Wahid's Blog

This is just a repost of this blog (link) about custom workflow activities that I found really useful.

Here are just some of the things that are accomplished with this:

During my work in Afghanistan for CSTC-A, one of my biggest selling points to them for upgrading to MOSS 2007 was workflows. I really wish there were more workflows packaged but we ended up having to spend a lot of time creating them from scratch. It was time consuming because we were still dealing with post-upgrade things like training for end users. This CodePlex project is really a great tool that every SharePoint Architect/Engineer should keep handy.

One of my colleagues (and friends – hi Brett!) reminded me of something that I think isn’t written about too much. Its one of those things that everyone knows is needed but there’s a lack of information, samples and best practices – a void thats yet unfilled.

He emailed me asking my opinion on the size of SharePoint Site Collections in MOSS. I echoed the sentiments of Bill Baer who’s blog I read a lot. In summary, 15GB is a good limit. Personally, I know the user base that Brett was talking about and 15GB is actually too much. Yes, we did move completely away from traditional file servers but at the same time, SharePoint is not a storage dump. The information should be kept relevant, updated and unneeded documents trashed or archived some other way for historical tracking.

But the bigger question is how to define policies such as these and how to enforce them. Its really a non-SharePoint business decision. Many organizations have an “Acceptable Use Policy” that governs the use and abuse of their systems in general. I think with any Content Management System there needs to be specific policies. These policies would cover file size limits, type of documents stored and other technical limitations. It should also cover non-technical policies such as a blogging policy, classification of documents, use of MySites, etc.

I was researching this recently and could not find any such template, I guess I’ll need to make my own. Usually organizations do have these policies, but they’re unwritten, unclear and scattered everywhere. When it comes time to enforce, its hard to be objective without a comprehensive written policy.

Finally, I think such a policy would reinforce the business’ IT growth plan. It allows you to say, “Despite these limits we’ve imposed we’ll soon need new hardware.”

I got an email from one of my friends who was telling me about some limitation in SharePoint, specifically with surveys. He ended up creating a InfoPath form but it didn’t seem to be the best way.
The problem was that he needed some questions to be answered but some of the questions needed to solicit more information. For example: “Do you have any pets?” (Yes/No) and a follow up “If yes, please select the type of pet from this drop down.”

The InfoPath form did get him his information but there’s a better way. This can be solved using SharePoint’s built-in survey. I would guess this would be an option while creating the survey questions but its not. First, create the survey with all the questions. To create branching, you go to the Site Settings and select Survey Settings and click on the question you want to branch.

You’ll see the “Branching Logic” heading there, simply select which question each response will branch to.

I also found a non-traditional use for this. Some of the survey I’ve created were lengthy and all the questions would appear on a single page. I used Branching Logic to break up the pages, it works well.

I just saw this on the Microsoft site, Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training. Previously, I had the SharePoint Learning Kit but that didn’t work out. I was never able to get it to work right, so it wasn’t a usable resource for my end users. Hopefully this one will work just fine.

In my 2003 portal server that I maintained, the online training for end users was an integral part of my “New users class.” Its sometimes difficult for people to retain knowledge from a class when they’re new to it. So, I would let them know about the online training. After the upgrade though, that went away. I spent a lot of time creating my own training materials in PowerPoint

I might install this on my virtual server, it has bigger problems right now though. The main site won’t come up

While perusing a SharePoint blog, I saw an ad for a SharePoint offline reader. Its called Colligo Reader. First off, its free! That’s always a good thing. It allows you to sync a SharePoint site to your local machine so you can browse the documents at a later time. Obviously this is very useful for travelers but another reason may be for speed. Some sites can be painstakingly slow, sync a site while you’re doing something else and voila! You’ll have access to all the sites documents and lists.

Back in March I wrote about Installing Windows 2008, my experience with it. I finally had a chance to do some more in-depth test driving.

The login is cool, it has accessibility for the first time (text to speech, magnify, on screen keyboard). I tried out the on-screen keyboard because I’ve needed that before when one of my colleagues decides to unplug the keyboard. The only way for Windows Server 2003 to recognize the keyboard would be to reboot (not an option most times). It worked well and stays up for the rest of your session unless you close it.

Next I tried to experiment some more by joining it to a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory domain, no problems there. I know I could have gotten some more benefits by making my 2008 server the DC but I actually want to install Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. There’s a lot of improvements with IIS that I really want to test out!

One thing I noticed that I don’t particularly like is that a lot of install happen in the background. Usually its a software update or device driver and I don’t mind that at all for my desktops. But when it comes to my servers I really need to know everything that’s happening, all the changes and for the most part I want to document them.

The Initial Configuration Tasks window is the first thing you see. Its organized and I think its more efficient than doing these tasks during install. I chose to add a role for Web Server (to install IIS). The wizard driven interface was easy and faster. The best part was that instead of complaining about missing components and failing, it gave a warning to allow you to confirm you want to install the needed prerequisites – very nice!

That’s it for now, I need to look at some of the new terminology in 2008 (Features?!) And eventually get around to installing MOSS. Should be interesting…

I tested out this facial recognition software today and I was pretty impressed. Its called LemonScreen and its made by KeyLemon. I’m not going to write a full review about it but just to highlight some points that I personnaly like and dislike.

I like:
That its free.
That it seems to work pretty well.
I can save time because I don’t have to type in a password.
Alternately, you can use a password to get back in.
Setup was amazingly easy.

I dislike:
Lack of features, I think it should be modularized so others can create plug-ins for it.
That it only works with one person. What if I want to add my whole family to it??
That there’s no feature for a two-factor authentication.

During my testing, after the 5 minute inactivity (that you can change), the screen locked. I sat down at my computer and immediately it unlocked. It didn’t do any “Please wait… analyzing” or anything stupid like that, it just unlocked and I was ready to go.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it was extendable, I mean if you could replace this for website you visit or to open documents and other things. For now, its a good tool to use on for an alternate login for Windows. I’d like to see a Linux and Mac version. I give it a 4/5 rating. You can read more about it here:
http://bobbytoat.blogspot.com/2008/02/free-facial-recognition-software.html