Working with Structured Data in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Part 4): SharePoint Designer

May 13th, 2009 2 comments

Summary: Explore different options you have to work with structured data in a high volume while you need to perform complex queries and actions against such data ranging from authoring, approval and landing information on Web Part pages, all the way down to physical storage. This blog post is part 4 of a blog post series that I am planning to write on this topic (31 printed pages).

Applies to: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007

See Also:

Download this post in PDF version here.

Content:

  • Introduction
  • Create SQL data views
  • Add formula and conditional formatting
  • Master/Detail filtering using Web Part connection
  • Master/Detail filtering across two pages via querystring
  • Linked data sources
  • Create your own Data Form Web Part

Introduction

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 allows you to smoothly integrate your information into a SharePoint site by giving you the ability to combine HTML design elements with the XSLT data transformation, all in a single design interface. It also offers an amazing support for the Data Form Web Part (a.k.a DFWP) that can be utilized to build rich, powerful forms much easier than ever. Data Form Web Parts can take advantage of sending additional input parameters either in query string or Web Part connections. This is extremely helpful to drive dynamic changes in the content that is surfaced on your SharePoint pages and experience an interactive interface using a composite no-code solution.

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Categories: MOSS 2007 Tags:

Working with Structured Data in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Part3): Browser Enabled InfoPath Forms

April 26th, 2009 2 comments

Summary: Explore different options you have to work with structured data in a high volume while you need to perform complex queries and actions against such data ranging from authoring, approval and landing information on Web Part pages, all the way down to the physical storage. This blog post is part 3 of a blog post series that I am planning to write on this topic. (31 printed pages)

See Also:

Applies to: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office Info Path 2007

Download this post in PDF version here.

Content:

  • It’s all about reusability
  • Create a Data Connection Library
  • Create a data connection in InfoPath connecting to Products Web service
  • Design the form
  • Publish the form to Office SharePoint Server 2007
  • Testing the solution
  • Working with InfoPath form data
  • enabled InfoPath forms and SSO
  • Additional links

It’s all about reusability

One of the most important characteristics of a well-designed application is reusability. In my first exposure to InfoPath, I was drawn to the product for exactly the same reason. I was excited to see a completely schema-based solution which would give me the ability to design the schema outside of the InfoPath authoring tool, import the schema into my InfoPath form and create an electronic form based on that specific schema.

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Session Follow-up:Toronto Code Camp 2009

April 26th, 2009 No comments

First off, Toronto Code Camp is not a SharePoint focused event. Second, my session was scheduled to be the last session of the day (Grrrr 😉 ) and even worse, there were 3 popular sessions (Specially the ASP.NET MVC one) in the same time slot!

BUT…..

Honestly, I was surprised when I saw that the room got packed with a great bunch of enthusiasts who once again were there to validate that how much SharePoint rocks! So, If you attended my session titled “Best Practices for Developing SharePoint Applications“, thank you for showing up. I hope you walked out of the room with some lessons and takeaways!

Arguably, best practices is a very broad topic and it’s tough to wrap it up in an hour and half kinda talk, hence I had to tune my session at a fast pace. If you missed some parts of my presentation , here are the links to the PPT deck and code I used in my session.

arrow-ico12.gif PowerPoint Slides
arrow-ico12.gif Code

Remember, the safety net of following best practices lets us do our job without an “oops, what the heck should I do now?” kinda moment.

MonkeyNotFollowingBestPractrices

Categories: MOSS 2007, UG/CodeCamp Tags:

Iranian By Birth, Canadian By Choice

March 27th, 2009 17 comments

Today, 27 March 2009 1:34 pm Eastern time, was a special moment and I will secretly admit an emotional day. Today, I whispered the national anthem of a country that warmly welcomed me three years ago and brought me everything that I’ve ever wanted in my life: P-E-A-C-E.

Today,I finally became Canadian along with 75 other people from 36 countries around the globe. A phenomenon that only happens in Canada!

I think the best course of action might be for me to indicate that I love this country and its peaceful people. I love its strong and free land. I don’t know Mathew, Emma or Ethan , but I am positive if they’re Canadians , two of them are nice people if not all! Let’s face it ,no society is perfect , but my observation (What touches my heart the deepest) is that Canadians as a nation are far more sensitive to the needs of the people who are in need. My observation tells me that they have so much interest, tolerance and respect towards other cultures and religions which has led  them to the development of an open-minded way of living and thinking!

While I have always been proud of my background which dates back to thousand of years, I feel privileged and enormously thankful to have been allowed to spend the rest of my life in Canada. I chose Canada as my second home and I decided to pull my foot out of my mouth and keep trying to integrate myself into a wider society where the term”my people” potentially can be associated with anyone from any part of the world. Today, I am so glad that I made such a decision to immigrate to Canada 8 years ago (It took 4 years to get the immigration visa!).

Canada has made me want to learn more about its culture, history, and why Canada is Canada. I would love to spread the word to people like myself about why Canada is such a great place to live in. Canada truly is a diverse country where no one is judged by the color of their skin , eyes or hair, but by the content of their character and their integrity.

That’s why I am a proud Canadian!

MeAndJudge

Categories: General Tags:

Working with Structured Data in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (Part2): Exposing LOB Data

March 23rd, 2009 1 comment

Summary: Explore different options you have to work with structured data in a high volume while you need to perform complex queries and actions against such data ranging from authoring, approval and landing information on Web Part pages, all the way down to the physical storage. This blog post is part 2 of a blog post series that I am planning to write on this topic. (9 printed pages)

Applies to: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. SQL Server 2005 /2008

See Also:

Download this post in PDF version here.

Content:

  • Introduction
  • Coding the Northwind Web Service
  • Exposing the ProductsBySupplierID stored proc as a document literal SOAP Web Service

Introduction: SharePoint is a composite application platform meaning that it can be layered on the top of a variety of Microsoft or non-Microsoft data repositories and interact with them either in real time or in background. An issue that arises in the early stages of the design of your SharePoint applications is that how best to make this interaction happen.

Well, Web Services are part of the .NET framework and therefore they are available to SharePoint as well. They provide a cross-platform solution for exchanging data between SharePoint and other systems in a distributed model. As you will see later in this blog post, I will create two service interfaces to expose LOB data to SharePoint and its complementary citizens such as InfoPath forms, Data View Web part and BDC.

Important
Throughout the upcoming blog posts, I will be demonstrating different functionalities that rely on the endpoints we will review in this blog post.
This blog post is not meant to walk you through SharePoint OOTB Web services or how to write custom Web services to call into the SharePoint object model. This will be covered in great details in my upcoming posts.

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