SharePoint

SharePoint 2013 Following Sites

Pro-Tip – when you’re setting up your 2013 farm and the ‘follow sites’ features don’t work between web applications…make sure the web app’s app pool account has SPDataAccess rights (that’s one of the new schemas in 2013 in the databases) to the content database in question.

SharePoint 2013 Distributed Cache Service Tuning

When needing to tune the DCS, just starting and stopping the service on servers by way of CA is a swift ticket to a completely borked farm.  ProTip – see article here [http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219613.aspx].  Note that you can’t control this service remotely, apparently you

SharePoint 2013 My Site Publishing

Quick protip – if you are publishing My Sites and need to change the URL (but not the actual location – think AAMs or TMG publishing) – the only way to do it from what I can tell is to set the URL of what you want it to be as DEFAULT in

Mass Updating Site Owners

In SharePoint, if you’re smart, you have written a custom footer to display the site owner (or primary site collection administrator) so people know who to talk to when something goes wrong.  They get all of the grief.  What’s more, sometimes those that get all the grief are

Switching from Claims to Not Claims with SharePoint 2010

Working with a client the other day, I had the need to take a web application from one SP install to another. Normally, no big deal. This time, however, client has two different kinds of environments. One was using claims mode. The other wasn’t. In this instance, we needed

SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Wiki Page Layouts

Let’s say you have some custom layouts you want to make available for all of your users when they create new pages in SP2010, but the Enterprise Wiki page layout is bumming you out.  You can of course just change them and/or add your own!  Found a great

The Large Enterprise and the Cloud

Recently, I was privileged to begin working on a project where a feasibility study was being conducted similar to other studies that are happening all over the world these days.  “Shall we go to go to the cloud or to not go to the cloud; more precisely, to go Exchange

SharePoint 2010 and the Site Directory

I’m working with a client right now that has a large SharePoint 2010 deployment (8 web apps, couple hundred site collections (not counting My Sites), a couple thousand sites and about 80,000 users (potential)).  They were in need of a tool to keep site collections and sites categorized

Enterprise Content Management & SP2010 - Ready for the Big Time

It should come as no surprise that I’m a bit of a fan of SharePoint. I’ve practically built my career on the platform and truly enjoy the breadth and depth of solutions that the product offers to enterprises of all sizes. SharePoint has come a VERY long way

User Experience Matters

I didn’t mean for this article to turn into a specific rant, but I failed horribly in that regard.  I was doing some follow up research on my previous post regarding the final two silos and was being constantly reminded about how much productivity is lost in the enterprise

The Final Two Silos

It is interesting to see the Enterprise space, with all the efforts of integration and collaboration, continue to struggle with fundamental technology differences and the lack of willingness to improve. There seem to be two final silos of not just data, but process and infrastructure. The silos are between historically

Fun with PowerShell Recently

Normally, I try to keep my blog high level, in the architect space. However, I am currently assigned to a client and they were needing a migration script to convert accounts in SharePoint from AD to LDAP for about 100,000 accounts. The following is what I threw together in

Creating SharePoint 2007 Timer Jobs

So here’s a quick tip, in case you ever find yourself wasting 24 hours of your life trying to figure out why your freshly created MOSS timer job never runs…restart the damn timer service. Good lord.

Abstract: Pivot on This! Excel 2010 x64 Edition and PowerPivot Revolutionize Utilities

How Excel 2010 x64 Can Help an Electric Utility Truly Measure Success Within the walls of the rural electric utility, many situations arise where the need to quickly and accurately depict the current state of the electric grid.  Much like their bigger cousins in urban centers, these data are vital

Abstract: The Challenges of Multi-Tenant Aware CRM Instances

By Derek Martin and Jake Watkins Wherever possible, organizations tend towards centralization of data.  Whether that be from a taxonomy perspective, document management perspective, or a customer data management perspective, these centralizations are critical to information security, awareness, conformity and efficiency.  The need for these commonalities are brought into sharp

Abstract: Collaboration and Integration with SharePoint 2010 in Electric Utilities

The evolution of the modern IT infrastructure in the rural utility space has transformed what is possible in the assessment and understanding of business metrics and objectives.  The key to fully understanding utility and cooperative success, like any other company, lies in the ability to rapidly and accurately articulate the

Upgrading your MOSS 2007 Farm

In planning for your MOSS 2007 upgrade to SharePoint 2010 (SP2010), please realize that there really isn’t an upgrade per se.  SP2010 is radically different under the covers so an in place upgrade is really a migration or conversion.  However, before you roll your eyes in frustration, check out

Currently Reading

I’ve been reading a great book on practical IT Management ‘things’ called The Windows Administration Resource kit (Amazon link here [http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Administration-Resource-Kit-Professionals/dp/0735624313] ).  It provides a very practical look into some of the things you can do to your systems to bring additional value.  One

The Coming Storm – SharePoint 2010

It comes as no surprise that I’m excited about SP2010.  MOSS 2007 was an amazing product which introduced many great new features.  But like most things Microsoft, it typically takes a version or so to iron out the kinks and get it just right (think Windows Vista to Windows

SharePoint 2010 and Composite Applications

One of my favorite design stories around MOSS was the ability to use the OOB experience to fundamentally enhance a given business process.  In fact, in the seven years I’ve been doing MOSS, I have only found a SINGLE business process that didn’t lend itself almost perfectly to

Follow Up to HealthVault Article

I wrote recently about a new deal in progress with the US Government and Microsoft HealthVault.  It can be found here [http://derekmartin.org/archives/520].  It seems as though MS isn’t sparing any horses and keeping the investment going.  Mary Jo Foley, whom I follow quite closely in

SharePoint 2010 Development is (Slightly) Better

Let’s be real for a sec.  Developing on the SharePoint 2007 platform is more than a bit of a pain.  Despite all of MS’s and other folks efforts, it is just complicated.  It is basically impossible to reliably and cleanly develop for SharePoint 2007 and not have SharePoint

Patterns and Practices for MOSS 2010

Via the Innovation Showcase [http://blogs.msdn.com/innov8showcase/archive/2010/02/22/patterns-practices-sharepoint-guidance.aspx] The Patterns and Practice group at Microsoft recently (today) updated some patterns for MOSS 2010 which provides a good read and some great sample code.  I recommend at the very least looking over and understanding