I’ve used DropBox for a long time now, mainly for sharing files with friends and family.  I like it because it’s easy to use, it’s free and I use it for what its intended for – basically a file share in “the cloud”.

It’s funny because the things I like about it are also the same things I don’t like about utilizing it for proper collaboration.  For example, I like that it sync’s the files/folders to my local hard drive.  However, I would not love that idea for a team collaborative solution for many reasons, some of which include security, co-authoring, versioning, not to mention when someone deletes a file/folder, that same file/folder is deleted from MY hard drive the next time it syncs.  This will happen if they deleted it intentionally, or not (which HAS happened to me). 

I also like DropBox because I can use an iPhone App (which honestly only comes in handy once in a great while).  Viewing documents on a 3” screen is less than ideal.  I suppose it would make sense if I used an iPad (which I don’t).  I do, however, use a MacBook Air which is about as small as an iPad… and it works out very well.

But no matter how you slice it, DropBox is not a collaboration platform.  SharePoint, on the other hand, very much is a collaboration platform.  So if you could take the things I like about DropBox, and add it to SharePoint, it would be two great tastes that go great together!

That’s where DropBox for SharePoint Server comes in.  Here’s what it is (copied from DropBox for SharePoint Server) page:

- An easy & user friendly way to give your intranet users a place to associate documents to their profile…

- An easy way to provide a light alternative to personal sites which require most of the times, a good governance plan while the DropBox requires almost no governance

- A personal storage location a user can use to share documents with their network (everyone, colleagues, team…)

- An application that communicates to your network via the SharePoint News Feeds

- An application that ships with PowerShell commands administrators can use to manage storage, quotas and forbidden file extensions

- An application that’s fully integrated with the “My” SharePoint 2010 logic

It’s free and can be downloaded from CodePlex.

This is Part III of a series aimed at explaining how nonprofits are successfully leveraging the SharePoint platform. It is my hope to explain how these inspiring organizations are staying within budget and the approach they use for getting it right the first time.

Part II concluded with the following question:

So why resist customization?

Read more…

Part I concluded with the following question:

What then is the appropriate level of documentation for your business objectives?

…read more.

Yes you can, here’s how.

The first part of this post covers the administrative steps involved with creating a new public facing website in Office 365.

The remainder of the post will simply highlight some of the things I thought were pretty cool.

The first thing you need to do is create a new site collection for your new Office 365 public facing website.

To do this, from the Office 365 administration center, click “Mange site collections”:

Now from the site collections screen, you want to create a new public website.

To do this, from the Site Collections “new” drop down, select “Public Website”:

The “Create Your Website” dialog box appears (below). Fill out the fields, they are pretty self-explanatory (Title, Website Address, Language, Time Zone, Administrator, Storage Quota and Resource Usage Quota):

It’s worth noting these fields are all required (I tested this):

Congratulations, you have just created a brand new public facing site on Office 365!

It lands you on your new site:

Now you simply change the new site to suit your needs. Add some content, some images, some bling. Change the look and feel, add your logo, header, footer, pages. Get the site structure the way you want it (navigation).

Does it have all the same capabilities as a dedicated SharePoint 2010 public facing website? No, but for me that’s almost a good thing – here’s why: The Office 365 public facing website CMS interface is different, better, easier and well thought-out. It’s also a familiar and intuitive interface b/c the ribbon concept is still in-tact.

In my opinion, it’s just way easier to use and I was well impressed with it.

Here are some of the things I really liked.

Your pages are conveniently found by clicking “Web Pages”:

Click on page to load the page in edit mode (About Us for this example):

This is the page in edit mode:

You can probably tell from the above screen cap how you would do things like control the color of your site, the footer, background, text, theme, style, page layout, navigation, etc… but what the above still image doesn’t show you is how you can resize a Zone by dragging it. That’s brilliant and I wish it was like that with the box version of SharePoint 2010.

Resize zones by dragging them:

Cool new Web Part (Map & Directions):

Display Options:

Select a style:

Tons of stock photos for your header:

Control the location of your pages:

There’s tons more Office 365 public facing website capabilities to explore and I’ll be updating this post as time permits.

Here are two important questions and answers: 

Q:  Does SharePoint Foundation 2010 have BCS?
A:  Yes

Q:  Does SharePoint Foundation 2010 have the SAME BCS capabilities as SharePoint 2010 Standard and Enterprise?
A:  No

Let’s start with what SharePoint Foundation offers as it relates to the BCS, then we’ll talk about what it doesn’t have.

The BCS is the new BDC.  SharePoint 2007 introduced the BDC as a way of integrating SharePoint with external data sources like non-SharePoint databases and web services. 

SharePoint 2010 came along, and renamed the BDC to BCS, and also put *some* of these BCS capabilities in the free version of 2010 (SharePoint Foundation 2010).  Keep in mind, the free version of 2007 (WSS 3.0) did NOT include BDC capabilities (or BCS capabilities for that matter b/c again, the BDC was renamed to BCS).  2010 still refers to many BDC features, so just keep in mind they are all used to the same end – for integrating with external systems. 

SharePoint Foundation 2010 has the following BCS capabilities:

• Business Data Connectivity (BDC) service
• BDC Connectors and the pluggable Connector Framework
• External lists – allows you to surface and modify data located in external sources all from a SharePoint list (very, very cool).
• External data columns – used for adding columns from external sources to existing SharePoint lists (also very cool).

Read more on msdn:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee557646.aspx

Okay, so what do we NOT get in SharePoint Foundation 2010 with regard to BCS capabilities?

• External data in search (Enterprise only)
• Secure Store Service
• Business Data Web Parts (Enterprise only) – this one is worth noting b/c these little guys save a ton of time.
• Profile pages
• External data in workflow
• Rich client integration (Enterprise only)

 Read all about the above list of things you DON’T get with SharePoint Foundation 2010 so you can determine if you need one of the paid editions of SharePoint 2010 (Standard or Enterprise) on msdn – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee557936(office.14).aspx

Also, I’m in the process of writing a 3 part series for NothingButSharePoint.com about SharePoint for Nonprofits.  My aim is to point out how associations and nonprofits are successfully using the platform and what they are using it for.

It’s a series of free, half-day SharePoint events which will take place in three Asian countries this March (Beijing – China, Manila – Philippines, and Ho Chi Minh City – Vietnam).

Think ½ day Asian edition of SharePoint Saturday.

Speakers include SharePoint evangelists Joel Oleson, Michael Noel, Paul Swider, Mark Miller, Rob LaMear and Dux Raymond Sy.

Each presenter will provide sessions on real-world SharePoint experiences, lessons learned, best practices, and general knowledge to attendees.

Sharing the Point is free to attendees. You should consider checking it out:

Website: http://www.sharingthepoint.org/new/SitePages/Home.aspx

Twitter: #STPAsia

Okay, what if several of the very best SharePoint Design experts all got together for a full day to walk you through all their tricks, best practices, avoidable pitfalls and trade secretes – would you show up?

I would for sure.

Making SharePoint look and feel precisely the way you want is an art form, like taming a wild horse – but if you can do it, you are in HIGH-DEMAND.

These guys are extremely sought-after and hard to gain access to.

The industries top SharePoint Design experts are gathering at the upcoming SharePointConference.ORG conference in Baltimore.

You don’t want to miss this one – this type of gathering just doesn’t happen often.

These SharePoint Design “horse-whispers” have combined decades of experience to share with you.

The Designer Track itself is well worth the price of admission:

• Designing for SharePoint: Avoid the Pitfalls
• 10 Ways to Make SharePoint NOT Look Like SharePoint
• Best Practices: Usability and Accessibility
• Designing for Mobile
• Enhance SharePoint 2010 with Amazing JQuery Controls
• The (Near) Future of the Web: HTML5 and CSS3
• Silverlight for SharePoint
• Lightning Sessions: Design (three 20 minute sessions on design topics with five minute breaks)

The conference also has a SharePoint Business User Track, and a SharePoint Developer Track.

I’ve been generously provided a 10% discount code which works for a limited number of seats. I’ll take it down when it’s depleted.

10% discount code: SPCon48561C

No way I’m missing this one – and really hope to see you there.

-sean

Here’s the basic transcript:

Describe SP 2010 in a nutshell:  Microsoft platform used for high-octane websites

                …used for intranets, extranets, public websites, communities of practice.

Key features of SP 2010: 

• Social features (Status, Activity tracking, Note Board, Folksonomy)
• Improved UI (+Ribbon)
• BCS HUGE!
• Co-Authoring
• Office Web Apps
• Taxonomy Management (Term Stores, Term Sets, Terms)
• Content Organizer Feature
• Claims Based Auth Provider

Differences with MOSS

• Claims based auth
• 2010 upgrades MUCH smoother
• 2010 much more intuitive for end users (b/c ribbon and ajax lightbox – retain your location)
• Improved performance
• Way less custom dev – BCS
• Browser Support (Mac users appreciate this +Mac Office 2011 integration)
• 508 Compliant (Accessibility standards)
• Better mobile support

Why might an organization want to migrate to SP 2010….or why not?

Why ?

• Relatively straight-forward upgrade (still plan)
• Tons of new features and enhancements
• Less custom dev
• better performance
• better browser compatibility +mobile compatibility
• 4-5 year run (next ver. 2015)

Why Not?

• You haven’t planned yet (Governance, phased approach for larger deployments)
• You JUST deployed MOSS (you will always be in this boat if you don’t start planning your upgrade now)

Tech, user or infrastructure issues with 2010:

• Consider HW Requirements (64 bit)
• SQL 2005 or newer
• Make sure SQL 2008 SP1 actually installed and took properly (can be deciving)…

Experiences of clients with 2010 to date:

• So much nicer than the MOSS upgrade
• Improved User Adoption
• Lots of BI
• Lots of private communities using social features
• LOVE the BCS

Web resources:

The SharePoint User Group

http://www.TheSUG.org

TheSUG.org is an online SharePoint User Group, which also runs on the SharePoint platform.

By joining TheSUG.org, you can participate in online discussions about SharePoint, ask SharePoint related questions, and find SharePoint related information.

You can also lookup or add SharePoint terms in our SharePoint wiki, and host your SharePoint blog here.

LinkedIn SharePoint Users Group

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=58750

LinkedIn’s largest SharePoint community!  Created on February 25, 2008 for Professionals.

The group welcomes anyone interested in SharePoint, whether you are a beginner or an expert.

Tell a friend to join now and start connecting!  We only have two rules: NO RECRUITERS and NO JOB POSTINGS.

Nothing But SharePoint

https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com

Dozens of authors are committed to providing content on a daily basis to each area of the site: End User, IT Pro, Developer, Business.

Content on the site is created by contributing authors as well as members of the SharePoint Community.

All members of the SharePoint Community are encouraged to submit articles, no matter what their level of expertise.