Speaking – Page 4 – What Me Pa..Panic?

Pittsburgh SharePoint User’s Group

I will be speaking at the Pittsburgh SharePoint User’s Group on Wednesday, January 18th. The meeting will start at 11:00 am and my topic will be "Users, Profiles, and MySites: Managing a Changing SharePoint User population”. Here’s a brief description of the talk:

Users, Profiles, and MySites: Managing a Changing SharePoint User population

Every organization has some level of personnel change and turnover. The question is, in the midst of this fluid user population how can you manage a user’s access to SharePoint and retrieve important information stored in their personal site efficiently? Updating existing user information is also often a problem and most people have questions about how security permissions work in SharePoint. In this talk we will examine how SharePoint stores information about users and the underlying processes controlling user accounts, permissions, profiles and personal MySites. We’ll look at what works, what doesn’t work, and possible workarounds. Along the way we’ll discuss the Best Practices for managing users, their profiles, and MySites in a SharePoint environment. We’ll discuss how this works in both 2007 and 2010.

The group will meet at the Pittsburgh Technology Council. You can get a map by clicking on the link below.

Pittsburgh Technology Council
2000 Technology Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

SharePoint Saturday Denver Wrap-Up

I’m at the airport waiting on my flight home from the Denver SharePoint Saturday event. Since I promised attendees that I would post my slides I thought I would do it today before I got busy with other things when I get back to work on Monday. I was originally scheduled to present two sessions. But I ended up presenting a third session when one of the presenters had to cancel at the last minute. That was a session I did a couple years ago on strategies for implementing SharePoint governance in a collaborative fashion.

The event was a pure pleasure and I hope I can come back again if there is another. For any of those who attended, I’ve attached the slide decks from my talks below:

SharePoint Governance: Dealing with the Culture Change, Power Struggles, and Conflict (Slides) – Implementing SharePoint changes the traditional model used for governing most Information Technology projects. Gone are the days when IT departments controlled the life and work of end users through software. Instead SharePoint is built on a model of cooperation where end users control their own data and the IT staff is dedicated to providing them with better more powerful tools. But change like this inevitably results in power struggles and conflict. Being successful with SharePoint requires recognizing and confronting this culture change with a new spirit of partnership and cooperation. Anything less will at best be painful and at worst lead to disaster.

Intro to Developing for SharePoint Online: What Tools Can I Use? (Slides) – The introduction of Office 365 drastically changed the SharePoint development landscape. As a managed online service the rules for developing customizations for SharePoint Office 365 are radically different from the ones for an “on-premise” installation. They are also slightly different than developing sandbox solutions. In addition many companies who currently use dedicated SharePoint installations are beginning to consider eventual migration to the Office 365 cloud environment. That means even current “on-premise” development is often constrained in new ways. No matter what kind of development you currently do you need to know how to develop for Office 365. In this workshop/session we’ll cover the following topics:

Setting up an Office 365 development environment
Developing sandbox solutions for SharePoint Online
Building reusable workflows in SharePoint Designer 2010
Why the Client Object Model is even more important in Office 365

Users, Profiles, and MySites: Managing a Changing SharePoint User population (Slides) – Every company has some level of employee change and turnover. The question is how do you manage the graceful removal or modification of user information from SharePoint? If everything is perfectly aligned SharePoint will automatically process and delete the user account, permissions, profile, and MySite for users that are deleted from Active Directory. Updates to user information are also automatic in many cases. But most SharePoint installations don’t have all the necessary components aligned for automated removal of old users and some profile properties refuse to update. In this session we will examine the underlying processes controlling user accounts, permissions, profiles and MySites and how they interact. We’ll look at what works, what doesn’t work, and how to work around it. Along the way we’ll recommend Best Practices for managing users, their profiles, and MySites in a SharePoint environment.

SharePoint Saturday: Denver – Nov. 11-12

Next week I’ll be headed for Denver to speak at the Denver SharePoint Saturday event. I will be presenting two sessions. One will be an overview for users, admins, and developers who are just getting started on SharePoint online in Office 365. The other is a more in depth talk for developers and admins on managing the various places that SharePoint stores user information. I’ve reprinted the abstracts for my talks below:

Intro to Developing for SharePoint Online: What Tools Can I Use? – The introduction of Office 365 drastically changed the SharePoint development landscape. As a managed online service the rules for developing customizations for SharePoint Office 365 are radically different from the ones for an “on-premise” installation. They are also slightly different than developing sandbox solutions. In addition many companies who currently use dedicated SharePoint installations are beginning to consider eventual migration to the Office 365 cloud environment. That means even current “on-premise” development is often constrained in new ways. No matter what kind of development you currently do you need to know how to develop for Office 365. In this workshop/session we’ll cover the following topics:

Setting up an Office 365 development environment
Developing sandbox solutions for SharePoint Online
Building reusable workflows in SharePoint Designer 2010
Why the Client Object Model is even more important in Office 365

Users, Profiles, and MySites: Managing a Changing SharePoint User population – Every company has some level of employee change and turnover. The question is how do you manage the graceful removal or modification of user information from SharePoint? If everything is perfectly aligned SharePoint will automatically process and delete the user account, permissions, profile, and MySite for users that are deleted from Active Directory. Updates to user information are also automatic in many cases. But most SharePoint installations don’t have all the necessary components aligned for automated removal of old users and some profile properties refuse to update. In this session we will examine the underlying processes controlling user accounts, permissions, profiles and MySites and how they interact. We’ll look at what works, what doesn’t work, and how to work around it. Along the way we’ll recommend Best Practices for managing users, their profiles, and MySites in a SharePoint environment.

EU SharePoint Best Practices Wrap-Up

Its been a busy four days since I got home from the EU SharePoint Best Practices Conference and a short holiday in London with my wife last week. I’ve been spending the last 4 days getting caught up so I can spend the next three weeks at the 8th MCM Rotation that starts on Monday. Needless to say its been a really busy spring.

The conference was EXCELLENT! After missing it last year due to the Icelandic volcano eruptions I was really looking forward to going. I can’t say enough about how Steve Smith and Zoe Watson take care of the speakers at their conferences. In addition to the wonderful arraignments there were lots of great sessions to hear, attendees to talk to, and friends to visit with. I’m hoping to go back again next year.

For any of those who attended, I’ve attached the slide decks from my talks below.

Users, Profiles, and MySites: Managing a Changing SharePoint User Population: Presentation Slides.

How to teach an old dog ‘IT Team’ New Tricks Presentation Slides.

BP Conference: Giving away an MSDN Subscription

If you haven’t decided to come to this year’s SharePoint Best Practices Conference then maybe this will help convince you to come. One lucky attendee who attends at least one of my sessions will receiver a FREE one year subscription to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscription^*.

Microsoft was kind enough to provide me with 3 of these subscriptions to give away when I was renewed as an MVP in July. I’ll be giving away the other two at future events. So stay tuned to this Blog if you want to be in on future give-aways. That’s an $11,899 value if you ordered it online from Microsoft yourself. Better yet it includes everything you need to go home from the conference and build your own test environment to try out everything you’ve learned at the conference. Here’s how it works. Attend one, two, or all three of my sessions at the conference August 24-27. here are my session dates, times and topics:

SharePoint Designer 2010: Using it Safely in an Enterprise Environment	Aug. 25th	8:00-9:15
Internet Facing SharePoint Sites: Best Practices for a Secure Design	Aug. 26th	8:00-9:15
SharePoint’s Branding Continuum: Customizing your Look and Feel	Aug. 26th	3:00-4:15

After you fill out an evaluation drop your business card in one of the receptacles marked MSDN subscription. After my final session on Thursday from 3:00-4:15 PM I’ll head over to the ShareSquared booth (#24) in the exhibit hall. At 4:55 PM I’ll draw a winner for the MSDN Subscription. You don’t need to be present to win, but if you are at the booth I will be able to give you your prize right away. Otherwise I’ll contact you and arrange for delivery.

So if you hadn’t planned to come to the BP Conference now’s the time to make your plans. Register today. If you are already planning to come then I hope to see you at my sessions.

*The subscription is a not-for-resale version with some benefit restrictions such as no technical support benefits or MSDN magazine subscription and all product licenses are for development and test only. The subscription must be activated before the end of 2010.