It seems that just a few months ago, I was in New York City, speaking at a SharePoint Saturday event… oh wait, I was! Yes everyone, SharePoint Saturday is coming back to the Big Apple, and this time, all content will be focused on SharePoint 2010! So, if you were unable to attend the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas back in October, or other events since then, here is your chance to soak up some information on SharePoint 2010, for free!

I am excited to be heading back to New York City to be speaking at another SharePoint Saturday event there. I will be delivering a session on “What’s New for Developers in SharePoint 2010”. SharePoint 2010 offers developers a unique and well deserved set of tools to aid in the development of SharePoint 2010 solutions. In this session we’ll cover improvements in the UI and the toolsets themselves, from PowerShell as a powerful scripting interface to the API, the Developer Dashboard, the SharePoint Toolkit in Visual Studio 2010, and more.

Sound interesting? Then come on and register for the event, and I’ll see you there!

Registration is now open, click here to register for the event! https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=144473

So, what is this SharePoint Saturday thing anyways?

”Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for ‘SharePoint Saturday’, on Saturday, January 30th, 2010.  SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.  SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!”

It also takes place on a Saturday.

And go here for more information: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/ny/

First of all, a big thanks to all of the attendees who made it out to Reston, VA at the Microsoft Office, to listen to all of the speakers talk about SharePoint, for free (I do no think anyone requested a refund that I am aware of), on a Saturday, in the snow. We had a good crowd, even with the weather, and I had a great time. Thank you all for coming out, definitely made the trip down there worth it! It was great to meet you all, and I had great interaction in my session from the attendees, as well as some sideshow humor, photo ops, heckling from Mark Rackley and Dan Usher (just kidding, you had some good questions!), and some live pair programming with the help of Christina Wheeler.

Another go out to the organizers of the event, Dan Usher, Dux Raymond Sy, and Gino Degregori. They all did a great job of putting this together, and for the sponsors for making this happen! These are great events that really drive the SharePoint community. It is events like these that make the virtual of social networking and online learning actual and physical.

Wow, I just realized that is probably the first animated gif I have posted in an extremely long while. Sorry for that… So, you may want to scroll down a bit to stop that and read the rest of this [code, slide presentations, etc.].

Anyhow, as per my presentation, I said I would get these up here as soon as possible, so here they are. Below is the presentation hosted at SlideShare.net, with short clips hosted at screencast.com, without audio, of the demonstrations themselves. I hope to soon re-record those and post them here, as those were my backups, just in case my virtual image did not want to play nice during my demos (it’s happened before, so now I always come prepared!).

And even further down the page away from the annoying applause animated gif above, are the code samples from my demonstrations as well. In addition to what we reviewed in the demos, I also included two additional sources (with pre-compiled WSPs, per the request of an attendee, they are included in the ZIP files below), that were briefly mentioned.

However, before I do that, I would kindly request from some of my attendees, that you please respond in the comments of this post to let me know what you thought of the session, if you will be using Custom Actions in your SharePoint development, if you have put this to use, and any questions you have regarding any of the material that I had presented. This goes a long way in helping me craft future versions of this topic, and plants seeds for others. Thanks in advance!

• Demo #1 – Creating a Simple Custom Action
  • Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/YjlhZTU0
  • SPS.SiteActionsSolutionManagement
    • This was the link to the Solution Management page within SharePoint Central Administration off of the Site Actions menu. This is hard-linked however to my local system, to: http://litwareserver:9999, you will need to modify this within the solution, and rebuild the WSP to use for your CA URL and port.
    • Download: SPS.SiteActionsSolutionManagement.zip
  • SPS.SiteRecycleBin
    • This was the second deployment I quickly ran through, which added a Site Recycle Bin link to the Site Actions page under the Site Administration Custom Action Group
    • Download: SPS.SiteRecycleBin.zip
  • SPSDC.SiteActionsRecycleBin
    • This is the solution that I walked through during the first demonstration. This will add links to both the current site recycle bin, as well as the site collection recycle bin to the Site Actions menu.
    • Download: SPSDC.SiteActionsRecycleBin.zip
• Demo #2 – Creating a Slightly More Complex Custom Action
  • Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/ZDRhOTFkZmIt
  • SPS.CompleteTask
    • This is the solution from the second demonstration. This solution will add Complete Task links to the Tasks and Gantt Tasks (Project Tasks) lists shown in the Edit Control Block. This will allow you to set the task Status field to Completed, and the Percent Complete field to 100% for the given task.
    • Download: SPS.CompleteTask.zip
• Demo #3 – Hiding Custom Actions
  • Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/YmQwNWI1
  • SPS.HideCustomAction
    • This solution hides the custom action on the Site Settings page under Site Administration for ‘Delete This Site’. There is a README.txt within the solution as well, which gives direction on the STSADM commands that need to be run to activate and deactivate this feature, as we have it hidden from the Site Features page, and it can only be activated by using STSADM.
    • Download: SPS.HideCustomAction.zip
    • Additional Resource: http://gvaro.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B06529FD3FC75473!415.entry
• Demo #4 – Custom Action Groups
  • Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/YjM2YzAzZmI
  • SPS.CustomActionGroup
    • This solution creates a Custom Action Group within the Site Settings page, that links to a few Custom Action resources on MSDN.
    • Download: SPS.CustomActionGroup.zip

Some additional resources for Custom Actions I have on my blog that I had made mention of during my presentation:

• Combining Multiple CustomAction Elements Together
• RecurrenceId Attribute of the CustomAction Element
• Delete this site
• SharePoint SPBasePermissions Enumeration
• SharePoint List Type IDs

The presentation and code samples above will also be made available on the SharePoint Saturday DC website.

Thanks again for attending, and please let me know what you thought of the event and the session! Dux mentioned that the DC events will be taking place twice a year. My plan for the next time, is to show how Custom Actions are used within SP2010, and possibly a session on building features and solutions… so be sure to keep an eye out for the next SharePoint Saturday DC!

[re-posted from http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston/]

SharePoint Saturday Boston is currently looking for sponsors.  SharePoint Saturday is free to all attendees and a not for profit event.  Sponsorships help provide the necessary resources to facilitate the event.  If interested please download and review sponsorship document (right-click, and choose Save Target As... to avoid password prompts).  If there are any questions or want to sponsor an item please email SPSBoston@live.com.  Sponsorship for SharePoint Saturday Boston is on a first come first serve basis.

What: Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Technologies for the 2nd ‘SharePoint Saturday’ Boston event, to be held on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at the Microsoft Office on Jones Road in Waltham, MA.  SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.  SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

When: February 27th, 2010

Where: Microsoft Office, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA

Follow us on twitter at @SPSBoston, and use the hashtag #spsbos when tweeting about the event. Visit the SharePoint Saturday Boston website for the most up-to-date information as well: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston

[re-posted from http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston/]

If you are interested in speaking at SharePoint Saturday Boston on February 27th, 2010, please download the speaker’s submission form here.

After completing the form, please return it to SPSBoston@live.com as soon as possible as the speaker slots fill up fast.

Once your outline is received we will review and send email confirmation that it was accepted.

What: Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Technologies for the 2nd ‘SharePoint Saturday’ Boston event, to be held on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at the Microsoft Office on Jones Road in Waltham, MA.  SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.  SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

When: February 27th, 2010

Where: Microsoft Office, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA

Follow us on twitter at @SPSBoston, and use the hashtag #spsbos when tweeting about the event. Visit the SharePoint Saturday Boston website for the most up-to-date information as well: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston

I am pleased to announce that the second SharePoint Saturday Boston event has been announced, and, that I am able to help organize this event!

What: Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Technologies for the 2nd ‘SharePoint Saturday’ Boston event, to be held on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at the Microsoft Office on Jones Road in Waltham, MA.  SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.  SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

When: February 27th, 2010

Where: Microsoft Office, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA

Follow us on twitter at @SPSBoston, and use the hashtag #spsbos when tweeting about the event. Visit the SharePoint Saturday Boston website for the most up-to-date information as well: http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/boston

Also, follow the other organizers of the event for more information

• Talbott Crowell – @talbott
• Pradeepa Siva – @pipstips
• Michael Lotter – @michaellotter
• Chris Bowen – @chrisbowen
• Geoff Varosky – @gvaro

More information to come!

I am pleased to announce that I will be speaking at SharePoint Saturday DC (well, actually Reston, VA) on Saturday, December 5th. There is a trio of excellent people organizing this event (Dan Usher, Dux Raymond Sy, and Gino Degregori) so it should be a good one!

The event registration sold out on the same day registration had opened, however, you can still sign up for the waiting list here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/484037770

I will again be presenting my session “Introduction to Developing Custom Actions within SharePoint”, however a modified version based on prior feedback and time limitations from the Boston, Baltimore, and New York City events.

An official speaker and session list has not been released to the SharePoint Saturday DC site as of yet, however, you can follow along to the chatter in twitter by searching for hashtag #spsdc, and be sure to follow @SPSaturday_DC, @usher, and @meetdux for more information regarding the event.

I am excited to be involved in yet another SharePoint Saturday event, and am looking forward to presenting, seeing some old friends, and making some new ones.

If you are in, or will be in the Washington DC area on December 5th, and are involved with SharePoint in any way, shape, or form, I highly suggest you do yourself a favor and sign up for SharePoint Saturday DC. And you better be quick about it, registration is limited to the first 200 signups!

Wondering what SharePoint Saturday is?

“Join SharePoint architects, developers, and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Technologies for ‘SharePoint Saturday’, on Saturday, Dec 5, 2009 at the Microsoft Technology Center on Sunset Hills Road Reston, VA.  SharePoint Saturday will be an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics.  SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!”

These are great events, where many respected names in the SharePoint community dedicate their Saturday to teach you more about SharePoint, on their own dime, to give back to the SharePoint community. There will be some sessions on SharePoint 2010 as well!

So, give a visit to http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/dc/ for more information and to register to attend this great event!

Yesterday it was announced on the SharePoint Saturday NYC site that registration for this free, one-day SharePoint conference will open on August 15th.

The speakers list was published to the site yesterday as well, and sessions will be posted to the site (35 of them!) before registration opens on the 15th. A schedule was also posted, which I will re-post here:

8:00 am – 8:45 am – Registration & Breakfast
8:45 am – 9:15 am – Welcome
9:30 am – 10:45 am – Sessions
11:00 am – 12:15 pm – Sessions
12:15 pm – 1:00 pm – Lunch
1:00 pm – 2:15 pm – Sessions
2:30 pm – 3:45 pm – Sessions
4:00 pm – 5:15 pm – Sessions
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm – Closing & Giveaways

This is going to be yet another great SharePoint Saturday event, so, register early to ensure your spot as an attendee for this conference on the 15th at http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/ny

I am excited to announce that I just heard from the coordinators of SharePoint Saturday NYC, Michael Lotter and Dux Raymond Sy, that I will be speaking at the upcoming SharePoint Saturday NYC event, taking place on September 12th, 2009.

An official speakers and session lists have not been released to the site as of yet, but already a great lineup is coming together from the looks of it on twitter (search for hashtag #spsnyc).

I will again be presenting my session “Introduction to Developing Custom Actions within SharePoint”, however a modified version based on prior feedback and time limitations from the Boston and Baltimore events.

For more information on the event, please visit the SharePoint Saturday NYC site. I will post registration details as soon as they are released. Hope to see everyone there!