Expert Reference Series of White Papers
Ten Things You Should
Know About
Ten Things You Should Know About
SharePoint 2010
Neil Tucker, MCT, MCITP, MCDBA, MCTS, MCSE
Introduction
Whenever the new version of a popular application is released, it receives a lot of attention. The newest ver-sion of SharePoint, called SharePoint Server 2010 (SPS 2010) is no exception. Because its deployment affects so many areas of an organization, its new features and requirements should get careful consideration. SPS is definitely not just a new face on an old product, its predecessor Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). Everyone using SPS will notice important changes after an upgrade. Desktop users will have a faster and easier-to-manage tool that leverages the new capabilities of Microsoft Office 2010 and provides better browser sup-port. IT administrators might have to make hardware upgrades because of the 64-bit requirements, and they will also find the management tools and options easier to work with. Developers will find better support for .NET applications, and the new options available when using themes will make web-site creation and maintenance easier. New and improved support for LINQ and PowerShell will benefit both developers and administrators. Many improvements have been made to SPS 2010, and we definitely won’t have time to go into all of them. However, in this white paper, we will discuss ten of the best new or improved features in SPS 2010. Because SharePoint affects so many areas of an organization, we will divide our discussion into two parts. We will look at five important features and options that affect the end-users in the company. Then we will look at five impor-tant features that will help administrators and developers do their jobs. After reviewing this white paper, you will have a good idea of how your organization can benefit from the new version of SharePoint.
Five End-User Features
1. User Interface
One of the first changes you will notice when creating and editing documents in SharePoint is the inclusion of a Ribbon. It is not visible by default, but can be exposed by clicking one of the tabs at the top of the screen. It will provide additional functionality that is similar to the Ribbons available in Microsoft Office applications. You will be able to edit items, track changes, create notifications, and modify Library settings. Ribbon options are intelligent and will not be enabled unless the current context allows their use. As with Microsoft Office appli-cations, some Ribbon options allow you to preview changes before applying them. For users already familiar with creating, editing, and managing documents with Microsoft Office Word 2007 or 2010, this new SharePoint functionality will be a welcome change and easy to adapt to.
Inline editing is another feature that will make managing information easier in the SharePoint UI. Information can be typed directly on a page and viewed immediately without having to reload data. The undo feature also allows you to reverse unwanted changes easily.
The options to provide feedback on the usefulness of a page are now more visible and easier to use. The Rating web-part allows you to provide your own rating and find out how others feel about the information on the page. Additional tags can be used to indicate if you like a document and to add notes that can be used in later searches.
Figure 1: SharePoint User Interface
2. Enterprise Search
The indexing and searching capabilities of MOSS were already good and worked fine for most organizations, but some definite improvements have been made and some additional features added. The ability to search for
New to the searching features in SPS is the ability to run queries based on Tag metadata and the nickname or phonetic properties of a name. Metadata tags used to identify pages will show up in query results as will searches for names that were spelled incorrectly, or inadvertently used. There is a new Metadata-driven refine-ment panel that can be used to filter your result set with greater ease. Another useful addition is the Relevance feature, which can rank the result set from a query based on the click-through behavior of previous users who have done a similar search.
For large organizations that work with hundreds of millions or billions of records, searching capabilities can be significantly improved with the addition of FAST Search Server 2010 to the SharePoint infrastructure. In addition to performing larger and faster searches, end-users will also be able to perform contextual searches and use thumbnail previews. Data in spreadsheets and reports can also be indexed and queried more effectively.
3. Excel Integration
More and more, Microsoft Excel is being used as a client tool for accessing and creating reports on Business Intelligence (BI) data, and that information is often made available to the organization using SharePoint. The in-tegration between the Excel client and SharePoint has been improved in SPS, and it also takes full advantage of the new features in Excel 2010. If Excel is used to create reports, Excel Services now supports the use of embed-ded images. There is also better support for PivotTables and Slicers. One of the most anticipated new features in Excel 2010 was PowerPivot. This Excel add-in gives end-users an easy-to-use tool for creating reports based on large amounts of data from multiple data sources. Integration with SPS makes these reports available quickly and easily without a lot of technical know-how on the part of the user.
Excel Services also has its own new and improved features as well. Multi-user Collaboration allows two or more users to make changes to a spreadsheet at the same time. The Unattended Service Account feature can be used to assign a secure account that will be used to retrieve information from data sources. The ability to easily cre-ate BI dashboards without specialized skills is also useful.
Figure 2: Excel Services configuration options
4. Collaboration Features
Sharing information and participating with other users in projects and document changes is definitely an im-portant part of what users expect from SharePoint. We have already talked about the integration with Microsoft Office and the inline editing features that make these tasks easier in SPS. New configuration options are now available when designing Workflows, including the ability to refer to document metadata.
Enhancing the ability to share status and activity information between users, SharePoint can now automatically update profile information based on the user’s email activity. User profile information can also be updated with tags that indicate someone’s expertise in a specific area. As with other new forms of metadata, these tags are searchable by anyone in the organization.
For companies that support web-sites that are used employees who speak different languages, there is im-proved support for deploying multilingual sites. To support users with disabilities, the new Web Content Man-agement features allow developers to create sites with accessibility options more easily.
5. Browser Support
One of the main drawbacks to using a web browser other than Internet Explorer to connect to SharePoint sites has been the need for ActiveX support to use the full range of features. While this is still a problem, Microsoft now officially supports the use of Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and Safari 4.0.4 on Windows, or non-Windows systems. There are some SharePoint features that will not work because of ActiveX controls, but this is also the case with the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer. In most cases, workarounds can be downloaded or developed to allow the use of SharePoint capabilities (e.g., Plug-ins are available for Mozilla that allow the use of some ActiveX controls). Despite the limitations, this new support for additional web browsers is considered a plus because users now have more options when choosing their preferred browser or client operating system for accessing SharePoint sites.
Five Administrator/Developer Features
1. Central Administration Web-Site
The Central Administration web-site has been redesigned with a console that is much easier to navigate. Common administrative tasks like Monitoring, Security, Backup, and Restore operations are easier to find and configure. The Ribbon Interface is also available with editing and configuration options for the component being managed. Management of web applications is also more intuitive. They can be easily accessed and configured from a single page. Site Collections, Content Databases, and Service Applications are more accessible as well. New logging and monitoring tools are now available in the console. In particular, the SharePoint Health Analyzer is useful for detecting problems and notifying an administrator of them. It can provide help to diagnose and repair problems and even automatically fix them. An administrator can use existing “Health Rules” or create new ones to establish standards for different SPS components. These rules can then be monitored and enforced manually or automatically.
Figure 3: Central Administration Web-Site
2. PowerShell Administration
STSADM.exe has been the traditional command-line tool for managing SharePoint for some time. Although it’s still available in SPS 2010, it may not be available in future versions, since it has been deprecated. Instead, ad-ministrators are being encouraged to use PowerShell to manage the installation, monitoring, and maintenance of SharePoint components.
For those new to using the PowerShell command-line interface, it is often used for managing the Windows operating system, Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and other applications. In addition to the built-in cmdlets or functions, there are over 500 cmdlets created just for SharePoint management. They can be used locally on the server or executed remotely.
Most of the options available in the Central Administration console such as creating sites, enabling features, managing databases, or scheduling backups, can be done with PowerShell. PowerShell cmdlets can also allow
restore data for a specific list, these options are only available with the use of PowerShell cmdlets. For scheduled maintenance tasks, it is relatively easy to create and assign PowerShell scripts to run Operating System, SQL Server, or SharePoint operations.
# Get a list of all SharePoint PowerShell cmdlet names and their definitions
Gcm–PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell” | Fl Name, Definition
# Backup the SharePoint Configuration Database to the D:\Backup folder
Backup-SPConfigurationDatabase–Directory D:\Backup
Figure 4: Examples of PowerShell Cmdlets used for SharePoint
3. Themes
Themes are not new to SPS, but the ease with which they are created and applied has been improved. In ad-dition to the built-in themes, customized ones can be created in SharePoint using a PowerPoint-like interface. Themes can be created directly in PowerPoint 2007 or 2010 and uploaded into SharePoint. When applying a new theme, the developer has the option of applying it only to the current site or to the current site and all sub-sites.
4. Managing Large Lists
Not only can lists in SPS be much larger than in MOSS (up to 50 million items) but by using indexes on multiple columns, you are able to manage and query the data more efficiently. The new Large List Resource Throttling feature is the main reason for the improved performance when loading large lists, however. Administrators have the option of specifying a limit for the number of items that can be displayed at a time. By default, there is a limit of 5,000 items for users and 20,000 items for administrators. When a list exceeds the limits specified for Resource Throttling, the user will be prompted with the option of changing the query settings so the data can be viewed. Resource Throttling can be configured with unique settings for each Web Application running in the Farm.
To prevent this setting from affecting large queries run at off-peak hours, a schedule can be configured to dis-able it at specified times of the day. This allows very large lists to be viewed at times when the server’s process-ing resources are not that much in demand. When the processprocess-ing of specific lists should never be interrupted by this option, an override setting can be used to facilitate this.
5. Silverlight Support
Developers now have a new tool for developing applications in SharePoint in the form of Silverlight. Interac-tive web applications can be quickly developed and deployed using this platform. Other features brought to the SharePoint platform when using Silverlight are the ability to run Out of Browser applications, communication between Silverlight programs (Local Browsing), .NET support, and the creation of Rich Internet Applications.
Conclusion
The list of new and improved technologies in SPS is extensive and everyone in the organization can find some-thing that will make their job easier. Whether you are an end-user who wants faster queries and easier editing options; or an administrator who wants to leverage PowerShell, Themes, and Silverlight when working with developers, an upgrade to the new version of SharePoint will definitely reap dividends.
Learn More
Learn more about how you can improve productivity, enhance efficiency, and sharpen your competitive edge. Check out the following Global Knowledge courses:
Configuring and Administering Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development (M10175) Utilizing SharePoint 2010 for Project Management
For more information or to register, visit www.globalknowledge.com or call 1-800-COURSES to speak with a sales representative.
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About the Author
Neil Tucker MCT, MCITP, MCDBA, MCSE, MCDST. Neil is a technical trainer, writer, and consultant with 17 years of experience in the IT industry. He has authored books and white papers on SQL Server, SharePoint, Windows Server, and Windows 7 topics.
