These libraries are created for documents and other attachments to a publishing page, as is the system image library, and is not intended for hands on maangement of content.

We advise that you always design and configure specific libraries for user accessible content, complete with appropriate metadata, content types and views. These can then be exposed through web aprts and links in a site. That way you get a well considered information architecture, with appropriate permissions and you don;t compromise the way SharePoint is trying to do things.

Also you should always give these new libraries a suitable description, we often start the description with “SAVE your ??? documents here”, obviously replacing ??? with a brief description of the content to be stored. That way it is easy for users to pick out the user accessible libraries when saving from Word etc.

Finally, when creating new libraries (and sites etc), start by naming them with no spaces in the name; then go back a rename them however you like. This avoids the %20% code you get in URLs.

e.g. ProjectDocuments, then go to library settings and rename to Project Documents would give you a nice url such as: http://portal.cloud2.co.uk/projects/ProjectDocuments.aspx rather than http://portal.cloud2.co.uk/projects/Project%20%Documents.aspx

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 are now almost 10 years old and will be reaching end of support in April 2014 in accordance with Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle policy. We want to help youavoid the risk of running an unsupported version of Windows & Office, and to assist with your IT planning for 2012. The purpose of this letter, which is based on the standard one Microsoft is sending to clients worldwide, is to highlight the potential risks involved with the upcoming end of support of these products and to outline the options available to mitigate these risks.

What are the implications and what is the potential risk?

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will no longer be supported from April 8, 2014 onwards. After this date, Microsoft will not provide any public support for these products, including security patches, non-security hotfixes or incident support.

Running Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 in your environment after their end of support date may expose your organisation to potential risks, such as:

• Security & Compliance Risks – Unsupported and unpatched environments are vulnerable to security risks. This may result in an officially recognized control failure by an internal  or external audit body, leading to suspension of certifications, and/or public notification of the organization’s inability to maintain its systems and customer information.

• Lack of Independent Software Vendor (ISV) & Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Support – A recent industry report from Gartner Research suggests “many independent software vendors (ISVs) are unlikely to support new versions of applications on Windows XP in 2011; in 2012, it will become common“.
  Gartner Research further notes that most PC hardware OEMs will stop supporting Windows XP on the majority of their new PC models in 2012.

See Creating a Timeline for Deploying Windows 7 and Eliminating Windows XP SP3, June 2011.

What are the available options?

• Migration – This option affords customers the best return on investment by deploying a modern PC with Windows 7 Enterprise and Office 2010. Moving to a PC with Windows 7 Enterprise and Office 2010 offers your organisation the ability to improve productivity for your employees and increase operational efficiency through improved PC security and management.
• Purchase a Custom Support contract through Premier Support to stay on unsupported products – If, for any reason, you decide to remain on Windows XP SP3 or Office 2003 after support ends, you have the option to purchase Custom Support. As a condition of buying a Custom Support contract, you must have a Premier Support agreement and we ask our customers to have a migration plan in place. The cost of Custom Support is significantly higher than regular support, and rises annually due to the rising costs of supporting a legacy product.
• Do nothing – Microsoft recommends customers avoid this option for it can put you at risk of potential  security and compliance issues.

Where can you find more information?

Full details on Microsoft product support lifecycle is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle

Full details on end of support for Windows XP and Office 2003 is available at: www.microsoft.com/endofsupport

Full details on Microsoft Premier Support are available at: http://www.microsoft.com/microsoftservices/en/us/support_premier.aspx

Full details on Microsoft deployment guidance, training and free deployment tools for your IT Professionals at: www.microsoft.com/springboard

If you need assistance or advice please let us know. We have experience with helping trusts migrate and we can put you in touch with trusts that have successfully completed this.

We can also advise on the options associated with Office 365 where this might provide an alternative to your current licence approach.

With kind regards,

Simon Hudson

Cloud2

One of the things we struggled with for a while was how to add photographs to our O365 profiles (all sorted now).  Most of us already had nice photographs in our Skype profiles and I was struck, when using Lync, by how much less involving it felt before we worked out how to add pictures to it.  Then it dawned on me…  I couldn’t see the person I was talking to.  Even though it was just a static picture the absence or presence of it made a big difference to how I felt, how engaged in the conversation I remained and whether I became distracted and tried to do other things instead of listening.

It’s only a little thing, but this small personal picture made it about the person and not the technology.  When there is no picture my mind wanders; when the picture is there so, in my sub-conscious, is the person.

I noticed the same thing on my mobile phone; integration with LinkedIn and Facebook means that at least half of my contacts in my contact list have pictures of the people concerned.  I can find those people much more quickly when I need to call them as a consequence and interact with them more strongly when I’m using my mobile.

Simon Hudson

Human beings are programmed genetically to be brilliant at face recognition; activities involving faces engage the deeper, older parts of our brains.  Last week I re-tweeted a comment from the good chaps at Bliss-Systems “User interfaces need to be intuitive because, like words and sentences, people don’t really read them.” On reflection there is more to it than this, user interfaces need to engage people at a primal level not just at the cognitive level; they need to make it feel like we’re interacting with a person not a machine; they need to provide visual cues and social touch points that make it feel like we are interacting with people.

So… make it about people, not tech. We have added pictures all over our solutions now. Personalisation means more than we realise…

Gartner’s Cycle of Hype

A recent blog by Seth Godin has got me thinking about this model and how it applies to SharePoint Intranets.

In marketing we tend to think about product and technology life cycles in simplistic terms with innovators, early adopters etc. but sometimes markets seem to take on a life of their own; with products suddenly coming from nowhere and becoming the flavour of the moment triggering overblown media or industry hype and often chaotic use of the technology itself.

It is clear that we’ve gone through this cycle with SharePoint; many organisations have tried it and expectations were very high, often it (or the solutions it was used to build) didn’t match these expectations and users found all sorts of problems with its implementation.  However, at the same time, groups of developers and organisations have been beavering away and are now beginning to demonstrate what SharePoint is really capable of doing; and amazingly this is now so much more than was ever expected during the initial hype.

At Cloud2, we would say that the market is now beginning to move strongly up a slope of enlightenment  where the immense capability that is built into SharePoint can be quickly configured and deployed to transform the way an organisation controls its information and connects all its employees.  

Where are you on the curve?  If you are disillusioned from your first experience of SharePoint or are already turning the corner and driving organisational benefits out of SharePoint we would love to hear what’s on your mind.

If you want to know more about how Cloud2 is quickly and efficiently assisting many organisations to transform their Intranets and wider business processes contact us or book a place at our next SharePoint in Healthcare Regional event in Bradford.

 Ed Tomlinson,   Marketing Manager   Cloud2

We often get asked about appropriate server infrastructure for SharePoint (a 3 tier solution comprising web front end, application server and SQL server, doubled up if you want resiliency – thanks for asking) and this sometimes leads on to whether it can be hosted or even whether a cloud solution can be used.

Here are some considerations:

Which you select is up to you. It has been rare to go with fully hosted (though we do have some major NHS trusts who host with us with full N3 connectivity), but many of the disadvantages of this are diminishing.

Office 365 also opens up some interesting options, though sadly not for NHS organisations due to restrictions associated with the current Data Protection laws and concerns about the US Patriot Act.

As always, the key thing to remember is that SharePoint, out of the box, is basically a big, exciting pile of lego. Super to play with, but when it comes to building a proper production system with it you’d better have:

A) a detailed plan of what business needs are being addressed

B) a well thought out Information Architecture (with a minimum of a month’s thinking in it)

C) plenty of experience in how to configure and mould SharePoint.

And, lest you forget, never leave A) and B) to the IT department and especially not to a .NET developer.

Picture This - Parallel Lines

In fact the preceding lines are just as prescient:

“Picture this, my telephone number

One and one is what I’m telling you

Get a pocket computer

Try to do what you used to do, yeah”

This was 1978. The year Epson introduced the TX-80, the first successful dot matrix printer. The year the 5.25-inch floppy disk became an industry standard. Apple (I do believe I have heard of them) introduced Apple DOS 3.1, their first operating system.

It preceded the Intel 8088 CPU (released on June 1, 1979), the first commercial version of SQL (thank you Oracle), the Motorola 6800 8-bit processor (which powered the Mac and my beloved Atari 1040ST) and VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet program). It was just over a year after the release of the Commodore PET (which I had to program in raw machine code to run heat capacity equations as fast as I needed), the Apple II and Tandy’s TRS-80 (first pocket computer, 1.9 kB of programmable memory). DOS and the PC are 3 years in the future.

Commodore PET, 1977

Yet as I sit here, talking tech with the enthusiasts in Hull Digital, I am struck that in my pocket sits a computer with my telephone number (but regrettably not Debbie Harry’s).  Picture this, it holds a local gallery of my personal photographs, a camera to take more and access to Flickr etc. to browse further millions. All the power and flexibility to do what I used to do and so much more besides… including listening to Parallel Lines whenever I feel the urge.

I seamlessly switch between my pocket computer, my slate computer and my laptop. My content, my knowledge, my entertainment, my friends are accessible from all of them. The tools each contains are unimaginably capable; the capabilities are limited only by our imaginations. And there’s more to come.

Thank you Blondie for your glimpse of the future, so many years ago. Where to from here?

Get a pocket computer, try to do what you used to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZxVEH1eSOA

http://www.computerhope.com/history/196080.htm

Speakers from NHS trusts and Cloud2 will present on case studies and solutions which can transform the way that information is managed and used with a special focus on HR solutions, CQC audits and governance and clinical pathways. Hear from NHS managers about real world challenges and solutions, learn how the time to implementation of new and improved Intranets can be shortened with a “Solution Accelerator” and pick up some top tips for getting the most out of SharePoint 2010.

Registration is free, lunch is provided and the conference venue at Bradford District Care Trust is set in the beautiful surroundings of Saltaire Mill, which is part of a World Heritage Site near Shipley, Bradford.

Speakers include;

Robert Grimes, Senior Project Manager, Bradford District Care Trust

Paul Fearnley, Web Services Manager, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals

Stuart Coalwood, Goverance Manager, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital

Taran Sohal, Director Cloud2

Simon Hudson, Director Cloud2

Click here for more information on the programme and venue,

Follow this link to register online immediately.

Cloud2 won the prestigious Innovation Showcase Award at last years show and will be building on this with the latest in how to build stunning Sharepoint Intranets that are very quick to set up, easy to use and drive business efficiencies through document management, effective use of e-forms and business intelligence.

Registration is free and there are some great speakers and competitions designed to educate and inspire entrepreneurs.

Further information and registration details can be found on the Venturefest Website.

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@venturefest

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Venturefest Yorkshire

We were delighted with the turnout and quality of the presentations at the Cloud2 SharePoint seminar we held on 14th December.

Thank you to everyone who came, especially those who re-arranged their plans at short notice, to our presenters for the day, and for Microsoft for hosting the event (even though the room was a touch cool).

We included a number of survey questions in the event, which we would like to share below.

Also we have included the presentations that were delivered via PowerPoint here, as requested.

The Royal Armouries, Leeds

March 21st and 22nd 2012

• A jaw-dropping line up of speakers
• A real business community working together

Even if you aren’t coming to talk to us about the ways we can revolutionise the way infomration rich organisations work then you should come for the event and the speakers, the networking and the buzz.

http://theyorkshiremafiaconference.com/

Delegate tickets are free, booked via the Conference website and open to everyone from the Yorkshire business community (you don’t have to be a Mafia member to attend).

There’s packed Seminar line up, including the first ever (at any Conference anywhere) Billion Pound Panel, featuring some stellar Yorkshire entrepreneurs who combined, are worth in excess of £3 billion.

• Follow on Twitter
  #YMC2012

All conference enquires to geoff@theyorkshiremafia.com