Top 5 SharePoint Collaboration App for Android

SharePoint wildly popular as an enterprise platform for many reasons such as integrates meta data stores, document repositories and successful social enterprise deployments.

According to IT survey on enterprise collaboration, last year it was found that 73% of its respondents were using SharePoint for their business apps. And slowly it gained success as a new collaboration and knowledge sharing platform. SharePoint 2010 SharePoint 2010 lacked mobile support, hence SharePoint 2013 came to picture with new enhancements and customized features. Finally SharePoint 2013 has finally gone mobile supporting varied screen sizes with different kind of gadgets.

Some of the new unique features makes SharePoint all the more interesting and useful for creating best business apps:

Mobile Browser Experience
SharePoint provides different browsing options depending on the usage of the mobile browsers they can be called as Contemporary View, Classic View, the and Full Screen UI. The Contemporary View is new to SharePoint 2013. This view renders beautifully in HTML5 and is made available to the newest mobile browsers such as iPhone’s Safari 4.0+, Mobile IE9.0+ and Android 4.0+. It is a clean view with the goal of providing quick access to document libraries, lists and other common SharePoint content. The Classic View gives backward compatibility for older mobile browsers. It is always meant for a specific purpose and function and it is not going to win any user design awards. The Full Screen UI deals with a full desktop view of the site shown on the mobile device.

• Device Channels - Device Channels renders content flawlessly on different devices. SharePoint 2013 cleans up. master pages, page layouts and style sheets that can be mapped to specific mobile browsers, allowing much more control over the usability of content.
• Push Notifications - SharePoint library fulfils the needs of every business and gets notified on mobile device when a new or changed document is posted to that list. Alert functionality was there before and even one can send an email or text. Now SharePoint 2013 takes it a step further by providing users with notifications on their mobile devices when specific activities occur on SharePoint site. This powerful tool keep users informed of key changes to SharePoint-based sites and business solutions. It can automatically push notifications to the employee who submitted the idea each time the status of that idea changes. This is a great way to keep occupied users and increase overall use of solutions.
• Location - With the help of geolocation field type in SharePoint many numerous application can automatically log the location of a user each time they enter any information. This powerful feature of SharePoint-based applications where mobile users capture information through their smartphones is unique. Bing Maps helps to display this exact location information.

SharePoint 2013 and the Office Web Apps Server work together better than ever before to provide a higher quality experience for users who interact with documents on their phones. This covers Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and the viewer for these documents is now optimized for phones. Microsoft continues to enhance this experience, since viewing and editing documents on our mobiles devices is becoming much more common.

Top 5 SharePoint Collaboration Apps

SharePlus
It offers secure SharePoint browsing from anywhere. The app supports all Content Types and there's native support for Office files. To ease collaboration, one can share documents via email or send a link. Collaborate with team, sharing documents and tasks lists right from the meeting room, a taxi, or when out visiting a client. Browse documents, discussions, announcements, wiki pages and custom lists.

Filamente
Filamente is a SharePoint client for iOS from Aircreek. It gives users a touchscreen optimized interface for SharePoint, the ability to upload files from a mobile device and offline access to resources.

Forms Central
Formotus offers a SharePoint client for Android, iOS and Windows Mobile called Forms Central. Like Filamente, it provides offline access to SharePoint data. It's free to download, but requires a subscription.

DocAve
DocAve is a management platform for SharePoint created by a company called AvePoint. It consists of a suite of products to enable integration, document migration and data management. These products can be purchased as a suite, or individually. Free trials are also available to download from the official AvePoint website.

Quick Apps for SharePoint
This application is created by Dell and is available to download directly from their website. It is a great app for smaller businesses because it allows quick and easy customization of SharePoint, without the need for large IT departments. It is also quicker and faster than making custom code changes.

Huddle
This is the best cloud collaboration tools, designed with ease and efficiency kept in mind, with millions using it for content management and enterprise collaboration. Small, mid and big businesses can easily manage and exchange information or projects with others. It also allows to track milestones, project deadlines, view late projects, completed tasks, making collaboration effective and easy. In addition, unlike the on-premise SharePoint, it supports several mobile applications such as Android, iPad, BlackBerry and iPhone.

SharePoint is one of the most versatile business software applications available on the IT web market. Its popularity over the years has dramatically increased because of the systems flexibility and the abundance of professional apps that can be integrated into the platform with little time and effort required and supported almost all browsers and electronic gadgets.

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The Importance of SharePoint Software Development in the Marketing Technology Today

Microsoft launched SharePoint in 2001 as a rapid web application development platform. But within a decade, it is being used by enterprises for various purposes. Many companies even use SharePoint to manage their content, documents and records. A number of survey results have further highlighted that the platform is being used widely by companies across the world to build intranet. The innovative features offered by SharePoint 2013 also make it easier for businesses to constantly collaborate and communicate with both external parties and internal departments.

The quick and hassle-free sharing of documents, images and content further helps the marketing teams in boosting sales, and beating competition. At the same time, an enterprise also has option to build a customized SharePoint intranet site to enable members of its sales teams to access the latest information, images and videos on the go. If you are yet to migrate to SharePoint 2013, it is time to understand the significance of the platform in latest marketing technologies.

Why Invest in SharePoint Intranet Solution for Your Marketing Team?

Hassle-Free Communication and Collaboration
The SharePoint intranet will allow you business to store marketing brochures and similar collateral in a PDF or Microsoft Word format. The data can further be tagged and classified according to your marketing strategy. So the members of your marketing team can access the most updated and relevant data without putting any extra time and effort. You can further use the versioning feature for documents to ensure that your employees are accessing the most updated version of marketing collaboration. The quick and hassle-free collaboration will contribute towards optimizing the performance of your sales team.

Better Control over Marketing Images
Most marketing campaigns, nowadays, use images to attract and engage the prospects. But each member of the sales team must know the approved marketing images. As SharePoint allows you to store the images at a centralized location, the library can be accessed by each employee, along with acting as an archive for old marketing images. The accessibility with further help you marketing department to exercise a greater control over the images that will be used as part of the ongoing marketing campaign.

Easy to Share New Marketing Videos
Similar to images, videos are also an integral part of marketing campaigns. Some of the video clips can be used to promote products or services offered by the company, whereas others will convey important information to the employees. SharePoint allows you to add new marketing videos by using the Media Web Part feature. You can simply post the latest video on the home page of the intranet, and the video clip will be accessible to all employees in an instant. The feature can also be used to display both audio and video clips on the various pages of the site.

Find Required Information Quickly
Microsoft has further designed the latest version of SharePoint with an advanced search center. The feature enables users to find the most relevant information on a topic in a simpler and faster way. The search results will be displayed according to the relevance of words in the search term entered by the user. Further, the search center is designed with a refinement pant that allows users to restrict the search results by choosing from the links appearing in the panel. At the same time, SharePoint further enables enterprises to promote the expected results through features like Keywords and Best Bets. These features will help you in allowing sales team members to access the most relevant information according to their individual contribution and expertise.

SharePoint 2013 also comes with a set of innovative features that enable the members of a distributed sales team to stay connected with each other. The members of your marketing team can use the instant messaging and online chat option to find the members of their group who are currently online. So they can discuss various aspects of a sales deal in an instant.

Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint bespoke development services. If you would like to know more about the expertise of our SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Design Manager in SharePoint 2013 Designer - A Detailed Introduction

Understanding the Design Manager
Design Manager is primarily meant to help the users of SharePoint create custom designs and achieve the respective goals if they want SharePoint 2013 to represent the brand of the organization. It comes up as a particular feature in SP 2013, paving the way for a completely customized, pixel-perfect outcome using the familiar web designing tools. As a publishing feature, it is available in the publishing sites in both Office 365 and SP server 2013.

This extremely useful feature allows the creation of visual design for websites using the web designing tools and HTML editor. Only HTML and CSS can be used after which the design has to be uploaded into SP. Basically, it enables management of each aspect of a custom design.

So, designers using this excellent feature will have to precisely undertake the following activities:

• Grasping and understanding the main SP design concepts
• Creating a mock-up of the design in CSS and HTML
• Implementing the same utilizing the Design Manager feature

Implementing a Design by Means of the Design Manager

It is essential for the SharePoint 2013 users to be aware of the usage of the feature in implementing designs. On looking at the feature, one gets to see a series of links representing the high-level tasks to be performed. Following is a step-by-step sequence in which the task of implementing a design is executed with success:

Prior to Making Use of Design Manager
Even before you start using the feature, you have to create an individual design or use a ready-made website template. While mocking up the sites in HTML and CSS, you will come across certain HTML files implementing designs for the particular way in which you want the different pages to appear. You also need to take the necessary SharePoint permissions, more particularly, you have to be at the Designer permission level to use the feature.

Management of Device Channels
Before starting right away with the task of designing your site exploiting this essential feature, you need to take into account the specific devices to be targeted and the kind of user experience on each of them. Once you have considered the specific device channels, it is time to use multiple ways in rendering a single publishing site by means of mapping varying designs to equally varying devices.

Now, the device channels, which are created as well as stored in the SP list, have ranking and therefore, the order of the same also matters. The inclusion rules are also processed accordingly.

Uploading the Designed Files
Once the designing is done, the designer can use any HTML editor of his preference and work with files locally on the specific computer. However, these files need to be uploaded to the Master Page Gallery of the SP site so as to enable the feature to convert, preview and at the same time, polish the already created design.

The best- possible way to upload as well as continue working on these files is by mapping a drive on the computer to the Master Page gallery of the SP site. This paves the way for a folder on the computer to be connected to the Master Page Gallery. The result is that one can work on files that are present on the server in SP 2013 provided that they are local files.

Editing the Master Pages
The next task is to create a fully branded master page containing all of the functionality of SharePoint that one wants. The steps through which the editing is done are:

• Conversion of HTML file into a SP master page
• Previewing the master page while also facilitating fixing of the possible issues
• Addition of the SP snippets to the master page

Editing Display Templates
In the event of using the on-premises installation of the SharePoint server, one has the option of using the Content Search Web Part along with a few other search- driven web parts. This helps in the display of the results of the search queries as content on the pages. Now, the search-driven web parts make use of the display templates for two main purposes. These are firstly to map managed properties returned in the search result items to properties that are available for JavaScript. This includes any custom JavaScript that one chooses to implement. The second purpose is to make use of CSS and HTML to find out how these properties are displayed.

Editing Page Layouts
The process involving the creation of page layout in Design Manner is somewhat different from that of creating a master page. First, a page layout needs to be made using the .aspx file and HTML file. Following this, the associated HTML file has to be edited from the mapped drive in the HTML editor. The feature ensures that the page layout is created in a manner that the correct set of page fields get added to the page layout.

Apart from the above-mentioned steps, creating themes and composed looks, publishing and applying the designs and creation of the package of the same are the final steps to be taken when it comes to using Design Manager in SharePoint 2013 development projects.

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5 ways to spruce up SharePoint 2013 for your intranet CMS

One of the biggest drawbacks that affect content management is the lack of proper search plug-ins. In the current scenario, businesses do not have adequate amount of time for tracking down different files. SharePoint comes to rescue in such a situation.

SharePoint intranet comes with convenient document libraries, enabling every business to categorize information in the way they want. In fact, you can have all your content easily accessible by means of different libraries within a hosted portal- a library for media, one for finance, report, sales, marketing and so on. The inconvenience of lost data will never be experienced. The intranet also comprises the latest antiviral software for ensuring preservation of online infrastructure.

As a business owner or team member, SP allows you to open up documents through the web, and also to synchronize work via document collaboration. In short, SharePoint provides a collaborative, hosted solution for content management through the intranet. Investing in SharePoint development for org-wide collaboration always pays rich dividends. Let us discuss 5 trending ways which will help you to spruce up SharePoint 2013 for your intranet CMS.

1. Creation of an intranet newsfeed with SP 2013
With the help of an intranet newsfeed, users are able to publicly and rapidly communicate with each other by sharing ideas, posting updates, asking questions along with other activities. So far as the management is concerned, it is a great means for engaging with employees personally, directly and openly. Moreover, the SharePoint newsfeed renders a micro-blogging experience similar to that derived from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Users are able to post comments, direct particular users with the help of @targeting as well as tag the same to a particular topic utilizing #tags. Comments or users can be liked or followed.

2. Showcasing intranet blogs with SP 2013
Intranet blogs are a brilliant way to discuss on relevant topics providing authors with the capability of communicating a message as well as starting conversation and collecting feedback. Readers can have their opinions heard and addressed. Authoring and publishing tools are offered by the SharePoint blog site to authors, in the same manner as they would expect from a consumer CMS. The features include the ability of video embedding from sources such as YouTube, rich text editing, capability of content publishing directly from MS Word. It is possible to like, rate, follow or share blog posts.

3. Using SharePoint 2013 for creation of intranet survey
With the help of intranet surveys, creators are able to speedily crowd source precious information from a huge employee pool. As participants, employees can get an easy means for bottom-up feedback and hence become more engaged. The SharePoint survey app offers a template to easily as well as quickly build surveys with diverse question types (multiple choice, text fields, rating scales). On completion of the surveys, results are represented graphically with the facility of exporting to Excel. The promoted links app of SharePoint builds metro-style tiles along with a hover-over state in order to make room for additional text information. The advantage is that tiles offer increasing visual engagement as against a standard list, following the SP site's theme.

4. Leveraging SP 2013 for surfacing intranet KPIs
With regular and convenient access to KPIs, employees can adjust their activities to accommodate the changing business demands. Enhanced visibility of performance metrics at an organizational level helps in greater employee collaboration. With the help of the Excel Web Access Web Part, data can be displayed from an Excel spreadsheet straightaway onto a SharePoint page. Granular control can be maintained by the author over the data that can be displayed from the spreadsheet and accessed. Once it surfaces on the SP page, the data can be made user-interactive.

5. Using SharePoint 2013 for creation of an intranet discussion list
Through intranet discussion lists, users can discuss specific topics with subject matter experts and their peers. It can be used for diverse purposes helping employees draw the benefits of a wide organizational network of resources and knowledge. Forum-style collaboration areas can be created with the help of SP Community Site Features. Using the discussion list, users can start discussions or ask questions. Moreover, categorization of the content can be done.

For creating an engaging and dynamic intranet CMS, SharePoint 2013 is loaded with all the requisite functionality. Great outcomes can be enjoyed by those who comprehend the changing intranet demands and leverage this new functionality.

We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert SharePoint developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Setting up a social strategy for SharePoint? Here are tips to get started

With the launch of SharePoint 2013 by Microsoft, social business became the talk of the day, with SP gradually moving towards becoming a company's social hub. Last year, Microsoft acquired Yammer, and is planning to tie up the same with SharePoint as well as other wares of Microsoft ranging from Dynamics to SkyDrive. My Sites along with Community sites have been introduced by SharePoint 2013, and these aid in internal business collaboration by providing a social interface. These are also designed to make use of the security as well as other enterprise or business management features that SharePoint has. This implies a genuine extension of collaboration among partners and work-groups.

According to R.Wang, leading social business analyst, going social might close the gap between execution and strategy, measurement and execution, as well as strategy and measurement. Organizations understand that SP might be a platform for integration of these technologies thereby bringing in innovation, provided there is a proper plan and strategy for social business.

Let us discuss briefly about three of the major social aspects of SharePoint 2013, namely My Sites, Community Sites as well as the new Newsfeed. All of these distinguish SP from its predecessors and make upgradation a forward-thinking smart decision.

Community Sites
Creating a new Community Site has become very convenient. You simply need to select Community Site from the list within SharePoint available for Collaboration site templates. As per the community's business role, site owners can go for selection of four permission levels:

• Private: Selected members can view or go for interaction with the community.
• Closed: Content can be read by end users but only those members receiving approved requests would be able to contribute content.
• Open with explicit membership: Content can be read by end users, who would also be able to automatically join the community for contributing content.
• Open: Content can be contributed by anybody.

Like other SharePoint subsites, the Community Site template would be able to disinherit or inherit permissions from its parent site. The fundamental permissions as well as security constructs remain similar. Community Sites just build on this construct utilizing the permission levels. In spite of the presence of this architecture, it is always considered a better practice to make use of unique permissions for management of community membership. It is essential for organizations making use of communities at the site level to become well-versed with this setup. Moreover, community moderators can gain access to features such as offensive content reporting or alerts which enable them to follow discussions more effectively.

My Sites
My Sites is capable of giving users exactly what their requirement is- rapid access to their things. Presently a user is able to follow people, documents or sites. This 'follow' mechanism helps in the automatic creation of lists which are rendered in the user's My Site, both on the Newsfeed page and also on the My Sites homepage.

Moreover, with the help of My Sites, a user is capable of having one click access to the sites he or she follows. It also recommends other sites the user might find interesting or useful, based on a number of criteria.

Newsfeed
Newsfeeds refer to content that is dynamically updated and generated through the activities indulged in by fellow users. These incorporate the currently omnipresent hashtags as well as '@ mentions', and resemble Facebook or Twitter feeds closely. Unlike the case of external social networks, organizations are able to exercise some amount of control over the activities that would be appearing across the Newsfeed from the User Profile Service Application. On the Newsfeed Settings screen, there are provisions for a user to have considerable control over e-mail notifications, hash-tags, and so on.

It is true that in order to make use of these tools, the enterprise architecture does incur some cost such as licensing costs, software and hardware considerations, along with architecture to render support to redundancy as well as performance. But the benefits are indeed far-fetched. Leveraging the social features present in SharePoint development platform with the proper strategy can help organizations effectively manage their social business interaction while at the same time safeguarding intellectual property and content.

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Introducing MVC Support for Apps for SharePoint

SharePoint, which has already established itself as one of the most popular and preferred web application development platforms, works more effectively when incorporated with certain apps. Apps are those powerful website applications that add to the effectiveness of the platforms. These days, the ASP.NET.MVC has become a preferred mode of project application.

ASP.NET.MVC offers web developers with several advantages. To begin with, it comes up with a really pattern- based and powerful platform that allows easy building of dynamic websites. These websites, in turn, pave the way for separating different aspects such as that of the view, model and controller of the app. At the same time, the app provides full control over markup to offer a good experience of development.

SharePoint portal development with MVC as a remote project requires one to follow a two-step process. Firstly, this particular sort of project development needs to be created and secondly, one has to engage in what can be considered as the 'app-etizing' of the concerned web project. This is done with the purpose of adding an application for SharePoint.

When an auto-hosted or provider- hosted app for SharePoint is created in the Preview of the Visual Studio 2013, you get the option of choosing the type of the web application project. Once the procedure is accomplished and you click on the Finish button, the Visual Studio automatically takes up the following tasks:

• Creation of the application for the project
• Creation of the MVC website application project
• Addition of the SharePoint-references to the said project
• Addition of helper classes to that of the particular project

A working app for SharePoint with this advanced sort of web app is now ready. The following steps would encompass pressing F5 to debug the app. Now, Visual Studio deploys this app for SharePoint to the site of the specified developer. This is accompanied by a starting of the Internet Information Services or IIS Express and finally, running of your MVC website application. A browser is then opened to the home page of the app, in this case, the particular app that we are talking about.

A default template is created out of the box and it comes with the About, Home and Contact pages apart from some sample code. These sample code show you the way of interacting with SharePoint. The code helps in the creation of a client context for the host web while also retrieving the current user name, which is displayed in the home page.

The MVC website application project also offers a set of APIs, which involves a series of steps for the web project to communicate to SharePoint in a rather smooth manner and that too, in a single call. The SharePoint context filter takes up the additional processing for getting standard information when redirected from SharePoint to the remote web application, for instance, Host Web URL. Additionally, it also determines as to whether the application has to be redirected to SharePoint for the user to sign in. This is particularly applicable in case of bookmarks. This filter can be applied either for the purpose of viewing or to the controller.

The context classes of SharePoint incorporate all the data and information so that one can quite easily create particular contexts for the app web as well as the host web directly and thereby communicate with the platform. The introduction of the MVC support for apps turns out to be of substantial help provided that one is aware of the right ways of engaging in the process.

We provide SharePoint development services. If you would like to hire SharePoint developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Office 365 SharePoint Online File Migration Tool - A detailed overview

SharePoint online migration is not something that can be easily achieved; rather, it engages careful planning for successful execution of the same. The reason is simple, you need to deal with a huge volume of important data and no sort of downtime is usually tolerated by an organization. Therefore, the biggest question that crops up in such situation is how to avoid the risk of losing any data ensuring an exact move of just the elements you need alongside involving minimum time possible reducing the impact upon the users along with the systems?

Well, the solution rests with an online file migration tool. This particular tool is an online adaptation of the SharePoint server based on the new as well as latest technology of SaaS (Software As a Service). Migrating might come across as an expensive alongside a complex task, but with little software investment, you can actually get working smoothly. The tool allows you to experience a hassle free migration of Exchange to Office 365 SharePoint, Lotus Notes to Office 365 SharePoint Online, and File System to Office 365 SharePoint.

Exploring the World of Effortless Office 365 Migration
Migrating SharePoint Online is sure to come across as an effortless solution as the migrating software is not only reliable, but also fail – safe. This particular tool or software has been developed following a process of intensive testing. It has been passed fail-safe following strict rounds of analysis by expert developers and quality analysts. Therefore, there hardly stands any chance of the software going wrong during the process of executing a successful migration.

Whether the need is focused on migration of File System, Public Folder, or Lotus Notes to Office 365, you can do it all with the help of this versatile tool. After all, the task of manually copying files from multiple resources like file servers, network shares, and network drives to SharePoint Online is a challenging task. The task, especially gets difficult when there are several things to migrate as it not only gets time consuming, but also prone to errors.

A single error in the copy can interrupt as well as restrict the flow of entire switch. Additionally, you also need to keep in mind the several characters alongside the file types that SharePoint Online tends to decline at a go. A proper migrating tool helps solve all such difficulties as well as the issues that are usually faced while migrating manually. Usually, the software stands in compliance to the standards of naming a file in SharePoint Online and therefore helps save both your time as well as effort during migration.

A Look at the Features

Here is a quick look at the features that make the file migration tool stand apart from the rest alternatives as well as choices in respect to SharePoint Online:

• Compatible with Midsize Business, Small Business, Education, and Enterprise plans
• Allows automatic rename of files featuring characters that are usually denied
• Flexible to all sorts of network interruptions that crop up for temporary period
• Enables automatic zip of files featuring file extensions that are rejected
• Helps in the identification of files featuring big file sizes and file paths that are too lengthy
• Facilitates the copy of only changed files when the migration is resumed again
• Keeps a track of the original date of modification of the files
• Provides a complete and comprehensive audit trail of every migrated file
• Handles documents check-ins and checkouts automatically for libraries requiring the same
• Allows automatic re-authentication for migrations that are lengthy

The file migration tool is sure to help you leverage your business growth instantly. Prior to investing in the software, you can run a demo and see whether it suits your business approach perfectly. To ensure successful migration, you can invest in the complete software and experience better business.

You can hire developers from top companies in SharePoint who can help you build apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint 2010 development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint programmers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

9 Tips to Integrate DotNetNuke with SharePoint

If you need to develop an engaging as well as interesting website featuring optimum and advanced tools until date, the choice undeniably rests with DotNetNuke (DNN). With businesses facing diverse challenges in terms of content modification, DNN offering multiple solutions addressing the various technological needs of the content providers and emerging interests of the people comes to right help.

Why is DNN unique and a preferred choice?
The reason is simple; DNN offering a wide range of tools supports the rapidly changing consumer as well as technology trends thereby, enabling users to move forward without any difficulty. Being the world’s number one WCMS for Microsoft, DotNetNuke stands as the most successful and largest open-source CMS plug-in catering to the Microsoft ecosystem. This particular software is extraordinarily empowered to offer virtual help to any enterprise for approaching or facing architectural challenges from every angle. The platform also helps the nonprofit organization to save both time as well as money.

What brings SharePoint to the forefront?
SharePoint is a pioneer in providing intranet solution geared towards efficient handling of internal document management, which includes but is not restricted to sharing, editing, and uploading of reports along with contents. In simpler terms, this particular application ensures easy access of data by everybody in the business network. It streamlines the complex process of collaborating along with managing the important business documents. This particular application is actually incorporated by anybody managing content starting from business to nonprofit organizations. The SharePoint and DNN connector further ensures complete optimization of the process and has been successfully integrated by businesses across different sectors.

To ensure complete optimization of the content creation, business organizations as well as enterprises need to execute a successful integration of DNN with SharePoint.

Integrating DotNetNuke with SharePoint – Tips to Follow

Here is a quick look at the tips that you need to remember while integrating the DNN software successfully with the SharePoint application:

1. Good knowledge of SharePoint and DotNetNuke – This particular approach helps in easy as well as seamless integration of both the document management system and the software making it easy for content monitoring along with modification. It is important to have good knowledge of the software as well as the application before taking up integration.

2. Always integrate with SharePoint 2007 and 2010 – This particular objective helps you enjoy the best benefits of both the DotNetNuke along with the document management system. After all, it helps publishing fresh contents extracting it straight from the SharePoint Document library. The published documents are carefully protected by the role based security network of DNN.

3. Always publish documents that are approved for display – Undertaking this particular approach always helps you to avoid any sort of interference with the team. This helps you ensure the use of a streamlined alongside a collaborative procedure that helps in effective management of the document. Additionally, it also allows you to share the best documents that are carefully edited and ready for use.

4. Ensure consistent permission throughout the work – This particular objective if maintained right helps preventing any sort of unauthorized access thereby, ensuring a secure digital asset management. Additionally, it also helps preventing the redistribution of assets that are digital.

5. Make use of views and not folders – This helps you ensure having unlimited flexibility along with extreme level of granularity. It is also important for you to be able to combine the properties easily and this particular approach helps in successful combination. The biggest advantage rests with the fact that it helps reducing overall risk alongside human error.

6. Synchronize the deletes – Taking up this particular approaching during the process of integration also helps avoiding the errors of “file not found” during the successful execution of removal of files. This particular approach of cleaning also ensures reduction of unimportant database clogging, duplication, overall risk, and human errors.

7. Enabling of error notification is must – This specific task helps in automatic synchronization eliminating the need of active viewing or monitoring of the document in concern. This result in a smooth process that helps you to lessen the effort along with the time required for content monitoring.

8. Avoid the firewall – Always make sure that the SharePoint server can enjoy an easy access to the DOTNetNuke server. This helps in smoother as well as better content management without any modification of security policies.

9. Allow filtering of documents to be transferred – This particular approach helps the users to filter the documents easily through the integrated SharePoint filtering views. This helps the users to make use of the Create View UI and need not rely upon two different sets of filters.

Following the above-mentioned tips is sure to help you achieve a successful integration of DotNetNuke with SharePoint and ensure defining the success metrics for your organization in terms of less error, reduced publishing time, etc.

You can hire developers from top sharepoint development companies in india who can help you build apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint portal development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

The Power of HTML5 and CSS3 in SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 has ushered in a number of changes in the manner in which developers tend to build as well as implement branding packages. The largest changes that have taken place incorporate the capabilities of CSS3, HTML5, as well as the Design Manager. With the help of these tools for development, SharePoint branding experts are able to come up with unique and dynamic designs for the environment.

The new features of HTML5 constitute the following:

• The < audio > and < video > elements in the default player of the browser for media browser.
• Support rendered to local storage (capability of reading content offline along with the potential for using web applications)
• Fresh content-oriented elements, such as < section >, < nav >, < header >, < footer > and < article >. These tags facilitate enhanced SEO content indexing, standardization and organization with respect to all designs.

One of the significant things is that HTML5 allows developers to focus on the greatest number of devices with considerably lesser amount of effort towards development. HTML5 comes up as a universal language for every device, whether it is a SmartPhone or a wide screen desktop monitor.

Along with HTML5, a greater number of branding options are opened up in CSS3. The options in CSS3 include the following:

• Font file references are allowed to render within a live environment with the help of @font-face property
• The capability of making rounded corners over a number of objects including boxes is enabled by the border-radius.
• Generation of a shadow over elements which are customizable as per the preferences of developers.
• Proportional sizing coupled with dynamic width facilitates adjustment to manifold screen sizes. This is of immense significance as it provides developers the capability of using responsive web design. Development of a responsive website involves the utilization of a number of components. These assist the developer in creating designs which possess dynamic widths and are also capable of re-sizing proportionally depending upon the resolution of the screen or the device size.

Responsive web design is in fact a flexible grid that helps in creation of a layout which expands as the page increases in size. The design of this flexible grid takes place in terms of proportions. In this case, as the re-sizing of a window takes place, every element within the layout undergoes re-sizing of their width with respect to one another. This is done with the help of CSS3 Media Queries that involve the rendering of a web page depending upon certain conditions like screen resolution.

One of the important feature concerning a responsive website is that fixed pixel size should not be given to anything, not even images or other media.

In fact, SharePoint 2013 offers branding developers a number of options while designing the SharePoint environment. However, there are some specific factors which can be questioned so far as responsive web design is concerned.

• Money and time: The question lies in the fact whether the required money and the time is available for building an intricate grid system with the help of HTML5 and CSS3. If the same is not available, the best option is going for something that is increasingly out of the box.
• Browser Support: It is to be understood whether the project needs a design which will only be used on a laptop or desktop, or a design compatible with mobile phones, tablets, and other devices is required. Another point in question is whether more web browsers like Safari, Firefox or Chrome are required instead of Internet Explorer.
• Performance: Is the project in need of a design that will be used for a long period of time, or the design would be changed by the organization every few years?
• Content: The amount of content that the site will incorporate should be decided.
• Web Application and Website: You need to consider whether the project requires a website for every device, or a totally distinct web application that can be used on Smart Phones and tablets with different functionality.

Getting the answers to all these questions will enable developers to efficiently determine how they can utilize the new tools offered by sharepoint 2013 mobile development platform, in short SP 2013.

We provide sharepoint portal development services. If you would like to discuss with a certified sharepoint developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

How is SharePoint advancing the enterprise social roadmap?

The newly introduced SharePoint 2013 exhibits a clear incorporation of the social features in your daily routine. Adding to this is the seamless integration with Yammer, which also seems to offer promising results in the field. It can be undeniably said that the ‘social’ features found in Yammer and SharePoint is sure to make way for efficient as well as effective collaboration at the workplace. With the passage of time, a growing number of organizations have embraced the wave of integration between the two.

The rapid growth of Yammer itself validates that enterprise social is presently representing a significant trend influencing the way people are wanting to learn, connect, and share at work. With more organizations adopting the advantages of enterprise social solutions, maximum clients are noticing profitable return in aspects of enhanced customer response time, improved cross-functional communication/collaboration, as well as better business agility. Enterprise social has completely changed the way of work by reaching beyond organizational silos and making things more collaborative alongside enabling the enterprise to be more responsive to its clients/customers.

Advancing the enterprise social roadmap

Over the last year, Yammer has been continually making room for product updates involving message translation abilities, platform updates (i.e. embedded feeds and ‘follow’, ‘like’ buttons), file collaboration improvements along with increasing developments on a varied range of mobile platforms.

It has also been continually delivering an outlined strategy to offer a social layer across third-party applications as well as Microsoft Office. Microsoft truly believes that it is required to make social an essential part of everyday application. Only then it can rise to become a mainstream aspect in the workplace. To deliver on that line and previous roadmap declarations, Microsoft is presenting interoperability with office 365 integrated with the following newly released characteristics:

• Yammer newsfeed for Office 365 and SharePoint Online – Presently, Yammer functions more intensely and effortlessly with SharePoint Online and Office 365 enabling customers to replace the newsfeed of SharePoint with the same.
• Yammer application availability in Office Store – Yammer applications available in the Office Store enables the customers to effortlessly embed the group feeds in SharePoint sites thereby, establishing a connection between sites and groups to provide the best of both worlds.

Microsoft is also due to release a number of SharePoint, Office 365 as well as Yammer update to improve the connection between the services thereby, making room for better collaboration. It has already spoken about delivering a single sign-on along with enhanced user experience. However, the newly planned features are designed to involve advancements in email and search. Here is a quick look at the Yammer developments that are about to make a mark in enterprise social roadmap:

• SharePoint search integration – Allow SharePoint search to look for Yammer conversations thereby, establishing a stage for improved as well as powerful apps combining social and search.
• Yammer groups in SharePoint sites – The app available in the SharePoint store will enable you to replace a site feed of SharePoint with a group feed of Yammer manually. More work is being done to make the feeds appear by default in SharePoint sites.
• Yammer messaging enhancements – The user experience is being redesigned to make it more user-friendly as well as easy for use as a primary tool of communication. Multiple group messaging and direct messaging features will be incorporated.
• Email interoperability – Microsoft is working to make it easy to email and use Yammer together. This will allow you to follow a complete thread via email, participate in conversations, as well as respond to messages through email.
• External communication –Improve the messaging infrastructure so that it becomes easy to include external or third parties in the conversation.
• Mobile apps – The idea is to enhance user experience alongside adding new exciting features to mobile service and apps.
• Localization – Localization of the interface in new languages is being done to cater to the increasing demand across the globe.

Microsoft will make complete use of its fast development approach making room for continuous improvements to generate connected experiences all across Office 365 combining collaboration, instant messaging, social voice, email, and video applications in pioneering ways.

Companies offering sharepoint webparts development and customization services are the ones who are gearing up with servicing Office 365.

We provide sharepoint application development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert sharepoint development team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.