The Bamboo Team Blog

This Week in Bamboo (May 6th, 2012 - May 12th, 2012)

Myuyen Phan — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:28:00 GMT

Patch for Workflow Conductor SharePoint 2010 Release 2.5 was released to the storefront this week along with User Directory Web Part Release 1.7 and Group Email Web Part Release 1.7. Please check out the latest releases of this week and see below for more information on all the bug fixes and new known issues.

SA08 Workflow Conductor for SharePoint 2010 (2.5.1)

Bug Fixes:

• Corrected behavior where the Request Approval widget followed the "Rejected" path when approved by a system account without an assigned email address.
• Resolved issue where tabs on the template gallery stopped responding when the "Manage Templates" tab or filters were used after upgrading from an earlier version of Workflow Conductor.

No new Known Issues and Limitations

HW08 User Directory Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (1.7.29) and SharePoint 2010 (1.7.51)

SharePoint 2007 (1.7.29)

Bug Fixes:

• When performing an Advanced Search of the profiles based on a Boolean (yes/no) value, not all results are returned.
• String resource files (language files) missing the string "Loading - Please wait while the content loads".
• If the "Directly Reports" attribute is mapped to a secondary field, the value is displayed in Distinguished Name format and not display friendly (Full Name) format.

New Known Issue:

• "Directly Reports" attribute is not editable. If the attribute's setting "Editable" = Yes in the ActiveDirectoryConfig list, the attribute will be hidden when a profile is in Edit mode.

SharePoint 2010 (1.7.51)

Bug Fixes:

• When performing an Advanced Search of the profiles based on a Boolean (yes/no) value, not all results are returned.
• In certain cases, when the user clicks the Page tab in the ribbon, the ribbon only says "Loading..." and on the bottom of Internet Explorer window user sees the message “Error on Page”.
• String resource files (language files) missing the string "Loading - Please wait while the content loads".
• If the "Directly Reports" attribute is mapped to a secondary field, the value is displayed in Distinguished Name format and not display friendly (Full Name) format.

New Known Issue:

• "Directly Reports" attribute is not editable. If the attribute's setting "Editable" = Yes in the ActiveDirectoryConfig list, the attribute will be hidden when a profile is in Edit mode.

HW14 Group Email Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (1.7.33)

Bug Fixes:

• When Group Email Web Part is deployed, Users with less than administrator rights are unable to login to Sites with Form Based Authentication.

No new Known Issues and Limitations

This Week in Bamboo (April 29th, 2012 - May 5th, 2012)

Myuyen Phan — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:12:00 GMT

At Bamboo this week, we released the following patches: Alert Plus, List Rollup Web Part, Wiki Publisher, and Lookup Selector Column. We added some new features on latest releases of Alert Plus for SharePoint 2007 version and Wiki Publisher for both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 versions. Please check out the new features and review the list below for more details about the patches of this week.

HW05 Alert Plus for SharePoint 2007 (3.2.74)

New Features:

Two new tokens are available in the Mail Format tab:

o {ItemURL} returns just the item url. Can be used in <a href> tag for example <a href="{ItemURL}"> Link to item</a>
o {SiteURL} returns just the site url. Can be used in <a href> tag for example <a href="{SiteURL}"> Link to site</a>

Bug Fixes:

Alerts fail to send on expanded recurring events.
Alerts fail to send when recipient is set to "Lookup an Email Address in the Alert List" and the value of the selected lookup column is a SharePoint Group instead of a User.
We need an alternative to showing the big, long hyperlink for the "SiteLink" variable in an email message

No new Known Issues and Limitations

HW24 List Rollup Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (5.0.154)

Bug Fixes:

When sorting or grouping resulting data produced by List Rollup Classic Edition Web Part displays the error message “Unable to display this web part. To troubleshoot the problem...".

When filtering lists of type Calendar using CAML Query the optional parameter <AddValue +/- X> fails to return any items in the resulting aggregated views.

New Limitations:

Users experience slower performance when viewing aggregated data if recurring events are expanded.

HW51 Wiki Publisher for SharePoint 2007 (1.0.66) and SharePoint 2010 (1.0.65)

New Features:

Added the options to include wiki page name in the header and export date and/or page number in the footer of single page exports.

Wiki Publisher now packaged Bamboo Web License Manager Version 2.0.10.0.

Bug Fixes:

When exporting multiple pages, the list of "Available Wiki Pages" is sorted by ID not alphabetically.

Content alignment is not correct, causing content to be chopped off on the right side of the PDF.

Anonymous users prompted for login when exporting to PDF.

Resource file "Bamboo.SPWiki.en-US.resx" missing from the solution causing the error "Failed to read resource file..." to be listed in the SharePoint logs.

Unable to configure the Picture Library for importing Word documents using Wiki Publisher on sites using French language pack.

New Limitations:

Importing Word Documents:

Images displayed in the wrong position. For example if the image is displayed in the right corner within the Word document but after importing into a wiki page, it is in the left corner.

If the document contains multiple images, the orders of the images are reversed when imported into a wiki page.

If the document contains a table and the content of the table includes other formatting, such as: Lists (number/bullet), Bold/Italic/Underline font style or heading style, resulting wiki format is incorrect.

Tables:

In some cases, if a table width is beyond a certain length, content can be cut off.

HW41AB Lookup Selector Column for SharePoint 2007 (1.3.56) and SharePoint 2010 (2.3.53)

Bug Fixes:

If the Source List contains more than 20 records, the values displayed in Lookup Selector column are the record ID, not the selected Display Column.

No new Known Issues or Limitations

SHARE 2012 Keynote - Sarah Haase's 'It Doesn't Take a Miracle: Driving Successful User Adoption'

John Anderson — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:30:00 GMT

Sarah Haase, Collaboration & Search Engineer at Best Buy, presented the final keynote (and the final case study) of SHARE last Wednesday afternoon. In concluding what had already been a fantastic three days of information-packed sessions, networking events, parties, and more, Sarah's presentation ensured that SHARE --which will return to Atlanta next April-- would finish strong.

Sarah said at the outset of her presentation that the core message she sought to share was how to transfer one's passion for SharePoint to others in an organization. Based on her own experiences at Best Buy, Sarah's core thesis was that if you can influence some, they will in turn influence others.

Recalling the spectacular failure of New Coke in 1985, Sarah's first piece of advice was that you should "never assume that you know what users want ... ask them what they want." Referencing Rogers' Innovation Adoption Curve (including the "chasm" that exists between early adopters and an early majority), Sarah said that you need a "social epidemic" to help cross the chasm. Sarah used Malcolm Gladwell's definition of social epidemics from The Tipping Point as events that are "contagious, caused by small incremental changes, and bring about a sudden change."

Sarah shared with attendees her original, 2007 mission statement at Best Buy, to "use technology to automate manual tasks and save money." In implementing a strategy that included process optimization, information architecture, and community development, Sarah recognized the need "to build a tool that people actually want to use." For the implementation, she knew she needed early adopters, so Sarah sought them out and gave them projects via controlled development/releases, which led to their influencing others and creating demand. Sarah stressed the importance of securing executive support early, and documenting ROI (specifically, "process time savings using SharePoint").

Sarah provided details on a case study on user acceptance testing using SharePoint and jQuery (via a free solution she discovered at EndUserSharePoint) to automatically generate an up-to-the-second chart to visually display the user data. Given the enthusiastic response from her colleagues, Sarah's takeaway was: "Thrill your customers, and then they will support you ... it's worth the effort."

Sarah described stage one of her implementation efforts as consisting of the following steps:

Find what's needed by asking questions within the organization; find examples of success and backtrack from there to emulate (and vice versa, finding examples of past failures, and extracting valuable lessons), then outline your vision, including a written mission statement.
Plant your stake. Pick a focus area, define your role, determine training needs, start building brand awareness, build a timeline, and garner executive support.
Take baseline measurements. "If you don't know where you started from, it's impossible to show how you've grown."
Define your success criterion.
Find the "right" first project: business pain, simple problems that hit a lot of people, succinct business need, ideally with repeatable elements, frequent business rhythm, early adopters ("I want the person that everyone goes to ... that's the kind of influence you want"), a business team that includes key influencers, a solution you can build using out-of-the-box components (and limited use of SharePoint Designer as necessary), right-sizing ("you need something you can deliver quickly"), and quantifiable ROI.
Get moving!

Moving onto stage two, "Storyboarding," Sarah urges that you work with people to find out their vision for the future, the business needs they're trying to solve, and their current work process (including pain points and bottlenecks; "That's my must-do list"). Next, get their wish list. Shortly thereafter (immediately if possible), provide a demo with a pre-deployed (for another team) SharePoint solution. Connect the team with business owners from that/ those other/earlier teams which are already up and running with a solution. Revisit their wish list and high-level goals at this point, and go from there.

In conclusion, Sarah addressed the topic of user adoption best practices directly, beginning with her key strategy: "Find your Yoda ... your organizational SharePoint champion." In Sarah's experience, once you've delivered your first couple of wins, SharePoint markets itself, so again, "You have to thrill your customers." Do this and "they will drive your user adoption for you." Sarah cautioned that you can't stop the train for naysayers, and that you should actively "exclude the people that are not your target audience and don't believe in what you're trying to do." On the same topic, Sarah went on to say, "Community is key ... this is how we're going to get the naysayers on our side without even trying ... you have to give them a community of support." To do this, start by finding your first follower, who will in turn become your first champion. To illustrate the critical importance of that "first follower" in driving adoption, Sarah wrapped up her presentation with the following classic video:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Sneak Peek: New & Improved Microsoft Project Add-In for PM Central

Bamboo PM Girl — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:50:00 GMT

SharePoint is a great tool for project management and collaboration, and its ability to display tasks, schedules, and dependencies is important and useful across entire organizations. However, as project managers, we tend to fall back to the usage of Microsoft Project to map out our schedules and resource assignments. PM Central has been equipped with a Microsoft Project Add-In for some time now, but over time and through feedback from our customers, we have improved and added more and more functions to the application. In the upcoming 3.5 release of PM Central for SharePoint 2010, our focus has been improving our Microsoft Project Add-In even further by allowing users from Microsoft Project Add-In to connect to their PM Central project site in SharePoint 2010, and either create a new project in Microsoft Project, merge data, or append data:

Merge

For example, you have a schedule with 20 tasks that you brought into the PM Central site earlier. The next day, talking with the team, you identify 20 more task items and resource assignments, and you want to update your schedule in SharePoint. You don't want to have to delete the existing tasks and import again, or manually add these 20 new tasks. With the Microsoft Project Add-In in R3.5, you can connect, select merge, and synchronize your schedule, after which PM Central will have updated with the (now) 40 tasks.

Append

For example, you have a schedule with 20 tasks that you brought in to the PM Central site earlier. You're collaborating with another PM and s/he provides you another .mpp file that has 50 additional tasks. You want to incorporate these additional tasks into the project. Using the Microsoft Project Add-In in R3.5, you can connect, select append, and synchronize your tasks. Having done so, PM Central will append the other PM's .mpp file to the existing tasks, and all 70 tasks will be updated in your PM Central site.

The Microsoft Project Add-In also has additional functions such as detecting differences in the working hours settings between your .mpp file and those in your PM Central site, and will notify you to make the necessary changes to settings prior to completing your merge or append action:

PM Central R3.5 with new and improved Microsoft Project Add-In is scheduled to be released in June. Want to be among the first to know when it's released? You can sign up to get alerts when the new version will be available on our storefront site.

Customizing a Community Central Site by Changing the Default Logos

Bamboo PM Girl — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:30:00 GMT

Out-of-the-box, Community Central comes with Bamboo logos in place as the header and footer. Since we recognize that our logo may not be a part of the desired look and feel of your company's community site, you may replace that content to suit your needs. Following are step-by-step instructions to customize the default logos and text using SharePoint Designer 2010.

Changing the logo via CSS in SharePoint Designer 2010

1. Upload your desired image to the Skin/Images folder in SharePoint:

2. Open the site in SharePoint Designer. Navigate to the Skin/Style/Custom.css:

3. Edit the custom.css file.
4. For the top logo, under .bb-cmcentrallogo replace the SA15logo.png with the name of your new image. Click Save.

You will see the change as shown here:

5. For the bottom logo, under .bb-footerbamboologo, replace the Bamboologo.png with the name of your new image:

You will see the change as shown here:

Changing Text via XSL in SharePoint Designer

1.Open the site in SharePoint Designer. Navigate to the Skin/XSL. Edit Bamboo.Footer.xslt:

2.Replace the text with your preferred text.

You will see the change as shown here:

This Week in Bamboo (April 22nd, 2012 - April 28th, 2012)

Myuyen Phan — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:48:00 GMT

This week in Bamboo, we released to our storefront some minors and patches releases. The highlight of minor releases with some new features and bugs fixed is Team Calendar R1.7 for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010, Cross-Site Display Web Part R1.2 for SharePoint 2010 and Data-Viewer R3.4 for SharePoint 2010. Please see our Product Manager Announcement blogs for more details: Access Exchange Online 2010 Mailboxes with Your On-premises Deployment via Team Calendar Web Part. And Just the Right Amount of Information Helps the Medicine Go Down. For a complete list of this week’s releases, patches and bugs fixed please see below.

HW34 Team Calendar for SharePoint 2007 (1.7.1) and SharePoint 2010 (1.7.16)

SharePoint 2007 (1.7.1)

New Features:

• Primary Exchange mailbox calendars can be set to read-only mode, allowing users to view event details but not create or modify events.
• Connect to Microsoft Exchange servers on a different domain than the SharePoint farm, including Exchange Server 2010 hosted on Microsoft Office 365.

Bug fixes:

• A "401: Unauthorized Access" error message is displayed if the primary Exchange mailbox account password contains a ">" symbol.

Known issues:

• Recurring events display the wrong Start Date in the event details form, but display correctly in the calendar views.

SharePoint 2010 (1.7.16)

New Features:

Bug fixes:

• A "401: Unauthorized Access" error message is displayed if the primary Exchange mailbox account password contains a ">" symbol.

Known issues:

• Recurring events display the wrong Start Date in the event details form, but display correctly in the calendar views.

Limitations:

• Cannot use an External List as a SharePoint data source.

HW63 Cross-Site Display Web Part for SharePoint 2010 (1.2.7)

New Features:

• Configure the list or library view to display by default when the Web Part loads.
• Option to disable the View menu in the toolbar to restrict user activities to the view configured by the administrator.

Known Issues:

• Users with read-only access to the SharePoint list see the full Edit context menu, but will see an error message when selecting a menu option.
• If the Cross-Site Display Web Part is configured to display a list from an anonymous access site using a custom login account, clicking View Properties in the Edit Menu displays an error message for items that have item-level permissions. Click the item link to view the item instead.
• After deleting an item from the Cross-Site Display Web Part, the Web Part display refreshes with the default list view instead of the view previously selected.
• If a Calendar list from the current site is displayed in the Web Part, clicking the Add option in the Calendar grid will display the error message "List does not exist." Use the New button in the toolbar to add new items instead.
• Decimal digits do not display in Currency Columns when the source list is from a site with different regional settings than the Cross-Site Display Web Part site.

Limitations:

• Users may encounter a script error when trying to close an item pop-up form after viewing an item attachment in some list types.
• When entering a Custom Login Account in the Web Part Settings and no match is found, the "closest matches" feature of "People Picker" does not work.
• If a Picture Library source list from another site in the same site collection is displayed in a Cross-Site Display Web Part, the item upload page is not a pop-up window.
• The Manage Permission and Compliance Details items are not available in the item Edit Menu when a list is displayed in the Cross-Site Display Web Part.
• To display date/time columns for recurring Calendar events correctly, the regional settings for the Cross-Site Display Web Part site must match the regional settings for the source list site.
• The Delete action is not supported for Picture Libraries.
• After modifying a list view from the Action menu in the Cross-Site Display Web Part, the user is returned to the source list instead of the Web Part page.
• The following Bamboo Products are not supported in the Cross-Site Display Web Part:

o HW41AB Lookup Selector Column
o HW41E Validator Column
o HW41G Column Level Security
o HW41I Rating Column
o HW60 File Share Library
o HW69 Video Library
o HW50 List Print

HW37 Data-Viewer for SharePoint 2007 (3.3.59) and SharePoint 2010 (3.4.41)

SharePoint 2007 (3.3.59)

Bug fixes:

• User receives the error "Default or Null are not allowed as explicit identity values" when attempting to add a new item to Data-Viewer Web Part with SQL Table or View configured as the Data Source.
• When exporting data of multiline of text column to the excel, Web Part add more <div> tag.
• If an instance of Data-Viewer Web Part resides on the same page as SharePoint List View Web Part that is displaying Calendar view of a list, users are unable to navigate to next month or past month in List View Web Part.
• When Data-Viewer Web Part data source is List Rollup - Classic Edition, and a column of Single Line of Text is configured with a default value, Data-Viewer Web Part returns the error message "OnLoad: : System.ArgumentException: Input array is longer than the number of columns in this table..."
• When exporting to Excel, columns of type Date & Time, Calculated (Number), Number and Person and Group are formatted incorrectly.
• Sorting on columns of type Number is treated as text (string), not numerical value.
• When exporting the nested data, only the data from the expanded parent item is exported, not the complete nested data set.

New Limitations:

• When the data source is SharePoint List or Bamboo List Rollup Web Part, if user modifies their local in the "My Regional Settings" page, columns of type Currency and Calculated (output = Currency), the comma "," and decimal point "." are displayed in the wrong position.
• When the data source is SharePoint List that contains a multi-line text column that is configured to append data, the inline edit mode displays the text of the current version of the item.
• When the data source is a SharePoint List or Bamboo List Rollup Web Part and the data set includes Bamboo custom columns Lookup Selector Column (HW41AB), Visual Indicator Column (HW41D), and Validator Column (HW41E) fails to display data when exported to Excel.

No new Known Issues

SharePoint 2010 (3.4.52)

New Features:

• Improved Web Part configuration experience with a pop-up settings window.
• Allows selection of up to two columns when configuring default grouping and sorting options.
• Option to display all required columns in the inline edit form, even if those columns are not displayed in the grid view.
• Allows parent data in Data-Viewer Web Part to be filtered by a secondary Web Part using SharePoint Web Part Connections.
• Allows filtering, sorting, and limits on the number of items displayed to be configured for nested data.
• Enhances conditional formatting rules to allow background shading to affect the text, the cell, or the entire row.
• When connecting to a SharePoint list or library, selecting a list view is no longer required unless you want to configure item filtering based on list view settings.
• Improved interface for configuring conditional formatting and calculation rules.
• Ability to display calculation results at both the top and bottom of the item list.

Bug fixes:

New Limitations:

• When the data source is SharePoint List that contains a multi-line text column that is configured to append data, the inline edit mode displays the text of the current version of the item.
• Default sorting is not honored if a default grouping is also defined.

No New Known Issues

HW03 Tree View Web Part for SharePoint 2010 (1.7.72)

Bug fixes:

• If the user does not have access to the connected SharePoint List or Library, the user will receive a full page "Access Denied" error instead of the message contained within the Tree View Web Part.
• If the user selects the options "Check Out" or "Edit in [Application Name]" from the item's context menu, the folder details refresh, displaying no content.

No new Known Issues or Limitations.

HW22 Mini Calendar for SharePoint 2007 (2.8.91) and SharePoint 2010 (2.8.67)

SharePoint 2007 (2.8.91)

• Internal product updates.

No new Known Issues and Limitations

SharePoint 2010 (2.8.67)

New features:

• Mini-Calendar Web Part now supports and bundled with Bamboo Web License Manager version 2.0.10.0

Bug fixes:

• Mini-Calendar Web Part displays all items from the connected SharePoint List instead of the filtered items specified in the selected list view.

No new Known Issues and Limitations

HW07 User Account Setup Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (4.0.98) and SharePoint 2010 (4.0.101)

Bug fixes:

• When Account Approval is enabled, if the user includes the word "mail" in the e-mail address of the new account, it is automatically replaced with the text "E-mail_Address".

No new Known Issues or Limitations

Just the Right Amount of Information Helps the Medicine Go Down

Jeff Kozloff — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:30:00 GMT

Providing users with just the right amount of information, and not overloading them with anything extraneous, is often for the best. With Cross-Site Display Web Part, users can display Lists and Libraries, not only across sites, but even Site Collections, providing the various views they're already comfortable with (standard, Calendar, and Gantt). Now, with the release of version 1.2, designers configuring the Web Part can even define the default view and lock it in so users can't change it. Cool, eh? Here's how you do it:

You're probably already familiar with Bamboo's ultra-friendly settings interface for many of our products, where settings are displayed in a slick pop-up window:

If you look closely, in the General Settings category, you will see a new option: Select Default View. This is a drop down menu of all public views associated to the selected list. Select the view you want to load when the Web Part renders:

Next you can define if the Full Toolbar is displayed, allowing users to access the New [Item] menu, Actions menu, and, if they have the correct permissions to the list, the Settings menu. You can further select if the List View drop down menu is displayed, or hidden from the user:

Interested in a real-world scenario for Cross-Site Display Web Part? Jump over and view the humorously titled Who Would Have Thought that Eating your own Dog Food Could Taste so Good?. Ready to give Cross-Site Display Web Part a try on your own? Go to the Cross-Site Display Web Part product page and select Add Trial to Cart from the product banner.

Access Exchange Online 2010 Mailboxes with Your On-premises Deployment via Team Calendar Web Part

Jeff Kozloff — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Bamboo has just released Team Calendar Web Part version 1.7, and one of the exciting new features is Exchange 2010 Online support for your on-premises deployment of SharePoint.

Upon successfully installing (or upgrading, if you are already an owner of Team Calendar Web Part), open the Toolpane and locate the new section, Server Topology. In this section you have two options:

Exchange and SharePoint on the same domain. This is useful for deployments where Exchange Server and the SharePoint farm exist in the same domain. If you are running Exchange Server 2007, this is the only option we provide due to limitations of Web services.
Exchange and SharePoint on different domains. This option is for those running Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint when they exist in different domains. As a quick technical background, to provide this capability, Bamboo is utilizing Workflow Communication Foundation (WCF), provided with Exchange Server 2010.

For Exchange Online provided by Office 365, select the second option, Exchange and SharePoint on different domains:

Now that you have selected this option, a setting appears called Client Credential Type. One of the great features of Exchange Server 2010 is the various security layers an IT Administrator can add between you and the Exchange server to keep the data safe. This is called Transport Security. As mentioned previously, this is defined by the IT Administrator and varies based on network configuration. If your company is using Exchange Online with its default configuration, select the Basic option. If you are not sure which configuration your company uses, you can either speak to your IT Administrator, or simply try each of the six certificate types through brute force.

Next, enter the credentials of your Primary Mailbox. Remember, based on how you configure Team Calendar Web Part, you may be providing any logged-in account full access to the events of the Primary Mailbox (Create, Modify, and Delete; more on primary mailbox security later in this article). Lastly, enter the path to your Exchange Online site. The URL is typically similar to the following: https://XXXX.outlook.com/owa We just need to tweak the URL to point to the Web service URL, which is https://XXXX.outlook.com/ews/exchange.asmx. Click Test Connection to confirm you can successfully connect:

You have now successfully connected to Exchange Online, provided by Microsoft Office 365! For additional tips on configuration, see our comprehensive online documentation for Team Calendar Web Part.

BUT WAIT! Before I let you go, let's talk about security. As mentioned earlier, the idea behind the Primary Mailbox is that anyone can create, modify, and delete events. This can be very useful for, say, resource allocation like a Conference Room on the 5th floor. But sometimes you want users to see the Primary Mailbox events, but not be able to actually create, modify, or delete them (like a team's central calendar), and this is where another new option introduced in version 1.7 comes into play: Set Primary Mailbox to read-only mode. This new option is one of three security options you can choose from for the Primary Mailbox:

Set Primary Mailbox to read-only mode means that users can open any event (appointment or meeting) for the Primary Mailbox and view the complete details, however, they cannot save changes to the event, or create/delete events in that mailbox (similar to the behavior provided by Outlook).
Allow only the creator of the Primary Mailbox's Meetings or Appointments to cancel events means that if the logged-in user was the original creator of an event in the Primary Mailbox, they can modify and/or delete that event, but other users can only view the details.
Hide Exchange events marked as Private. This option actually covers not only Primary Mailbox events, but Secondary Mailbox(es) events also. If this option is not selected, users will see when private events occur, but no details; just the word Private is displayed. If you do not want to display these events in Team Calendar at all, simply select this option and the events will be completely hidden from all the views.

Ready to give Team Calendar a try? Jump over to the Team Calendar Product Page and select Add Trial to Cart. Happy trialing!

SHARE 2012: Christian Buckley Identifies 'The Connection Between Metadata, Social Tools, and Personal Productivity'

John Anderson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:00:00 GMT

This morning at SHARE, Christian Buckley began his session on The Connection Between Metadata, Social Tools, and Personal Productivity by mentioning that the presentation was the direct result of conversations he's had with members of the SharePoint community. Beginning another conversation, this one with his near-capacity SHARE audience, Christian asked, "How productive are your end users? Anyone feel like they're getting optimal performance?" Somewhat surprisingly, one hand was raised, but that person almost immediately qualified her response by saying, "Well, maybe not optimal..."

Christian suggested that if you can understand what the business is trying to accomplish, you (and, by extension, your end users) will be that much more likely to succeed in achieving optimal performance. Christian referenced a blog post he's written, Breaking the Suck Threshold, which itself references Kathy Sierra's Creating Passionate Users blog. Specifically, the post sees Christian expounding upon a graphic of Kathy's which illustrates "How fast and how far can you take your users?" and which plots ability against time, and features the aforementioned "Suck Threshold." It's good stuff. You should read it.

Seriously, go ahead and read it. Don't worry, it's very short. I'll wait here.

Back? I told you it was good, didn't I? OK, let's continue.

On the topic of the Suck Threshold, Christian observed today that, "People blame SharePoint for [what in actuality is] a failure of the process around planning for SharePoint." Or, in the immortal words of Dux Raymond Sy, "SharePoint doesn't suck, you suck!"

Christian went on to posit that "social tools help people collaborate online more effectively." Taking the Social CRM process as one example, he pointed out that the social features which are integrated into such platforms provide hooks into customers' social profiles, allowing for a powerful, holistic view of those customers.

Christian said that the role of the Information Worker is changing because, "fundamentally ... the way they communicate [now] is very much real-time collaborative." He went on to say that cloud adoption is also helping to drive the changing role of the Information Worker, because "it's less and less about the hardware," and that "the movement is towards the outsourcing of that [on-premises hardware] piece." Christian also noted that economics have changed as well, and that SharePoint helps allow companies to do more with fewer people.

"Metadata is at the base of any knowledge management platform," Christian stated. He went on to show a graphic depicting how, from a metadata standpoint, you have taxonomy and folksonomy with a social media layer on top of them, "adding context to the content in the [knowledge management] system." On top of that social media layer, you have search, and Christian shared the insight that "Social and search are at the center of the next wave of SharePoint."

Addressing the notion of structured (taxonomy) versus unstructured (folksonomy) metadata, Christian said that "SharePoint lends itself well to an ad hoc, unstructured approach," but cautioned that this can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Structured metadata is easier to manage, but the downside is that "lots of planning" is required. With unstructured, or decentralized metadata on the other hand, not much planning is required, but it's much more difficult to align the data in a meaningful fashion for users down the line. Some common migraines involving metadata include: people not applying metadata, legacy content is migrated slowly (if at all), taxonomy is inconsistent, users can't find content, and search quality isn't "high fidelity."

Christian reiterated that "metadata is the fundamental building block," and that social uses both taxonomy and folksonomy. Taxonomy allows for effective management of content, and folksonomy helps refine it. Metadata exists around user profiles as well as around the artifacts themselves, Christian pointed out, summing up by saying, "Metadata is the key to making social work."

As for why SharePoint needs social, Christian called out: the existence if islands of information; users often can't find anything; you can't tell who owns what; it can be difficult to determine what's new/old/changed; and ultimately, everything is disconnected. Social improves search by "helping surface data in a very complex environment," and in a manner that's relevant to individual users at that.

Christian observed that one challenge with social, however, is that "it's easy to measure quantitative productivity gains, but really difficult to measure qualitative gains." Christian wrapped up with four ways to improve productivity through metadata: with taxonomy; with workflows, automating as much as possible; with forms; and with social. Regarding social, Christian warned that "it should not be taken lightly ... if you don't have a strategy, don't turn it all on," but when you do have a strategy and social in place, you'll find that overall findability will be much improved.

SHARE 2012: 'From Simple Search to Knowledge Management' with Bamboo's Julie Auletta

John Anderson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:43:00 GMT

Julie Auletta, Director of Bamboo's Solutions Center, presented an early morning "breakfast and coffee talk" at SHARE today on the topic From Simple Search to Knowledge Management. Typically, one of the challenges Julie faces is how to transfer a known process into a SharePoint solution, and it's her job to bridge that gap on behalf of Bamboo's customers. Julie explained that prospective customers come to her with a problem, and wanting to know which Bamboo product will solve their problem. It often turns out that SharePoint out-of-the-box can ease their pain, and Julie's happy to give them the good news in such cases. In other cases, the solution (or product) that prospective customers initially sought may not end up being what's required in order to ease their pain, and that's why Bamboo's Solutions Center exists: to help customers solve SharePoint problems that neither SharePoint or existing Bamboo products can solve out-of-the-box.

Taking a cue from Dux Raymond Sy's Delivering Enterprise SharePoint Success at SHARE presentation on Monday, Julie referenced Dux's definition of SharePoint success as being when you empower the business, enable the business, and unify collaboration. From Julie's perspective as Director of Bamboo's Solutions Center, and particularly in the case of knowledge management, it's the first two that are most directly relevant.

Julie offered as a (simplified) definition of knowledge management that it's a way to manage information that today exists exclusively in people's heads, and needs to be put somewhere where others may access and benefit from it. In order to do so, such information needs to be collected from subject matter experts, published, made findable, kept relevant and up-to-date, and the knowledge repository needs to be continually expanded. As Julie noted, "these are all things that SharePoint can help you manage." Julie also pointed out that, "You never complete your knowledge base; it's always growing."

Julie provided a few customer examples, the first of which was the HR department of a large, multinational company, who were seeking a solution to provide answers to employee questions in a self-serve, relevant, accurate, and timely manner. The customer came to Bamboo looking for a workflow solution, but Julie quickly realized that in order to get the job done, they really needed a knowledge repository (containing "blessed" answers) first, and then a workflow solution on top of that. Julie's team developed a solution which elegantly leveraged SharePoint and extended it with Bamboo's KB Accelerator and Workflow Conductor products in conjunction with selected Bamboo Web Parts.

As other customers soon began requesting similar functionality (including internal customers in the form of the Bamboo Sales Team), a decision was made to formally offer the solution as a product in the Bamboo storefront.

Explaining the "Simple Search to Knowledge Management" journey, Julie referred to the first level, "simple search," as using SharePoint out-of-the-box for knowledge management. Some limitations of this approach include: there's not much structure; augmenting "self-service" is costly; satisfaction rates can be low; and there's no place for users to provide feedback, making it difficult to identify bottlenecks.

The second level involves extending the native capabilities of the SharePoint platform with a third-party product, such as Bamboo's own KB Solution Accelerator. Such an approach extends the out-of-the-box capabilities with preconfigured templates, Web Parts, comments, ratings, reports, charts, and more. Julie suggested that this is a good way to "jump start your KM by quickly getting the knowledge into SharePoint lists" where much can then be done with the data. And yet, with a solution such as this second-level approach, customers continue to call Julie seeking a more comprehensive knowledge management solution... which brings us to the third level.

With the third-level, we've arrived at a genuine knowledge management solution, and as you will likely have guessed, this is the very solution that our Solutions Center initially developed to suit the specific needs of one specific customer, and later became a formal product offering: the Bamboo Knowledge Management Suite. This combined solution leverages the appropriate subject matter experts and, via the introduction of Workflow Conductor, routes user questions to the experts for them to answer/address. Built-in dashboards also add accountability to the solution, which Julie then proceeded to demonstrate.

In her demo, Julie showed that all articles and related metadata exist in SharePoint lists, such as a Categories List, an Articles List, a Comments List, etc. Got items that you need to track that aren't already set up as default columns? No problem. Since this is SharePoint, just add the columns you need. Julie pointed out the Categories tree view, available for navigation purposes, and allowing users to browse by category. For your convenience, the Most Popular articles and Latest Additions to the repository are surfaced in Web Parts right next to the Categories tree view. Articles can show up in more than one category based on the relevant categories that have been assigned to the article. Upon opening an article, in addition to the article itself, users are provided with additional information and options including: Created On, Last Modified, Related Articles, Related External Links, Tags, Rating, and Feedback. With written feedback, behind-the-scenes alerts notify article authors that feedback on their content has been posted, and reminders are automatically sent to the author if the feedback/comments haven't been responded to by a given date/time.

Showing off the Article Search feature, Julie demonstrated how it allows users to drilldown into categories by sub-groups (columns), and search by Article Type, Title, Text, Keywords, and more. Searching by Tag Cloud is also available via the Tag Cloud Web Part, a particular bonus for users of SharePoint 2007, which doesn't offer an out-of-the-box tag cloud. Julie also demonstrated a form that's setup to allow users to ask questions, asking users to select the nature of their question by category. As with the comments feature, this form is tied to a workflow, and in this case a response is auto-generated, thanking the user for their question, telling them who it's been assigned to (if desired/applicable), and letting them know that an answer will be provided as soon as possible. Of course, an email is generated and sent to the assignee as well.

Julie concluded her demo with a brief tour of the Admin site, where subject matter experts can easily add keywords or categories to an article (if the solution to a comment or question is that simple, in that the answer exists but wasn't surfaced based on the user's chosen search method, in which case the content just needs to be reclassified appropriately), or create a new article to answer the question that's been posed. Adding to the existing Categories list is also easily accomplished in the Admin site. Dashboards, built using built-in Web Parts are also featured in the Admin site, visually surfacing information such as the number of questions answered per month, unanswered questions by category, and actions taken in response to questions. Of dashboards, Julie said that based on her experience, "when people ask for a workflow, I can almost guarantee that they also need a dashboard."

Julie noted that with user-provided feedback, articles are improved over time, and that by providing users with the ability to ask questions, content is kept updated as the knowledge base is added to, continuously increasing the stored knowledge.

In conclusion, Julie summarized what's most important in a successful knowledge management solution as:

Make it easy to capture content
Timely response to your users
Continuously improve content using feedback loops
Re-use proven solutions for other departments; minimizes training and support

Want to learn more about the Bamboo Knowledge Management Suite? Bamboo offers regularly scheduled free knowledge management webinars, as well as free online trials of the Knowledge Management Suite.

SHARE 2012: Dux Raymond Sy Rocks the Hard Rock Cafe with 'SharePoint is Nice, Nice, Baby'

John Anderson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:40:00 GMT

During the official SHARE party tonight, MC Dux Raymond Sy rocked the crowd at Atlanta's Hard Rock Cafe with a spirited live performance of his hit single, "SharePoint is Nice, Nice, Baby."

Couldn't be there in person and wish you could have been? Fortunately for you, my camera records video, and I was on the case. Enjoy!

(Please visit the site to view this media)

SHARE 2012: Richard Harbridge Details 'The Steps to Effective SharePoint Governance'

John Anderson — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:55:00 GMT

Richard Harbridge began his SHARE session this afternoon by stating that there is no single, 100% guaranteed way to implement SharePoint governance, and that the bottom line is that it comes down to "it depends" in terms of what's best for a given organization. What's best for one organization isn't necessarily going to be best (or even reproducible) at another company. The only 100% guarantee you get with governance is that, without it, there are going to be "lots of risks." Such risks include, but are by no means limited to: unmanaged SharePoint site sprawl, or, more specifically, permission scrawl, which tends to break search and navigation; quality deterioration; priority paralysis; and ineffective use of time/resources. Richard contends that, without governance, it doesn't matter how strong any given team is... ultimately, they're not going to be successful.

Richard said that "Governance pre-launch is important, but it's far more important post-launch," but also cautioned that "Governance is not insurance [but] it makes your SharePoint investments more successful over time, with less money." I expect Richard would be pleased if you were to quote him on that while building the case for your business owners on the importance of governance.

Richard explained that typically/ideally, there are five teams which share responsibility for SharePoint governance. The first of them, the Business Strategy Team provides strategic insight, direction, and prioritization for the portal. Richard gave a brief mind-mapping demo to show how it's possible to break down objectives that, when done correctly, will ultimately map to a solution set that will provide business value.

The Solutions/Technical Strategy Team provides technical insight, direction, and prioritization for the portal. "This is where IT shines," said Richard, explaining that this team will map solutions to the objectives defined in the mind-mapping exercise. It's also up to the Solutions/Technical Strategy Team also to define what SharePoint should and should not be used for. To this last point, Richard referenced his NBSP blog post, SharePoint is not a Silver Bullet.

In addition to the two strategy teams, Richard explained that there should also be a pair of tactical teams in an ideal SharePoint governance scenario. The Tactical Operations Team provides operational support (IT-related) and maintenance for the system infrastructure, and the Tactical Development Team is on hand to customize/configure, personalize, and otherwise leverage SharePoint to achieve business objectives.

Finally, the Tactical Support Team provides support for the SharePoint applications and the platform overall. Richard stressed that "There need to be multiple tiers for escalation" within the support team infrastructure.

As a general governance tip, Richard suggested that, "If possible, have one member [participate] in all the governance teams, or some members across multiple teams." Richard also underscored the importance of coming up with appropriate strategies to address specific existing pain points, and defining exactly what you're going to do to ease the pain in each case.

Richard also strongly recommended that you "have a governance site, and not a single 'governance plan' document." Why? Because governance needs to be a living process, and content in the site must be updated and remain fresh in order to remain relevant. Furthermore, Richard suggests that you "use SharePoint to govern SharePoint" by creating your governance site in the platform. Richard took the opportunity at this point to wryly observe/caution, "Don't put your disaster recovery plan in SharePoint."

In summary, Richard shared his "5 steps to successful SharePoint governance" as being:

Understand the need for governance.
Build your governance teams.
Understand how SharePoint is/should be used.
Develop/practice guidance and policies.
Return to step two and repeat steps two through four.

Richard has made his entire slide deck available, and it includes the specific responsibilities he recommends for each of the five teams, as well as useful examples of content for a governance site, and much more. View or download his deck at: http://www.slideshare.net/rharbridge/the-steps-to-effective-sharepoint-governance.

SHARE 2012 Keynote Case Study - RedCentral: Automating Coke Consolidated's Salesforce

John Anderson — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:12:00 GMT

This morning's second keynote at SHARE was RedCentral: Automating Coke Consolidated's Salesforce, a case study co-presented by Jody Billiard, VP, Operations Finance & Chief Accounting Officer, and Shawn Olsen, Senior Business Systems and CMS Manager, both of Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated. Given the business user-focus of the conference, it makes perfect sense to include case studies among the keynotes, and Coke Consolidated's was delivered with verve by both presenters.

(Come to think of it, "Verve" would be a pretty great name for a soft drink, don't you think?)

Regarding Coke Consolidated, Jody explained at some length that while they "are not the Coca-Cola company," Coca-Cola is a 35% owner, and Coke products represent 88% of their bottling business. Coke Consolidated also invented those nifty "fridgepacks" (which have since become the industry-standard for packaging twelve-packs of cans), so they're more than "just" a bottling company.

RedCentral (or RED for short) is what they call SharePoint internally at Coke Consolidated, and the RED stands for "Right Execution Daily." It seems they're rather big on acronyms at Coke. Of their 2,000 daily users, Jody explained that they "have over 1,500 workflows operating in our SharePoint environment [and that] at any given time, there are over 1,200 workflows active."

Shawn took the reins at this point, and described as an early innovation on SharePoint his having turned the annual employee performance review process into an ongoing automated survey process to help chart employee's performance throughout the year. With that process in place, and a data set from which to pull, dashboards were easily created to surface different survey types, with stoplight performance indicators (red, yellow, green) for review-at-a-glance. All of which functionality uses PowerPivot and SharePoint to assemble and visually display the data.

Tapping into their Large Store Database (one can only imagine it's referred to internally as an "LSD" - or perhaps not, given the potential association, eh?), a team creates yes/no survey questions for large store customers in the database (think Walmart). Upon completion of surveys, scores are assigned to large store customers based on their responses. Completed survey results are automatically delivered via a workflow to the responsible Customer Account Manager and can then be automatically copied to various levels of management (based on checkboxes on the survey results form), providing instant feedback on what's going on with that particular customer.

Shawn extolled the virtues of exporting data to PowerPivot, then being able to use Excel 2010 Slicers to turn one automated chart into "a thousand" individual charts by slicing data to drill down, for example, by region or territory. Shawn wrapped up his show-and-tell with their Customer Data Search form. This form is available on mobile devices, as most of the Coke Consolidated workforce is mobile, using tablets and smartphones most frequently to perform their jobs. Shawn referred to the Customer Data Search form as being "like a mini-CRM solution," since it supplies up-to-the-minute customer information on the fly to the workforce in the field.

Jody returned to the stage to sum up that "[SharePoint] has been an empowering technology for Coke Consolidated [and is] the single most critical technology environment for our sales force."

During the Q&A, it was asked if there were any particular challenges implementing the BI solutions that had been shown, and/or in training users. Shawn explained that "The business came to IT and said 'we want SharePoint.' " IT then went to Mindsharp for SharePoint training and came back to work two weeks later, prepared for their deployment. Shawn addressed the training of their users portion of the question by saying that everything they design in SharePoint is crafted to be user-friendly, so an email generally suffices to "train" the workforce on new tools or features.

At Coke Consolidated, Jody said, "We encourage collaboration for best-in-class performance," and SharePoint has been critical to their success in that endeavor.

This Week in Bamboo (April 15th, 2012 - April 21st, 2012)

Myuyen Phan — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:58:00 GMT

Workflow Conductor R2.5 was released to Bamboo storefront this week for SharePoint 2010 with some great new features and many resolved bugs. Please see the release announcement blog of Workflow Conductor R2.5 from our Product Manager for more details. Also for this week, we fixed many customer issues and released the patches for Password Reset Web Part, Calendar Plus Web Part, List Search Simple and List Bulk Export. For a complete list of bug fixes, great new features, limitations and known issues about this week’s release, please see below.

SA08 Workflow Conductor for SharePoint 2010 Release 2.5

New Features:

• Customizable InfoPath forms for Request Approval, Request Feedback, and Collect Data from User task forms (requires InfoPath Forms Services).
• New workflow template gallery features:

• View a personalized gallery of workflow templates you created.
• Share workflow templates with other users.
• Access workflow templates featured by administrators.

• Support for site workflows, which can be started without a specific list or library item.
• Advanced per-widget error handling options, including the ability to pause a workflow until an error can be corrected.
• New widgets:

• Create Column – Create a new column in a list or library.
• Move Item – Move an item from one list or library to another.
• Subscribe User to Alert – Subscribe a user to alerts for a SharePoint list or item.

• New Conditional Branch widget conditions that branch the workflow based on results of the following conditional checks:

• Is a role assigned to a user
• Is a date/time within a date range
• Is a user a member of a SharePoint group
• Is a user a member of an Active Directory group

• Updated Request Feedback widget options that allow specifying the number of feedback responses required.

Resolved Issues:

• Resolved multiple issues related to Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete functions in Workflow Conductor Studio not selecting the correct area or item.
• If a workflow stops due to an error, it is no longer marked as “Cancelled”, but is now correctly marked as “Errored”. It is also now shown under the correct category in the Workflow Reports Web Part.
• Group owner is now included when using Send Email addressed to a group.
• Added small delay between loops in Repeat for Each Item to prevent SharePoint’s workflow queue from getting overwhelmed after 10 or more items were processed.
• When selecting values for Date/Time columns that are configred as "Date Only”, the date picker no longer shows the time selector for date properties in the Update Item and Wait for Field Change widgets, or when setting a standard lookup field in any widget.
• Resolved issue where Add User to AD Group widgets did not run correctly if the “Group” property was defined using a variable.
• Fixed issue where some users upgrading from 2.0 or earlier would get stuck on the “Loading” screen when trying to apply updated settings in a previous workflow’s Create Item widget.
• Line breaks in approval comments stored in variables are now properly retained and appear correctly when inserted in emails.
• Fixed JavaScript error when using the Create Item widget on a survey list with special characters in the Subject field.
• Zoom In/Out options now work correctly for large imported templates.
• The Repeat While widget now works correctly when the "Loop Delay" property is set using a lookup.
• Fixed an issue that could cause an error in some instances if regional settings for date/time were different than the defined user’s machine when using “Run As” in Delay Until, Request Approval, Request Feedback, Collect Data from User, and Create Task.
• The Copy Item widget now works correctly with Bamboo's Custom Identifier Column when using the "Automatically Generate Unique ID" option on the target list.
• The Send Email widget now works correctly on file attachments over 8MB.

Known Issues:

• Users upgrading from previous versions may experience problems publishing new workflows. Manually deactivating then reactivating the Web Application feature labeled “Bamboo Workflow Conductor Web.config Modifications V2.5” and the Site Collection Feature “Bamboo Workflow Conductor Studio” should resolve these issues.
• When reassigning a task or requesting a change, users may have to click the “Submit” button twice before it responds if they checked the assignee name using "Enter" on the keyboard.
• When opening a Workflow Conductor task (such as an approval or feedback task) from within a Microsoft Office application, the task form fields are blank and the form cannot be completed. Opening the task from other locations still works correctly.
• Widgets can be dropped into invalid areas of the Request Approval widget, causing workflows to display an error message.
• In some cases, Workflow Conductor Web Part features may need to be manually deactivated and re-activated when upgrading if Web Parts are already being used on a page(s).
• Workflows fail when attempting to use Check In, Check Out, or Discard Check Out on items in the workflow Tasks list.
• Update Item/Set Field Value widgets will not work on a Bamboo Custom Identifier Column if the “Automatically Generate Unique ID” option is enabled.
• Workflows that contain a Collect Data from User widget are canceled when run on a list in another site collection.
• If a Simple Publishing workflow uses a workflow initialization form field that contains a space in the form field name, any default value configured for the field will not be displayed in the workflow start page.
• If a workflow is in progress and a user clicks the "Workflow is committing..." message in the workflow status page, an error message is displayed.
• In the My Workflows and My Workflow Tasks Web Parts, version numbers will appear after the task name when a new version of a Simple Publishing workflow is published after the task is created.
• If a workflow that contains a lookup to a number or % column is deployed to a Document Library in a Meeting site, the workflow will be canceled if the column is empty.
• If a workflow initialization form Date and Time field is configured with a default value that includes a time, the time may not be displayed correctly in the workflow start page.
• If a Simple Publishing workflow with a Start Another Workflow widget is edited and published to a different scope, workflow initialization form values are not updated. For example, if the workflow was published to the list and then updated and published to the site, the Start Another Workflow widget retains its previous workflow initialization form values.
• After upgrading to Workflow Conductor 2.0 or later, a workflow deployed in Workflow Conductor 1.5 that contains a Create AD Account widget configured with a lookup from an initialization form Choice drop-down field will add a "]" to the end of the lookup when the workflow runs.
• Workflow is canceled if a Remove AD Group widget attempts to remove a group in an OU level lower than the one specified in the LDAP path.
• In the Template Gallery, cannot filter for Created By when the filter contains special characters.
• If a Simple Publishing workflow is associated to a list with an association name different than the workflow name, the workflow start page will display the workflow name instead of the association name.
• If you attempt to attach a Document Set in a Send Email widget, the workflow will be canceled.
• Some Widgets and task forms may not work correctly on German-language installations.
• The Repeat For Each Item widget "Start Item" condition does not work when using the "Is Null" operator with a Date/Time or Person/Group column.
• When upgrading Workflow Conductor, workflows that are "In Progress" and waiting for Delay For, Delay Until, Wait For Field Change, Request Approval, Or Request Feedback widgets do not complete after upgrading to Conductor 1.5 or higher.
• Saved property values are not displayed when you edit the Access SP via REST widget properties.
• If a Set Approval Status widget is configured to Run As "Initiator" or "Other", the item shows as Modified By "System Account".
• In some cases, the Approval Status of an item is not set properly for workflows deployed with the Start Option "Start this workflow to approve publishing a major version of an item."
• In the View Workflow Status page, "Starts With", "Ends With", "Equal To", and "Not Equal To" filters do not work on the Workflow Name and List columns.
• Set Field Value can incorrectly set a Person/Group (Person only) column to a SharePoint group name.

Limitations:

• When opening a workflow template created in Workflow Conductor version 1.6 or earlier in version 2.5 or later, some values for the Create Item widget may need to be re-entered before deploying the workflow again.
• Integrated task buttons in Microsoft Outlook are available for SharePoint Server 2010 only; SharePoint Foundation 2010 does not support this feature.
• A Bamboo KPI Custom Column field may show a blank value for a task list item if that item is updated using the Complete Task, Create Task, or Copy Item widgets.
• When editing a workflow template created in Workflow Conductor 1.6.1 after upgrading to 2.0, Create Item widget properties are not displayed correctly. Workaround: Re-enter the widget properties and save the template.
• After upgrading to Workflow Conductor 2.0, workflow solutions that were scheduled for deployment in the previous version but had not yet been deployed are not deployed at the scheduled time after the upgrade. This is because the workflow deployment method is changed to Simple Publishing in Conductor 2.0. The workflow can be manually deployed in the Workflow Solution Management page in the Workflow Conductor Control Panel.
• If a workflow with a Set Field Value widget is created on a Document Library and later associated to another list type, values set using the {Current Item:Name} lookup may not work correctly if the "Name" column in the new list was created manually and is not the default SharePoint "Name" column.
• An error page is displayed if a workflow is associated with a Bamboo workflow task content type.
• Some SharePoint site themes do not work well with Conductor Studio.
• The full account name must be used to lookup an FBA user in the Conductor Studio User Lookup form.
• Cannot assign a Request Approval or Request Feedback task to a user in another site collection who is not also in the current site collection.
• Create Item cannot create an item in a list name that includes an apostrophe (').
• Send Email does not work if the recipient property is a lookup to a SharePoint group or a Person/Group column allowing multiple selections that contains a group in another site collection.
• You must disable UAC Admin Approval Mode or turn off UAC to run Conductor on Windows Server 2008.

HW10 Password Reset Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (2.4.26) and SharePoint 2010 (2.4.51)

SharePoint 2007 (2.4.26):

Repackaging Note:

• The ASP.Net Sample Applications are now obsolete and have been removed from the package.

No New Known Issues and Limitation

SharePoint 2010 (2.4.51):

Bug Fixes:

• Updated the Resource Language file with the following changes:

o Administrators can modify the "Bamboo Error" text.
o Administrators can optionally display the mapped Site Collection URL in the error message by entering {0} or Username by entering {1}.

Repackaging Note:

• The ASP.Net Sample Applications are now obsolete and have been removed from the package.

No New Known Issues and Limitation

HW20 Calendar Plus for SharePoint 2007 (4.1.85) and SharePoint 2010 (4.1.92)

Bug Fixes:

• Gantt View displays items with the wrong time when the timezone is set to GMT+4:00 Baku.
• Gantt View displays the error message "RenderCalendar: Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined." when filtering of the source data is set to "Specify Filter Condition" option in the Calendar Plus Web Part Settings.

No new Known Issues and Limitations

HW11A List Search Simple Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (2.1.68) and SharePoint 2010 (2.1.92)

Bug Fixes:

• When users search on a column of type Lookup and they select the option "Select All", the Web Part displays the error message "Value does not fall within the expected range.".

No new Known Issues or Limitations.

HW33 List Bulk Export for both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 (1.4.12)

Bug Fixes:

• When exporting a document library that has Versions enabled, only the current major version metadata is exported.

No new Known Issues or Limitations

SHARE 2012 Keynote: Microsoft's Gideon Bibliowicz on 'Productivity Delivered'

John Anderson — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:24:00 GMT

Following his own Opening Address, Transform Your Enterprise with SharePoint, Dux Raymond Sy introduced the first of two Keynote Presentations this morning at SHARE. Delivering the first keynote, Productivity Delivered, was Microsoft Senior Product Manager for SharePoint, Gideon Bibliowicz. Despite SharePoint's being the fastest growing product in Microsoft history, with more than 125 million licenses sold to date, Gideon said that there are "so many users out there that own it, but don't do enough with it." Based on a recent survey, Gideon explained that, at 67%, "over two thirds" of enterprise customers have deployed SharePoint throughout their entire organization, which represents a tremendous opportunity for business users.

Gideon shared that Microsoft's guiding principles for SharePoint from the outset have been to redefine collaboration, unleash the ecosystem, and build a world-class system. "The origin of SharePoint was the notion that portals, for example, don't have to be separate from your content management system," Gideon said, going on to say that he thinks the "essence for SharePoint's success is ... the ability to redefine collaboration."

Speaking of Microsoft's global partner ecosystem, Gideon said that, "Part of the magic of SharePoint is really letting [Microsoft's SharePoint partners] be successful," and went on to say that "unleashing the ecosystem is a huge part of SharePoint's success." With a partner network that includes corporate developers, software vendors, systems integrators, and more, Gideon recognized that "the knowledge is out there, the talent is out there," and that leveraging the partner ecosystem will help SharePoint customers attain SharePoint success.

Addressing SharePoint as a world-class platform, Gideon said that the approach of the SharePoint team has always been "Don't take it one step further, but take it a few steps further" by including a self-serve user experience, a social fabric ("we want SharePoint to work more and more with you than to work for you ... social is about making those features and capabilities work where it makes sense - as a business solution"), and embracing customers and partners. Collaboration isn't just internal, and as collaborating with external customers and partners increases as a business need, SharePoint is evolving with the changing needs of the enterprise.

Touching on the notion of the consumerization of IT, Gideon pointed out that today, "We bring devices from our personal life and we expect them to work in our workplace ... and younger people, that's how they expect to collaborate." As such, Microsoft aims to continue delivering productivity gains through social functionality in SharePoint.

In conclusion, Gideon called on SHARE attendees to join the global SharePoint community. Saying that "We're seeing that business decision-makers are becoming more and more influential" in SharePoint decisions, Gideon encouraged participation in the larger SharePoint community to help attendees get the most out of the platform.

The Bamboo Team Blog

This Week in Bamboo (May 6th, 2012 - May 12th, 2012)

This Week in Bamboo (April 29th, 2012 - May 5th, 2012)

SHARE 2012 Keynote - Sarah Haase's 'It Doesn't Take a Miracle: Driving Successful User Adoption'

Sneak Peek: New & Improved Microsoft Project Add-In for PM Central

Customizing a Community Central Site by Changing the Default Logos

Changing the logo via CSS in SharePoint Designer 2010

Changing Text via XSL in SharePoint Designer

See Also:

This Week in Bamboo (April 22nd, 2012 - April 28th, 2012)

Just the Right Amount of Information Helps the Medicine Go Down

Access Exchange Online 2010 Mailboxes with Your On-premises Deployment via Team Calendar Web Part

SHARE 2012: Christian Buckley Identifies 'The Connection Between Metadata, Social Tools, and Personal Productivity'

SHARE 2012: 'From Simple Search to Knowledge Management' with Bamboo's Julie Auletta

SHARE 2012: Dux Raymond Sy Rocks the Hard Rock Cafe with 'SharePoint is Nice, Nice, Baby'

SHARE 2012: Richard Harbridge Details 'The Steps to Effective SharePoint Governance'

SHARE 2012 Keynote Case Study - RedCentral: Automating Coke Consolidated's Salesforce

This Week in Bamboo (April 15th, 2012 - April 21st, 2012)

SHARE 2012 Keynote: Microsoft's Gideon Bibliowicz on 'Productivity Delivered'