Author Archives: Ricardo Magalhães

Sharepoint 2013 – APPS, the new thing!!!

Well, Microsoft keeps sending us surprises with every new version of Sharepoint, this time one of the surprises is APPs . . . Yes, you are right, those applications that we are now used to have on almost every Operating System, like IOS, Android and even Windows.

So why should we be excited with the possibility of building APPs?????

- It is a new way to provide functionalities and solutions (no Farm or Full Trust though).

- You can make money from it

- It is a hype, therefore usually people like it

 

So were can we start to build APPs?

go to the Microsoft’s APPs for Office and Sharepoint Dev Center and get your information, tools, and samples.

 

 

 

 

Sharepoint 2013 and Antivirus

One of the questions from the IT departments, when we set up a Sharepoint Farm is and the Antivirus???

Well there are some guidelines to do it, in terms of products and what to be aware of, but now with the 2013 version we have to know the new information’s on it. HArbar.NEt has published a new article on this subject called Antivirus and Sharepoint 2013.

In this article Spencer Harbar, talks about the discontinuation of Forefront Protection for Sharepoint and the alternatives to it.

 

You can find this article here.

Sharepoint – how to “sell” the concept?

If you need to “sell” the concept of Sharepoint to a client or even in your own organization, there are a few pointers to keep in mind, so I will try to sum up the dos and don’ts.

Before the list, keep in mind that Sharepoint is not a complex platform, but it provides MANY functionalities and solutions, and sometimes that is the hardest part . . . how do you explain what is Sharepoint and what can be done with it.

 

First lets talk about what you SHOULD do:

  • Know Sharepoint – this seems a bit obvious, but it is so important for the person that is talking about a solution or product to have REAL knowledge. It is the only way you can “sell” the idea for a specific client or context. Someone that really knows what they are talking about can adapt his speech in a presentation or conversation to the needs and desires of the client, and can clarify any doubts that may appear.
  • Know your client – when you go to an external or internal client, you should know as much as possible about him. This is an advantage when addressing someone, and enables you to adapt your speech / presentation to the clients context. This is so important even for internal clients, if you must have this presentation internally in your organization, try to know exactly to whom are you going to be talking so you can be prepared.
  • Adapt your scenarios – If you are going to talk to Lawyers don’t take them a retail presentation, clients need to have their scenarios or as close as possible, so they can relate to what you are presenting. Even if you are talking to someone in your organization, do adapt your speech and facts to the reality of the clients needs.
  • Take the numbers with you – so you do need to persuade your client to choose Sharepoint, try to have some licensing information, because one of the first questions will e “how much will this cost me?”, this question usually comes from financial or administration profiles. Another typical question is related to hardware, this one comes from the IT departments, “How many servers will I need?”, “What Software will be needed?”. So the architectural knowledge is also important.
  • Prepare and rehearse  your presentations – If you are well prepared for a meeting or presentation, the success probability is huge. By preparing you can improve your own speech and presentation, and at the same time gives you confidence for the talk itself.
  • Keep it simple – if you cannot explain in simple terms what you are talking about, you will not be able to talk clearly to so many client profiles. You need to be ready to talk to administrations, IT departments, Human Resources, Administrative sections, or even profiles like industrial workers.  In your speech do abuse the technical terms, remember that not all people know what you are talking about.

 

Now lets talk about what you SHOULD NOT do:

  • Do not try to teach your client his business, usually they do not like that.
  • be carefull with your speech, keep it clear and simple without the abuse of technical terms.
  • do not go to a presentation without rehearsing it, one of the worst feelings is to be talking about something without knowing the sequence or the subject.
  • At least google about your client, jus to know what they do.
  • If you do not know about what someone asks you, DO NOT make things up!!!

 

These are some of the pointers that I usually use for myself and my team.

OAuth, what is this???

the definition from msdn: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp142384.aspx

“OAuth is an open protocol for authorization. OAuth enables secure authorization from desktop and web applications in a simple and standard way. OAuth enables users to approve an application to act on their behalf without sharing their user name and password. For example, it enables users to share their private resources or data (contact list, documents, photos, videos and so on) that are stored on one site with another site, without users having to provide their credentials (typically user name and password).

OAuth enables users to authorize the service provider (in this case, SharePoint 2013) to provide tokens instead of credentials (for example, user name and password) to their data that is hosted by a given service provider (that is, SharePoint 2013). Each token grants access to a specific site (for example, a SharePoint document repository) for specific resources (for example, documents from a folder) and for a defined duration (for example, 30 minutes). This enables a user to grant a third-party site access to information that is stored with another service provider (in this case, SharePoint), without sharing their user name and password and without sharing all the data that they have on SharePoint.“

 

Amit Kumawat also has done a very good job trying to explain what is OAuth and how it is used.

 

You can find his article here.

it seems that there is one more new concept for all of us to get familiarised with.

 

New SharePoint 2013 authentication process and Test Lab Guide overview videos

Joe Davis in the Sharepoint IT PRO Blog has published the announcement that were released new Sharepoint 2013 authentication process and test lab guide overview videos.

 

You can find them here:

New SharePoint 2013 authentication process and Test Lab Guide overview videos

 

Link to the Sharepoint IT PRO Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/tothesharepoint/

 

Sharepoint – the enterprise tool for the Social

Communities_full

 

Sharepoint has tried to provide means of enabling and boosting the enterprise social networking inside enterprises, but up to know it has been very “basic” approaches.

With the 2013 version, Sharepoint in my opinion, starts to have some serious solutions, even if most are based on existing solutions (some of them for some years now).

So what is really exciting about social enterprise networking?

Well, try finding specific skills in a very big enterprise with hundreds or thousand collaborators . . . unless this information is already stored and available on systems it is a real pain to find skills or knowledge.

Enterprise tools or platforms allow a simple, practical and robust solution on such matters, like knowing and get known inside an enterprise.

One of the most challenging tasks is to maintain your collaborators motivated and productive, what better way than for them to realize that their knowledge and expertise are rewarded?

So with this topic let me talk about communities, it is not a new concept in the web, far from it, but in Sharepoint it is like it is provided in the 2013 version.

Imagine that in your Enterprise (like mine) you have consultants and they can be of such different areas like Infrastructures, development or integrations and from such technologies as Microsoft, Outsystems, Qlikview, SAP or others. So how can you manage the knowledge and interaction between all these hundreds or thousands of consultants? one possible solution is communities, that allow you to create groups (communities) of different themes. This will allow, for example,  to have a community for .NET development and another for Outsystems.

I will start a series of posts on 2013 topics and the first will be communities. More on this in future posts.

 

 

Lisbon Office 2013 DevCamp

devcamp

Last monday I attended the first day of the Lisbon Office 2013 DevCamp, were the focus was mainly on Apps for Office and Sharepoint.

Well being a Sharepoint person, I had to attend.

The known concept of Apps applied to Office and Sharepoint seems to be most promising, nevertheless it makes us to think in a different way on developing.

PROS:

Well the Apps are IN so why not take advantage of this hype and develop in a new and more attractive way.

Try to look at it in terms of business, you can make money from your simple development.

Client Side Object Model is extended, and in a BIG way, almost every Server Side interface are exposed in the Client Side nowadays.

A very rapid ramp up on development and deployment.

Cleaner and more simple acquisition and installation methods.

CONS:

No more SandBox solutions (this one personally is positive :) )

Cannot be used in Farm level or Full Trust.

Probably you will need to reprogram your already existing code, to be used in an App solution.

To sum up:

It is a very exciting new way of developing, that together with eDiscovery and Comunities make for me 3 of the main features to look up to in Sharepoint 2013.