Sync SharePoint Libraries With PC Folders

Is your business team geographically dispersed? Do you often need to share documents or other files with your team? Or are you looking for a way to synchronize SharePoint libraries or OneDrive for Business (earlier called SkyDrive Pro) with your PC?

OneDrive for Business
The kalmstrom.com team uses SharePoint document libraries and the OneDrive for Business synch client. Through this app we can easily edit, copy and move files on either the SharePoint site or on a client workstation.

Here are some advantages of installing the OneDrive for Business sync client:

• Work Offline: By synchronizing SharePoint library files with your folders on your PC, you can work with the files even if you are offline.
• Edit Files: When you use OneDrive to sync files between SharePoint and a PC,you can modify the library files without downloading them. Your changes will be reflected in the online SharePoint library automatically next time you connect to the SharePoint site.
• Upload Data: You can upload a new file to a SharePoint library through your PC by creating or pasting it in the relevant synchronized folder.

All this will reduce the headache of login into the SharePoint site to download and upload files.

Library becomes PC folder
When you synchronize a SharePoint library for the first time, a folder with the same name as the library will be created on your PC. In the image below the mouse cursor points at the KTM Development library in the kalmstrom.com subsite.



Stop Syncing
You can stop synchronizing anytime, by right clicking the OneDrive icon in the taskbar on your PC and select the applicable folder. If you want to remove the library and the folder, you still have to stop synchronizing the folder before you can delete it.

Download the sync app
To install OneDrive for Business, download it from Microsoft or use the link in the SharePoint Online Sync dialog. Sync the library manually the first time, and then OneDrive will handle the synchronization automatically.


Tips article
In the demo below I show how to use OneDrive for Business with SharePoint Online document libraries. Please refer to the Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website for step by step descriptions on how to synch SharePoint libraries with PC folders.



By
Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

New kalmstrom.com Developer Excellent Chess Player

Today I am glad to invite a new guest blogger, the kalmstrom.com junior developer Ankit Raghuvanshi. Ankit joined the kalmstrom.com team just one month ago, and he has already proved his coding ability. He is very devoted to work, and his great sense of humor often makes us laugh. Here Ankit will introduce himself.

Bachelor of Engineering
I finished my Bachelor of Engineering in 2012. While I was pursuing my B.E degree, I joined one of the training institutes here in Indore in order to elaborate my .NET practical insights. At that institute I got a chance to work with live projects, and I acquired practical knowledge of .NET technology.

Freelancer
After completing my degree, I started to work as a freelancer. Then I learned a lot about how people think, and I got an understanding of what clients actually need. What kind of software or products do people like? What type of user interface is easy for clients? How do people treat technology? And how does technology treat them?

kalmstrom.com
Later I decided to join a company to become more professional. Fortunately I found the best company, kalmstrom.com Business Solutions. Here I see a great working environment as well as experienced and competent colleagues or seniors who possess immense knowledge and coding skills.

Calendar Browser V9
During my first month in the kalmstrom.com team, I have worked with Calendar Browser V9. Calendar Browser is a Microsoft Outlook add-on for managing all kinds of resources in any company or firm.

In Calendar Browser V9, I have assisted in the coding of different important modules like the Example Data for evaluators, the Administrator settings, where the admin can customize Calendar Browser, the Overview, where all future bookings can be studied in different ways and the Archive, which archives old bookings in a database and generates Excel reports on the data.

Chess

In my spare time I love to play chess with my father and friends. This helps me increase my IQ and creativity, improve my memory, exercise both sides of the brain and much more. I also love to travel and visit new places, and I believe in living my life completely by enjoying every moment of it.

I see a great future for this company, and I want to work with the kalmstrom.com products for a long time, to polish my skills to become an outstanding software developer.

By
Ankit Raghuvanshi
Junior Developer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions
www.kalmstrom.com

Enhanced Extra Resource Booking Info In Updated Calendar Browser

An update of the kalmstrom.com Outlook add-on for corporate resource booking has been released. This time Calendar Browser has an improved setting for Extra Booking Information.

Book by making an appointment
Calendar Browser lets users book resources within their organization by making appointments in Outlook, where each resource has its own calendar. Information about the booking, such as time, resource, name of booker and supply bookings, can be studied in the Outlook calendar or in the Calendar Browser Overview.

Extra info
Some organizations need more information about all or some bookings, and the Calendar Browser administrator can collect this info by using a template for the appointments body. However,  if you need more information about what people are using the resource at each reservation, the Extra Booking Information feature is a better way.

When Extra Booking Information is enabled, each appointment gets a pane where participants can be selected. Earlier the participants were called "Host" and "Attendees", but now you can use any caption for this data.

Sponsorship
A couple of weeks ago I told you about how Calendar Browser will be used to book charter trams in Stockholm, the Swedish capital. In this case it is necessary to collect information about driver and conductor, not about host and attendees, so Stockholms Spårvägar, who manages the trams, decided to sponsor the development of the new enhancement. We are grateful for their confidence in kalmstrom.com Business Solutions!

Version 9
Upgrades are free for Calendar Browser subscribers, and all subscribers are welcome to upgrade. But if this enhancement of the Extra Booking Information is unimportant to your organization, you might want to wait for a month or so, because then we will release version 9 of Calendar Browser.

Try
Do you need a tool that makes it easy to book your organization's resources? The please try Calendar  Browser. The evaluation period is 30 days, and we give support during the trial as well as when you have decided to subscribe to Calendar Browser.

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Win 8 Style Logo Spurs Voters In Crucial Elections

The logotype below is a symbol for the ongoing elections to the Indian parliament. The elected members of Lok Sabha (“The House of the People”) will in turn appoint the next Central Government, so the future of India depends on the outcome of this election.

 I think the modern logo appeals to young, well educated people like the members of the kalmstrom.com team, and their votes may very well decide the future of India. As India is one of the most rapidly developing countries, this election is given much attention throughout the world.

Three Parties
The main political parties in this election are: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Indian National Congress is the oldest party in India. Currently Sonia Gandhi is the Chairperson of this party, and her son Rahul Gandhi will probably be the Prime Minister candidate in the election.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one of the strongest parties of India, and Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister post candidate in this election. Once he was a tea seller at the railway station, and he is currently the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Aam Aadmi Party, established in 2012, is completely new in this race, and their main goal is to fight corruption. Arvind Kejriwal is the Prime Minister candidate of this party

Economy and Infrastructure

• Economy: The rupee has fallen against the U.S. dollar, the gold price has increased, and farmers have committed suicide because they didn’t get a reasonable payment for their crops. This makes the economy a major issue in the election. There has also been a continuous boost in the price of fuel, vegetables, gas, salt etc. makes it difficult for poor and middle class people to manage.
• Employment: India has a large amount of well educated people but not enough job opportunities. Too many are left unemployed due to lack of job opportunities
• Infrastructure: Today all parts of India are facing problems with bad roads, shortage of electricity and water supply. Several small towns have the electricity cut off for more than 18 hours a day. Now Indians want a country where they have roads that meet international standards, 24 hours electricity and water supply in all towns or cities.
• Corruption: There is a huge amount of corruption in India, which obstructs development and economic growth. So “No corruption” is the one of the most important issues in this election.
• Women safety: In the last few years the crime ratio against women has increased shockingly. Now women are not feeling safe in India, which makes women safety a major issue in the election.

kalmstrom.com on the election day
The kalmstrom.com Indore office will be closed on 24th April due to the election in this region. Our responsible employees will vote to support their desired candidates, and we all hope that the new government will sort out problems, and make India a better and more developed country to live in.

By
Kate Kalmstrom
Sales and Marketing
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

A princess for kalmstrom.com

Once again the kalmstrom.com team has had a cause to celebrate. This time it is not because of some technical achievement or product success, but for a very human reason: one of our developers had his first child.

As we work so closely together in the team, we all rejoice when something so joyful happens to one of us. In this article, kalmstrom.com QA Engineer Neha Gupta Kaushal is telling the story.

Becoming the father and the mother of a little girl is like a dream come true. A daughter brings happiness into life. Recently, a cute angel entered in our lives and filled our world with happiness.

Sharad, kalmstrom.com JavaScript expert
Sharad Verma is a kalmstrom.com senior developer and the leader of our JavaScript group. He has a solution for every JavaScript problem.

Sharad joined kalmstrom.com on 29th July 2013 and soon blended into the team as an inseparable part. As a person he is friendly and helpful, and he always carries a smile on his face. Later he told us that his caring and loving wife Chandani was expecting a child. We were all happy after hearing this good news.


The Birth
I still remember every detail of that lovely day 28th March. We all hoped that good news was on its way as Sharad had told us that Chandani was in hospital. He was excited, but at the same time he was a little bit worried about Chandani.

We were all working in silence when a sudden call in Sharad’s mobile at around 4.00 PM changed the whole ambiance of the office.


Sharad spoke with joy and excitement “Yahooo! Hey friends, I am blessed with a baby girl”. We saw a big smile on his face and tears of happiness in his eyes, and we all started to greet him with joy and ecstasy.

Immediately, as a responsible husband and now responsible father, he went to the hospital to see his newly born little princess and his dear Chandani. Everyone else in the office also wanted to see the little baby, and in our minds we started to visualize her face. Sharad didn’t come back to the office for the next five working days.

The Party
The 5th April was working Saturday, and we were all busy with our tasks when Sharad suddenly arrived at the office. We greeted him with joy and started to shout “Party Party Party” and Sharad laughed “Okay, sure, definitely, but you will have to wait a bit”.

In the evening, Sharad said loudly “Party Time Friends” and immediately ordered pizzas along with sweets and coke. While eating, we asked Sharad about the little princess, Was she healthy? How did she look?

Sharad said he felt that the new little baby brought wonder, hope and a dream of possibilities. And I must say that the pizzas were even yummier than usual, maybe because of our happiness!

Best Wishes
Sharad and Chandani, get ready for laughter, noise and lots of hugs! May your daughter’s tiny feet tiptoe with love in your hearts. I hope you will find your parenthood a breeze and will look back on it with fond memories.

Little princess, you are lucky to have Sharad and Chandani as your mom and dad. They will treat you like a real princess and give you all their love and care. I know they will also give you good opportunities and teach you to choose the right things in your life and career.

The kalmstrom.com team once again congratulates the family for the new little princess.

By
Neha Gupta Kaushal
QA Engineer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

New Command Bar in SharePoint Online

Microsoft is currently giving all users of SharePoint Online a new library command bar for the most common commands. The update begun on 9 April and will take several weeks.

SharePoint Online
You can subscribe to Microsoft's SharePoint Online standalone, but I think it is more common to use it as a part of Office 365, as we do for kalmstrom.com. In any case it is a convenient way of using SharePoint, as you get the features without having to manage the infrastructure. But SharePoint in the cloud does not give the same level of control as SharPoint on-premises.

For example, there is no way to stop upgrades and additions of new features. As a SharePoint admin I get a message in the Office 365 Message Center, but I have to accept it. I cannot select when I want the update to be implemented.

New command bar
From 9 April Microsoft is rolling out an update that gives a new command bar for SharePoint Document Libraries. It will have commands for frequently used tasks, as new, upload, edit, manage, share and synch.

The new SharePoint library command bar will give us quick access to functions that are used frequently, so I am looking forward to testing it – even though Microsoft has not asked for my permission!

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Swedish Nature In Four Seasons

YouTube has become an important marketing channel for Peter Kalmstrom and the kalmstrom.com Solutions. Now we have begun buildning two new channels for another part of the business.

The new channels are about the Swedish language, and I hope the photos and the music will be appealing also to those who are not learning our language.

Teaching aids
If you have followed the kalmstrom.com Blog, you might remember that we don't only develop and sell software solutions that enhance Microsoft. We also publish teaching aids for the Swedish language, centered around the free tutorial site at tallstugan.se that gives guidelines and exercises for Swedish grammar and word formation.

Nature photos
As a background to the more than 180 articles on the site, we have added photos from Sweden. They often show nature from various parts of Sweden in different season, and now we have used some of these photos in YouTube videos. The photos are acompanied by well-known Swedish music.

Challenge
The kalmstrom.com YouTube channel has more than 2000 subscribers and over 300 000 views, mostly thanks to Peter's excellent way of presenting information. Now I want to have even more subscribers to my two new Tallstugan-channels, so wish me good luck!

Swedish and English
The tutorial site is in Swedish. It is intended for students who already know some of the language,  but it has an option to get the grammar rules and guidelines translated into English or Finnish. Unfortunately I cannot manage a Finnish YouTube channel, but I have created one Swedish grammar channel in Swedish and one Swedish grammar channel in English.

Animations
The grammar channels will soon have more content. We are working on animations that will illustrate some basic grammar rules in the Swedish language. They will be in Swedish, but the rule itself will be translated into English.

Apps and book
In addition to the site and the new channels, the Tallstugan series for Swedish grammar and word formation consists of apps for iOS and Android devices and a book.

Immigrants in Sweden and students of the Swedish language in other countries find the Tallstugan teaching aids helpful, and I hope the YouTube channels will help spreading the word to even more people.
By
Kate Kalmström
Sales and Documentation
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Beware Of Outlook IDs

All kalmstrom.com Solutions can be customized in various ways. We have tried to make it as easy as possible, for example by giving many options in the settings of each product. This works smoothly, as the administrator just have to select the options that best suit the organization.

Some customizations are a bit more complicated, and here I will give a piece of information about Outlook IDs that I hope will be helpful for anyone who needs to customize an Outlook field.

Folder HelpDesk and KBase
Two of the kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons have forms that are possible to customize: the issue tracking tool Folder HelpDesk and  the knowledge base KBase. In these solutions, standard Outlook post items are used as incident tickets and knowledge articles. The items are possible to customize, but you have to be careful with when you name tags and controls.

Customize in settings
In KBase we have made it very easy to customize the form. The administrator only have to write a field name in the settings and select if the new field should be a text field or a Yes/No field. Then KBase will create the new fields in the article form.

Customize in HTML
When it comes to Folder HelpDesk some knowledge of HTML is necessary. This may be seen as a limitation, but working directly in HTML gives you more possibilities than you have in KBase. You can use any HTML editior to customize the ticket form, and should you still have difficulties, our developers are ready to assist. They will do it for free as long as the customization is not too extensive.

Outlook IDs
Many subscribers have made use of the form customization possibilities in Folder HelpDesk and KBase. However, it happens that they come to the kalmstrom.com support and complain that the data in their new fields is not saved to the database or SharePoint. The reason for this problem is normally that they have used an ID that is already present in Outlook.

When customizing an Outlook form you must not use an ID that already exists in Outlook. If you do, data from the field where the same ID is used for the second time will not be saved . This is not a big problem as long as you are aware of it, because if you test and notice that data is not saved, you can just give your tag or control another name. However, if you have bad luck also the other name is already used in Outlook!

FAQ
To help subscribers and other blog readers to avoid  several trials and errors with custom IDs, we have now published two FAQ on www.kalmstrom.com that give lists of IDs already in use by Outlook. Here are the links, and I hope you will find them useful!

http://www.kalmstrom.com/FAQ/KBase/8217.htm

http://www.kalmstrom.com/FAQ/FolderHelpDesk/8217.htm

In future versions of Folder HelpDesk and KBase we plan to add a warning that will be activated if you are trying to save a custom field with an already existing ID.

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Goodbye Windows XP

From April 8 Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP. When the XP version was released in 2001 it meant an important enhancement of Microsoft's operating system, but today we have better and more secure options.

Still going strong
Windows XP became very popular among users, and the failure with Windows Vista made many organizations decide to stick to XP. In my opinion they should have upgraded to Windows 7 when it came, but in March 2014 Windows XP was still powering 27 % of all PCs in the world. Compare that with Windows 8 and 8.1, which only has 11 % of PC usage worldwide, and you understand that Microsoft is taking a drastic step when they end upport for Windows XP.

Security
So why does Microsoft discard a product that is so much in use? Of course they want people to buy their latest operating systems instead, but a main factor in the decision is security.Windows XP cannot meet today's online threats in the same way the later Windows versions do.

This security problem will increase dramatically when Microsoft stops giving new security updates. Should you still have some Windows XP machines within the organization I advice you to read the the technet blog post from which the image above is borrowed.

Office 365
Office 365 admins have already received a message about the ended support and its consequences for use of Office 365. Even if Office 365 will not block connections from fully patched Windows XP computers after 8 April 2014, the connectivity to the service will be at risk.

kalmstrom.com Solutions
When Microsoft announced the end of support for Windows XP in October 2012, I decided to stop developing for this Windows version. I knew that most of our subscribers use modern software anyway, so it would not create trouble for them.
                                                 
Therefore we begun phasing out Windows XP, and today the kalmstrom.com Solutions only support Windows Vista and later. Most of them still work with Windows XP anyway, but we don't recommend it.


Office 2003
Not only Windows XP but also Office 2003 will be discarded by Microsoft this coming Tuesday, and that actually means more to kalmstrom.com. After Microsoft introdced the ribbon in Office 2007 we could take advantage of it and enhance all our products considerably, but that also made it difficult for us to continue supporting Office 2003.
                                                    
Therefore I must admit I felt relieved when Microsoft announced the end of support for Office 2003. Now we no longer have to spend time on dragging this no-ribbon version along. Instead we can concentrate on newer versions of the Microsoft products we build on.
By
Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Four Ways To Copy Excel Cells

In an article in the kalmstrom.com Tips section I am showing four ways to copy and paste Excel cells. This is a basic Tip, in contrast to the more advanced "FileShare to SharePoint" articles with PowerShell scripts that I have published recently.

Four ways
Are you new to Microsoft Excel and wonder how to copy cells in it? Or do you always use the same method and want to learn more ways to copy cells in Excel? In the demo below I am showing four different methods.

Copy and Paste ribbon buttons
The most common way to copy and paste in Excel, is perhaps to use the Copy and Paste buttons under the Home tab in the Excel ribbon. Select the cell or cells you want to copy, click on the Copy button, select the cell or range of cells where you want to paste the copied content and finally click the Paste button.

This method means that you have to move the mouse cursor back and forth to the ribbon, and that is not always the quickest way to copy and paste.

Stay near the cells
I actually prefer three other methods that let me stay near the area I want to copy from and paste into. They can be used for one cell as well as for a range of cells, and neither of them includes a mouse movement up to the ribbon.

Windows copy and paste
When you have selected the cell from which yo want to copy, you can use two alternatives to the Copy button: either right click the mouse and select "Copy" from the list of options or press “Ctrl + C” on the keyboard to copy. To paste, right click and select "Paste" from the list or press “Ctrl + V” on the keyboard.
These copy and paste methods can be used everywhere in Windows.

Drag and drop + Ctrl
The last, but not the least way to copy cells in Microsoft Excel is to select the cell and drag it with the mouse to the desired destination.  When you only drag and drop the cells will be moved, but when you press the keyboard “Ctrl” button at the same time the cells will be copied.

If you haven't tried all four methods I suggest you do so next time you work with Microsoft Excel. Please watch the demo below and read the article about Excel copy and paste in the kalmstrom.com Tips section. In the Tips article there is also information about copying cells with formulas.

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By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions