Top 5 SharePoint Collaboration Apps for Android

SharePoint wildly popular as an enterprise platform for many reasons such as integrates meta data stores, document repositories and successful social enterprise deployments.

According to IT survey on enterprise collaboration, last year it was found that 73% of its respondents were using SharePoint for their business apps. And slowly it gained success as a new collaboration and knowledge sharing platform. SharePoint 2010 SharePoint 2010 lacked mobile support, hence SharePoint 2013 came to picture with new enhancements and customized features. Finally SharePoint 2013 has finally gone mobile supporting varied screen sizes with different kind of gadgets.

Some of the new unique features makes SharePoint all the more interesting and useful for creating best business apps:

Mobile Browser Experience
SharePoint provides different browsing options depending on the usage of the mobile browsers they can be called as Contemporary View, Classic View, the and Full Screen UI. The Contemporary View is new to SharePoint 2013. This view renders beautifully in HTML5 and is made available to the newest mobile browsers such as iPhone’s Safari 4.0+, Mobile IE9.0+ and Android 4.0+. It is a clean view with the goal of providing quick access to document libraries, lists and other common SharePoint content. The Classic View gives backward compatibility for older mobile browsers. It is always meant for a specific purpose and function and it is not going to win any user design awards. The Full Screen UI deals with a full desktop view of the site shown on the mobile device.

• Device Channels – Device Channels renders content flawlessly on different devices. SharePoint 2013 cleans up. master pages, page layouts and style sheets that can be mapped to specific mobile browsers, allowing much more control over the usability of content.
• Push Notifications – SharePoint library fulfils the needs of every business and gets notified on mobile device when a new or changed document is posted to that list. Alert functionality was there before and even one can send an email or text. Now SharePoint 2013 takes it a step further by providing users with notifications on their mobile devices when specific activities occur on SharePoint site. This powerful tool keep users informed of key changes to SharePoint-based sites and business solutions. It can automatically push notifications to the employee who submitted the idea each time the status of that idea changes. This is a great way to keep occupied users and increase overall use of solutions.
• Location – With the help of geolocation field type in SharePoint many numerous application can automatically log the location of a user each time they enter any information. This powerful feature of SharePoint-based applications where mobile users capture information through their smartphones is unique. Bing Maps helps to display this exact location information.

SharePoint 2013 and the Office Web Apps Server work together better than ever before to provide a higher quality experience for users who interact with documents on their phones. This covers Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and the viewer for these documents is now optimized for phones. Microsoft continues to enhance this experience, since viewing and editing documents on our mobiles devices is becoming much more common.

Top 5 SharePoint Collaboration Apps

SharePlus
It offers secure SharePoint browsing from anywhere. The app supports all Content Types and there’s native support for Office files. To ease collaboration, one can share documents via email or send a link. Collaborate with team, sharing documents and tasks lists right from the meeting room, a taxi, or when out visiting a client. Browse documents, discussions, announcements, wiki pages and custom lists.

Filamente
Filamente is a SharePoint client for iOS from Aircreek. It gives users a touchscreen optimized interface for SharePoint, the ability to upload files from a mobile device and offline access to resources.

Forms Central
Formotus offers a SharePoint client for Android, iOS and Windows Mobile called Forms Central. Like Filamente, it provides offline access to SharePoint data. It’s free to download, but requires a subscription.

DocAve
DocAve is a management platform for SharePoint created by a company called AvePoint. It consists of a suite of products to enable integration, document migration and data management. These products can be purchased as a suite, or individually. Free trials are also available to download from the official AvePoint website.

Quick Apps for SharePoint
This application is created by Dell and is available to download directly from their website. It is a great app for smaller businesses because it allows quick and easy customization of SharePoint, without the need for large IT departments. It is also quicker and faster than making custom code changes.

Huddle
This is the best cloud collaboration tools, designed with ease and efficiency kept in mind, with millions using it for content management and enterprise collaboration. Small, mid and big businesses can easily manage and exchange information or projects with others. It also allows to track milestones, project deadlines, view late projects, completed tasks, making collaboration effective and easy. In addition, unlike the on-premise SharePoint, it supports several mobile applications such as Android, iPad, BlackBerry and iPhone.

SharePoint is one of the most versatile business software applications available on the IT web market. Its popularity over the years has dramatically increased because of the systems flexibility and the abundance of professional apps that can be integrated into the platform with little time and effort required and supported almost all browsers and electronic gadgets.

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10 Tips for Making Your SharePoint Project a Success

While SharePoint, as an advanced web application development platform, has become widely used for its many benefits, several organizations fail to emerge successful with a SharePoint project. So, prior to looking into the tips on making SharePoint project a success, here is what one should avoid doing at the time of implementation of SP.

Mistakes to Avoid in SP Project Implementation

• Trying to accomplish too many tasks within very less time is one of the common mistakes committed by enterprises. It needs to be realized by the stakeholders as well that the specific needs will be catered to and fulfilled in future if not right now.
• Point searching several websites that are quite large is a mistake for the reason that there is no possible way of limiting the volume of data in the search catalogs of SP. As a result, SP will simply index numerous pages while also bringing the server down.
• The attempt at doing everything including delivering projects in house leads to a failed outcome. Unless the enterprise has quite a large team, emerging successful with a SharePoint project is but a rare possibility.
• Allowing any one individual to exercise complete control of permissions is a blunder. This is because users with full permission can take certain wrong steps such as adding a lot of content, deleting sites, giving inappropriate permissions and so on.

Tips on Enjoying a Successful SharePoint Project

Once you are aware of the things to be avoided, it is time to concentrate on few tips or strategies, applying which paves the way for an effective SharePoint project. Here is a list of these:

1. Making Use of Standard Functionality

Configuration is always preferred over coding. SharePoint is immensely powerful and mistaking it for just a .NET application should be avoided. As such, spending on other resources instead of spending too much on coding makes it easier to support as well as upgrade the site.

2. Understanding the Technology

Understanding SharePoint thoroughly is essential in the very first place. One should gain the basic knowledge of SP in order to be able to not just deploy it in the desired manner but also encounter the issues, as and when they arise.

3. Empowering the Users and Delegates

When it comes to executing a SharePoint project with success, one must not be apprehensive of handing down the rights to create sites or author content and so on. Alongside, use of publishing control, version control along with workflows to adhere to quality and policy of the organization should also be facilitated.

4. Focusing on Simple Visual Designs

With respect to the SharePoint user interface, more emphasis should be laid on the functionality of the site instead of its looks. Let the designers know what matters most for a SharePoint site from the very beginning, as customizing it later might appear to be a rather tough task.

5. Never Planning for the End

This might appear to be rather tricky but it has to be remembered that a project in SP, unlike others, does not end but expands with the growth of the business. What is necessary is to take an interactive approach and let users understand as well as contribute to the process of repeating till the desired goal is achieved.

6. Managing Expectations Arising from Different Quarters

Every SP project will essentially begin with two figures set as goal, one of cost and the other of delivery date. One must always stay careful about managing the expectations of the senior managers by means of giving them high level costs as well as timescales.

7. Allowing the Permission Model to Stay Simple

The permission model, especially the structures, should be kept as simple as possible. Building complex structures implies managing too much in return of too less a value.

8. Choosing the Partner Carefully

It is more than necessary to have a partner, who understands both the technology as well as the NHS. Partners should be the ones you can trust no matter how much you test or challenge them. Mutual advice and cooperation paves the way for appreciable results.

9. Convince Even the Rather Stubborn Customers

The best way of engaging the stubborn customers are by considering and appreciating their requirements as well as ideas. It has to be remembered in this respect that the stubborn ones are also the most vocal ones and hence, they can turn out to be the real assets for an enterprise.

10. Be Ready to Take Risks

As the saying goes, ‘No risk, no gain’, it is always good to take risks than stay back in apprehension. Try out varying strategies and trust the users enough to gain the desired success in the usage of SharePoint.

Implementing the 10 points suggested above greatly amplifies the chances of getting successful with SharePoint application development, leading to the benefit of the enterprises.

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SharePoint End-User Adoption and Productivity List

SharePoint has undoubtedly emerged as one of the best web application development platforms that is being implemented by enterprises all over. Now, attempts are constantly being made to improve the user adoption and productivity of the SharePoint 2013. There are a number of tools, techniques and methods that are implemented for making SP more user- friendly as well as productive.

Enhancing the Level of User Adoption

Before looking into some tips on how the productivity can be increased, let us begin with a discussion of the different stages of user adoption as follows:

Collaboration of Documents
Document Collaboration is the very first and the most basic way of letting users adopt SP 2013 with higher level of effectiveness. With SharePoint, document sharing does not stay restricted to sending emails back and forth but extend much beyond that to include check in/out, alerts, versioning and so on. The integration with Office further paves the way for a direct opening of the files from the Office programs.

A Single Focal Point or Team Sites
It is always more comfortable for the users if they get the chance to reach a certain point where they are making regular use of this platform. While trying as well as exploring certain new things, users become friendly with the concept of team site. Calenders can be shared, tasks can be assigned while contact lists can be created for proper referencing. Connection among each other through Outlook makes SP more productive.

Coordinating Business Processes
When the users are able to keep in touch by virtue of the team sites, they engage in the task of automating business processes. Using the workflows is indeed an elaborate task with multiple processes that need to be taken care of. Now, irrespective of the numbers of processes or the complications involved in the same, it is always easy when the processes are automated.

Reporting with SharePoint 2013
For organizations that are pretty much advanced with regards to SP implementation, reporting is quite hassle-free. The application of the tools should be followed by an understanding of the placement of the data to ensure that the best-suited tools are used. As far as the end users are concerned, there are different products along with equally varying ways that can be presented. SharePoint is deployed as the primary means to presenting these reports. The level of user adoption is automatically higher with SP being used for both document collaboration as well as reporting.

Social Media Adoption
The good thing about Microsoft SharePoint 2013 is that the social features and functionality are available everywhere. Even today, few organizations are found considering the social part of SharePoint 2013 even after they have become rather experienced in SP use and knowledge. At the same time, there are organizations that implement social media as a significant part of their use of SP and they actually benefit from it. However, integration of the social media and SharePoint must take place following a carefully planned process.

Tips on Increasing Productivity
The successful deployment of SharePoint 2013 can be gauged from the increase in the overall productivity. There are certain strategies that can be adopted to ensure that the implementation of SP has a direct influence upon the productivity.

• The end-user requirements should be taken into consideration in designing an interface that maximizes productivity. The site aesthetics matter to a great extent. For instance, branding of the SP intranet implies that users should seriously consider it along with its use.
• Training is must to let users get the most out of an application. Awareness about the functional requirements as well as that of the not so professional or specialized areas goes a long way in increasing productivity.
• Performance happens to be more important than a lot of other things. Increased emphasis should be laid on improving the load time of the pages, accelerating the upload and download time of files and making sure that the servers work well enough to cater to high demand.

The above-mentioned list of stages and tips helps improving end-user adoption and productivity of SP 2013. And that is equally as important as optimizing the process of SharePoint application development.

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The Importance of SharePoint Software Development in the Marketing Technology Today

Microsoft launched SharePoint in 2001 as a rapid web application development platform. But within a decade, it is being used by enterprises for various purposes. Many companies even use SharePoint to manage their content, documents and records. A number of survey results have further highlighted that the platform is being used widely by companies across the world to build intranet. The innovative features offered by SharePoint 2013 also make it easier for businesses to constantly collaborate and communicate with both external parties and internal departments.

The quick and hassle-free sharing of documents, images and content further helps the marketing teams in boosting sales, and beating competition. At the same time, an enterprise also has option to build a customized SharePoint intranet site to enable members of its sales teams to access the latest information, images and videos on the go. If you are yet to migrate to SharePoint 2013, it is time to understand the significance of the platform in latest marketing technologies.

Why Invest in SharePoint Intranet Solution for Your Marketing Team?

Hassle-Free Communication and Collaboration
The SharePoint intranet will allow you business to store marketing brochures and similar collateral in a PDF or Microsoft Word format. The data can further be tagged and classified according to your marketing strategy. So the members of your marketing team can access the most updated and relevant data without putting any extra time and effort. You can further use the versioning feature for documents to ensure that your employees are accessing the most updated version of marketing collaboration. The quick and hassle-free collaboration will contribute towards optimizing the performance of your sales team.

Better Control over Marketing Images
Most marketing campaigns, nowadays, use images to attract and engage the prospects. But each member of the sales team must know the approved marketing images. As SharePoint allows you to store the images at a centralized location, the library can be accessed by each employee, along with acting as an archive for old marketing images. The accessibility with further help you marketing department to exercise a greater control over the images that will be used as part of the ongoing marketing campaign.

Easy to Share New Marketing Videos
Similar to images, videos are also an integral part of marketing campaigns. Some of the video clips can be used to promote products or services offered by the company, whereas others will convey important information to the employees. SharePoint allows you to add new marketing videos by using the Media Web Part feature. You can simply post the latest video on the home page of the intranet, and the video clip will be accessible to all employees in an instant. The feature can also be used to display both audio and video clips on the various pages of the site.

Find Required Information Quickly
Microsoft has further designed the latest version of SharePoint with an advanced search center. The feature enables users to find the most relevant information on a topic in a simpler and faster way. The search results will be displayed according to the relevance of words in the search term entered by the user. Further, the search center is designed with a refinement pant that allows users to restrict the search results by choosing from the links appearing in the panel. At the same time, SharePoint further enables enterprises to promote the expected results through features like Keywords and Best Bets. These features will help you in allowing sales team members to access the most relevant information according to their individual contribution and expertise.

SharePoint 2013 also comes with a set of innovative features that enable the members of a distributed sales team to stay connected with each other. The members of your marketing team can use the instant messaging and online chat option to find the members of their group who are currently online. So they can discuss various aspects of a sales deal in an instant.

Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

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Design Manager in SharePoint 2013 Designer – A Detailed Introduction

Understanding the Design Manager
Design Manager is primarily meant to help the users of SharePoint create custom designs and achieve the respective goals if they want SharePoint 2013 to represent the brand of the organization. It comes up as a particular feature in SP 2013, paving the way for a completely customized, pixel-perfect outcome using the familiar web designing tools. As a publishing feature, it is available in the publishing sites in both Office 365 and SP server 2013.

This extremely useful feature allows the creation of visual design for websites using the web designing tools and HTML editor. Only HTML and CSS can be used after which the design has to be uploaded into SP. Basically, it enables management of each aspect of a custom design.

So, designers using this excellent feature will have to precisely undertake the following activities:

• Grasping and understanding the main SP design concepts
• Creating a mock-up of the design in CSS and HTML
• Implementing the same utilizing the Design Manager feature

Implementing a Design by Means of the Design Manager
It is essential for the SharePoint 2013 users to be aware of the usage of the feature in implementing designs. On looking at the feature, one gets to see a series of links representing the high-level tasks to be performed. Following is a step-by-step sequence in which the task of implementing a design is executed with success:

Prior to Making Use of Design Manager
Even before you start using the feature, you have to create an individual design or use a ready-made website template. While mocking up the sites in HTML and CSS, you will come across certain HTML files implementing designs for the particular way in which you want the different pages to appear. You also need to take the necessary SharePoint permissions, more particularly, you have to be at the Designer permission level to use the feature.

Management of Device Channels
Before starting right away with the task of designing your site exploiting this essential feature, you need to take into account the specific devices to be targeted and the kind of user experience on each of them. Once you have considered the specific device channels, it is time to use multiple ways in rendering a single publishing site by means of mapping varying designs to equally varying devices.

Now, the device channels, which are created as well as stored in the SP list, have ranking and therefore, the order of the same also matters. The inclusion rules are also processed accordingly.

Uploading the Designed Files
Once the designing is done, the designer can use any HTML editor of his preference and work with files locally on the specific computer. However, these files need to be uploaded to the Master Page Gallery of the SP site so as to enable the feature to convert, preview and at the same time, polish the already created design.

The best- possible way to upload as well as continue working on these files is by mapping a drive on the computer to the Master Page gallery of the SP site. This paves the way for a folder on the computer to be connected to the Master Page Gallery. The result is that one can work on files that are present on the server in SP 2013 provided that they are local files.

Editing the Master Pages
The next task is to create a fully branded master page containing all of the functionality of SharePoint that one wants. The steps through which the editing is done are:

• Conversion of HTML file into a SP master page
• Previewing the master page while also facilitating fixing of the possible issues
• Addition of the SP snippets to the master page

Editing Display Templates
In the event of using the on-premises installation of the SharePoint server, one has the option of using the Content Search Web Part along with a few other search- driven web parts. This helps in the display of the results of the search queries as content on the pages. Now, the search-driven web parts make use of the display templates for two main purposes. These are firstly to map managed properties returned in the search result items to properties that are available for JavaScript. This includes any custom JavaScript that one chooses to implement. The second purpose is to make use of CSS and HTML to find out how these properties are displayed.

Editing Page Layouts
The process involving the creation of page layout in Design Manner is somewhat different from that of creating a master page. First, a page layout needs to be made using the .aspx file and HTML file. Following this, the associated HTML file has to be edited from the mapped drive in the HTML editor. The feature ensures that the page layout is created in a manner that the correct set of page fields get added to the page layout.

Apart from the above-mentioned steps, creating themes and composed looks, publishing and applying the designs and creation of the package of the same are the final steps to be taken when it comes to using Design Manager in SharePoint 2013 development projects.

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5 ways to spruce up SharePoint 2013 for your intranet CMS

One of the biggest drawbacks that affect content management is the lack of proper search plug-ins. In the current scenario, businesses do not have adequate amount of time for tracking down different files. SharePoint comes to rescue in such a situation.

SharePoint intranet comes with convenient document libraries, enabling every business to categorize information in the way they want. In fact, you can have all your content easily accessible by means of different libraries within a hosted portal- a library for media, one for finance, report, sales, marketing and so on. The inconvenience of lost data will never be experienced. The intranet also comprises the latest antiviral software for ensuring preservation of online infrastructure.

As a business owner or team member, SP allows you to open up documents through the web, and also to synchronize work via document collaboration. In short, SharePoint provides a collaborative, hosted solution for content management through the intranet. Investing in SharePoint development for org-wide collaboration always pays rich dividends. Let us discuss 5 trending ways which will help you to spruce up SharePoint 2013 for your intranet CMS.

1. Creation of an intranet newsfeed with SP 2013
With the help of an intranet newsfeed, users are able to publicly and rapidly communicate with each other by sharing ideas, posting updates, asking questions along with other activities. So far as the management is concerned, it is a great means for engaging with employees personally, directly and openly. Moreover, the SharePoint newsfeed renders a micro-blogging experience similar to that derived from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Users are able to post comments, direct particular users with the help of @targeting as well as tag the same to a particular topic utilizing #tags. Comments or users can be liked or followed.

2. Showcasing intranet blogs with SP 2013
Intranet blogs are a brilliant way to discuss on relevant topics providing authors with the capability of communicating a message as well as starting conversation and collecting feedback. Readers can have their opinions heard and addressed. Authoring and publishing tools are offered by the SharePoint blog site to authors, in the same manner as they would expect from a consumer CMS. The features include the ability of video embedding from sources such as YouTube, rich text editing, capability of content publishing directly from MS Word. It is possible to like, rate, follow or share blog posts.

3. Using SharePoint 2013 for creation of intranet survey
With the help of intranet surveys, creators are able to speedily crowd source precious information from a huge employee pool. As participants, employees can get an easy means for bottom-up feedback and hence become more engaged. The SharePoint survey app offers a template to easily as well as quickly build surveys with diverse question types (multiple choice, text fields, rating scales). On completion of the surveys, results are represented graphically with the facility of exporting to Excel. The promoted links app of SharePoint builds metro-style tiles along with a hover-over state in order to make room for additional text information. The advantage is that tiles offer increasing visual engagement as against a standard list, following the SP site’s theme.

4. Leveraging SP 2013 for surfacing intranet KPIs
With regular and convenient access to KPIs, employees can adjust their activities to accommodate the changing business demands. Enhanced visibility of performance metrics at an organizational level helps in greater employee collaboration. With the help of the Excel Web Access Web Part, data can be displayed from an Excel spreadsheet straightaway onto a SharePoint page. Granular control can be maintained by the author over the data that can be displayed from the spreadsheet and accessed. Once it surfaces on the SP page, the data can be made user-interactive.

5. Using SharePoint 2013 for creation of an intranet discussion list
Through intranet discussion lists, users can discuss specific topics with subject matter experts and their peers. It can be used for diverse purposes helping employees draw the benefits of a wide organizational network of resources and knowledge. Forum-style collaboration areas can be created with the help of SP Community Site Features. Using the discussion list, users can start discussions or ask questions. Moreover, categorization of the content can be done.

For creating an engaging and dynamic intranet CMS, SharePoint 2013 is loaded with all the requisite functionality. Great outcomes can be enjoyed by those who comprehend the changing intranet demands and leverage this new functionality.

We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert SharePoint developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Setting up a social strategy for SharePoint? Here are tips to get started

With the launch of SharePoint 2013 by Microsoft, social business became the talk of the day, with SP gradually moving towards becoming a company’s social hub. Last year, Microsoft acquired Yammer, and is planning to tie up the same with SharePoint as well as other wares of Microsoft ranging from Dynamics to SkyDrive. My Sites along with Community sites have been introduced by SharePoint 2013, and these aid in internal business collaboration by providing a social interface. These are also designed to make use of the security as well as other enterprise or business management features that SharePoint has. This implies a genuine extension of collaboration among partners and work-groups.

According to R.Wang, leading social business analyst, going social might close the gap between execution and strategy, measurement and execution, as well as strategy and measurement. Organizations understand that SP might be a platform for integration of these technologies thereby bringing in innovation, provided there is a proper plan and strategy for social business.

Let us discuss briefly about three of the major social aspects of SharePoint 2013, namely My Sites, Community Sites as well as the new Newsfeed. All of these distinguish SP from its predecessors and make upgradation a forward-thinking smart decision.

Community Sites
Creating a new Community Site has become very convenient. You simply need to select Community Site from the list within SharePoint available for Collaboration site templates. As per the community’s business role, site owners can go for selection of four permission levels:

• Private: Selected members can view or go for interaction with the community.
• Closed: Content can be read by end users but only those members receiving approved requests would be able to contribute content.
• Open with explicit membership: Content can be read by end users, who would also be able to automatically join the community for contributing content.
• Open: Content can be contributed by anybody.

Like other SharePoint subsites, the Community Site template would be able to disinherit or inherit permissions from its parent site. The fundamental permissions as well as security constructs remain similar. Community Sites just build on this construct utilizing the permission levels. In spite of the presence of this architecture, it is always considered a better practice to make use of unique permissions for management of community membership. It is essential for organizations making use of communities at the site level to become well-versed with this setup. Moreover, community moderators can gain access to features such as offensive content reporting or alerts which enable them to follow discussions more effectively.

My Sites
My Sites is capable of giving users exactly what their requirement is- rapid access to their things. Presently a user is able to follow people, documents or sites. This ‘follow’ mechanism helps in the automatic creation of lists which are rendered in the user’s My Site, both on the Newsfeed page and also on the My Sites homepage.

Moreover, with the help of My Sites, a user is capable of having one click access to the sites he or she follows. It also recommends other sites the user might find interesting or useful, based on a number of criteria.

Newsfeed
Newsfeeds refer to content that is dynamically updated and generated through the activities indulged in by fellow users. These incorporate the currently omnipresent hashtags as well as ‘@ mentions’, and resemble Facebook or Twitter feeds closely. Unlike the case of external social networks, organizations are able to exercise some amount of control over the activities that would be appearing across the Newsfeed from the User Profile Service Application. On the Newsfeed Settings screen, there are provisions for a user to have considerable control over e-mail notifications, hash-tags, and so on.

It is true that in order to make use of these tools, the enterprise architecture does incur some cost such as licensing costs, software and hardware considerations, along with architecture to render support to redundancy as well as performance. But the benefits are indeed far-fetched. Leveraging the social features present in SharePoint development platform with the proper strategy can help organizations effectively manage their social business interaction while at the same time safeguarding intellectual property and content.

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9 Tips to Integrate DotNetNuke with SharePoint

If you need to develop an engaging as well as interesting website featuring optimum and advanced tools until date, the choice undeniably rests with DotNetNuke (DNN). With businesses facing diverse challenges in terms of content modification, DNN offering multiple solutions addressing the various technological needs of the content providers and emerging interests of the people comes to right help.

Why is DNN unique and a preferred choice?
The reason is simple; DNN offering a wide range of tools supports the rapidly changing consumer as well as technology trends thereby, enabling users to move forward without any difficulty. Being the world’s number one WCMS for Microsoft, DotNetNuke stands as the most successful and largest open-source CMS plug-in catering to the Microsoft ecosystem. This particular software is extraordinarily empowered to offer virtual help to any enterprise for approaching or facing architectural challenges from every angle. The platform also helps the nonprofit organization to save both time as well as money.

What brings SharePoint to the forefront?
SharePoint is a pioneer in providing intranet solution geared towards efficient handling of internal document management, which includes but is not restricted to sharing, editing, and uploading of reports along with contents. In simpler terms, this particular application ensures easy access of data by everybody in the business network. It streamlines the complex process of collaborating along with managing the important business documents. This particular application is actually incorporated by anybody managing content starting from business to nonprofit organizations. The SharePoint and DNN connector further ensures complete optimization of the process and has been successfully integrated by businesses across different sectors.

To ensure complete optimization of the content creation, business organizations as well as enterprises need to execute a successful integration of DNN with SharePoint.

Integrating DotNetNuke with SharePoint – Tips to Follow

Here is a quick look at the tips that you need to remember while integrating the DNN software successfully with the SharePoint application:

1. Good knowledge of SharePoint and DotNetNuke – This particular approach helps in easy as well as seamless integration of both the document management system and the software making it easy for content monitoring along with modification. It is important to have good knowledge of the software as well as the application before taking up integration.

2. Always integrate with SharePoint 2007 and 2010 – This particular objective helps you enjoy the best benefits of both the DotNetNuke along with the document management system. After all, it helps publishing fresh contents extracting it straight from the SharePoint Document library. The published documents are carefully protected by the role based security network of DNN.

3. Always publish documents that are approved for display – Undertaking this particular approach always helps you to avoid any sort of interference with the team. This helps you ensure the use of a streamlined alongside a collaborative procedure that helps in effective management of the document. Additionally, it also allows you to share the best documents that are carefully edited and ready for use.

4. Ensure consistent permission throughout the work – This particular objective if maintained right helps preventing any sort of unauthorized access thereby, ensuring a secure digital asset management. Additionally, it also helps preventing the redistribution of assets that are digital.

5. Make use of views and not folders – This helps you ensure having unlimited flexibility along with extreme level of granularity. It is also important for you to be able to combine the properties easily and this particular approach helps in successful combination. The biggest advantage rests with the fact that it helps reducing overall risk alongside human error.

6. Synchronize the deletes – Taking up this particular approaching during the process of integration also helps avoiding the errors of “file not found” during the successful execution of removal of files. This particular approach of cleaning also ensures reduction of unimportant database clogging, duplication, overall risk, and human errors.

7. Enabling of error notification is must – This specific task helps in automatic synchronization eliminating the need of active viewing or monitoring of the document in concern. This result in a smooth process that helps you to lessen the effort along with the time required for content monitoring.

8. Avoid the firewall – Always make sure that the SharePoint server can enjoy an easy access to the DOTNetNuke server. This helps in smoother as well as better content management without any modification of security policies.

9. Allow filtering of documents to be transferred – This particular approach helps the users to filter the documents easily through the integrated SharePoint filtering views. This helps the users to make use of the Create View UI and need not rely upon two different sets of filters.

Following the above-mentioned tips is sure to help you achieve a successful integration of DotNetNuke with SharePoint and ensure defining the success metrics for your organization in terms of less error, reduced publishing time, etc.

You can hire developers from top SharePoint development companies in india who can help you build apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint portal development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

10 Mistakes to avoid while migrating from PHP to SharePoint

In recent times, there has been a rapid rise in the use of SharePoint (SP) and a number of enterprises are considering migration from PHP to SP. While there is of course huge amount of benefits associated with staying put with Open-Source PHP, SharePoint being a Microsoft supported platform comes high on security and other benefits as well. Weighing in on the pros and cons of both, there are migrations happening both ways – while some businesses are changing from SharePoint to PHP, other are going the Microsoft way.

Custom SharePoint development ensures that your enterprise’s collaboration efforts hit the roof while redundancies in processes are eliminated. And that often attracts businesses to migrate to SharePoint. The challenge lies in ensuring that SharePoint is appropriately implemented within the environment. It is true that the document management system can be conveniently installed as well as configured. However a number of organizations tend to make certain mistakes while migrating from PHP to SharePoint.

Let us have a look at 10 mistakes which should be avoided.

1. Choosing the basic installation for SharePoint: During installation of SP many organizations are into the habit of going for the basic install option. Although the basic version can be installed with simply a few clicks of the mouse, the advanced option is always better, so far as enterprises are concerned. It is advisable to choose the advanced option if you are not interested in installing everything on a single server or want to utilize complete SQL server, either existing or new.

2. Ignoring Fault tolerance: While migrating from PHP to SharePoint, a number of enterprises commit the mistake of considering that load balancing or greatly obtainable environments are meant for performance. The truth is that most of the times, fault tolerance is a greater priority and the actual reason behind leveraging load balancing, or any other highly available solution such as RAID. The configuration of an environment with high availability is not feasible with the basic installation.

3. Inappropriate utilization of permissions and service accounts: Like a lot of other server-oriented tools, SP has to interact with the server on which it is installed as well as the services surrounding it. As a result, service accounts are required, which are in fact, special identities used for communication with crawl content, SQL server, add index information across the file system, amongst various other functions. Many organizations make the mistake of going for generic server accounts, which is not at all recommended. In place of this, distinct domain accounts are required for every primary SP service.

4. Iterating by means of SPList Items: Developers have access to SPList object and are capable of using the same either from the existing SPContext or through creation of a SPList object to gain access to a list identified through its name. Although the used code is good for local environments, it leads to performance problems in case of custom SharePoint implementations.

5. Excessive data request from content database: With the help of the SPList object, data can be conveniently accessed from the Content Database. The problem is that every time this action is taken, it leads to requesting all the list items. Using SPQuery object, the data that is really needed can be queried. SPQuery facilitates putting a limitation on the number of returned items and columns as well as raising query for particular items through utilization of Collaborative Markup Language.

6. Memory leaks through SPWeb and SPSite: For those considering migration from PHP to SharePoint, it should be remembered that SharePoint makes use of COM components for certain core features. So far as COM Objects are concerned, memory management can be an issue. SharePoint installations often do not dispose SPWeb and SPSite objects and hence the ASP.NET Worker Process ends up leaking memory. So, it is advisable to monitor the memory usage to identify memory leaks.

7. Use of Index Columns for Performance Enhancement: Index Columns can offer speedy access to SharePoint Lists but there are certain limitations. With respect to every defined index, the index value is stored by SP for each list item in a distinct table. Queries utilize the first index column while additional index columns are not utilized for speeding up database access.

8. Using SP for transactional processing of great volume: It is a good thing that SharePoint does not bound you to the content database, but you should not use it for high volumes of transactional processing. A single table stores every data element. Implementation of database indices takes place through use of a second table which is then attached with the main table. Simultaneous access to different lists becomes an issue since the data belongs to the same table.

9. Inappropriate drive space allocation: The SharePoint installation procedure puts location of custom solutions, indexes, software and logs across the primary system drive, which is most of the times, the C drive. However, in a number of organizations, the C drive is partitioned into smaller components for the OS files. Consequently, space can rapidly run out.

10. Not focusing on disaster recovery situations: While engaging in migration from PHP to SharePoint, many organizations tend to disregard the disaster recovery continuity plans. SP is more intricate than other database driven portals. Hence, the architecture should be understood and accordingly plans should be made for reconstituting the environment.

These are the mistakes that are committed most often by organizations while migration from PHP to SharePoint. Avoiding these mistakes will save time and reduce the possibility of future issues.

We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Tips for Effective Migration to SharePoint 2013

In the recent times, with Microsoft launching SharePoint 2013, a large number of businesses are considering migration to this new edition to enhance their business processes. In fact, this new version of SharePoint is anticipated to revolutionize the way in which companies are building links amongst their knowledge workers, business processes as well as business-related content worldwide. This platform includes novel features such as enhanced document management capabilities with respect to sharing and contributing content, enhanced social features along with a renewed search experience. SharePoint 2013 is speedily positioning itself as one of the much sought after technology for the introduction of crucial organizational initiatives in the areas of social collaboration, enterprise content management and web content management.

The advanced features of Sharepoint make it vital for organizations to take certain points into consideration prior to adopting this latest platform. Let us discuss some of the guidelines that should be followed in order to achieve effective migration to SharePoint 2013.

1. Take care of hardware requirements: In case of SharePoint 2013 servers, minimum of 8 GB RAM and four 64-bit cores is needed for small environments while medium environments require 16 GB RAM. For every server operating in SharePoint 2013, location within a single data center is essential.

2. Operating system requisites: The ideal operating system incorporates 64-bit edition, R2 SP1 Windows Server 2008. The 2012 Windows Server operating system can also be utilized. You must consider migration to 64-bit servers before any other upgrade or migration.

3. Decide upon the destination before starting off: Doing this gives you a clear-cut idea of where you are heading to and this allows you to go for proper channelization of the resources at hand. For example, if you are using SQL 2012, use Windows 2012 along with an Office Web Application Server.

4. Divide current customizations into categories: It is advisable to categorize the customizations into three categories. The first category constitutes items such as custom authentication provider that would stop the project. You need to have solutions for this, or else the migration would not be a success. The second category comprises items that would not put a halt to the project but are required to be completed. It is good to address them once the migration is completed. Items that need to be eliminated make up the third category.

5. Realize environmental alterations: When you are deciding to go for Windows 2012, the environmental change that takes place needs to be taken into consideration. The SMTP server role has been deprecated by Windows 2012 and depending on the information, decision needs to be taken as to whether to use a more intricate configuration or go for installation of the deprecated feature.

6. Get every migration step scripted: This task involves restructuring site hierarchy, mounting content databases.

7. Conduct dry runs: While performing dry runs, you must follow a sequential guide. Through the dry runs, it is quite convenient to identify the disk space and timing requirements.

8. Go for proper space and time planning: Once the disk space and the upgrade time required are identified depending upon the dry runs, you can take necessary action. For instance, by adjusting the SQL server memory, the time for mounting as well as upgrading SharePoint can be decreased.

9. Follow dry runs with test: The only thing that separates a live run from a dry run is that the data is not updated, hence the end result should simulate the live migration. Taking this into account, through utilization of an alternate access mapping, it can be opened up to selected end users for testing, in order to validate the overall usability and the basic functionality.

10. Set up destination environment: It is advisable to configure and prepare to the maximum extent prior to migration. Once the configuration of the environment is done, the same will ensure smoother migration.

The above mentioned tips would go a long way in helping you plan your SharePoint 2013 migration. They will definitely help you enhance the overall efficiency of your SharePoint application development team.

We provide custom SharePoint development services. If you would like to know more about the expertise of our expert SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.