SharePoint Config

Before getting into SharePoint 2010 I’d like to recap on some of the things I’ve learnt using SharePoint 2007. Much has progressed since I started working on SharePoint 2007 Technology Adoption Program (TAP) projects using the SharePoint 2007 Beta versions in early 2006. As a developer some of the biggest improvements I’ve noticed are the availability of tools and information.

In 2006 we were creating WSP files by manually maintaining DDF files and using makecab, a process that is now fully automatable (and integrated into Visual Studio) using freely available tools such as the brilliant WSPBuilder utility. I also remember spending two whole days trying to create a list definition as the documentation on MSDN wasn’t (and still isn’t) complete. Not surprisingly the ‘Creating a Custom SharePoint 2007 List Definition’ blog post I wrote afterwards still draws in over 1500 page views a month.

So below are a list of some of the ways I like to do things when creating custom SharePoint 2007 solutions (with a focus on Web Content Management). Continue reading SharePoint 2007 Development Tips »

Performance testing can be useful exercise for many SharePoint deployments. It allows you to validate your infrastructure decisions, identify and iron out any bottlenecks, and prove that the environment can effectively handle the expected user load. It can also be useful to measure the effect of changes to the environment, and allows you to configure the environment for optimal performance. Continue reading Introducing the SharePoint performance test Codeplex project »

This post describes how to use the ContentTypeBinding element to avoid an error that can occur creating publishing pages. Continue reading Error creating SharePoint publishing pages »

For some reason certain1 SharePoint lists don’t have the handy “Edit in datasheet” option available to allow bulk editing of items. One of these lists is the MOSS Picture Library which means that although images can be uploaded in bulk, users have no easy way of bulk tagging these items (e.g. adding ‘christmas party’ as a keyword to 20 photos at once). Continue reading Bulk editing SharePoint Picture Library items »

I’ve been involved in several public website projects that have involved using MOSS content deployment. While content deployment is easy to set up for simple scenarios, there are a number of things that can trip you up if you have a significantly customised environment. In this post I’ll give details and solutions to on some of the common problems, and general tips on how to make this process run as smoothly as possible. Continue reading MOSS content deployment tips and tricks »

I’m pleased to say that the article I wrote a few months ago on ‘how we did it: tag driven IA for MOSS’ was noticed and has been re-published on the SharePoint team blog. Continue reading IA for MOSS article updated »

Early last year I was involved in developing a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) based Intranet for the Ministry of Transport. This post explains how we utilised the tagging capabilities provided by MOSS to create this award winning Intranet. Continue reading How we did it: Tag driven Information Architecture using MOSS »

In an earlier post I mentioned that the Intranet we designed for the Ministry of Transport won top prize at the Microsoft partner awards. Earlier this week the same Intranet was announced on Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox as being among the top 10 Intranets of 2008. Continue reading MOSS Intranet Voted Top 10 »

Fly Buys is New Zealand’s leading loyalty programme and is managed by Loyalty New Zealand. Fly Buys members receive points for shopping at participating stores, which they can then use to redeem a variety of rewards from coffee machines to television sets. The Fly Buys website allows members to search for rewards or participating companies, maintain their account information, as well as allowing Loyalty to maintain content and graphics for the site. Continue reading How we did it: Fly Buys website »

Following a busy few weeks the Fly Buys website I’ve been working on was launched last night. The site is built on MOSS and makes heavy use of the web content management features provided by the platform. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting on some of the experiences I’ve had during the build process. Continue reading Fly Buys takes off »