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Clare Stone Profile |
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SharePoint Case Study – Websense Pivot Through Their Marketing Dashboards
Clare Stone
Hi everyone.
We wanted to share this new SharePoint case study with you. It shows how online security specialists Websense are using our PivotPoint webapart to slice and dice their marketing list data, and create some awesome, dynamic dashboards.
Websense were moving Excel spreadsheets into SharePoint lists. In moving the data into SharePoint the marketing department didn’t want to lose the Pivot Table view that they had found so useful in Excel.
But nothing in SharePoint out of the b [read].
Posted: 1 day ago. |
Using [Today] in SharePoint calculated default values
Clare Stone
Despite the infamous “fake today column trick” still appearing in new blog posts on a monthly basis you can’t use Today in calculated columns in SharePoint.
I’ve seen people assume (not unreasonably) that the same rule must apply with calculated default values used in columns that are not calculated columns as well – but strangely, you actually can use Today in calculated default values, so I am going to explain why it works and how you might use this.
What is the difference betw [read].
Posted: Thu, Sep 2nd '10 |
SharePoint Planner Webpart – new version released
Clare Stone
Just a quick note to let you all know that we have just released a new version of SharePoint Planner web part - v2.6.4.
The new version includes a couple of handy new features that might be useful for you.
The new Split Multiple Values option will be useful in resource planning in circumstances where you want to enter multiple category values into one list item, but still view each individual category’s activity as a separate line in your Planner view. For example you might want to cre [read].
Posted: Wed, Sep 1st '10 |
SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide part 5 – the system in action and Out of the box options.
Clare Stone
This is Part 5 of the SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide
See the System In Action
So, now let’s reap the rewards for all of our hard work and see the system in action.
I need to book a day off for a hospital appointment on Friday 9th of July. I can see all the absence bookings for my department and the number of days I have had off this year on the absence dashboards above. I’ve only had 1 day off for Medical Appointments so far this year and I am allowed 3 so thatR [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 9th '10 |
We’re looking for new SharePoint Developers to Join the Team
Clare Stone
We’re Hiring!
We’re looking for new developers to join our team.
As you will know if you are a regular here, we are a small, specialist ISV, based in Cheltenham, England.
We are purely focused on the development of webparts and tools for use with Microsoft SharePoint. We have been growing steadily over the past couople of years, and now we some new talent for the team.
So, if you are a really talented developer, who has the ability to think creatively, put yourself in the shoes of [read].
Posted: Thu, Aug 5th '10 |
SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner part 4 – create an absence approval workflow
Clare Stone
This is Part 4 of the SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide
In parts 1 through 3 of this series we have laid the foundations for our tailor made Staff Vacation and absence planning system. We have set up the basic SharePoint list, defined a number of list views, and set up dashboards using SharePoint Planner and PivotPoint webparts.
Now we are going to add the “moving parts” to the system and set up a simple approval email workflow using SharePoint Reminder webpart.
We a [read].
Posted: Thu, Aug 5th '10 |
SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide part 3 – set up an Absences to Date Dashboard
Clare Stone
This is Part 3 of the SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide
So having set up our basic SharePoint list with filtered views, and our “Wall Chart” dashboard, using SharePoint Planner webpart, we are now ready to get up our “Staff Absences to date” and “My Absences” dashboards. This is the bit that allows managers to monitor the amount of absence each of their team members has had:
Or for individual staff members to monitor their own absences:
For th [read].
Posted: Wed, Aug 4th '10 |
SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide part 2 – set up a “Wall Chart” Dashboard
Clare Stone
This is Part II of the SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide
So having set up our Vacation and Absence list yesterday, we can now apply Planner webpart, to create a vacation and absence dashboard like this:
So staff and managers can easily see who is off when, and when it will be possible to request leave.
If you don’t already have our Planner webpart you can download the free trial version here.
You will find all the installation instructions you need here.
Now we are rea [read].
Posted: Tue, Aug 3rd '10 |
SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide – Part 1
Clare Stone
SharePoint offers a great foundation for non-programming business people to build applications around our business processes, just the way we want them. This guide will show you how to build your own SharePoint staff vacation and absence planning system.
Staff vacation and absence planning can cause trouble and strife in any organization. The good old wall planner can work for staff who are all in the same physical locations . . .
. . . . until you approve an absence then forget to enter it [read].
Posted: Mon, Aug 2nd '10 |
How to edit List forms in SharePoint 2010
Clare Stone
In SharePoint 2007 there is a well known trick for opening up a list’s forms (New/View/Edit) in design mode – append ?ToolpaneView=2 onto the url – this is often used to add instructions or javascript using a Content Editor Web Part (CEWP) e.g.
Showing a records ID on the View and Edit forms
Setting a default duration for new SharePoint calendar events
However when I first tried to use my tried and tested shortcut in SharePoint 2010 I came a little unstuck as now the New/View [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 29th '10 |
TEST
Clare Stone
[sourcecode language="css"]
fucnction x(var y)
{
return
}
[/sourcecode]
No related posts. [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 23rd '10 |
5 Things you never knew you couldn’t do with SharePoint Alerts
Clare Stone
We often hear that communication is key to the success of any enterprise or organization. Making people aware of “what’s going on” is an essential. So for a collaboration platform like SharePoint tools for telling people what’s happening are a central part of the setup.
SharePoint has it’s built in “Alert Me” feature. New users seeing this often expect it to deliver functionality similar to that which comes as standard in MS Outlook. But that isn&# [read].
Posted: Mon, Jul 19th '10 |
SharePoint List Superpowers
Clare Stone
Now we all know that SharePoint Lists are pretty amazing things: easy to use, searchable, customizable… Where would we be without them?
But did you know that each list type comes with its own special “Superpower”?
If you understand the different superpowers of each list type it makes choosing which list to use on any given occasion much easier.
Calendar Lists – Repeating Events
For the meeting every Monday, or the staff Birthday list, or the equipment that needs to be serviced every [read].
Posted: Fri, Jul 9th '10 |
SharePoint Terminology – Farms, Web Front Ends, Web Application and Sites
Clare Stone
There is a great deal of confusion around some terms related to the different levels of SharePoint hierarchy. Some of this is buzword overload and some has been brought about by inconsistent usage from Microsoft (and to be fair actually most of us in this industry).
So if you’ve ever wondered what things like Farm, WFE, NLB, Web Application, Site Collection and Top Level Site mean I am going to try and clarify the different terms without getting too technical as some of this stuff ne [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 8th '10 |
We’ve Moved
Clare Stone
Just over a year after moving to Kingshold buildings we are having to move yet again, due to planned expansion. Not a huge deal though as we are only moving about 2 miles down the road.
Our new offices are based in Cheltenham Film Studios, on the outskirts of the town. We don’t plan to take up acting, but we think we will benefit from being one of a range of tech and creative companies on this site.
We have plenty of room to grow as a business here, so hopefully we will be able to stay [read].
Posted: Thu, Jul 1st '10 |
SharePoint Feature Receivers – the hidden details
Clare Stone
Warning - this post is somewhat techie so if you’re not a developer you may want to go find something more interesting to do!
I’ve been doing some work with SharePoint Feature Receivers recently and found the official documentation to be somewhat … lacking.
SharePoint Feature Receivers allow you to run code when a Feature such as a web part or template is installed, activated, deactivated and removed. They are often used for installation/setup tasks that can’t be don [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 15th '10 |
SharePoint Reminder Webpart – version 1.7.8 now available
Clare Stone
How annoying is it when you get reminded about something you have already done? A little email saying:
“Can you please submit your expenses claim form by 12.00 noon today”
is just sooo annoying when actually you have been a good girl and done your expenses yesterday.
We get lots of support calls from SharePoint Reminder webpart users who have annoyed their team members in just this way – by sending our Reminder emails for tasks that have already been completed.
This is easy [read].
Posted: Mon, Jun 14th '10 |
Moving to Feedburner
Clare Stone
Just a quick note to let you know we are moving to Feedburner.
No related posts. [read].
Posted: Mon, Jun 7th '10 |
How To setup a SharePoint view filter to compare 2 list fields
Clare Stone
There are many instances where you might want to view a set of SharePoint list records which have been filtered on a comparison between values in 2 columns. You might want to view a list of all sales reps who have failed to hit their targets: Actual SalesCredit Limit, or employees who have not used their full vacation entitlement: Vacation Entitlement>Days taken.
A customer recently contacted me with just this type of question :-
They use a SharePoint list to keep track of orders waiting t [read].
Posted: Tue, Jun 1st '10 |
SharePoint 2010 Resources
Clare Stone
Last week we had an email from a customer who was confused about his options for SharePoint 2010.
He was planning to move his 5 WSS site to SharePoint 2010 Foundation – but had found this document from Microsoft:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Licensing-Details.aspx
which seems to suggest that sites and Workspaces were not available in Foundation, only in SharePoint 2010 standard edition or above. Well we knew this wasn’t right; but that wasn’t what th [read].
Posted: Thu, May 27th '10 |
The Truth about Tech Support
Clare Stone
You know how satisfying it is when you read something, instinctively know it’s right, then have something happen that gives you concrete proof? Well we had one of those moments this week – and I wanted to share.
We read quite a few business blogs and for down to earth, quality advice Jason Cohen is our man – Joel Spolsky sometimes comes up with the goods, but he can be a bit full of himself, we don’t get Seth Godin at all – seems to have made a great career out of sta [read].
Posted: Mon, May 24th '10 |
Calculated columns – Adding hours onto a date field
Clare Stone
A customer recently contacted me with an interesting question.
They were using a SharePoint task list to help schedule jobs for field engineers but rather than have a Start Date and End Date field they wanted to have a Start Date and Duration field and automatically work out the End Date.
So End Date = Start Date + Duration
They were then planning to display this using Planner in the By Category view which is idea for resource booking as it makes it easy to see when a resource is booked or free [read].
Posted: Wed, May 19th '10 |
SharePoint 2010 gets into the Groove
Clare Stone
With all the furore surrounding the business release of SharePoint 2010 it would have been easy to miss the launch (or relaunch) of another little Microsoft product in the SharePoint space which quite neatly addresses two of my personal SharePoint bug bears.
Wonderful though SharePoint is there are always a few things we wish it would do better. Personally I have always been a little frustrated by the limitations on sharing with people outside of your own organization, the difficulties arou [read].
Posted: Mon, May 17th '10 |
SharePoint 2010 Ready – PHEW!
Clare Stone
Well, OK so it probably hasn’t been quite as much effort as climbing Everest – but sometimes it’s felt that way!
Last week Microsoft made the “final” release version of SharePoint 2010 available to developers and large corporates. So we have been able to get on with our “final” set of compatibility tests and we can now announce that all of our products are SharePoint 2010 Compatible.
When you make software that works on a particular platform ̵ [read].
Posted: Tue, May 4th '10 |
SharePoint Site Templates: KISS guide to creating, saving and using
Clare Stone
A site is the key place within SharePoint to bring together all the people, content and activities associated with a particular process, project or group. And if the process or project is regularly repeated within your organization having a site template for it saves a lot of time and helps to ensure consistency and facilitate continuous improvement.
There are any number of scenarios where you might use a SharePoint site template, for this example we are using a recruitment process, but you co [read].
Posted: Tue, Apr 27th '10 |
Use SharePoint Filtered Views to Stop Sending Alerts to Yourself
Clare Stone
How annoying is it when you have just created or amended an item in SharePoint, and you immediately get an Alert email about it?
You know the kind of situation: you might be working in a team list, you have the list set up to alert you when an item assigned to you is added or amended, so as soon as you add or amend an item yourself an alert email pings through to your inbox. Completely unnecessary inbox clutter.
So, lets switch off those annoying “alerts to myself” – has to be [read].
Posted: Mon, Apr 19th '10 |
New SharePoint Partnership – Pentalogic and LookOut Software
Clare Stone
We are really pleased to let you know about our latest Strategic Partnership with a SharePoint relationship management development company, LookOut Software of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
LookOut has been in the CRM software business since 1994. In 2007 they were introduced to SharePoint and made the decision to change development platforms and haven’t looked back since.
LookOut’s CRM Template builds upon the the best of SharePoint adding relationship capability with [read].
Posted: Fri, Apr 9th '10 |
SharePoint Partner Perspective: Veronique Palmer
Clare Stone
This is the first in a series of interviews with our partners – giving insights into what’s happening in their part of the world and in their part of the world of SharePoint.
And our first interviewee is Veronique Palmer.
We first met Veronique in discussions on the SharePoint Experts Group on LinkedIn, which she co-manages and moderates. Veronique is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and is owner and founder of Lets Collaborate.
So, tell us what’s good about living [read].
Posted: Thu, Apr 1st '10 |
SharePoint 2010: What’s Hot and What’s Not – #3 Social Networking
Clare Stone
This is the final part in our occasional series on what’s hot and what’s not for the end user in SP 2010.
A couple of weeks ago we focused on our favorite new feature for end users: FAST Search, which we think is going to make a huge impact on how people store and search for content in SharePoint 2010. Last week we took at pop at Business Connectivity Services – which we feel could cause more problems than it solves.
Today we are throwing stones at SharePoint 2010 Social Networking – [read].
Posted: Mon, Mar 22nd '10 |
SharePoint 2010 What’s Hot and What’s Not? #2 NOT!
Clare Stone
So here we are with the second instalment in our occasional series on SharePoint 2010 features for the end user.
In part 1 we looked at the new features in SharePoint 2010 that we thought would be most welcomed by end users. Our vote went to FAST Search, because it’s going to make search within SharePoint much more like search in Google – which has to be a good thing.
This provoked a lot of debate and whilst some of you agreed with us, others had different candidates for the top spot.
A lo [read].
Posted: Fri, Mar 19th '10 |
And the Winner Is . . . !
Clare Stone
No, it’s not more about the Oscars, it’s our Case Study Competition – just as important to us, but maybe Jeff Bridges wouldn’t share our view.
Random aside: Did you know that this is (allegedly) the first year in over 20 years that award presenters at the Oscar’s have used the phrase “and the winner is”? “And the winner is” was banned at the 60th Oscars, for fear of offending the “non-winners” (didn’t they used to be called losers??). Presenters have been saying “an [read].
Posted: Wed, Mar 10th '10 |
Case Study – Bowerman and Brooke Choose Pentalogic SharePoint Reminder for Job Tracking System
Clare Stone
So here we are on track with at least one of our SharePoint 2010 New Year’s Resolutions – and its only March!
We wanted to get some more insight into how people use our products out there in the real world, and so we asked you to send in case studies. In fact we launched a little competition to encourage you – winner to be announced in the next blog post.
We have been delighted with the response, and here is the first in what we hope will be a long running series.
Wade Peterson is Di [read].
Posted: Mon, Mar 8th '10 |
SharePoint 2010: What’s Hot and What’s Not for End Users — #1: Hot
Clare Stone
Along with many others in our part of the technology industry, we’ve spent the past few months with our heads firmly buried in SharePoint 2010, getting our products compatible, and along the way getting really familiar with the wealth of new features on offer.
So as we’re now at the “been there, done that” stage with SP 2010 we thought it might be useful to share our thoughts on what the killer features are, and where to watch out for the white elephants!
This week — killer fea [read].
Posted: Thu, Mar 4th '10 |
Tell Us Your SharePont Story and Win a Flip Video
Clare Stone
One of our New Years Resolutions for 2010 was to: “find out how people really use our stuff”.
We really want to understand how people use our Planner, Reminder and Pivot Point in the real world. We know we have clients from a huge range of industry sectors, so it will be great to see how our software helps with the special challenges of your area. And we know that some of you use 2 or 3 of our products together: we would love to know what you are doing there.
So this year we want t [read].
Posted: Tue, Feb 16th '10 |
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