Sign In as Difference User in SharePoint 2013
July 26, 2012
The “Sign in as a Different User” menu option has been done away with in SharePoint 2013. Microsoft has made it known that they have worked to make SharePoint 2013 a more streamlined, efficient, out-of-the-box solution, and in doing so are discouraging users from customization. However, some of the features that were removed still need to be navigated in some way. The “Sign in as a Different User” command is one example. Nick Grattan’s SharePoint Blog gives us a workaround in, “Sign in as Different User and SharePoint 2013.”
Grattan states:
This ‘Sign in as Different User’ menu item is very useful when testing applications, but it can lead to problems especially when opening documents, say in Microsoft Word. So, it may be for these reasons that the option has been removed in SharePoint 2013. You can add the menu item back in, but I would suggest only doing this on test or development SharePoint servers. To do this, repeat this edit on all servers in your SharePoint farm:
What follows is a step-by-step list of instructions to help you successfully complete the function.
For users who are concerned in general about the lack of customization options in SharePoint 2013, we would encourage the addition of a smart third-party solution. For instance, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can stand alone or work alongside an existing SharePoint infrastructure to increase efficiency and intuitiveness. Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a trusted industry leader based in Austria, and consistently wins recognition for by KM World.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Streamlining SharePoint at Work
July 24, 2012
On the Microsoft SharePoint Blog, Chirag Patel addresses readers’ questions about what SharePoint can do for them professionally with his entry, “8 Easy Ways to Change SharePoint at Work.”
Before diving into his list of eight tips, Patel gives an introduction to his ideas:
With endless possibilities and boundless optimism, SharePoint obviously has a great deal more to offer and [sic] the manner in which it is implemented and governed. You will also find mountain of articles and how to guides on the Internet but my response almost always touch on the following areas. In this post I will share 8 easy ways that by themselves may not dramatically improve productivity, but combined can result in significant performance gains and hopefully help you leverage SharePoint functionality.
In terms of leveraging SharePoint functionality, not every organization can afford a team of SharePoint developers in-house or contracted out. For these organizations, a smart third party solution may be a good addition to an existing SharePoint infrastructure, or as a standalone piece.
A third party solution with good reviews and user feedback is Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. With a listed of notable technology partners, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can ensure high functionality with limited additional effort. For users who have to choose between intense customization of SharePoint and adding a third party solution, many will find a third party solution like Mindbreeze to be the least stressful option.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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
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
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
Useful Graphics Explaining SharePoint 2013
July 19, 2012
SharePoint developers are eagerly waiting for SharePoint 2013. A blogger at the Microsoft Blogs wrote “SharePoint 2013-Initial Take On Changes To Search” and he has been viewing a lot of slideshows on the new version. His favorites are at SharePoint 2012: Presentation: IT Pro Training and all are easy to download. He takes a look a the Module 7: SharePoint Search 2013 that takes an in depth view into enterprise search, including architectural changes to physical and logical topologies and configuration details on crawling, content, and query.
Fast Search functionality is behind much of the SharePoint 2013 enterprise search capability:
“ From the SharePoint 2013 slides, it’s pretty clear that the rumors have played out and core components of SharePoint Search (particularly the Indexing pipeline) effectively got replaced by the Fast Search pipeline… although it will maintain the ‘SharePoint Search’ moniker (Disclaimer: I’m not a marketing guy and have no idea what the licenses will be, so this is just my observation).”
There is a lot of content to digest in from the presentations, but the article pulls out the very detailed and informative diagrams to understand how Fast Search has and will change the search architecture for SharePoint. With more than 30,000 consultant days of Fast implementation experience at Search Technologies, we will be gearing up early to support SharePoint 2013 Search Rollouts.
Iain Fletcher, July 19, 2012
Sponsored by Search Technologies
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
How to Replace All Occurrences of SharePoint Web Part
July 13, 2012
SharePoint 2010 Web Parts are a modular unit of information that consists of a title bar, a frame, and content. They are the basic building blocks of a Web Part page. In “Replace SharePoint 2010 Web Parts by Type,” the author provides a cmdlet that allows you to replace all occurrences of one web part type with another type.
The author explains his PowerShell solution:
The Replace-SPWebPartType cmdlet accepts an URL to a web part page (or an instance of an SPFile object) and a string or Type object representing the type of web part to replace and what to replace it with; you can further restrict what web parts are updated by providing a web part title to filter on and you can pass in additional properties to set via a Hashtable object (closed web parts are ignored).
This tool may come in handy in a number of different situations, such as discovering a buggy web part. Let’s say you deploy a custom web part and remove the out of the box web part from the gallery, but then you need to replace the existing instances that are deployed on pages throughout your farm. The cmdlet and full help are provided in the article. You may want to bookmark the solution for an easy fix in those occasional Web part replacement occurrences. One way to avoid some Web part replacement needs is by employing a reliable third party solution. To maximize your SharePoint investments beyond implementation, consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Part of the full suite of solutions is the Fabasoft Folio Connector, which provides uniform, reliable management of your digital content.
With on-premise and Cloud information pairing capabilities, Mindbreeze provides a comprehensive and enterprise-grade solution that adds rich value to your business knowledge. Read more at Mindbreeze, where they seem to have the benefits of a proper installation down pat.
Philip West, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Ideal SharePoint User is You
July 12, 2012
Is everyone touched by SharePoint in their professional life, or does it just seem that way? The latest SharePoint infographic provides pretty good evidence for just that fact. If SharePoint wants to cater to their ideal user, and broaden their appeal to additional users, how do you define those user groups? Rackspace Hosting tackles the topic in, “Who Is The Ideal SharePoint User?”
The author makes the case:
Regardless of business size or industry, SharePoint’s vast tool set and custom application ecosystem is being used by both small and large industries in diverse business segments. More than 78 percent of Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint and 62 percent of workers use it everyday, according to numbers reported in our recently published SharePoint infographic. The Library of Congress, Viacom and Citibank all use SharePoint for different uses in their businesses. With such broad market penetration, SharePoint has found a way to deliver value to diverse types of organizations with highly specialized needs.
SharePoint has gained broad appeal and usage, but does it truly perform all of the specialized functions that different organizations need? Well yes, if you are willing and able to customize. For those who cannot afford a SharePoint consultant or a fulltime on-staff developer, a third party enterprise solution might be a good bet.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can work alongside an existing SharePoint deployment, or serve as a standalone solution. More importantly, it is highly intuitive and comes with the full support of the award-winning Mindbreeze team.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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