Talk I gave at work about what I've learned investigating Sharepoint 2013

1. This is Not a Talk About
Sharepoint 2013
kpd

2. Why
• I don’t get Sharepoint
• 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013
• Too many pieces moving to get my head around
• Former SP pieces that were spun off as separate things
• Formerly non SP pieces that are well integrated now
• Pieces that are named similarly to something else but aren’t
those things
• Pieces that consultants have brought in and associated with
Sharepoint but that aren’t Sharepoint
• If you are in that same place, have I got the 411 for
you…

3. Using the FAQ Model
• Heard these multiple times
• Asked them multiple times myself and got
different answers from different people
• These are not the right answers; I can assure
you they’re probably wrong, but they may
help us move in the right direction. You
almost assuredly can contribute to this
discussion.

4. What is Sharepoint?
• Collaboration tool (teamspace/wiki/lists)?
• Self-service development portal (workflow, no
IT involved)?
• Delivery platform (replacing IIS for my apps)?
YES

5. How is Office 365 Related to
Sharepoint?
• Office 365 is a subscription plan including
• Office applications
• Lync Web Conferencing
• Exchange Online
• Can include the desktop version of Office as well
• Sharepoint is available as an offering as part of an
Office 365 Suite
• So SP doesn’t deliver Office 365
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/microsoft-office-365-for-business-faq-
FX103030232.aspx

6. Uh, OK, How About Office Web
Apps?
• Office Web Apps is a separate entity from
Sharepoint
• Delivers access to Office documents via the
web
• Couple that with Mobile Iron to see the
intranet, and you’ve got Office on the iPad,
baby!

7. What is Excel Services and How
Do They Fit with Sharepoint?
• Enables Excel Web access (your doc is editable in
the browser)
• Collaborative editing
• Save and publish workbooks from desktop to
Sharepoint
• Can talk to Excel Calculation Services via Web
Services, REST, or JSON APIs
• “is all about BI, and you get it as part of
SharePoint Enterprise”
• Excel Web Apps is part of Office Web Apps (?)
Get a reference

8. What Are Access Services?
• Brings Access database to any browser
• Collaborative web applications
• An abstraction layer over SQL Server (!)
• Tables in Access are tables in SQL
• Queries without parameters are views
• Queries with parameters become table-valued functions
• Business users can create data tracking apps
• Similar to Operations’ Access application?
• Access App = Sharepoint App
• Infopath is deprecated because the power of Access Services is so much greater
• Create and modify Access Apps directly in Sharepoint – can package and deploy
too (can include the database structures and content)
• “the abstraction layer on top of SQL servers for Business users to actually design
and create real business applications”
• Can we set this up to point at an existing SQL structure? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sharepoint/fp123606

9. What is all that Stuff at the Top
of the Page That I Never Use?
• Sharepoint default navigation reminds you that you are
in Sharepoint
• And do Sharepoint-y things, not all of which work. From
different locations.

10. What is all that Stuff at the Top of
the Page That I Never Use? (2!)
Only for editors?
BROWSE – see the
page as if you’re a
user
PAGE – edit the
page as an admin
All:
NewsFeed – Your internal Facebook/Twitter feed
SkyDrive – Your P: Drive
Sites – Sites within Sharepoint that you have
followed (only within Sharepoint?)
Name – Profile/Sign out – like Google options
Gear – Site settings and stuff you can see
? – Help – Best practices for creating and managing
team sites. Do all users see this?
Share – add people to site or doc (to push info)
Follow – subscribe to a page or doc – changes
appear in your NewsFeed
Sync – copy a site to your skydrive or computer
Edit – if you have edit perms – edits the page
Box – “Focus on Content” – does nothing for me
Note – These “out of the box”
features have to be there.
Often implementations are
done quickly and lazily and
forget to implement them
properly.

11. What is Sharepoint Designer? When
Do I Use That Instead of Visual
Studio?
• The Artist Tool Formerly Known as Frontpage
• Not a dev tool. More of a SP power user tool
for creating SP artifacts
• Devs would normally never use Designer.
Power Users probably never would use Studio.
• VS is needed for packaging

12. What Does Skydrive Mean in the
Context of Sharepoint?
• SkyDrive is your P: drive
• SkyDrive can be your F: drive?
• It’s not connected with your home SkyDrive, if
you use it there

13. How Can I Learn More?
• Technet videos are very good:
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
US/sharepoint/fp123606 ... but very lengthy
• Try it yourself?
• Free to evaluate
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx
• Requirements
• SQL Server 2012 (for BI stuff)
• Windows Server 2012 (Std or datacenter) or Windows Server
2008 R2 SP1
• MS.NET 4.5;
• 8 GB, 4 core, 64 bit, 80 Gb for system drive

14. What about Workflow?
• Workflow is entirely separate in SP 2013
• Used to be integrated, now runs separately
• Now called Workflow Manager 1.0
• Use Visio 2013 or Sharepoint Designer to build
workflows and execute them on Workflow
Manager with integration with Sharepoint

15. Conclusions
• I’ll get to this later. I have some ideas though.