SharePoint, Office 365, Azure, and Other Musings…
April 18, 2014 Leave a comment
Good morning everyone, just a quick post to let you know that I have updated the New England SharePoint (and Office 365) Community List.
Is your group or event missing, anything need correction? If so, please drop in a comment below and let me know!
New England has a fantastic community around SharePoint and Office 365. Lots of opportunities to learn and network with some great people from around the area.
See you at a SPUG soon!
March 24, 2014 Leave a comment
With Microsoft’s focus on Office 365, and it being the largest product in history for them (surpassing SharePoint on-premises licensing), a few great minds here in the Boston area started talking a few months ago, about creating an Office 365 users group (not just covering SharePoint Online, but Lync, Exchange, Yammer, and whatever else gets tossed out onto the buffet line that is Office 365!).
Well, we have done just that, and are having our inaugural meeting on Thursday, May 22nd, at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (N.E.R.D.) from 6pm to 8pm. We will have Chris Bortlik, a Microsoft Office 365 Technology Specialist, kicking us off with his session “Introduction to Office 365”. See below for an abstract and bio for the session.
We will be having regular monthly meetings on the third Thursday of each month, so stay tuned for more as we build out our schedule of great speakers and topics going forward!
Our website is up (work in progress), but please sign up for our mailing list to be notified about future meetings and information about the group! http://www.bostono365usergroup.com/
Abstract
Office 365 is the fastest growing product in Microsoft’s history. Come to this session to learn what Office 365 is and how your organization can get started leveraging it today. During this talk we will cover the following topics:
Bio
Chris Bortlik works at Microsoft as an Office 365 technology architect. He works with Enterprise customers and partners in the Northeast in a technical role focused on SharePoint, Office, Exchange, Lync, Yammer, and other parts of Office 365. Chris is an “Insider” within Microsoft and works closely with the Office 365 product team. He holds the SharePoint MCITP and MCTS certifications. Chris speaks frequently at Microsoft events (including the SharePoint Conference); is a contributing author of the "Essential SharePoint 2010" book; and a coauthor of the “Essential SharePoint 2013” book. Chris also blogs regularly on TechNet: http://blogs.technet.com/cbortlik Prior to joining Microsoft in 2008, Chris was a customer for 14 years working in technical IT architect, development, and management roles – primarily leading .NET and SharePoint related projects. You can follow Chris on Twitter @cbortlik
October 28, 2010 Leave a comment
I know, I know… I still need to publish my post on this past SharePoint Saturday Boston… however, since SPTechCon is slightly more fresh in my mind, and, because I promised materials to one of the lucky folks who attended my sessions by the end of the day, SPTechCon has taken the driver’s seat.
All I can say is what a great conference! Unfortunately, I was meeting people and companies, and talking to session-goers, catching up with friends, and meeting new ones, for the entire event, that the only sessions I was able to make it to, were my own!
I would first like to extend my thanks, yet again, to David Rubinstein, Stacy Burris, Kathy Bruin, and the rest of the BZ Media team, for not only taking me on as a speaker, but, for also graciously hosting the October meeting of the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group! With the conference in town, and by David’s suggestion months earlier, we managed to put together a fantastic panel of speakers from some of the SharePoint rock stars that were on hand at SPTechCon. We wanted to put together a focused panel on the new hotness, SharePoint 2010. While the conversations drifted a bit, we had a very energetic crowd, and very energetic panel. The free drinks at the attendee exhibit hall exception MAY have had something to do with that…
The panel consisted of none other than Bill English of Mindsharp, Andrew Connell of Critical Path Training, Joel Oleson of Quest, Heather Solomon of SharePoint Experts, Dux Raymond Sy of Innovative-e, and Mark Miller of EndUserSharePoint.com. (I’ll get the video posted soon enough!).
My next set of thanks is going to the BASPUG attendees and speakers – thank you all so much for making yet another highly successful meeting of the BASPUG! We had over 70 in attendance, and there was barely a seat available! To each and every one of our speakers, you are always welcome back in Boston to the users group!
Some of the comments from the BASPUG I’d like to share.. a few images below – LOTS of talk about the #BASPUG. Thank you all!
To close out the BASPUG @ SPTechCon, here is the slide deck from that night. Video, as mentioned above, still to come!
Next, I’d like to thank all of those who attended my two sessions at SPTechCon. The first session, bright and early before Steve Fox’s keynote, was “Just Freakin’ Work! Overcoming Hurdles and Avoiding Pain” with Mark Rackley. We had almost a full room, even with the change in time, as well as for being quite early at 8:15am.
Below is our slide deck from that presentation.
My next session closed off the conference at 4:00 on Friday, and I delivered to a great crowd, “Creating Custom Actions in SharePoint 2010”. Thank you again for all who attended, and let me know if you have any questions here in the comments, so I can share them with the rest of the world, or rather, the small portion of people that view my blog 🙂 Below is my deck from that session.
Thank you again everyone at the conference. I have to say, in all honesty, that this was one of the best conferences I have ever had the privilege to attend!
Looking to see these sessions again? Join me in February next year at SPTechCon San Francisco!
July 15, 2010 Leave a comment
Ever since I participated in the developer panel last October for SharePoint Nation, I’ve been hoping to get back in there to deliver a session, and thankfully now I have the chance to do so! On Wednesday, July 21st, at 8PM EDT, I will be delivering my “Creating Custom Actions in SharePoint Session”.
No need to travel after a long day to attend – you can visit the user group at a nice respectable time of 8PM, from the comfort of your couch. Probably a little before the event, you’ll want to log in here: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=N2MK63&role=attend&pw=SPN072110
Creating Custom Actions within SharePoint
Custom Actions control features in SharePoint such as the Edit Control Block, the Site Actions menu, toolbars, and the links within the Site Settings page. Learn how to leverage Custom Actions to extend the SharePoint User Interface. This session will describe the basics of Custom Actions, a demonstration to build one or more and apply them to a site in SharePoint, as well as provide resources for additional information.
Level: Beginner – Intermediate
Hope to see some of my readers there!
January 29, 2010 Leave a comment
I will be speaking at the Western Massachusetts Microsoft Technology Users Group on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010.
I will be speaking on Creating Custom Actions within SharePoint.
Session Abstract
Custom Actions control features in SharePoint such as the Edit Control Block, the Site Actions menu, toolbars, and the links within the Site Settings page. Learn how to leverage Custom Actions to extend the SharePoint User Interface. This session will describe the basics of Custom Actions, a demonstration to build one or more and apply them to a site in SharePoint, as well as provide resources for additional information.
Event Details
Start Time: 6PM EST
End Time: 8PM EST
Location: MassMutual Learning & Conference Center at 350 Memorial Drive, Chicopee, MA
For more details, please visit: http://www.mstech.org/Events/tabid/109/ctl/Details/Mid/544/ItemID/245/Default.aspx
More information on the Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group
The Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group brings together people interested in Microsoft technologies. We are C# and VB.NET programmers, Sharepoint gurus, ASP.NET developers, commercial component developers, IT staffers, enterprise database programmers, entrepreneurs and novices.
We come together to learn, meet people, ask questions and create solutions. Our meetings always feature a speaker, interesting conversation, swag giveaways, free pizza and plenty of time to network and socialize. Now, we have this online community which we hope will facilitate collaboration between meetings and serve as a growing knowledge store and history of the group.
We regularly have between 20 – 35 members who come to our meetings with a wide range of interests and abilities. We usually have 1 or 2 meetings per month. We host developer oriented meetings on the first Tuesday of the month from 6pm – 8pm, and we host IT PRO oriented meetings on the third Tuesday of the month. Actual times can be found on our EVENTS page. Meetings are held at MassMutual Learning & Conference Center at 350 Memorial Drive, Chicopee, MA. Click here for a map.
Please join us! We are always interested in new people and new ideas. The first step is to Register so you will receive meeting notices and be able to participate in this online community. If you have questions prior to joining our group, please email Dan Caron.
Also, we are always seeking speakers to present relevant topics to our group. If you are interested, please email Dan Caron.
I hope to see some of you there!
January 29, 2010 Leave a comment
The third meeting of the Global SharePoint Users Group will commence on Tuesday evening, February 2nd, from 7PM – 8PM EST.
This meeting, Paul Schaeflein will be talking on PowerShell for SharePoint 2010.
Session Abstract: “PowerShell is the new administrative environment and scripting language for Microsoft’s server products. It provides tremendous benefits to developers as well. This session will show how to leverage PowerShell to understand the SharePoint API; how to use PowerShell to manage development and QA environments and how to create helpful (and efficient) scripts for general use.“
For more information on the event, go to http://www.gspug.org
To register for this event, please go here: http://gspugfeb2010.eventbrite.com/
This is a virtual online users group that meets via Live Meeting, so you don’t even have to go anywhere, or, skip any work – there is no reason for you not to attend!
January 7, 2010 1 Comment
Thanks to everyone who attended the Global SharePoint Users Group last night. It was a privilege to be the second presenter ever for this users group, and I had a great audience, who asked some great questions.
Thanks also go out to the organizers of the event, Dux Raymond Sy and Eric Harlan. Both have done a fantastic job at putting together this virtual users group.
And last, but certainly not least, a big thanks go out to AvePoint for donating and raffling off a netbook!
As promised during my session, here are the code samples and the slide deck from last nights meeting. You can find my code samples below the slide deck, along with additional references. Please leave any feedback you have, or questions, in the comments of this post. Since we do not receive any evaluation forms, any feedback is greatly appreciated!
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
GSPUG.SiteSettingsRecycleBin
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: GSPUG.SiteSettingsRecycleBin.zip
GSPUG.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: GSPUG.SiteActionsRecycleBins.zip
Demo #2 – Creating a Slightly More Complex Custom Action
Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/ZDRhOTFkZmIt
GSPUG.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: GSPUG.CompleteTask.zip
Demo #3 – Hiding Custom Actions
Screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/YmQwNWI1
GSPUG.HideDeleteThisSite
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: GSPUG.HideDeleteThisSite.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
GSPUG.CustomActionResources
This solution creates a Custom Action Group within the Site Settings page, that links to a few Custom Action resources on MSDN.
Download: GSPUG.CustomActionResources.zip
Some additional resources for Custom Actions I have on my blog that I had made mention of during my presentation:
Thank you all again for attending, and please let me know your thoughts and questions!
Geoff Varosky's Blog 