Mart Muller's Weblog

For Dutch Microsoft partners and developers only, there is a Dutch Microsoft Office System Developer Conference in Nieuwegein at the 6th of june 2006.

From the email:

• Maak kennis met de ontwikkelomgeving voor 2007 Microsoft Office System, servers en services
• Netwerk met collega-developers, architects en partners uit heel Nederland
• Leer over de nieuwste enterprise-ready oplossingen aan de hand van deze nieuwe technologie
• Ontvang de Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office (VSTO 2005) t.w.v. € 1.089,- *
• Ontvang de beta 2 van de 2007 Editie van Microsoft Office system.

Locatie
De Microsoft Office System Developer Conference zal gehouden worden in het Nieuwegeins Business Center. Bekijk de routebeschrijving.

Kosten
De kosten voor de Microsoft Office System Developer Conference zijn € 129,- (ex. BTW). Voor dit bedrag krijgt u niet alleen toegang tot het evenement maar ontvangt u tevens de Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office (VSTO 2005) t.w.v. € 1.089,- *. Daarbij ontvangt u ook de beta 2 van de 2007 Editie van Microsoft Office system.

Programma en registratie
U ontvangt binnenkort een uitnodiging met een uitgebreid programma. Wij raden u echter aan nu al in te schrijven via onderstaande link. Het aantal plaatsen voor de Microsoft Office System Developer Conference is namelijk beperkt.

» Direct inschrijven **

[via Lawrence]

One of the most annoying SharePoint 2003 things was the way SharePoint pages are built and how the CSS classes are used through the pages. I already wrote something about that in the past. With the masterpage construction in SharePoint 2007 (asp.net 2.0), a lot of these CSS problems can be resolved. Lawrence Liu wrote an article that descibes some other usability improvements which are a good step forward:

“We have been getting quite a few questions via blog feedback e-mails about accessibility, so I wanted to share the following summary of new and improved accessibility features that the WSS V3 team is working on, which are of course leveraged by Office SharePoint Server 2007 as well. Things can still change between now and RTM, so please don’t take the following list as a promise of full compliance. Nevertheless, the Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server product teams are definitely committed to improving accessibility and enabling all customers to utilize the power of SharePoint Products and Technologies.  

Headings

·         Table headings on important data tables (TH tags). This helps users understand the structure of a table and improves the reading experience for screen reader users.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 5.1: For data tables, identify row and column headers. [Priority 1]

·         Headings markup on important content (H1-H3). This helps screen reader users better understand the layout and structure of our pages.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 3.5: Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification. [Priority 2]

Navigation

·         ‘Skip to main content’ links to help visually impaired users quickly jump to the most important content without having to tab through our navigation links.

o        This relates to US Section 508 paragraph 1194.22 (o): A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.

·         Standard navigation bread crumb to assist with site navigation and orienting users on where they are in the site.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 13.4: Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner. [Priority 2]

Keyboard

·         Smarter and more intuitive use of access keys on common commands.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 9.5: Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links. [Priority 3]

·         All UI controls in the application will be keyboard accessible.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 9.2: Ensure that any element that has its own interface can be operated in a device-independent manner. [Priority 2]

·         Improved, more intuitive keyboard tab order. 

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 9.4: Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects. [Priority 3]

Graphics

·         Better use of ALT descriptions on images.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 1.1: Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element. [Priority 1]

·         Images that can be uploaded to the site allow for a UI based way to define custom ALT text for that image so that blind users can interpret what the uploaded images are.

·         We provide warnings (through ALT text on image links and title attributes on text links) for links that will open a new window to help reduce confusion and improve the user experience.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 10.1: Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user. [Priority 2]

High Contrast and Low Vision

·         High contrast testing for low vision scenarios.

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 2.2: Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast. [Priority 2 for images, Priority 3 for text]

·         We do not rely on the use of color alone to convey information. 

o        This relates to WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 2.1: Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup. [Priority 1]

HTML controls

·         We also have a “more accessible” mode that allows users with special needs to identify themselves so that we can change the way some of our dynamic content is rendered (for example we will render our Javascript menus as plain HTML links in a new window when the user activates this mode making it easier for them to interact with the menu). We also render custom form controls as standard HTML controls so that they will be better recognized by the accessible technology.

·         "More accessible mode" is exposed via the Object Model so that third parties can create solutions catered to screen reader users. 

·         Proper MSAA names on all editable controls, links, and buttons.

·         Screen reader friendly Instant Messaging presence status and menu interaction on presence enabled people fields. We’ve added ALT text that describes the presence status on people fields on the site, and made ENTER the action of opening the menu for these to simplify the keyboard only experience. “

[Via Mark and Gayan]:

Discovery Wizard for SharePoint is an auto discovery tool that identifies your entire SharePoint environment – all servers, site collections and sites – gathering important information on your discovered inventory. The results are displayed in two easy to read reports – giving IT managers the critical information they need right at their fingertips. With the Discovery Wizard for SharePoint you can also explore discovered SharePoint resources by browsing sites and portal content in the embedded preview pane.

Features and Benefits

• Discover – Understand your SharePoint environment with a click of a button by searching all servers, site collections and sites throughout your network for every installation of SharePoint.
• Explore – Easily navigate web sites and browse through SharePoint sites and portal content.
• Gather – Collect critical information on your discovered inventory.
• Report – Analyze your SharePoint inventory by reviewing the printable, user friendly, HTML reports.
  1. SharePoint Server Summary Report illustrates your entire SharePoint infrastructure, including all major metrics: uptime, availability, free space, used space and user response time
  2. SharePoint Server Details Report provides information on URL’s, site size, author, last modification date, last accessed date and hit count

[Via Steve Caravajal and Paul van Brenk]:

“A new version of the SharePoint Utility Suite is being released.  I have found these tools to be invaluable in SharePoint deployments and ongoing maintenance.  If you haven't used them before, you really need to check them out....highly recommended!  Here is the blurb that gives the overview (taken directly from the download page):

"The purpose of the SharePoint Utility Suite is to provide a packaged collection of Tools and Utilities showcasing the rich Object Model that is delivered with the SharePoint Product and Technologies SDK (which includes Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003).  This package includes code and tool examples that SharePoint Developers and SharePoint Administrators might find useful."  Keep in mind that the source code examples are delivered "As-Is".”

download here

Something we’ve beee waiting for a long time: the release of Bil’s forum webpart! The release will probably be there by the end of the week, great work!

It’s been a while since my last post and no, I’ve not been on vacation . We’ve been working the last few weeks on the Tam Tam Knowledgebrowser, a SharePoint application for enhancing knowledge management.

Ferry already posted the idea and concept for this application on his blog yesterday. To summarize:

“The Knowledge Browser is a customized knowledge base for SharePoint Portal Server 2003 that accommodates high-level navigating through a large collection of information by means of metadata.“

…

“One of the major advantages of SharePoint is that you can store various kinds of information (documents, lists, links and discussions) and establish relevant properties (metadata) to describe these information items for future retrieval. Unfortunately, the user interface of SharePoint 2003 doesn’t make much use of this metadata yet for high-level navigation. Metadata is mainly used in the search function and on the lowest navigation level (inside a list or document library).

In practice, a search function is mainly used in ‘known item searching’: you know exactly what you are looking for and you can enter an accurate query to retrieve the information. Navigation is used more in ‘topic searching’: you want to explore a topic, not really sure what you will find. Or you just can’t remember the exact title of a topic but you do know in which field to look for it.”

…

“Key features:

• Users can explore the knowledge base by using the main taxonomies topics, events, people (more will be added in the next version), the alphabetical index or the search function.
• The Knowledge Browser supports various types of information, for instance documents, articles, multimedia files, referrals to books or online resources, people and events.
• Information can be posted on multiple topics. Topics cross-link to other relevant topics.
• Users can narrow down result lists by using filters.
• The search function automatically translates alternative terms (synonyms, abbreviations) and common misspellings to preferred terms, for more relevant results.
• Users can subscribe to RSS-feeds with the latest contributions to the knowledge base. There are topic-specific feeds and an aggregated feed.
• The Knowledge Browser supports four roles: knowledge manager, super-user, contributor and reader. Readers consume, contributors and super-users share their knowledge (and consume) and knowledge managers own the topics and approve new contributions.
• Many settings are configurable, like approval on/off, max. number of results per page.

Other features have been planned for future releases. These include:

• Support for online discussions;
• Targeting information to specific audiences;
• Alternative contribution methods, e.g. directly from MS Word, a webpage or an e-mail;
• Logging user activity;
• Richer, more intuitive user interface.”

So, what the Knowledgebrowser basically is, is a user interface on a topic structure for enhancing knowledge management in SPS 2003.

Technically, I personally don’t like huge customizations on the SharePoint platform. By creating any dependancies and ‘rebuilding’ default SharePoint functionality the platform will loose its scalability and upgradeability a lot. The Tam Tam Knowledgebrowser only uses default SharePoint Portal Server functionality when looking at the technical implementation. This way, it can (and will be in the future) be packaged as a product very easily and will scale-up within the organisation it is implemented in.

The current version also inlcudes a ‘Setup’ webpart that creates all the underlying structures, lists and webparts automatically. This version was deployed at one of our customers yesterday, which was basically a matter of pushing the button ‘create beautiful knowledge management solution!’.

Some screenshots:

Browse knowledge (I love the RSS update webpart!)

Knowledge Index

A topic with resources

Please contact me of Ferry for more information or questions!

Seems like MS is focussing more and more on BI with buying ProClarity, a company that is into advanced analytics.

[Via MS Presspass]:

“Microsoft Corp. today announced it has agreed to acquire ProClarity Corp., a software company based in Boise, Idaho, that develops advanced analysis and visualization technologies that work in association with Microsoft’s business intelligence (BI) platform, which includes Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server. The upcoming release of the 2007 Microsoft Office system significantly increases and broadens Microsoft’s investment in BI, and this acquisition deepens that investment, providing functionality that includes additional advanced analysis and visualization technologies as well as business-logic-driven “guided” analysis.

Microsoft’s BI strategy aims to broaden the reach of business intelligence by providing an easy and integrated user experience for accessing and working with business information so that decision-makers at all levels in an organization can make more informed decisions and drive better performance. The goal is to reach every individual, add value to every decision, and help organizations align people and initiatives to business strategy. ProClarity’s technology and people will help accelerate Microsoft’s business intelligence strategy, provide increased BI functionality, increase customer value and enhance opportunities for industry partners to integrate BI into business applications.

“ProClarity has been a valued Microsoft partner for many years, with a strong R&D organization, more than 1,200 mutual customers and a sales force that already works closely with ours,” said Jeff Raikes, president of the Business Division at Microsoft. “This acquisition advances our BI strategy and our ability to deliver performance management applications to customers.”

“Our focus at ProClarity is to give organizations a simple, powerful and adaptable interface to insight, expanding on the power of the Microsoft business intelligence platform. We share Microsoft’s enthusiasm for making BI accessible to all decision-makers within an organization,” said Bob Lokken, CEO of ProClarity. “We look forward to applying our people and our technology to have even greater customer impact as an integrated, strategic asset within Microsoft.”

The acquisition builds on Microsoft’s recent progress expanding its BI offerings, from the fall introductions of SQL Server 2005 and Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 to the forthcoming BI capabilities within the 2007 Office system releases of Excel and SharePoint.

About ProClarity

Founded in 1995, ProClarity is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and has been a leading provider of third-party analytics tools based on Microsoft’s BI platform since 1999. ProClarity gives organizations a simple, powerful and adaptable interface to insight, expanding on the power of the Microsoft business intelligence platform. ProClarity’s solution includes ProClarity Analytics Server (PAS), which augments Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services and works in association with Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager, Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server.

Today, more than 1,200 customers use ProClarity solutions with Microsoft’s comprehensive, enterprise-class, business intelligence platform. With this acquisition, ProClarity becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft and will remain located in Idaho, USA.”