Session Abstracts

SharePoint Session Abstracts

Following is a sampling of the sessions that will be offered at The Experts Conference for SharePoint 2010. We will be adding additional sessions and abstracts as speakers are selected. And you can look forward to seeing the agenda posted at the start of the New Year!

Keynote Session:

SharePoint 2010 Technical Roadmap
Speaker: Bill Baer

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies are among the fastest growing technologies at Microsoft and in the industry. SharePoint has expanded the definition of collaboration by providing a unique set of integrated capabilities and extensibility to provide a platform for building rich solutions. For both customers and partners alike, SharePoint provides an opportunity as unique as its capabilities to deliver value and increase productivity. This session will focus on the evolution of SharePoint as an enterprise platform. From on premise to cloud services platform, we’ll explore its evolution.

.Pre-Conference Workshops:

Guiding your SharePoint Developers to 2010 Bliss
Speaker: Eric Harlan and Zlatan Dzinic

The paradigm is still shifting. With each new release of SharePoint, the rules, the process and the outcomes all change. There is no shortage of said change in the new release of SharePoint 2010. With the new version out, there are better and more secure methods in which to bring together the connected functionality from the full spectrum of available application investments to the enterprise user. In this lab we will talk about and show different integration methods that are now in the developer’s arsenal. We will also cover how to manage development environments, and the solutions created from the Architects level. 2010 is here, it’s time your life got just a bit easier.

We will discuss application and limitations of the new SandBox Solutions model and how to set up and utilize this new technology for your enterprise. We will also explore Claims based Authentication Providers and how they affect the set up of Farms and integration between systems. All delegates are expected to bring their own laptops to this workshop.

SharePoint 2010 Security End-To-End Workshop
Speaker: Richard Taylor

This will NOT be death by PowerPoint but will be demo rich. This workshop will take the attendee from A to Z, Soup to Nuts, Beginning to End configuring security in a SharePoint 2010 environment. We will cover such topics as NAP, LoopbackCheck, IAG, as well as permissions. You won’t be disappointed! All delegates are expected to bring their own laptops to this workshop. .

General Sessions:

10 Ways SharePoint 2010 Will Impact Your Lotus Notes Migrations
Speaker: Steve Walch

SharePoint 2010 has many improvements that will be of particular interest to organizations transitioning off of Lotus Notes. This session will examine the new platform’s capabilities from a Notes-centric point of view. We will look at improvements in scalability, offline capabilities, workflow, form development, Office integration, deployment and more. The focus will be on knocking down the barriers to migrating large and/or complex Notes environments and how to best leverage the platform to keep the cost and risk of your migration projects to a minimum.

15 Gotchas when Migrating to SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Paul Swider

Join us as we review the Top 15 things every developer should know when migrating to SharePoint 2010. Take a deep dive into the changes made to the object model, SharePoint Services, Business Connectivity Services and user interface enhancements while avoiding the many “gotchas” you may encounter.

Architecting Hosted SharePoint Solutions
Speaker: Jeff DeVerter

This interactive design session will cover the challenges in designing and supporting both Dedicated and Multi-Tenant SharePoint solutions. Each of these environments has their own challenges that can be overcome with appropriate planning, tools, and homegrown scripts. For these two environments we will cover:

  • Architecture & Design
  • User Management
  • Capacity Planning
  • Data Migration
  • Backup/Restore
  • Disaster Recovery

This session will cover both the 2007 and 2010 product lines and will demonstrate the use of PowerShell to automate as many processes as possible.

Blogging with SharePoint 2010, and Extending it with the Community Kit for SharePoint
Speaker: Dan Lewis

Social Computing and Networking has become a centric channel for communicating with others, and is now internally becoming a part of large enterprise organizations. Blogs are a key component to an overall social computing strategy, and made possible in companies utilizing SharePoint. In this session we will show how companies can leverage SharePoint blogs to their benefit for internal and external usage. We’ll explore the functionality, the strong set of tools, an in-depth examination of how to use it, and tweaks to extend its robustness. Beyond the out-of-the-box functionality, we will also explore the Community Kit for SharePoint and how the Enhanced Blog Edition (CKS:EBE) can be deployed to SharePoint blogs, extending their functionality and capabilities. This session will be relevant to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Office SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Foundation, and SharePoint Server 2010.

Building Social Applications on SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Paul Swider

Making the shift from one-to-one relationships with partners and clients to a one-to-many relationship can be a daunting challenge for many companies. Thankfully, Microsoft’s social computing tools are delivered as part of the collaboration infrastructure and integrated by design with Microsoft SharePoint 2010. This session will focus on understanding the widely accepted 10 rules for adopting Social technologies inside the corporate firewall using SharePoint 2010.

Best Practices for SharePoint 2010 Upgrade
Speaker: Joel Oleson

Strategies and methods to SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 Upgrade. First we’ll analyze binary upgrade and explore the methods and then we’ll analyze Visual Upgrade and discuss the various approaches with best practices and lessons from early upgrades experiences.

Building the Next Generation of SharePoint Web Parts – How to Leverage JQuery and Silverlight within your SharePoint Sites!
Speaker: Phillip Wicklund

Simple, static pages are a thing of the past – today’s standard is becoming rich in usability and graphical charm. Come learn how to leverage JQuery and/or Silverlight so you can really “light up” your SharePoint sites!

Business Intelligence Lite: Reimagining What High-Value, Low-Effort BI Can Be
Speaker: Dan Holme

Too often, business intelligence (BI) is seen as a giant, expensive undertaking, but it doesn’t have to be! Learn about high-value solutions through “BI Lite”—solutions that use out-of-the-box functionality of Windows SharePoint Server lists and Office client applications to move critical business data from old-school Excel and Access files to online, multi-user solutions. In this session, you will learn several approaches that you can use to make the most of SharePoint as a database and application platform without ever cracking open Visual Studio, and before connecting Business Connectivity Services. Through practical, real world examples you’ll be inspired to identify and solve business problems and to deliver “big wins” that drive success and adoption of SharePoint and Office in your enterprise. You’ll learn to:

  • Move important, shared, or multi-user databases from their 20th century home in Excel worksheets and Access databases to SharePoint
  • Create rich, code-free “business intelligence lite” SharePoint solutions that leverage Excel as an analysis and presentation tool
  • Develop sophisticated, intelligent relational database applications with gorgeous forms and reports using Access as a SharePoint front-end
  • Leverage the new and improved Excel Services and Access Services for high-value, low-effort solutions.

Claims Authentication in SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Richard Taylor

Claims Authentication is a new feature in SharePoint 2010 and understanding it will assist administrators in designing and maintaining robust infrastructures and help make implementing other functionality a little easier. Come to this session to understand how Claims Authentication works in SharePoint.

Creating Advanced Workflows in SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Phillip Wicklund

This session will demonstrate how to build custom workflows with each of the three main SharePoint 2010 workflow tools including Visio, SharePoint Designer, and Visual Studio. Workflows in SharePoint 2010 can now be modeled in Office Visio 2010 and imported into SharePoint Designer. You can even take your SharePoint Designer workflows and import them into Visual Studio.  This may not be necessary because SharePoint Designer is packed with a lot of new workflow functionality.

Dazzling SharePoint with Silverlight: Creating Rich UI Objects with LINQ and the Client Objects Model
Speaker: Becky Isserman

In previous versions of SharePoint developers needed access to the server to create a Silverlight application, so that they could make proper configuration changes. In the new version of SharePoint a developer can create WCF Webservices and use LINQ to XML or harnass the Client Object Model to bind SharePoint data to Silverlight Controls. In this session we will create a BCS List and bind the data from this list to a Silverlight control using both the WCF Webservice Technique and the Client Object Model.

What’s After Governance?  SharePoint as a Service
Speaker: Craig Roth

Governance is an important first step in any SharePoint planning, but what happens after people, policy, and governance processes are determined?  That’s when the second pillar of SharePoint planning comes into play: management.  Craig Roth, author of a frequently cited definition of SharePoint governance, will describe what needs to happen after governance.  SharePoint as a service is an approach, based on ITIL, that recasts SharePoint as a catalog of business-focused services. In this presentation, Mr. Roth will discuss why treating SharePoint as a service is better (yields more value) and fundamentally different than simply providing a set of capabilities.

How to Effectively Manage SharePoint Projects
Speaker: Dux Raymond Sy

Microsoft SharePoint has shifted the paradigm in enterprise information management and team collaboration. By empowering knowledge workers, SharePoint can increase worker productivity, improve business process efficiency and streamline business processes. To achieve this goal, effectively managing SharePoint 2007 and 2010 projects is paramount. Learn how executive support, proper planning, and appropriately managing expectations are crucial to ensure SharePoint success.

InfoPath 2010: Where We Were, Where We’re Going
Speaker: Eric Harlan

In this session we’ll review what’s new in InfoPath 2010, play with the new features and see what will still plague us going forward. We’ll talk about some of the performance and UI changes as well as new ways to feed forms up to the end user. We’ll also demonstrate some of the new abilities to make form generation and adoption more seamless in the enterprise.

Leveraging InfoPath forms in your custom Visual Studio SharePoint Workflows
Speaker: Phillip Wicklund

Visual Studio workflows and InfoPath Forms Services are a powerful team for your company’s business processes. Three examples of how you can leverage InfoPath within your custom Visual Studio workflows will be demonstrated. 1: how to deploy a workflow enabled form into a form library programmatically. 2: how to programmatically retrieve form data entered by a user. 3: how to leverage an InfoPath form to collect custom workflow initiation data and task edit data.

Managing a SharePoint 2010 Environment Using the System Center Line of Products
Speaker: Michael Noel and Gary Lapointe

This session focuses on management of a distributed SharePoint 2010 environment using multiple tools in Microsoft’s System Center line of products. More than just a summary of the products and high-level features, this session takes a real-world in-depth look at the various System Center products and how they can be used to more effectively manage a SharePoint environment. Topics covered include virtualization management using System Center Virtual Machine Manager, proactive monitoring and alerting using System Center Operations Manager, configuration management of SharePoint web servers using System Center Configuration Manager, and backup and restore of SharePoint content using System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. View live demos of how these tools can be used to gain control over a complex and ever-changing SharePoint environment, best practice deployment, and architectural guidance.

Metadata Management in a Social Media World
Speaker: Christian Buckley

Many companies planning upgrades to SharePoint 2010 are reviewing their social media strategies, as users are chomping at the bit to deploy and use the new, natively supported features in SharePoint 2010. But most administrators don’t fully understand the taxonomy and governance issues associated with these tools. The intent of this presentation is to walk participants through the taxonomy and governance implications of the new social media capabilities within SharePoint 2010, providing guidance and best practices on how to track metadata, align these tools with broader corporate content management strategies, and maintain manageability of their SharePoint environment.

Planning for Governance: The Key to Successful SharePoint 2010 Solutions
Speaker: Susan Hanley

Effective Governance Planning is one of the most important and critical factors for the ongoing success of SharePoint solutions – as much if not more than technology. A good Governance Plan is “necessary but not sufficient” to ensure success. You still have to ensure that the Governance Plan is applied. Successful SharePoint 2010 solutions will be designed and developed with governance in mind so all SharePoint solution architects should understand governance concepts and best practices. In this example-filled presentation, you’ll learn detailed, practical recommendations for your SharePoint 2010 Governance Plan. Attendees will take away specific ideas that they can apply to create a sustainable governance plan for their SharePoint 2010 solutions.

PowerShell with SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Gary Lapointe

SharePoint 2010 management using PowerShell is a recommended best practices and, in many cases, is an absolute necessity. This session will cover some of the core concepts that are specific to the SharePoint 2010 implementation of PowerShell including threading issues, disposal patterns, remoting and custom cmdlet development. We’ll cover how to discover cmdlets and highlight those cmdlets used in common scenarios. This session will not cover how to write PowerShell and will focus specifically on the SharePoint aspects of PowerShell.

Rapidly deploying SharePoint Across 30 Forests Using a Virtual Directory (Using 2007 & 2010 “Claims Mode”)
Speaker: Michael Brengs

This session is a customer case study highlighting how a major non-profit health provider rapidly deployed SharePoint to users across 30+ Active Directory Forests using a virtual directory. This session also describes how the virtual directory reduced administration and increased security and control for the SharePoint environment. In addition, a discussion on how to achieve this in both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 using claims based authentication will be covered.  Some of the other topics to be discussed are outlined below.

  • Multi-forest Authentication – Provides a real-time merged view of multiple Active Directory Forests, enabling rapid deployment of SharePoint.
  • Multi-site Groups – Groups that are defined at the virtual directory layer can have group membership across multiple AD forests and can span multiple SharePoint sites.
  • Reduced Administration – Reduce administration by defining group membership based on business rules. The virtual directory then automatically maintains group membership, without any further user/group administration.
  • Security and Compliance – The virtual directory adds additional security and compliance to SharePoint with enhanced auditing and reporting of SharePoint access.

Records Management Best Practices in SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Zlatan Dzinic

This session will cover best practices for using SharePoint platform in capture, classification, and ongoing management of records throughout their lifecycle. We will also cover the following in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Records Management:

  • Setting policies and standards.
  • Assigning responsibilities and authorities.
  • Establishing and promulgating procedures and guidelines.
  • Providing a range of services relating to the management and use of records.
  • Designing, implementing and administering specialized systems for managing records.
  • Integrating records management into business systems and processes.

SharePoint 2010 and RMS – Protecting Your Content Beyond SharePoint
Speaker: Dan Lewis

Information Security is a paramount concern of any business and an obstacle for Information Technology groups. This session will review the benefits and features of leveraging Active Directory Rights Management Server integrated with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Learn how these server tools can extend SharePoint document permissions to the users’ desktops, and see how they are configured to work seemelssly together.

SharePoint 2010 Backup and Disaster Recovery
Speaker: Mike Watson

This fresh look at SharePoint 2010 backup/restore looks at the improvements in SharePoint 2010 from both a green field and upgrade perspective and provides insight into what is important to backup, and how the native tools in SharePoint 2010 work. We’ll demonstrate unattached recovery, discuss how it fits, where gaps exist for vendor solutions, and new configuration-based backup enhancements to mirroring awareness in SharePoint 2010 for higher availability and disaster recovery.

SharePoint 2010 Branding
Speaker: Phillip Wicklund

Despite SharePoint 2010’s improved usability, chances are you’re still going to want to brand your SharePoint 2010 sites. Come to this session to learn the techniques needed to brand your SharePoint 2010 sites with your company’s logos, colors, and styles!

SharePoint Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise Search
Speaker: Zlatan Dzinic

Creating ECM strategy is an ongoing process of defining the resources, tools and goals for the components of ECM in your environment. It is an important tool for communication and collaboration which gives the authors the ability to create a body of knowledge for the company and a yard stick against which success can be measured. This course will focus designing your ECM strategy around SharePoint and other existing legacy applications that exist in your environment. This session is geared for Line of Business Managers, Project Managers, Administrators and Architects who have already deployed or are considering deploying SharePoint in their environment.

SharePoint Experts Panel Discussion
Speaker: Bill Baer, Facilitator

Join SharePoint experts Owen Allen, Dan Holme, Michael Noel, Ben Curry and Joel Oleson for an interactive experts panel highlighting SharePoint 2010 best practices. Led by Bill Baer, Microsoft SharePoint architect, this panel will provide a unique opportunity to ask your toughest questions about Microsoft’s industry leading collaboration platform.

SharePoint Security: Permissions, Identities, and Objects
Speaker: Dan Holme

SharePoint’s security model can be confusing, with its deep hierarchy of securable objects, granular permissions and policies, and clunky user and group management interfaces. This session will demystify SharePoint security by dissecting each of these components and presenting best practices for implementing and managing security. You’ll learn when and why it makes sense to leverage Active Directory groups or use SharePoint groups, and you’ll take away options for new permission levels and settings that address common business requirements.

SharePoint Takes the Gold in Torino, Beijing and Vancouver Broadcasts
Speaker: Dan Holme

SharePoint has “won the gold” as a platform for rich collaboration and rapidly deployed solutions during the broadcast of the Olympics from Torino, Beijing and for the upcoming Vancouver 2010. Join Dan Holme, Microsoft Technologies Consultant for NBC Olympics, for an inside look at how SharePoint is put to use in one of the most unique IT efforts in the world. Discover ways that you might leverage SharePoint in your enterprise, and how the Olympics broadcast can inform the choices you make supporting and developing for SharePoint. This unique session sheds an exciting and practical light on the business value and ROI of SharePoint. Ever wonder how you can make the most of SharePoint (Services or Server) in your organization? This session might help you figure it out!

What, When, Who & How: Creating a Working Enterprise Content Management Strategy for SharePoint 2010
Speaker: Karuana Gatimu

Creating ECM strategy is an ongoing process of defining the resources, tools and goals for the components of ECM in your environment. It is an important tool for communication and collaboration which gives the authors the ability to create a body of knowledge for the company and a yard stick against which success can be measured. This course will focus designing your ECM strategy around SharePoint and other existing legacy applications that exist in your environment. This session is geared for Line of Business Managers, Project Managers, Administrators and Architects who have already deployed or are considering deploying SharePoint in their environment.