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Ass Whooping by SharePoint

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Each time I go hand-to-hand with Microsoft SharePoint, I get my ass whooped. Call it a learning experience, but I’m getting tired of it. I don’t know how organizations adopt SharePoint without also heavily investing in developers and/or experts to make SharePoint do what you want.

While I’ve learned that SharePoint can do stuff, making it do stuff is entirely different. I’m looking at our average workforce who uses SharePoint, and I know they don’t have the want to figure out how to make SharePoint do stuff. Lots of seemingly simply stuff is not so simple to do and as you figure it out, you’ll get a SharePoint beat down.

Only recently, I think I’ve tamed Content Types and actually used them correctly. But now that I’m thinking about it, I think I scoped some columns incorrectly, meaning SharePoint has just won again.

Five Things I Learned from SharePoint Saturday Honolulu

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I attended my first SharePoint Saturday event, and only in Honolulu, Hawaii can a Saturday event be held on a Friday. What did I learn from this event? Five things.

1. Dux Raymond Sy Is an Asian Original

Who is Dux Raymond Sy? That name hits you first – Dux? I had seen that name at Barnes & Nobles on the book SharePoint 2010 for Project Management. At first glance, I thought he was Chinese, but then Dux says he’s from the deep south, Manila. Hmmm, but then he references the Korean pop star PSY. In any case, he’s all Asian.

Then @meetdux starts playing his list of songs – electronic, techno, and dance remixes. Once the music pumps the audience and himself up, Dux goes to work, ripping into his keynote “How to Inspire, Transform, and Drive Purposeful Collaboration.” #ShiftHappens he yells but alas, he didn’t break into a rap. Wait, this keynote and event was about Microsoft SharePoint? It didn’t matter to Dux as he started the revolution for purposeful collaboration and enterprise social. You feeling the love, y’all?

Lead the revolution!
Lead the revolution!

2. SharePoint Doesn’t Suck. You Suck.

sharepoint-sucksLater in the day, Dux gets to the point SharePoint users secretly think – SharePoint sucks. But then he fires back, “No, you suck!” It’s all a matter of perspectives. In the context of expectations and requirements for SharePoint, we really do suck. We expect this platform to do everything well and alleviate all our business pain points yet we (meaning organizations) never spend the time to figure out our requirements.

3. What Is Enterprise Social?

Getting social into the enterprise doesn’t mean bringing in Twitter, Facebook, or Yammer. It’s all about the business and using social in the enterprise to address the business needs. That last part is all the difference.

What is enterprise social?
What is enterprise social?

On the topic of social (not enterprise social), there wasn’t much social traffic on #SPSHNL, the Twitter hashtag for the event.


Granted, attendees were recommended to join the Yammer channel for this event so maybe that’s where the social happened?

4. Maximize SharePoint Out of the Box

In more than one breakout session, I heard the tenet of maximizing the out-of-the-box features of SharePoint first and foremost. If you can’t make it work with SharePoint’s built-in features, look for third party solutions then lastly custom develop a solution. The main reason for this rationale is cost and sustainability of SharePoint. Custom solutions cost more upfront and to maintain over the long haul. So the push is to learn SharePoint and its feature set and frame your solutions knowing SharePoint’s full potential (SharePoint Designer included).

5. You Are Not Alone and Winning Makes Everything Okay

Okay, I won’t say SharePoint sucks, but it’s kinda funny (bordering on tragically funny) sitting among other SharePoint users, managers, and admins who share similar stories and experiences about how SharePoint sucks isn’t ideal. I don’t know how to explain it, but it felt like I was in a SharePoint support group airing out issues, trying to cope, and not feeling isolated.

So maybe SharePoint is just okay, not delighting or enchanting, with some esoteric features, but you’re not alone if you think so. And there are prizes. Winning makes everything okay.

spshnl-prizes
Prize list from SPSHNL

Thanks Hawaii SharePoint User Group for hosting this event and please bring back Dux for more events.

Bonus. Here’s a sixth thing I learned from SharePoint Saturday Honolulu. I learned how to describe this shape in words without using the terms square, triangle, or diamond.

How would you describe this shape?
How would you describe this shape?

SharePoint 2010 Event versus Reservation Content Types

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For every good thing that SharePoint 2010 brings to the table, seemingly it equals itself out with something wrong. Case in point is the new Group Calendar site feature in SP2010. Activating this site feature brings a new way to handle events and reserving resources for the events. This is a very good thing.

Now for the bad part. Activating the reservations, enables new SharePoint content types of “Reservations” and “Schedule and Reservations.” These supplement the default content type of “Event.” On their own, the Reservations and Schedule and Reservations content types add useful functionality commonly associated with dealing with events. But try and view them on a simple calendar view. You can’t.

The graphical calendar view is limited to showing content types of Events. You cannot extend or modify the view to also display Reservations or Schedule and Reservations.

I found two workarounds for this lameness. I’m not quite following this workaround, but I think this is relying on SharePoint not cleaning up after itself. Once the reservations function is enabled to add the new content types then the reservations function is disabled. Then you set the default content type to Reservations (from Event). I guess this default impacts what is displayed in a Calendar view? Not sure.

I understand this second workaround better where the columns/fields that distinguish Reservation content types are copied into the Event content type. So in essence, we’re mimicking the Reservation type. But since Event content types display in Calendars then we get the best of both. You still have to disable the Group Calendar feature however.

Making SharePoint Print, Part 2

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So adding some javascript to add a Print button to SharePoint was easy enough. But did you notice the print out is in a minuscule 8-point font? The older generation of team mates are complaining about this. Of course, there’s a fix by adding a print.css style sheet.

But then you need to learn about SharePoint Master Pages, editing, and applying new Master Pages in SharePoint Designer. Oh wait, the bigger text font isn’t enough? Need to hide other display elements like headers and buttons? Then you need to further customize the print.css file. You might as well start referencing the W3C Cascading Style Sheet 2.1 specification.

Now how do I get rid of that blank first page that keeps printing out?!?!

SharePoint Hurts

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My eyes hurt from looking at my computer screen for so long. My head hurts from having to figure out SharePoint. My wrist hurts from using my trackball and trackpad so much. My arm and elbow hurts from staying in a prolonged position while zipping the cursor between virtual machines. My back hurts from sitting for long periods while investigating SharePoint fixes. My throat hurts from explaining the ribbon interface to person after person.

So yes, SharePoint hurts.