SharePoint Village News - Spring 2012

Welcome to the Spring 2012 edition of SharePoint News and a special 'hello' to all our new visitors to SharePoint Village during the March. We have really been bowled-over with the amount of visitors casting their votes in the Andy Dale SharePoint Awards 2012 and we already beaten the record number of voters we had in for the 2011 awards.

SharePoint Awards 2012

Great to see a number of our Shopkeepers have again been nominated as finalists in the SharePoint Awards and we are keeping our fingers crossed that some of them will be winning one of the coveted Gold Seal of Approvals. Good luck to all finalists but especially Combined Knowledge, Virto Software and Share Knowledge. If you haven't voted yet don't leave it too late. Vote at http://sharepointvillage.com/?page_id=7456 now !!

New Shops at SharePoint Village

We are delighted to welcome two new shops to SharePoint Village over the last few weeks and we are sure you will all want to visit their new shops.

EPM Live opened a shop in the Software section on 21st March and iOra at the start of March. EPM Live provide a SharePoint-based Enterprise Project, Portfolio and Work Management Solutions to help businesses improve their productivity. Which company doesn't want that in today's difficult climate? With so many companies project lead these days the need for Project Management software on a SharePoint platform will be of interest to many of you. So if you haven't already taken a peek then pop into the EPM Live store now at http://sharepointvillage.com/?p=7556  .

You will find the iOra shop nextdoor to EPM Live in the Software Section. iOra's patented replication technology makes SharePoint available throughout the enterprise, delivering total data consistency with high performance, regardless of bandwidth restriction, high latency or internet access. Successfully deployed on tens of thousands of machines in Military, Defence and Government and by customers across a range of commercial industries such as Management Consulting, Financial Services, Maritime and Oil & Gas. Through successful replication, organisations such as the US Navy & Marine Corps, Shell, NATO, ARM and the UK Ministry of Defence deliver SharePoint to disconnected users and offices over bandwidths as low as 2kbps. So take a look at what is inside the iOra shop at http://sharepointvillage.com/?p=7342 .

Secret Santa Winner

Congratulations to Chris Jones of Quanta (in Worcester) who was the winner of the Christmas  SharePoint Village Secret Santa Competition.

Chris, like over 30 of you, correctly found the six Santa and worked out the date was the start of the London Olympics. Chris received his prize of The Xbox 360 Kinect just after Christmas. Well done Chris.

SharePoint Village News - Autumn 2011 (Birthday Special)

September is an exciting month at SharePoint Village with our First Birthday on 1st September 2011. Difficult to believe it has been a whole year since we worked through the night ready to get all the shops launched on time. 

Thank you for all your great ideas on how to celebrate our birthday. We are going to use several of them. Sorry we can't do the one of sending a slice of cake to all the SharePoint Village Visitors. One idea we really are excited about and have decided to launch is a SharePoint Village Birthday Honours List. Well, if the Queen can do it we thought we would have ago at rewarding some of the real SharePoint Super Stars out there. As many of these SharePoint heroes are not ones in the limelight we are asking you to help us find them by nominating them.

We are going to award the honours to four people who you think deserve to be rewarded for going the extra mile to help SharePoint users or promote SharePoint. These four SharePoint Super Stars will then become the first four entries on the brand new SharePoint Walk of Fame. This is a new edition to SharePoint Village and will be found off the Home menu.


To nominate a SharePoint Super Star for a possible entry on to the SharePoint Walk of Fame then please email andy@sharepointvilalge.com by midnight 31st August 2011. Please send us the name of your nominee and a brief reason why. 

SharePoint Village News - Summer 2011

As SharePoint Village approaches it's 1st Birthday on 1st September it is time to reflect on what an exciting first year it has been. It has been twelve months where SharePoint 2010 has really taken off and many of our shopkeepers have created Web Parts and applications that use this new technology.

One of our newest shops is Layer2 who are SharePoint experts in Germany. Their terrific SharePoint products include a 'Meeting Manager' which promises to Keep your meetings organised and moving forward with up to date information is an often difficult task. Create a SharePoint Meeting Workspace for your meetings, organise and keep everyone informed with ease, providing a uniform approach with better meetings and faster decisions. Layer2 are also working with the exciting new Office 365. The video below shows how to connect your CRM to SharePoint in 'The Cloud'. 

We say a big welcome to Layer2 "Willkommen zu Ihnen" and hope that other German SharePoint companies will join the SharePoint Village soon. 

SharePoint Training

Training shopkeeper Combined Knowledge continues to be the leading SharePoint Training provider in the UK. Their End User Adoption Solution is receiving many great reviews. 

Birthday Celebrations

Help us to celebrate as 1st Birthday celebrations by sending us a birthday message to andy.dale@sharepointvillage.com and we will publish these on our special Birthday Wall during the whole of September.  We are also looking for some birthday words to our SharePoint Village song so please get your thinking caps on. You can sing the current SharePoint Village Song below;

Share Point, there’s no need to feel lost.
I said, SharePoint, there’s too much info around
I said, SharePoint,  overload getting you down.
There’s no need to be frustrated.

Share Point, there’s a place you can go.
I said, Share Point, when you’re searching so slow.
You can browse there, and I’m sure you will find.
The right SharePoint solution.

It’s good to visit the Share-Point-Vill-age.
It’s good to visit the Share-Point-Vill-age

They have Web Parts for you all to install,
You can shop there like at the mall ….

It’s good to visit the Share-Point-Vill-age.
It’s good to visit the Share-Point-Vill-age

You can find SharePoint news, you can buy a new book,
You can just take a real good look …

Share Point, are you listening to me?
I said, SharePoint, what do you want to see?
I said, Share Point, you can make real your dreams.
But you got to know this one thing!

Where else offers you more software.
I said, Share Point, there’s a village out there,
And just go there, to the Share-Point-Vill-age.
But don’t you forget the dot com.

It’s good to visit the Share-Point-Vill-age.
It’s good to visit the Share-Point-Vill-age

SharePoint Village News - Winter 2011

SHAREPOINT VILLAGE TO HOST SHAREPOINT AWARDS 2011

SharePoint Village is delighted to announce that the Andy Dale SharePoint Awards, now in their third year, are to become the 'SharePoint Village Awards' and all the voting will take place within SharePoint Village. We hope that the new home for the Awards will mean that even more votes of cast this year than last.

So we are looking for nominations for finalists in each of the 10 following SharePoint Categories.

1. Best SharePoint Information Site
(sorry you can't nominate SharePoint Village)
2. Best SharePoint Web Part Provider
3. Best SharePoint Administration Tool
(Control Point are going for a hat-trick)
4. Best Web Part Provider
(Who creates, offers and supports the best range of Web Parts)
5. Best SharePoint Training Package
6. Best Offline or Mobile SharePoint Solution
(We have added Mobile devices into this category)
7. Most Useful SharePoint Web Part
8. Favourite FREE SharePoint Web Part or Application
9. Most Fun SharePoint Web Part
10. Best SharePoint Application

So please email andy.dale@sharepointvillage.co.uk or complete a SharePoint Village Contact Form to nominate a SharePoint company, application or Website for any of the 10 Awards. Please state clearly which category, company name, product and include a link to their website.

This is how last year's Andy Dale Award's went to help you with your nominations;

1. BEST SHAREPOINT INFORMATION SITE

2010 Winner - EndUserSharePoint.com
2010 Runner Up - SharePoint Magazine

Other 2010 Finalists
SharePoint Reviews
SharePoint Information
Bamboo Nation

(Winner 2009 SharePoint Reviews)


2. BEST SHAREPOINT WEBPART PROVIDER

2010 Winner - Amrein Engineering
2010 Runner Up - Kwizcom

Other 2010 Finalists
Bamboo Solutions
Quest Software
SharePoint Boost

(Winner 2009 – SharePoint Boost)

3. BEST SHAREPOINT ADMINISTRATION TOOL
2010 Winner - Control Point
2010 Runner Up - DocAve Administrator

Other 2010 Finalists
StoragePoint
Ideara SharePoint Management

(Winner 2009 – Control Point)

4. BEST WEBSITE BUILT ON SHAREPOINT

2010 Winner - Chilis
2010 Runner Up - Swatch

Other 2010 Finalists
Carbon Trust
Hamilton Island
Chinook Centre

(Winner 2009 Cadbury)


5. BEST SHAREPOINT TRAINING PACKAGES

2010 Winner - Combined Knowledge CBT
2010 Runner Up - CBT Clips

Other 2010 Finalists
Microsoft Standalone Trainer

(Winner 2009 – CBT CLIPS)

6. BEST SHAREPOINT OFFLINE SOLUTION

2010 Winner - Colligo Contributor
2010 Runner Up - MyDocs

Other 2010 Finalists
Infonic
Epona Outlook Integration

(Winner 2009 – Colligo Contributor)


7. MOST USEFUL SHAREPOINT WEBPART
2010 Winner - Column\View Permissions
2010 Runner Up - Bamboo sharePoint video Library

Other 2010 Finalists
SharePoint Text Size Zoom
Lightning Conductor Web Part
Notification WebPart

(Winner 2009 – Batch Check-in from SharePoint Boost)

8. FAVOURITE FREE SHAREPOINT WEBPART/ADD-ONS

Winner 2010 - Google Charts
Runner Up 2010 - Visualizer (Digital Assets)

Other 2010 Finalists
Search & Replace
Bamboo World Clock
Free Lightbox Web Part

(Winner 2009 – Google Search Web Parts)

9. MOST FUN FREE WEBPART

Winner 2010 - Daily Dilbert

Other 2010 Finalists
Sudoku
Count Down
Currency Converter
Hello User


10. BEST SHAREPOINT APPLICATION

Winner 2010 - ShareKnowledge – E-Learning Solution
Runner Up 2010 - MediaRich Digital Asset Management

Other 2010 Finalists
Accounts Payable System
CRM Solution
Room Manager for SharePoint

So who will be the winners this year? Make sure your favourites are nominated.

SharePoint Village News - Autumn 2010

FREE E-LEARNING
A great new offer this week from one of our Shop Owners in the 'SharePoint Software' section of shops, Competentum. With the launch of the latest version of their awarding winning software ShareKnowledge they are offering all companies 100 free users for a year. The software ShareKnowledge 3.1 is one of the most powerful, cost effective, easy to you Learning Management Systems (LMS) availble for SharePoint. It works on all version of SharePoint (including 2010 and 2007) and certainly is well worth trying out. Just visit http://sharepointvillage.com/?p=633 now.

NEW SHOPS AT SHAREPOINT VILLAGE
New shops continue to pop up everywhere at Sharepoint Village hte latest two being in the SharePoint Software section. A big welcome to Metalogix (suppliers to StoragePoint, a revolutionary product in SharePoint Storage) and IntLock (suppliers of CardioLog, Enterprise Analytics for SharePoint).

We are very hopefully of announcing another two new shops next week so keep checking SharePoint Village.

VILLAGE PEOPLE
Our latest member of the Village People is Joseph Giegerich who is the Managing Partner and President of Gig Werks, an Award Winning Microsoft Gold and Field Managed Partner.

Joe’s expertise is on the topic of SharePoint, business productivity infrastructure optimization, and Microsoft Technologies. BPIO is a model and a methodology to guide companies to deploy IT as a coherent, connected solution, rather than as a reactive deployment of discrete products. This methodology serves to ensure maximum value and ease of use for end users while achieving the lowest total cost of ownership.

Joe provides a regular series of webinars, and presentations for both Gig Werks and Microsoft on BPIO, SharePoint, Business Intelligence, and how to align IT investments with its objectives. Additionally, Joe Giegerich has been on the board of directors of the NY/NJ International Association of Microsoft partners for the last two years and serves as the NY State policy chair for the US chapter.

SharePoint Village News - Village People

Welcome all to the latest edition of our SharePoint Village News after a September month that saw over 30,000 visitors flood into SharePoint Village.

We are delighted to announce that Kwizcom will be our newest shop at SharePoint Village when their brand new shop opens in the Web Part section next week and we look forward to seeing what they will have on offer for all us SharePointers. We also have two other shops coming soon to your SharePoint Village.

Talking of Web Part offers if you check out the SharePoint Village Noticeboard you will see that Lightening Tools are offering you the chance to win a sparkling new IPad by suggesting a Web Part they can develop. The closing date is 1st November and I have already submitted my entry so fingers crossed.

Also on the popular Village Noticeboard is information on the European SharePoint Best Practices Conference 2001 hosted by our very own leading SharePoint Trainers and shop owners Combined Knowledge. So London gets to host not only the 2011 Champions League Final but also the 2011 European Best SharePoint Best Practices Conference.

Make-A-Wish
It was great to read some interesting news about one of our shops at SharePoint Village, Virto Software, last week. The Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, the largest wish-granting charity in the world that grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions, announced that they had chosen five Virto Software products and services to enhance their SharePoint environment.

The Press Release read "The Make-A-Wish Foundation of America has selected a line of five products by Virto Software to allow its SharePoint environment to be more effective and powerful through adding a variety of new robust features and, at the same time, bringing a level of simplicity to management and development functions. Among the components chosen by The Foundation are Virto Password Change and Password Reset web parts, Virto Active Directory User Service, Ajax Calendar as well as Virto Ajax Data View. The line of Virtosoftware web parts and services helps the Foundation to achieve a new level of efficiency in very different sectors of its work ranging from user account management to web site development."

Well done to Virto Software and if any other shopkeepers, or visitors, would like to share with us any SharePoint work they have done for any charity we will happily publish them.

Village People
The most talked about section of SharePoint Village News yet is the 'Village People' and shopkeepers are all keen to be included. But please no more offers to sing YMCA !! We are still looking for somebody to correctly name all the characters in the original Village People though so please leave a comment if you can help.

So now to our second shopkeeper to take their turn in the 'Village People' and this week it is the turn of Ryan Wheeler the man behind the imaginative Web Parts at Pentalogic.

We asked Clare Stone also from Pentalogic to tell us about Ryan and this is what Clare had to say, "Ryan Wheeler founded Pentalogic Technology in 2005 after working as an IT consultant in the City of London. Pentalogic aims to provide a range of products which fill some of the gaps in SharePoint out of the box functionality. When not puzzling over the mysteries of SharePoint Ryan is most likely to be found snowboarding, kite surfing or mountain biking - or if he's broken something doing one of the above, sat at home with his Playstation feeling sorry for himself!"

So find out who will be the next member of the Village People? Find out in the 3rd Edition of SharePoint Village News out next week.

Maybe we should get each company who have a Shop at SharePoint Village to send in a video of them performing YMCA. Now that's an idea!!!

SharePoint Village News - Opening Edtion

WELCOME
Hello, and welcome to our first ever issue of SharePoint Village News.

SharePoint Village News will be a weekly Blog to let you know what is happening at SharePoint Village. We will showcase some of the SharePoint Village Shop Owners and hopefully bring you some of their latest offers. We aim to give you the chance to learn a little more about the individual SharePoint companies and the people behind them.

If you haven't yet had the chance to look around the new and exciting SharePoint Village then why not grab a coffee and have a browse of the SharePoint shops there. The address you will need, which we hope is fairly easy to remember is http://www.sharepointvillage.com/. You can even miss out the www if you are feeling lazy. Actually, I will let you into a secret, but it even works on sharepointvillage.info or sharepointvillage.co.uk.

NOTICEBOARD OPENS
So what's new at SharePoint Village this week? Well, the first new addition is the Noticeboard section which can now be found under Info Point. This is similar to the advertising noticeboards at your local supermarket where you can find little postcards in clear packets. The idea is, for just £50, companies can be of one of eight adverts here for 30 days. One of the first advertisers on the Noticeboard are 'Solutions Developed' who are offering a great SharePoint Admin Training Boot Camp. They even include transport from any UK airport to the training centre.

VILLAGE PEOPLE
Each week we will focus on one of the people who is involved in SharePoint Village. This could be anyone; a Shop Keeper, our Web Designer, SharePoint User Group Leader or even a frequent SharePoint Village visitor. This week though we are going to start with me, Andy Dale, one of the co-founders of SharePoint Village. Yes, I will be the first of our Village People (no not the one in the builders safety helmet).

I work as Senior SharePoint Consultant at Birmingham based SharePoint Specialists Action SharePoint Limited (we trade as 'Office Talk'). Not quite sure how I ended up in IT as I started out training to be a Primary School Teacher, but finished up studying for a MCSE and becoming a Network Manager in the late 90's. I first took part in a SharePoint Project in 2003 and have had the SharePoint Bug ever since.

Away from work I probably have three main passions. If you read my weekly SharePoint blog http://aboutsharepoint.com/ you will know of my love for all things Aston Villa. I have had a season ticket at the Villa since 1981 (the year we last won the league and the year I turned 13 and my dad finally let me go to game at Villa Park on my own). My dad, and brother, are Wolves fans and although Wolves have not beaten the Villa since March 1980 I am still nervous about the two sides meeting on Sunday. Favourite all-time Villa player is Gordon Cowans who was interestingly yesterday appointed to the Villa first team coaching staff as one of Houllier's first appointments. I could talk about villa for days, but want to mention my other two passions.

Passion number two is writing. Yes, I quite like writing my various SharePoint Blogs but most of all I like writing 'hopefully' mildly amusing fictional comedy. If you ever get the chance you might want to read my fictional blog called 'Tell the Groom' about a poor 30 year old called Jon who is jilted on his wedding day and then his life is never quite the same. I have also written children's books and two other romantic comedies.

The third passion to mention (they weren't in order) is my work with children and young people in the Methodist Church. As a 'Son of a Preacher Man' I have always been very heavily involved at Bilston Methodist Church and took charge of the Sunday School there when I was only 23. In 2005 I founded a new organisation for children at Bilston Methodist called 'Spiritblazers' which now has other branches around the UK.

So that really is what makes Andy Dale. Hopefully in future weeks of SharePoint Village News we will find out more about the 'Village People'.

Happy SharePoint Shopping !!!!