full-on search. Amazon’s challenge will be getting its costs under control and finding a way to placate the Wall Street MBAs. Search on Amazon is, in our opinion, a service which is in dire need of improvement.
Perhaps the CloudSearch will impact the way Amazon.com’s book search works? I am still struggling to find a way to NOT out books which are not yet available. I find the method of coping with titles on the iPad 3 Kindle reading app almost unusable.
Can Amazon do better? Yes. Will CloudSearch be that important leap forward? I don’t know. But I am watching, and I have a hunch that other search vendors, partners, and integrators are checking out this most recent blast from Bezos Land.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
New Book Helps Organizations Increase the Value of SharePoint
April 11, 2012
Frequent SharePoint blogger and author Christian Buckley has co-authored a book devoted to SharePoint 2010. Market Watch provides full details in, “Axceler Product Evangelist Christian Buckley Co-Authors New Book on Microsoft SharePoint 2010.”
“Christian Buckley, Director of Product Evangelism and a Microsoft SharePoint Server MVP, has co-authored a new book titled, ‘Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing Real-World Projects.’ Buckley and co-authors Jennifer Mason, Brian T. Jackett, and Wes Preston help readers build effective business solutions with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 by following repeatable business analysis and design principles from real-world projects. This hands-on book, published by Microsoft Press, focuses on a different business scenario in each chapter, using a standard template to guide the reader through the solution-building process from start to finish. Readers can also learn how to utilize SharePoint out of the box to develop a corporate intranet, a media hub, a system to support distributed teams, and solutions to many other scenarios.”
Buckley often focuses his efforts on getting the most out of a SharePoint deployment, knowing that most organizations will not be satisfied with its out-of-the-box functionality. This book will no doubt improve the quality of life for many a SharePoint developer.
However, we wonder if there is not a simpler solution. Third-party solutions like those offered by Fabasoft Mindbreeze provide a seamless and intuitive add-on to an existing SharePoint installation. Bringing together semantic pairing, mobile capabilities, and a scalable solution for the Cloud or an on-site installation, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can save organizations from the cost of customization suggested by Buckley.
“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.”
The more information, the better, and Buckley’s book is worth a read. However, do not neglect smart third-party options like Fabasoft Mindbreeze when analyzing the customization needs of your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010
April 6, 2012
SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010 now has an online extranet sandbox to allow users to test drive the product before purchase. PR Web gives the full report as posted in Virtual Strategy Magazine, “SharePoint Solutions Creates Online Evaluation Sandbox for SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010.”
“Developed by SharePoint Solutions, SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 (ExCM) provides the easy SharePoint extranet collaboration and simplified SharePoint extranet administration that SharePoint 2010 is missing in the out-of-the-box product. From its award-winning 2007 release, ExCM has established itself as the industry leader in powerful, effective SharePoint extranet deployment and management. This latest version adds substantially greater functionality and is simple and intuitive to use. Because EXCM integrates right into SharePoint 2010, all of its features are accessible from within SharePoint itself, so there is no proprietary interface or separate program to learn.”
Third party solutions that interface with SharePoint are a necessity for organizations that need to increase the functionality of their SharePoint deployment without committing huge resources to a customization project. However, a cutting edge solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze may be a smarter long-term solution for organizations seeking an intuitive, scalable, and mobile enterprise search interface. Functioning stand-alone or as a compliment to an existing SharePoint installation, Mindbreeze is ahead of the competition in mobile searching and the Cloud.
“Smartphones and tablets allow you to act quickly in business matters – an invaluable competitive advantage. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company knowledge available on all mobile devices. You can act freely, independently and yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: Search results are displayed homogenously to the web client with regards to clear design and intuitive navigation.”
SharePoint needs a little help in realizing its full potential, and while many add-on solutions are on the market, Fabasoft Mindbreeze is worth a second look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
SharePoint Increases Efficiency and Leads to Restructuring
April 5, 2012
Christian Buckley often covers SharePoint and enterprise from the perspective of a business analyst. In, “Increased Productivity Means Focusing on Adoption,” on AIIM, Buckley draws an analogy between the increased productivity in the manufacturing sector, and subsequent failure to increase demand, and the same scenario unfolding in the IT world.
Buckley sums up the argument:
“Just as our economy moved from an agricultural to an industrial market, and from industrial to an information-based marketing, within the world of the Information Worker this increase in productivity is allowing organizations to move from a hardware-centric view (where IT pulls cables, stands up servers, maintains those servers) to a business intelligence and decision support view. Where are the business opportunities today? And where does SharePoint fit? There is a gap between productivity increases and resource utilization decreases, and here are three business impacts that I believe will become more visible: 1) Repurposed roles 2) Increased reliance on services 3) Focus on user adoption.”
So how does SharePoint fit in and how can enterprise solutions in general respond? Smart third-party solutions are one way to increase efficiency all the more. A solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze can provide an organization with an intuitive interface and intelligence search results. Working as a stand-alone solution or as a compliment to SharePoint, Mindbreeze can free information workers from enterprise customization and maintenance leaving them time to focus on business analyst functions.
“Our information pairing technology makes you unbeatable. 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.”
Buckley argues that business analyst numbers will grow as the maintenance functions of IT workers continue to decline. Organizations can begin to focus on complimenting smart business decisions with smart technology decisions, instead of spinning wheels in an attempt to keep on-site servers and solutions running. Sounds like a good trade-off.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Approach SharePoint as a Business Analyst
April 4, 2012
The SharePoint Expert Blog features Christian Buckley and his take on how most organizations would benefit from viewing SharePoint through the lens of a business analyst. In, “The Role of a Business Analyst in SharePoint,” Buckley states that organizations rarely approach their SharePoint installation with the same level of intentionality as their other ventures.
“In presentations on migration and planning best practices for SharePoint, I often remark that every new SharePoint project begins as a Business Analyst activity. What is the role of the Business Analyst, and how does it fit into a successful SharePoint strategy? While there are different kinds of Business Analysts . . . the core functions of this role remain fairly consistent . . . Now extend this understanding to how you staff your SharePoint deployment. Experience has shown that few organizations properly staff their administration team, much less provide the SharePoint team with a dedicated — or even a part-time — Business Analyst resource. SharePoint is generally grossly understaffed.”
Buckley goes on to state that many would overestimate SharePoint’s ease of use:
“I would venture that a lack of understanding of key business processes, and the gaps between what SharePoint provides out-of-the-box and what it is capable of doing is at the heart of most end user adoption issues.”
So in order to get more functionality out of SharePoint, more staffing and attention should be devoted. If not, as Buckley said, “what it (SharePoint) is capable of doing” will never be discovered. But perhaps there is a third option, a third-party option like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Intuitive and ready to use out-of-the-box, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can supplement an existing SharePoint installation, or completely replace it. The suite of solutions engineering by Fabasoft address the issues of today, including mobility, efficiency, information pairing, and the Cloud.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 4, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
SharePoint Best Practices Resource Center
April 2, 2012
The official SharePoint blog, To The SharePoint, announces the release of the 2010 version of the Best Practices Resource Center. The 2007 version was quite a hit, and Samantha Robertson unveils the newest version in, “Just Released – Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2010.”
“We’re pleased to announce that we now have a 2010 version of the Best Practices Resource Center. Like in 2007, this was a joint effort between the SharePoint Customer Engineering team and Microsoft Consulting Services team for SharePoint. They drew on real customer experiences to help us bring you a set of guidelines that lay out the best practices for success with SharePoint Server 2010. Following these practices will help you avoid some of the common deployment pitfalls and keep your SharePoint environments available and performing well.”
The SharePoint resource center is no doubt a useful tool for organizations managing their SharePoint deployment. However, if an organization cannot financially or organizationally devote a dedicated team to managing and configuring SharePoint, how effective can the infrastructure possibly be? If your organization needs personalized attention for its enterprise capabilities, consider a third party solution with out-of-the-box capability, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
“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.”
Security and compliance are held to the highest standards with Mindbreeze, but the interface is intuitive and the search effective. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is extensible through connectors and scalable. Available for the Cloud or for on-site installation, check into the offerings of Fabasoft Mindbreeze to see if your organization could benefit from its implementation.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Improving Governance Compliance in SharePoint
March 30, 2012
Jeremy Thake addresses the important issue of governance compliance in, “SharePoint Gone Wild: When Governance Lacks Compliance.” Many organizations employ multiple repositories for sensitive content, and an out-of-the-box SharePoint system makes it hard to enforce the guidelines of where content should go. Thake explains,
“The out-of-the-box auditing features in SharePoint 2010 have some key limitations in this space, specifically regarding the storage of this data over a prolonged period of time (most acts seem to be approximately seven years) as well as the ease of producing a report of an individual user’s activity and attached content. The most common format followed by customers with whom I work is Concordance, which is supported by LexisNexis. But more importantly, from a content perspective, the attached content should be exactly what the user viewed, modified, or created at that point in time so versioning here is the key.”
SharePoint 2010 has many added improvements to address some of the out-of-the-box compliance gaps. But compliance is an area that needs a comprehensive solution. To really extend your SharePoint capabilities and get the most out of your enterprise search investments, look to Mindbreeze.
No matter where your sensitive information is stored, on-premise or in the Cloud, Mindbreeze connects users to the right information while maintaining strict security standards. Here you can read about the cost-efficient solution:
“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.”
Check out their full suite of solutions to see what will work for you.
Philip West, March 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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