Collabshow.com

I’ve been working with and watching the End User SharePoint model.  While I don’t get a ton out of all of the end user articles, I do find his model is working awesome and occasionally I’m very fascinated in the creativity that’s going on with the various contributors.

I personally have been able to monetize the blog to help cover some of my SharePoint user group and SharePoint Saturday and community travel which has been awesome.  My next example of this is Portugal and Norway… User Groups I plan to visit in late Sep/early Oct.  What I’ve found is well is some times Teched’s around the world can’t offer the plane ticket and occasionally I can convince Quest to cover the travel, but as was the case in India last year I had to fill the gaps, and the sponsorships came through to help.  I hope and expect that no one is really bothered by the sponsored SharePoint ads or the occasional promotion of a webcast or event.  I figure all that stuff is still good for the community as well.  You’ll note that I’ve gone out of my way to get rid of Google Ads in our community.  There’s a lot of FUD in Google ads for the term SharePoint that makes it stink.  If you see google ads on a SharePoint site, let them know there are much better alternatives.  Even an Amazon link to SharePoint books is much, much better.

So here’s the plan.

I am looking for smart and interesting IT Pro focused bloggers to join up with me on my quest to train and inform the community.  I’ll be blogging in the same way I have been with a couple of small changes. 

• I will be joining up with top SharePoint IT bloggers to create the a big conglomerate of SharePoint IT bloggers making it even easier to find the best content.  You could say I’ve learned a few things from Mark Miller’s model of sharing the spotlight.  If you’re reading this… This is a call out to the top SharePoint bloggers who are looking for a home.  Even if your blog isn’t highly rated, but you’re looking for a place to put some really good content.  We need to talk.  What I can guarantee is readers.  There’s more to come in this space, including the FULL SharePoint 2010 Server in a farm at FPWeb, but just want to start reaching out. Best way to reach me is by email joel.oleson @quest.com or DM me @joeloleson and we’ll move the conversation to email.  The first in this announcement is Richard Taylor and Mike Watson.  Will be great to have them as authors.
• I will be creating a new blog focused on travel.  Michael Noel and I are on a quest to join the Travelers Century club an exclusive club for people who have visited 100 countries according to their rules.  I’m not far.  I’ll be at 74 by the end of the month and at least 80 by the end of the year. We want to see the world.  I have a ton of stories I want to share, but that could water down my SharePoint stuff… So why not a dedicated blog on SharePoint travel?  I’ll still have some of the highlights integrated in, but you’ll get more of the stories and recommendations.  One of my first stories will be on the crazy european escape from the Ashcloud and adventures with Tony Frankola, Michael Noel and Paul Swider across Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina & Serbia and that wild adventure that covered no less than 8 countries.  You’ll also get details on my deportation story from Iran.  That will be an exclusive.  Thanks to Rackspace for Hosting this on SharePoint Foundation 2010.  Obviously more to come here as well.

I was recently working through the information that is published and reading up on the latest content on upgrade.  More has been written.  As I’ve worked through the information I came across tidbits here and there that I believe are essentially to planning the real options that are available.

It’s true that not everyone will want their site administrators to decide when the upgrade for their sites will happen.  These options will come in handy when you’re trying to combine the binary upgrade and the visual upgrade.  If you know what you’re doing this may really simplify your upgrade.

Visual Upgrade Options in In-Place Upgrade

Did you know when you upgrade there is actually a choice to push visual upgrade in one step?  It’s not in the wizard, but is available in the command prompt. The visual upgrade feature is not available in the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard if you are performing an upgrade on a stand-alone server with built-in database. However, the Visual Upgrade feature is available in this case from the Psconfig command-line tool. You can then use the syntax: psconfig.exe -cmd upgrade [–preserveolduserexperience <true|false>].

Visual Upgrade Options in Database Attach

Well what about in database attach?  Is there options if you use that?  YES!  During a database attach upgrade, the choice to update to the new user experience or stay in the old user experience is accomplished by using either:

• The Updateuserexperience parameter of the Mount-SPContentDatabase Windows PowerShell cmdlet.
• The preserveolduserexperience parameter of the addcontentdatabase stsadm operation.

To get the status of Visual Upgrade:

At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:

$sc = Get-SPSite http://machinename/sites/collectionname | $sc.GetVisualReport() | Format-Table

Manally Apply or Block Visual Upgrade Across a Site Collection

To set all sites in a site collection to the upgraded UI you can click Update All sites as seen in the visual below, or if you want to block visual upgrade from being applied there is an option to HIDE Visual Upgrade.

1. Under Site Settings, click Site Collection Administration

2. Click Supported User Experiences (Figure 6).

Rollback the Visual Upgrade

You can also choose the previous look and feel for a specific site. Under Site Settings, click Title, click Description, and then click Appearance

References:

• TechNet: Manage visual upgrade (SharePoint Server 2010)
• Making Your SharePoint 2010 Customizations Visual Upgrade Aware

Programatically Get and Set the UI version

If you have dev skills you can programatically set or get the UI version. 3 is the old user interface and 4 is the new interface when using the SPWeb.UIVersion property. You use the SPWeb.Update method to save and apply the change.

The SDK has a lot more information about Upgrading the UI and methods you can use.

SharePoint 2010 SDK

• VisualUpgradeWebs method – Upgrade the user experience of all Webs in a site collection
• GetVisualReport method – retrieves a list of reports that contain all of the visual upgrade data for each Web in a site collection.

Found this bit of information buried in a larger document.  I’ve found it’s valuable in upgrades.  Feel free to ignore it if it doesn’t relate to you.  I recently had a conversation with the tech doc folks for the protocol docs and they told me, Yeah.  If you can help bring visibility to content that’s buried that you think is important… go for it. [Feel free to cut and paste and link back to us].  Here’s one of those cases.

In the MSDN article on “How to: Create a Custom Field Type”

“If you have a legacy custom field type developed under an earlier version of SharePoint, and it rendered differently on list views from the default rendering given to it by the XSLT rendering infrastructure, then you have the option to turn off XSLT rendering of the field. You do this by adding <Field Name="CAMLRendering">TRUE</Field> as a child of the FieldType element in the fldtypes*.xml file that contains the Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) definition of the legacy custom field. Using this option causes the field (and the column header) on list views to be rendered in accordance with RenderPatterns. For more information see RenderPattern Element (Field Types).”

Related Content:

Walkthrough: Creating a custom field type

18-19 October 2010

Where: Clarion Hotel, Skanstull Södermalm, Stockholm

Who Organizes it?  Goran Husman SharePoint MVP in Sweden of HumanData

Get more information from the site:

http://www.seforum.se/Pages/default.aspx (Yep it’s on SharePoint!)

Tel: 08-5100 1200 | www.humandata.se | Kontakt: beatrice.husman@humandata.se

More information in Swedish:

De 30 första som anmäler sig före 30 juni får ett presentkort på brunch på Clarion Hotel.

Välkommen till SEF 2010!
SEF är den främsta konferensen i Norden för dig som vill veta mer om de kommande Exchange 2010 och SharePoint 2010. Med både Svenska och internationellt välkända talare, har SEF möjlighet att hålla en mycket hög nivå, något som alltid varit det huvudsakliga skälet till dess framgång och det som uppskattats mest. Som vanligt har vi också en trevlig kväll tillsammans där du får chans att knyta nya kontakter och träffa talarna under avspända former.
Förra året anordnade HumanData tillsammans med Microsoft Sverige denna konferens som totalt hade 196 deltagare.

Awesome Lineup of Speakers:

Andreas Wennborg
Office Specialist / Utvecklare

Christian Ståhl
SharePoint Designer Specialist, Lärare & författare

Eric Shupps
SharePoint MVP, USA

Göran Husman
SharePoint MOSS MVP, Lärare & författare 

Joel Oleson
SharePoint Specialist, USA

Lasse Pettersson
Exchange MVP & Lärare

Lise Rasmussen
SharePoint Specialist

Martin Lidholm
OCS MVP & lärare

Malin Dandenell
Office Specialist

Michael Jansson
SharePoint Specialist & Lärare

Micke Nyström
Windows Server MVP 

Mikael Bohlin
SharePoint Specialist

Niklas Goude
Specialist på SharePoint & Powershell

Penny Conventry
SharePoint MVP & författare, UK 

Peter McCollough
Exchange & OCS Specialist

Scott Schnoll
Exchange Specialist & författare, Microsoft USA

Steve Smith
SharePoint MVP & författare, UK

Susanna Reppling
Mobile Solutions Specialist, Microsoft

Tobias Zimmergren
SharePoint MVP

Todd O. Klindt
SharePoint MVP & författare, USA 

Wictor Wilén
SharePoint MVP, författare

Keynotes: Bill English and Steve Fox

• Speaker Bios
• Course Catalog

Info on the conference:

The SharePoint Technology Conference, October 20-22 in Cambridge, MA, is the world’s premier independent event for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server technology and services. The format includes 80+ technical classes, workshops and breakout classes with content geared to IT professionals, business managers and developers.  It features a dozen Microsoft MVPs, 35 expert MS speakers and solutions from 50+ exhibitors. 

At SPTechCon Boston, you’ll find practical, real-world classes for everyone, from beginner to expert.  Whether you’re an IT professional or SharePoint administrator, a knowledge worker or solutions developer, you’ll get the best value-and the best SharePoint education anywhere-at SPTechCon Boston. 

Special Discount for my readers:

SharePointJoel readers can receive a $100 discount off the Full Event Passport and/or gain free admission to the exhibits (first time registrants only – cannot be combined with other offers) by inserting the code MEDIASPONSOR when prompted on the eRegistration page linked from www.sptechcon.com.

My Sessions:

If anything seems amiss, please let me know!

508  Making SharePoint Social

Friday, October 22, 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM

705  Anatomy of a Failed SharePoint Deployment

Friday, October 22, 12:45 PM – 2:00 PM

OTHER SPECIAL DISCOUNTS:
You may combine one of these special discounts with the Early Registration pricing to save even more!

• Alumni. Have you attended any of BZ Media’s previous SharePoint Technology Conferences? If so, you’re eligible for a $100 alumni discount off the Full Event Passport price. Enter the code ALUMNI in the discount code field.

• Group. Get an additional $100 off per person if you register 3 or more people from one company for the Full Event Passport. Use the “Add another person” option during the online registration process.

• Government. Federal, State and Local Government employees can receive an additional $100 off the Full Event Passport price. Enter code GOV in discount code field.

• Educational Institutions. Personnel employed by or attending educational institutions can get a $100 discount off the Full Event Passport price by using the code EDU.

• User Groups. Contact David Rubinstein, Conference Chairman, DRubinstein@bzmedia.com, to see if your group is eligible for a discount.
• Non-Profit Organizations. Personnel employed by non-profit organizations can get a $100 discount off the Full Event Passport price by using the code NONPROFIT.