As promised, it's (past) time to dive back into the SharePoint Blank Mailbag, and today's victim winner is a Program Manager who asks about the availability of a nifty bit of functionality (which hadn't yet occurred to me) which would support anonymous comments on a blog within a SharePoint portal:
I would like to set up a SharePoint-based "suggestion box" so that people around the company can make comments and suggestions about our program. However, for this to work the way I want, people need to have the ability to offer ANONYMOUS comments. And of course no one can access our SharePoint portal unless they are logged in.
Though this is not functionality that's available out-of-the-box (and nor is it an area to which Bamboo has dedicated resources), a bit of searching turned up the happy discovery that not only does such a product exist, but it was developed as a Web Part by Microsoft's own IT Group in response to a business request. But wait, there's more: not only was the custom Web Part developed by Microsoft, but it's available as a free CodePlex download! How cool is that?
As you will see, once installed, the Web Part replaces the out-of-the-box Comments Web Part with a custom version which includes a checkbox to Post Anonymously. The Post Anonymously checkbox is enabled by default, though individual users may choose to deselect the checkbox if they don't wish their comment to be posted anonymously.
Check out Lawrence Liu's post announcing the availability of the Web Part for more details or, should you possess the requisite permissions, do not pass go, and head directly to the dedicated CodePlex download page. Fortune favors the bold!
(Full disclosure: While demonstrating boldness, my own attempt at trying to install the Web Part on a test server resulted in, well, less than optimal results. I didn't break anything, mind you, but neither did I manage to successfully install the Web Part. I blame myself, as my experience with installing Web Parts has thus far been limited to working with .DSP files, and this particular install requires interacting with a command line interface ... which proved to be my undoing. Perhaps I shall take another run at it --possibly including looking to a colleague for pointers-- and report back.)
Update: I did indeed take another run at it, and I've even got the screenshots to prove the happy results!
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Posted
Jun 26 2009, 03:57 PM
by
John Anderson
John Anderson joined Bamboo Solutions as Manager of Content & Syndication in May 2008 after a 12-year career at AOL. New to SharePoint at the time of his hiring, John was tasked with creating a new blog for the just-launched Bamboo Nation community in which he would document his daily SharePoint learning process. Thus was born the end user-centric SharePoint Blank, for which John authored 200 posts within a year, and which he continues to write today. John writes SharePoint Blank in addition to his responsibilities as Bamboo Nation's de facto managing editor and, while he has learned much about SharePoint in his first year, he gleefully awaits the release of SharePoint 2010, and the reset button that release will represent for SharePoint Blank.