Excel 2010 and SharePoint

Today I had to solve a problem existing in SharePoint 2010. Many of my users cannot download Excel files from SharePoint by double-clicking. It's a quite unusual because they are able to do the same thing with Word and Powerpoint files. Researching the problem, I found that we're not alone. Some users complain about the same thing, especially if file was saved in Excel 2010 format. I found out that in my case it only applies to Excel 2010 files. Querying the Web I found several solutions which I presented to my SharePoint administrator. He changed configuration in a minute, and my users became happy. Now everything work as should work.

About resources I presented:

http://neelb.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/unable-to-process-the-request-when-opening-an-excel-document-in-sharepoint-2010/

http://horsik.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/excel-services-is-unable-to-process-the-request-wait-a-few-minutes-and-try-performing-this-operation-again-%E2%80%9D/

http://blog.armgasys.com/?p=133

My Sharepoint project.

Within last 2-3 months I try to train myself in SharePoint 2010 to set up a website for my company. This site will serve a very simple goal is to share documents among different committees. I created site for each committee, structured and organized all them. I also set up permissions within the committee for different users. Needless to say, I learned a lot. I started with very simple one site project and ended with multiple sites, multiple libraries and lists SharePoint application. In time it became easy to use SharePoint navigation and all features presented in SharePoint 2010. For now I created a very structured website. Strangely, I did not use any programmatic tools. It was quite enough to use features built in SharePoint by Microsoft. My site was tested by internal users. And… they are OK. First part of my project is over. I’m working towards external users. I need some approval from them. I know, there is a request from some external users to begin to use my SharePoint–site. I hope, they will like it. Also I’m learning FBA (Form-Based Authentication) for SharePoint 2010. I have to implement a custom built login-page for my project. My SharePoint admin is on vacation, and I have plenty of time to learn.

Tutoring others

Just couple months ago I began exploring world of SharePoint. My goal was to be comfortable with software and build up first portal website for the company I work. I was very new and my knowledge was so limited. I had a feeling I never can build this site. Thanks to a couple books and my determination to learn SharePoint up to the point when I would feel comfortable to satisfy needs of my colleagues, today I finished my first SharePoint portal website and ready to present to my coworkers. I'm really proud of myself. My boss asked to organize a tutoring session for 12 people who will use my site a lot. It's quite privileage and honor to tutor people especially for me who learned new software quickly and effectively. I'm still in learning phase, I'm still thinking I need to improve my skills a lot. It's just a first steps for me. Now I have to prepare myself for tutoring presentation.

Problems, problems, and problems.

Calendar implementation is taking a lot more time that we initially thought. We have to synchronize SharePoint calendar (one domain) with master Outlook calendar (another domain). It's not easy as it sounds. We spent 2 days googling Internet and trying to find a solution. Finally
we found something interesting and closed to our need. It's an Exchange calendar web part written by Swiss software company which specializes in Sharepoint web parts. It's quite interesting piece of software written for SharePoint. It contains several dll-files and one web part file.

We'll see if it's going to work for us... A day later I can say: IT WORKS only with right permissions between domains.

How to add the custom theme to SharePoint-site.

Now I learned enough to begin customizations of my SharePoint sites. Unexpectable for me, I found a lot of short tutorials about SharePoint in www.youtube.com
First of all, I found excellent promoting videos for my presentation. Some companies posted case studies about SharePoint as new document management technology.
At my surprise, Coca-Cola has around 1,000 SharePoint sites, using SharePoint Monsanto increased work efficiency by 40%, even non-profit organizations such as
Leukemia & Lymphoid Society implemented SharePoint. Comcast offers SharePoint site as a part of their business internet package.

For now, I found a very good short tutorial to customize a theme on my site. It's really helpful.
Watch the video

Understanding the RESX Resource Files

(from article Peter Morath)

"When you first start looking through a SharePoint 2010 aspx page you realize that there isn’t an awful lot of actual changeable code in them. Its is pretty much impossible to decode the cryptic references used by the ASP.NET controls, such as text boxes, labels."

For example: <SharePoint:EncodedLiteral runat="server" text="<%$Resources:wss,login_pageUserName%>" EncodeMethod='HtmlEncode'/>

You’ve found the wss.resx file under "drive:\inetput\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\app_name\App_GlobalResources".
Open the wss.resx file in text or application editor such Visual Studio 2010 or Notepad++ and find variable "login_pageUserName"

For example:
<data name="login_pageUserName">
<value>User name:</value>
</data>

To change the value of login_pageUserName (text), please rename this variable in aspx-file. For example, login_pageUserName_new
<SharePoint:EncodedLiteral runat="server" text="<%$Resources:wss,login_pageUserName_new%>" EncodeMethod='HtmlEncode'/>

And add new data element in wss.resx file such as
<data name="login_pageUserName_new">
<value>Customer name:</value>
</data>

If you were to change the contents between the <value>…</value> tags, the changes would be picked up by all aspx pages that referenced it.

Requirement analysis

How to conduct a proper requirement analysis?..

Here are some sites with useful information for requirement analysis

1. Wikipedia
2. Tips to gather business requirements
3. Mind tools
4. Business requirements for Sharepoint projects

Tomorrow I'm beginning to gather requirements for my first Sharepoint project.

First Sharepoint site

Here's my first Sharepoint site. I'm still very beginner in Sharepoint and search for any good tutorials, especially video-ones. If you know, please leave a comment.

Step-By-Step

I'm facing my first project with Sharepoint. As a beginner, I need some basic knowledge about Sharepoint.
A coworker borrowed me a very good book for beginners. It's "Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 Step by Step" by
Olga Londer, Bill English, Todd Bleeker and Penelope Coventry. I'm doing my steps through book and software. Wish me GOOD LUCK!