SharePoint 2010 - Key New Features & my favourites

Here is a high level summary of the key new features of SharePoint 2010 along with my comments and favourite features in RED.

1.	A new ribbon user interface and Rich Web Editing that makes end users more productive and customization of SharePoint sites easy.
2.	Deep Office integration through social tagging, backstage integration and document life-cycle management.
3	Built-in support for rich media such as video, audio and Silverlight, making it easy to build dynamic Web sites. In plain English, it is easy to simply add videos and picture with easy editing/re-sizing capabilities within the web interface.
4.	New Web content management features with built-in accessibility through Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, multilingual support and one-click page layout, enabling anyone to access SharePoint Server sites
5.	New SharePoint tools in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, giving developers a premier experience with the tools they know and trust.
6.	Business Connectivity Services, which allow users to connect to other line-of-business data or Web services in SharePoint Server and the Office client, i.e. show data from another database within a list in SharePoint. Imagine being able to pull in data from an external database within SharePoint list without coding knowledge!
7.	Rich APIs and support for Silverlight, representational state transfer (REST) and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ), to help developers rapidly build applications on the SharePoint platform
8.	Enterprise features in SharePoint Online such as Excel Services and InfoPath Forms Services, which make it simple to use, share, secure and manage interactive forms across an organization. The capabilities of Forms services is, in my view, the most powerful offering which mortal users without coding knowledge can make use of. Being able design rich data entry and view forms for use within SharePoint.
9.	The addition of two new SharePoint SKUs for Internet-facing sites, including an on-premises and hosted offer.
10.	Large List support! Yes, SharePoint 2010 supports extremely LARGE lists…the numbers that are being battered around are massive!   SP2010 can support something like 50 million items in a list now. You obviously do not want users to go wild and will want to control the limits via the admin settings (default: 5,000 for normal users and 20,000 for super users).
11.	3rd Party Browser support Finally users of other browsers such as Firefox etc will be able to work in the SharePoint environment using the tools of of their choice! I personally use IE8 and combined with Windows 7, is brilliant!
12.	SharePoint Workspace Ever wanted to take SharePoint workspaces/site/content offline. Well, now you can using the new client application that is SharePoint Workspaces (formerly known as Groove).

There are some other features that administrators will find really useful;

1. Visual Upgrade. This means you can upgrade from 2007 to 2010 without impacting or changing the user interface.
2. Unattached Content. Imagine the power of this!! being able to recover data from another content DB without having to recovery the whole farm. Wow!
3. Enhanced Usage reporting and logging
4. Large List throttling to maintain system performance. Mortal users will be prevented from deleting LARGE lists (millions of items) which could affect the system performance at peak times. This capability is retained with the Administrators.
5. Advanced workflow management capabilities with SharePoint Designers
6. Visio Services - Visual representation of data-linked diagrams for users without Visio
7. and more….

I am personally excited by the fact EPM2010 lives on SharePoint 2010 i.e. uses this as a platform. With the combination of the two, I am like a child eagerly waiting to open my Christmas present!

Hope this helps you in understanding the key features and aids in the decision making process for moving to SharePoint 2010. Let me know your thoughts on what your key feature are, what you think is still missing from 2010 and could be enhanced. I would be interested in hearing from you.

Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009! continued…

In my previous post I mentioned that there is a Microsoft Project 2010 stand at the SharePoint Conference. Well, guess what? I came across some enthusiastic and friendly faces manning the booth! Some of you may who they are…..

Christophe Fiessinger and Jan Kalis proudly presenting Project 2010!!

Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009!

The Microsoft SharePoint conference this year is at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas! The unveiling of SharePoint 2010 takes place today at the key note.

The SharePoint partner exhibitors’ booths were just as busy as it was outside in the streets of Vegas!

 

The number of folks attending this year is phenomenal. Good job I registered in the morning when it was not as busy! Some had to wait a long time for registration and to get their ‘giveaways’.

 

Some of the exhibitors at the show.

Here is EPMLive’s booth at the conference.

Microsoft Project and Visio also have booths at the show.

More to come. Stay tuned…..

EPM2007 Aug 2009 CU – Services not starting!

When recently setting up a new development environment (with SP2 + AugCU) I noticed that I was not able to save, publish or checkin projects. On investigation, I found that the project server services were not running. If you ever encounter a similar situation, it may be as result of services timing out when starting project server. There are couple of registry changes that can be applied to resolve this issue. Refer to earlier post ‘New EPM2007 Deployment with SP2 – Issues with Services not starting’ for details.

Hope this helps.

Fight against Cancer, everyone should! We are all in this together

Like me, you may may know someone close who’s life has been ‘uprooted’ by cancer. Let’s all contribute to a cause that is helping fight this disease. Our day to day life is very hectic and we forget that there are others who need our help! We can make a difference and can help by increasing awareness of this cause and donating.

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading charity dedicated to beating cancer through research. Their groundbreaking work has saved millions of lives. Further information about cancer and their research.

If you find my posts/articles interesting and is benefiting you and your organisation, then please do GIVE to this charity. Any donation, however big or small, to this charity will be greatly appreciated.  See Cancer Research UK - Donation link on the left hand side. Also, please help spread the word.

Thanks, PJ

Microsoft Office 2010 – get the insight!

Find out what’s new in Office 2010.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Microsoft Word 2010

Microsoft Excel 2010

Microsoft Outlook 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 Workspaces – work offline!!!

Microsoft OneNote 2010!

Finally, the Office Movie…enjoy

Project Conference 2009 – Work hard & play hard

After an intense couple of days we were treated to a night out at a rodeo show. Thanks to EPMLive & Microsoft.

WOW! what a night!

(Some of the partners learning to rope)

Here is me getting ready for the show. Strong drink to muscle up the courage to mount the bull!

 

NOOOOOO it’s NOT me riding the bull…….you kidding! Check out how Apple Mac compares with PC.

PJ Mistry @ Project Conference Rodeo

Now, need to get back to work.

Author: PJ Mistry