Cairo SharePoint Saturday – Stay ConNectEd

 

So we have created twitter account, Facebook page and group, Yammer group & LinkedIn group to be able to stay connected and up to date to event updates. You will see our announcements, receive emails and alerts, speaker agenda, sponsors & event photos.

So choose below the best way to stay connected J

 

 

New SharePoint workflow platform: Datapolis Process System

Datapolis Process System is a visual workflow designer for SharePoint 2013 that offers a robust set of tools to simplify workflow development and deployment. At the moment it is available for on-premises deployments only, however the company plans to release its Office 365 equivalent in the future. SharePoint 2010 and 2007 are supported by older and simpler versions of that solution, branded as Datapolis Workbox.

Datapolis toolkit is integrated with the SharePoint environment, with workflow actions accessible from context menu, list, ribbon, or form, and permission and management options available in the Central Administration. Like its competitors, it models workflows using a browser-based drag and drop designer., with the workflow engine based on Windows Workflow Foundation.

The main differentiatior from solutions like Nintex or K2 is the emphasis on the state machine workflows in place of sequential ones. While you can design state machine workflows using other solutions, as well as SharePoint Designer itself, Datapolis offers that option as a default and most exposed one. As it claims, state machine workflows are more flexible, allowing rapid process improvement, and offer easier learning curve, depicting a process in a manner similar to Visio, BPM notation, and other familiar tools. Datapolis therefore positions its solution to be used for teamwork, enabling both IT engineers and less tech-experienced business people to build processes for their organization.

Similar to other workflow tools, Datapolis allows actions between each state. Within these actions, in a separate sequential designer, you can specify different functional activities which will push a process forward. It also allows storing variables and using them for comparative activities and triggers within the workflow life cycle. The model can include decision points which redirect one action to another depending on defined conditions.

Between each action, the designer can also use a standard form or a customized InfoPath form. Those forms can perform look-ups to other SharePoint lists for additional information that is sometimes needed in the process.

As for workflow security, the build-in permissions protector allows users to manage permissions on SharePoint list column level. Using filters and look-ups, you can set who has access at what time during the workflow life cycle. This can also be managed using permission groups within the workflow designer.

The new feature in Datapolis Process System are Datapolis applications. Those are said to be stand-alone objects which may contain a sub-process or group of tasks, shared by different workflows or executed in parallel. Applications can build on the basis of previously designed workflows or designed with other tools like Visual Studio. They can replace generic parts of workflows as they are stored in a single repository and modifying one application takes effect in all workflows where it was used, keeping processes coherent and up-to-date. Different applications can be grouped into solutions to unify a complex process or pull data from disparate sources. While this is a new innovation, there are as yet no practical examples of implementing it, so it will likely take some time to evaluate its effectivity.

Datapolis Process System fits in the line of tools going beyond SharePoint Designer capabilities with which you can create advanced workflows without a need to code. The choice between it and other solutions should depend on whether you prefer working with sequential or state machine workflows and if your SharePoint environment is deployed in cloud or on-premises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SP 2010 –> SP 2013 Migration – Part 1

Finally, SharePoint 2010 migration step by step to SharePoint 2013, this will be a series of posts, here we are migrating content.

Prerequisites:

1. Get to understand both environments pretty well
2. Backup your SharePoint 2010 Web Application
3. Be patient J

Currently we are in SP 2010, what do we need from here…

Installation of SharePoint 2010 environment;

1. Windows Server 2008 R2
2. Domain Controller
3. SQL Server 2008 R2
4. SharePoint 2010

I am going to start with you from scratch, by creating a web application first in 2010;

1. Open Central Administration > Application Management > and under Web Applications, click Manage Web Applications;

   

2. Click the New buttom at top left, check the properties, if it is all ok, you can leave the same for now and click “Ok”

1. Now let’s create the Site Collection;

   

   

2. So below is the SharePoint 2010 Web Application from Team Site Template, and I added a text in the middle … so feel the difference after we migrate but this picture is going to show the difference as well, but I mean by adding text that basically content will be migrated.

   

3. Now, since we are done by creating the SharePoint 2010 Web Application, we need to take a backup and copy this backup to our SharePoint 2013 environment 😉

Note:

Type backup will be SQL Server Database [the MDF & the LDF ] .. v simple

Now we need to know what is the Database name from this web application;

1. Go to Central Administration > Application Management > and under Database, click “Manage Content Databases”

   

2. Make sure you select, your web application that you just created, and that below the “Database Name” will be the database that we need to take a backup from,

   

3. Now in order, to take the MDF & LDF copy, we need to stop SQL Server service,

   Note: if you don’t want to stop it, you can take another backup from SQL Server Management Studio and take backup by right clicking on the database name and the backup extension will be “.bak” this one you will not need to stop SQL Server service. So this screen shot below, is what happens when you take a copy from MDF & LDF without stopping SQL Server service

1. To stop the SQL Server service, as below, open the “Services” from the “Administrative Tools”,

1. They are sorted alphabetically, now stop SQL SERVER, take a copy of the MDF & LDF to somewhere outside of this VM to anywhere, then copy from this anywhere to paste inside SharePoint 2013 environment or VM

1. Now let’s go to SharePoint 2013 VM 😉 I hope you are enjoying like I am.. so below is what we should do to migrate.

What’s installed in SP 2013 environment;

1. Windows Server 2012
2. Domain Controller
3. SQL Server 2012
4. SharePoint 2013

And here I will start from scratch again; by creating first a web application but hey we won’t create a site collection, ok;

1. Click “Manage Web Applications”;

   

2. Click “New” again same as in 2010,

   

3. Its fine to leave everything as is for now and click ok,

   

4. Now we have a web application, don’t create a site collection,
5. Now open SQL Server Management Studio to attach the MDF & LDF,

   

6. You see below, I am attaching the same Database for the web application we create in SharePoint 2010,

   

   

1. Now let’s test the database before migrate, run Test-SPContentDatabase cmdlet to identify missing components along with potential errors and related warnings. Check the upgrade log and deploy any missing components and re run the cmdlet to verify.

   

2. Once tested, now we can mount it to the newly created web application, as below;

   

   

   

3. Now below, is how it will look like the first time, the reason for this, is the Visual Upgrade from SharePoint 2010 is deprecated, now in SharePoint 2013 it is Site Collection upgrade…

   

   TO BE CONTINUED …
   

Setting Up a SharePoint 2013 BI Demo VM

Bhaviks B.I. Babble

I just built up a new demo environment for BI with Windows Server 2012, SQL 2012 SP1 and SharePoint 2013. This is primarily to take advantage of the new Power View enhancements that came out with SQL 2012 SP1 but I do step through getting all the other BI services up and running. What follows is a general guide, providing an overview of the main steps and links to other information where necessary. I am focusing on the SQL and SharePoint install here, so I assume you have a Windows Server installation ready and have setup a domain and DNS services. I used Windows Server 2012 for my VM.

Pre-requisites

1. If you don’t have an internet connection from your VM, make sure you have downloaded the Sharepoint 2013 pre-requisites. An in-depth guide exists on TechNet which discusses options on obtaining the pre-requisites, and then this guide will help you install…

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SharePoint Free Consultation 4th Day

Dear all,

We have some people volunteering their time to support me in this idea so we can help you all..

Tomorrow 15 June at 8 PM, you can contact Fathy Mohamed a SharePoint Consultant works in Kuwait.

You can contact him on Skype @ ” fathy.mohamed86 ”

How to write a professional SharePoint C.V

Ok first there is millions of posts over the internet if you just search google, so what am I adding? I am here basically and only talking about SharePoint C.Vs

Dear SharePoint fellows;

1. It is called SharePoint. As you can the “S” & “P” are capital
2. No Space in the word “SharePoint”
3. Put your title at the top of the C.V, don’t make the HR look for the current job to know your title! Make it easy seen.
   1. Some HRs doesn’t care about your technical skills but looks for your title if that’s the one she/he needs to call you and book appointment for you with the technical person.
4. Your email should be professional like your suit.
   1. Don’t put names like “bobos”, “kity”, “toti” but instead put either full name or first and second like mai_omar_86@live.com
      J that’s mine.
5. If you are applying for job like SharePoint, and if you once worked as accountant in the beginning of your life, don’t let the HR know about that.
   1. What does accountant has to do with SharePoint, but if you were a technical support that is okay to mention.
6. The certificate logos are hard to be aligned as each has its word, big and small so it’s difficult to align them.
   1. What you can do, just write the certificate title, those is fair enough
7. Your C.V should have any projects you did, if you say you have experience, don’t just write the product name!
   1. If you are fresh graduate, didn’t had the chance to do a project, tell us about the web parts you created as an example or may be workflows.
8. If you want to put a picture, put one only one with handsome suit and tie, for ladies be formal.
9. Align your C.V, align the text, titles and the paragraphs, add tables with no borders if required to be aligned.
10. Please use the same font style with 3 different sizes maximum.
11. Use 2 colors, for borders only and not for the content, like background is white and border is black or dark blue or brown but definitely not red!

So far just stick to this, should be ok.

BTW if you think, I missed something, add it in a comment to this post, would be thankful.

IE cannot display the web page – happens when creating new web application

A friend today was investigating in this till he solve it, let me name him “Hytham Elabady” Senior Developer @ Allianz J spend quite good time, actually I just didn’t pay attention to this issue but he put it on mind till it worked, I thought I have good RAM so oh no never Time out L but …. It was … anyway find the solution below..

The below solution is for Web Applications and it doesn’t have to be a SharePoint web application 2010 or 2013… what so ever, it is general time out behavior due to that whatever the web application doing in the background, it took more than expected so it timed out.

Solution:

1. Open IIS,
2. Click on Central administration – under sites,
3. Click on advanced settings,
4. Increase the “Connection Time-out (seconds), by default it is 120, make it 240 for example, it’s up to you..

   

    

   Now create your web application & let me know J