SharePoint in a virtual machine

I've just published an article over at cmswire.com about the options for trialling SharePoint, namely SharePoint Foundation or SharePoint Online.

One of the comments on the piece, by Christian Buckley (check out his blog and twitter feeds - both very good), pointed out that another way of trying out SharePoint was to use a pre-compiled virtual machine made available by Microsoft. You can find a download link here. Be warned it's a pretty big download, but it does contain the following pre-configured software (across three VMs):

• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Standard Evaluation Edition 
• Exchnage Server 2010 SP1
• Lync Server 2010
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition 
• Visual Studio 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition
• Office Web Applicaitons SP1
• FAST Search for SHarePoint 2010 SP1
• Project Server 2010 SP1
• Office Professional Plus 2010 SP1
• Visio 2010 SP1
• Project 2010 SP1
• Lync 2010

The three virtual machines are 180 day evaluations, but this should be plenty of time to find out if SharePoint is for you. This approach does get round one of the SharePoint Foundation limitations discussed in my article. Namely having to setup and configure the product before you can get started. If you can a machine powerful to run the images, you can be up and running in no time. Well worth checking out. 

A business analyst or a project manager?

I saw this very interesting article at the tail end of last week, over at nothingButSharePoint.com. Have a read for yourself, but the in summary it discusses the important of having a business analyst on a SharePoint project. I couldn't agree more (checkout my previous posts on the subject) and totally agree that rushing into a project without fully understanding the problem is often the cause of untold issues on many IT projects.

A little snippet at the start of the article states that BAs are seen as 'junior project managers' in the authors organisation. This is something I hear time and time again and infuriates me. A while back I was working at a small IT agency, and was tasked with putting together a team of business analysts. The company had seen the light with this role and wanted one on every project team. It was a very refreshing approach. However trying to find the right people to fill these roles was very tough. At least half of the people interviewed described themselves as a "BA or Project Manager". A good portion of the rest answered the question "Where do you see yourself in 2 years?" with "As a project manager". I discarded both sets of people in an instant. If they couldn't see the difference in the roles, then how could they fulfil that of a BA properly?

I understand in small companies people sometimes double up on roles. However this is different to thinking the roles are linked, or in some way related on the career path. The skillset of a business analyst is very different to that of a project manager. If you can find someone who can do both well, then hire them and keep them very happy for they are rare! But typically you will find people who are good at one, or the other, not both. And the first step to finding someone good at one of the roles, is finding someone who understands that the roles are indeed different.

Useful links from Twitter this week

Some interesting links and articles you may have missed from Twitter in this last week. Follow the Scribble Agency on Twitter to stay right upto date.

SharePoint:

• Interesting interview with Jared Spataro, director of #SharePoint -http://bit.ly/wZwXta
• #SharePoint is a 'document coffin', says IBM - bit.ly/zwsEB0
• Office365 vs GoogleApps http://bit.ly/AtDKpD
• 39 Solutions for Doing Social Business with #SharePoint - http://t.co/8Wm6DPJg

Microsoft:

• #Microsoft confirms Dave Cutler, father of Windows NT, now working on Xbox - zd.net/AlDw4y
• #Microsoft Makes Cloud Management Move On VMware -bit.ly/w3up9a

General technology:

• Apple's rampant culture of secrecy detailed - http://bit.ly/yTUpRt
• More sources suggest #iPad 3 launch date is February -http://bit.ly/yFArwt
• Sorry, you are not as influential as the Internet told you -http://bit.ly/zFTE0x

Let Scribble manage your Twitter feed

Hopefully you are avid followers of the Scribble Twitter feed, a great place to stay upto date with SharePoint and Microsoft related news and articles. If you work at a SharePoint consultancy or web development firm, you might want to talk to us about how we can help you with your Twitter feed. Scribble offers a number of services designed to help you keep on top of social media.

So why not outsource the hassle and work of maintaining your Twitter feed to us? Get in touch

A quick visual tour of Office365 for new users

Office365 is Microsoft's cloud offering - featuring SharePoint, Outlook, and Office Web Apps. It's huge product with many features, and I will be covering it more and more on this blog over the next few weeks. In this post I simply want to give you a quick tour and overview of the key components. What follows is screen shots of the main areas, which will hopefully give you a good feel for what is available.

Note: Each image isn't huge here, but click on it to get a larger version.

Administration screens - Home, domain, and users

Admin home: This is the first screen you will see when you 

log in to Office365, as an administrator. From here you can 

access pretty much everything you need. The links at the very 

top (Home, Outlook, and Team site) willget you to the key 

functionality of Office365.

Domains: From here you can set-up your own domain. You will almost 

certainly want to do this, to give your Office365 implementation your

own company identity. Without it you have to great a subdomain on 

sharepoint.com.

Users: This screens allows you to setup the users of your Office365 

system. Note this isn't yet the SharePoint components user settings,

that comes later. You can bulk upload users if you have an appropriate

CSV file to hand. 

User homepage

User homepage: This is the page user will see when they first login, 

though it hasn't been configured yet. They can access everything from

this page, including Office Web Apps. 

Outlook screens - Inbox and Calendar 

Email Inbox: Anyone who has used the Outlook web client will

be familiar with this section. What you get is a very full featured

web version of Outlook. Included is the email, calendar, contacts 

and tasks. The interface works well and Microsoft has worked hard

to make it a rich interactive experience. It's not quite the desktop

client, but its very good. 

Calendar: The calendar interface. Note the reminders in the top right

hand section (the big '2').

Team site - Home, documents, webparts, and settings

Teamsite home: This is basically a standard SharePoint team site. 

The quicklaunch bar, of sorts, can be found on the left hand site. The 

'site actions' button and interface ribbon run along the top. If you have 

SharePoint before you'll quickly be at home here. 

Documents: Again anyone with a knowledge of SharePoint document

libraries will be at home here. Note though the large links to launch the 

various Office Web Apps. 

Adding webparts: Webparts work in much the same way in SharePoint

Online as you would expect them to. However the choice, and ability to

add to new webparts, is limited on this cloud version.

Settings: From here you can fully configure you sites, including 

managing users. The reduced functionlaity of SharePoint Online is

reflected in the reduced options on this page, compared to the full

SharePoint product.

Office Web Apps - Word, Excel and Powerpoint

Word: Word is the most advanced of the Microsoft Web App 

family. The ability to store documents in the cloud through SharePoint, 

and then edit them in a solid online word processor is one of Office365's

real selling points. 

Excel: The Excel Web App allows multiple users to collaborate on

a single spreadsheet. This is one of its big selling points. Power

users should not expect the advanced features of the desktop app.

Powerpoint: This is a much cut down version of the full desktop 

application. It is most suited to creating basic slide decks or modifications

to existing files, rather than creating complex presentations.

Public facing website

Website: Office365 also includes a public facing website, which 

anonymous users (non Office365 users) can easily browse to.

This is edited and maintained via the SharePoint Team site. The 

default look and feel is basic, but with a little work you can create 

something simple and elegant. 

Official Microsoft Office365 certification

Until now there have been no official Microsoft certifications for Office365 users. Well the wait is over as Microsoft have just announced two exams that will become available in April of this year. They are:

• Administering Office365 (Exam 70-323)
  Intended for IT professionals for administer Office365 environments, including Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint
• Deploying Office365 (Exam 70-321)
  Intended for IT professionals and consultants who plan and implement Office365. This includes migrations to Office365

Passing both of these exams will give you 'Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Administrating Office365' and 'Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Office365 administrator' accreditation. And a warm feeling of contentment. 

Microsoft boosts Office365 'kiosk' plan with new features

Microsoft offers a number of different pricing plans for is Office365 cloud offering (see here and here). Their  are two main versions though, 'Enterprise' and 'Kiosk'. Enterprise is the one most businesses would use, and has generally sold very well. Kiosk is a little more specialised and is designed for 'deskless' workers. These are typically users who work in shops, or shifts, and share computers.

Microsoft has just recently rolled out a few improvements to these Kiosk users. They are:

• Exchange ActiveSync now a standard part of the plan
• Email storage increased to 1GB (from 500Mb)
• Exchange Online Archiving now available as an add-on

The original Technet post can be found here.