Apples to Apples

Advanced Reporting Design Techniques and Capabilities \\ Speaker - Thierry D'hers

• Here are some notes that i made while watching this session 
•  
• The table wizard works really well, and makes applying macros like "sum" or "average" to columns very intuitive.
• Ribbon interface is a good idea, still not as easy to use as Office
• Something I liked was when you are in a table in SSRS the ribbon changes to options for a table, same with a chart
• SSRS will try to autolayout when you generate the report, sometimes can do a very poor job, so its not really WYSIWYG
• Again more talk about pagination rules being respected, although not that big of a deal since pdf output still looks horrible.
• Stepped layout in a table looked good, easy to setup as well.
• SSRS Charts had a background gradient like in excel, looked really slick
  • Although you only have a set number of color schemes to choose from
• Supports SQL Server Spatial Data
  • Stores shapes in sql
  • Used for maps
• Map wizard renders map from SQL - PROGRAM CRASHED
  • Tries 2 more times and CRASHES BOTH TIMES
  • Of course no line number with the error messages
• Bing layer on maps is cool
• Overall the maps looked awesome even though he was incapable of creating one from scratch
• The way they do 'Report Parts' is really easy to use
  • Searchable
  • Drag and Drop
  • Shows small preview of component
  • Stored on sharepoint, so reports get updates when report parts change
• SSRS crashed sharepoint
• Overall it was a great demo, SSRS has made some great improvements, although its clear there are a lot of problems still
  • SSRS crashed on my count around 5 times.
  • Keep in mind the person demoing the software is an absolute PRO who has been using this software for years
  • He is also involved in its development, so if he cant dance around a bug then I would suspect im in trouble.
  • There are still a lot of limitations to SSRS, which I will be talking about in an upcoming review.

Introduction to Building professional looking reports in Sharepoint 2010 \\ Speaker - Sabrena McBride,Thierry D'hers

• Here are some notes I made while watching this session
•   
•  Alot of the introductory part of the talk explained how it took forever to get reports from conception/request to final implementation.
  • The speaker mentioned how in the old SSRS doing just 10 reports would take weeks, doing the 50 that a customer might want would take a year
    • Windward's turnaround is a lot shorter
    • With our product there is no need to make sacrifices
• Why they think they are better:
  • Familiar environment, Ribbon
    • Still in a programming/dev environment, average user would be confused
  • Tables matrices can have colors specified in the table wizard
    • This can all be done in word
  • "Before it would have taken weeks"
    • I agree, the old SSRS was terrible, the new one is a lot better, but still has many limitations and is hard to use.
• Can open reports from sharepoint directly into Report Builder
  • Windward Also does this, it just opens up into office
• Demoed the table wizard,
  • This was a great tool, something we could take some cues from.
  • Easy drag and drop to make a table
  • This is also a great starting point for applying macros to a column, or for making a chart since the dataset for a chart is defined by a table
• Chart Wizard was very intuitive, like excel
• "Subscribe" function notifies anyone when a report changes in sharepoint
  • This is a good feature, should be easy for us to add.
• Can embed reports into a web part and use them as dashboards
  • Windward does this
• They have maps
  • In this speech he just had them pre-made, and they looked great, although he promised to demo them in his next talk, which didn't go too well for him
• Can open dashboard reports in report builder
• They showed Databars and sparklines in tables, these looked really good and were easy to incorporate into the report
• Something they had that was useful was a default image for charts, even though when rendered they looked different,
  • Was good for visually laying stuff out, and knowing where charts were in the report
• Keep making references to how easy Powerpoint is to use, and how they are similar to powerpoint, while still admitting that they are not at all like powerpoint, but close.
• Report Parts
  • Like Windward's User Defined Tags (UDTs)
  • IT can set up charts tables, stored on sharepoint, then they can be dragged/dropped into the report
  • Need SQL Server R2
  • But overall a great feature that is well implemented
• PowerPivot can be used as a datasource for a report
  • Windward can do this too.
• SPLists as datasources
• Big talk about how SSRS respects Pagination rules of PDF and Word
  • PDF output looked terrible, the hard page breaks made the ssrs report look bad
  • In word they just expanded the page size, try printing that ..
• OHH btw, SSRS still wont tell you what line your error is on. That wont be coming the the final release either.

Building Rich Dynamic Websites With Sharepoint 2010 \\ Speaker - Tony Jones

The big thing I took from this speech is that web developers on sharepoint should be putting a lot more work into the client object model. Basically doing as much work on the client side as possible to minimize post backs. He talked about how a lot of time has gone into making the client object model better. He also recommends using javascript, jquery, and ajax among other things. Bottom line is that Microsoft has invested a lot of time to make sharepoint as client friendly as possible and developers should follow their lead.

Open XML for Office 2010 development and beyond \\ Speaker - Chris Auld

Here at windward we do Reporting with all of the Open XML Office formats. I personally implemented a parser and output engine for the PPTX file format. Since we work both in java and .NET we cant use the Open XML SDK, since that only works with .NET. Therefore I have a good understanding of all of the elements that make up an OOXML document. With this said, the new stuff that the Office team has added into 2010 seems sort of like a cop out, but given the situation I think they have done it in the best way possible. In 2007 there have always been <extLst> extension lists but they were never used, until now in 2010. The other way 2010 is adding content is an <alternateContent> block. The bottom line is that in either of those elements there will be a 2010 version of the OOXML and a 2007< version. The way it is expressed in the OOXML will vary but the basic idea is that if you make a document in 2010 and open it in 2007, it will do its best to make it look like the 2010 version, but any 2010 only formatting will likely not show up 2007. Also if you open a 2010 (xlsx, docx) in 2007 if you make any change anywhere and save it, all of the 2010 formatting will disappear. If you do that same transition but in powerpoint, all the 2010 formatting will remain even if you make changes to the file in 2007. The only way too loose 2010 formatting in powerpoint is if you edit the actual element that contains the hidden 2010 formatting and then save it.  One thing the speaker demoed is the application of image effects to a static image. In 2010 it will render this effect on the fly, but it will also render a jpeg of that image so if you go down to 2007 it will still look the same, but you wont be able to change the effects on the fly. It seems like most of the new stuff coming in 2010 has to do with drawingML, which is something that word and excel hardly had in 2007, but powerpoint had a lot of. Chris said at the end of the speech that he would try to find out when the 2010 documentation will be available. Here is Chris Auld's Blog

Here are the documentation links for the 2010 office extensions

DOCX: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd773189.aspx

XLSX: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd926741.aspx

PPTX: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd922181.aspx

Excel and Excel Services Creating Business Centered Applications in Sharepoint server 2010 \\ Speaker - John Campbell

This speech was interesting, the main thing I took from it is that using REST you can link charts or tables from excel into other office documents. Everything else was about specific implementations and tweaks to his initial demo.  

Developing with the new User Interface Features in Sharepoint 2010 \\ Speaker – Elisabeth Olson

Sharepoint 2010 has some great new UI features, mainly the incorporation of the ribbon. In addition to the ribbon is the idea of keeping the user ‘in context’. The idea is that if the user needs to enter in information or change something then instead of getting redirected to a different page, a modal dialog should be used instead. So even though the same goal is accomplished, the context is preserved because the previous page that user was on is still visible behind the modal dialog.  The new ribbon and these modal dialogs can all be customized. Another great thing about the new sharepoint 2010 is that all of the menus are ajax, so that means no postbacks. It looks very slick.

Advanced Web Part Deployment in Visual Studio \\ Speaker - Maurice Prather

I took a few things out of this session, a lot of it didn’t really pertain to what I do with web parts. Can now fully debug sharepoint web parts inside of Visual Studio, no more attaching to process’. Although he didn’t demo it, VS2010 should also be able to show a visual representation of the webpart, this will prove extremely useful for me.

Sharepoint 2010 Overview and Whats New \\ Speaker – Arpan Shah \\ Main Points

Sharepint 2010 has Full browser cross browser and platform compatibility, Including full mobile browser support. Sharepoint 2010 will take office themes and apply them to an entire sharepoint site. Sharepoint workspace lets you take Document Libraries and contact libraries on the go in low or no bandwidth situations. Excel services can do dashboards directly in sharepoint (charts and tables) live. Sharepoint 2010 really shines when it comes to content organization. The Content Query web part, can pull everything that is related to research, show it to me ‘here’. Can make a “rule” that any document that gets added to a document library with the tag “spc” gets put in a different document library that only has documents with the tag “spc”. Rules can be more complex than the above example. This reminds me of Database Triggers, things that get called in standard RDBMS when tuples are insterted into a table, but in Sharepoint the table is a list, and the trigger is a rule. Sharepoint 2010 has vastly improved search for example SP2010 now has wildcard search, and phonetic search. The search was very FAST, and it hits everything including documents. Access for sharepoint 2010 has some improvements as well. Access Services publishes a DB (Access) to the web, which can be edited. Reporting and charts are built into access. Business Connectivity Services now integrates with Visual Studio 2010. There is now the ability to pull read/write functionality into a 3^rd party DB as an “external list” looks like sharepoint, but it’s a virtual list that goes back to the line of business application. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what sharepoint 2010 has to offer. Im especially excited for the content organization.