SharePoint 2010 has introduced a new type of List called the External List. The External List is used for displaying content that comes from Business Connectivity Services (BCS) Enterprise content types. Business Connectivity Services is the replacement in SharePoint 2010 for The Business Data Catalog (BDC) in SharePoint 2007.

SharePoint is really a collection of capabilities. At its heart, it is a Portal that exposes information customized for a particular user. It has extended functionality to quickly build features inside this portal to enable Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise Search. It has ventured into Social Computing and Collaboration by creating shared work spaces, supporting blogs and wikis and allowing people search. With the inclusion of PerformancePoint in its licensing, it also becomes a strong Business Intelligence offering, though it will require expanded knowledge of that capability to implement. It starts to break down when pushed to work as a Business Process Management Suite or Application framework.

With Mark Miller as the host, Laura Rogers will demonstrate just how flexible and useful the Out-of-the-Box Web Parts are in MOSS. She will take a detailed look at the Filter, KPI, Excel Web Access, Outlook Web Access, Business Data Catalog, and Data View Web Parts. She will then look at how to customize some of these web parts using SharePoint Designer while still adhering to the Industry Best Practices. All of this is done without using any code. This session in itself is a best practice, because it is best to learn what SharePoint can do out-of-the-box, before writing any code.

SharePoint Designer (SPD) has been free from Microsoft since April. In those two months, some lines have been drawn in the sand. Some users are of the opinion that it should be completely locked down and not allowed in the organization. Others have the view that it makes everything better. Still others aren’t even sure what value it could possibly bring. It is free, so you get what you pay for, right? Not always!

A major topic of discussion within most beginner workshops is “Why should I use SharePoint when I already have access to a file server for sharing and storing documents?” This is part of an extended discussion on End User buy-in. The topic deserves consideration because anyone who is satisfied with their current file server will [...]