SharePoint Managed Metadata - Import Term Set

In a new SharePoint tutorial in the kalmstrom.com Tips section I describe how to import a list of metadata to SharePoint using a free third party macro-enabled Excel template.

Information about information
Metadata is often described as information about information. The SharePoint Search will give more exact and accurate data if everyone add metadata to items when they create them, but for this to work well there must be a specified list of metadata to choose from.

Managed metadata
Such centrally pre-defined metadata is called managed metadata. This collection of centrally managed terms that should be used as metadata is managed by a Term Store administrator, who organizes them into a hierarchical term set.

Import to Term Store
In the Tips article I show how to import metadata to the term store. This is done with the help of a macro-enabled Excel template, created by another Swedish SharePoint expert, Wictor Wilén. He created it for SharePoint and Excel 2010, but it works just as well with the 2013 versions, both on-premise and SharePoint Online. Thank you, Wictor!

The demo below is rather summary, but in the Tips article about import of metadata I give links to more detailed information.

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

New Forces In The kalmstrom.com Support

Today is a special day, as my father, Sigge, celebrates his seventieth birthday. Sigge has been working with kalmstrom.com since 2007, but now he is leaving some of his tasks to younger forces.

Support anchor
When Sigge joined kalmstrom.com the team was small, but even at that time questions had to be answered and problems had to be solved. I think nearly all our customers and evaluators have had contact with Sigge, who also was responsible for the support during the first years.

Sigge made sure all e-mails were answered quickly and all problems were solved in a timely manner, and his work has been much appreciated.

However, Sigge is not a software developer, and eventually we could let one of the kalmstrom.com developers, Jitu Patidar, take over Sigge's responsibility. Sigge continued to answer e-mails, but not as many as before.

Strong support = strong products
Today we have two more developers in the support team: Arpeet Gujarathi and Ankit Raghuvanshi. To engage developers directly in the technical support is highly beneficial to the product development.

             

When developers get to know first-hand about a problem or request, directly from the caller, there are no delays and the developers get a better understanding of how the kalmstrom.com Solutions are used. For the same reason the QA team is also following the support contacts closely, even if they are not communicating with customers.

German and Swedish
Sigge will continue to answer e-mails in German and Swedish. He will also answer urgent support e-mails in evenings and weekends, when our developers are off. He can always contact either Jitu or kalmstrom.com Lead Developer Jayant Rimza at such occasions, so that we can give service also out of office hours.

I am happy to be able to work together with my parents and take advantage of their experiences, and I am sure Sigge will be in the background for many years more. Thank you for all your good work so far, Daddy!

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

SharePoint Study Manager Overview

The development of Study Manager, our SharePoint Solution for online training, will soon be finished. Study Manager is a sponsored kalmstrom.com Solution, requested by teachers who want to add self-correcting exercises and tasks to SharePoint and supervise their students' work with them.

Take advantage of SharePoint
Many companies and organizations use SharePoint for cooperation and sharing, so SharePoint was the obvious platform when I was asked to develop a learning management system. Using SharePoint as the base means that Study Manager will be easier to understand and learn.

Another advantage is that inbuilt SharePoint features like forum apps, news feeds and document libraries can be used to customize and enhance the Study Manager site collection. In the manual we describe how such customizations can be made, and there is much more information in the SharePoint Tips articles on kalmstrom.com

Even if we have made use of as much standard SharePoint functionality as possible, the development of Study Manager has been a large-scale undertaking. I am glad that the kalmstrom.com developers and testers are so skilled and know SharePoint so well that we could take on this development commission.

               

Study Manager documentation
The documentation of Study Manager has also been an extensive task, as everything had to be created from scratch. My mother Kate and Rituka Rimza have done the major parts, and now the manual is almost finished and the slideshow is displayed here below.

Several video demonstrations are also nearly completed, and the web pages are coming together nicely. Soon everything will be ready for the Study Manager release.

If you want to know more about Study Manager before the QA team gives thumbs up, take a look at the slideshow and read about Study Manager in my earlier blog posts:
http://blog.kalmstrom.com/2014/12/sharepoint-study-manager-exercises-and.html
http://blog.kalmstrom.com/2015/01/create-sharepoint-self-study-exercises.html

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

Anniversaries For YouTube And The kalmstrom.com Channel

I don't think it has escaped anyone that YouTube celebrated its ten years anniversary on February 14, but YouTube actually has one more cause for celebrating: the kalmstrom.com YouTube channel has been live for five years ;-)

Product demos and Microsoft tutorials
The kalmstrom.com YouTube Channel contains two kinds of video demonstrations: demos of the kalmstrom.com Solutions and tutorials on Microsoft platforms.

Each of our products has an introduction video and also demonstrations on installation and various features. They are popular among our subscribers and maybe even more among evaluators, who get easily accessible information that is a good complement to the more detailed descriptions in the manuals.

The kalmstrom.com Tips section has around 100 YouTube videos combined with written explanations and step by step instructions. It began as a service to kalmstrom.com Subscribers, but we soon saw that many more wanted to study my tutorials on SharePoint, Excel and Outlook and other IT topics. We even have a few articles about YouTube videos!

Quality issues
We created the kalmstrom.com YouTube Channel on February 17, 2010. By that time we had managed to achieve good quality videos, after a long process of trial and error. Our videos most often show computer screens with many details, so we had to find a way of recording and producing that gave very clear videos.

That we finally could create videos with acceptable quality did not only depend on our persistence in trying. During the time we experimented YouTube developed fast and gave more possibilities, and as YouTube grew the software we use for recording, Camtasia Studio, adapted to YouTube. Now we are happily uploading at least one video per week!

YouTube Partner
Today kalmstrom.com Business Solutions is a YouTube Partner with access to additional YouTube features. The kalmstrom.com Channel has well over 4000 subscribers, and I am sure the number of views will reach a million this year. That is not bad for a channel that neither has music nor cute cats and dogs!

We are constantly deleting old product videos and replacing them with new ones when the kalmstrom.com Solutions are updated. In spite of those removals we still have over 200 videos on YouTube.



After five years on YouTube the kalmstrom.com Channel is a success, and I will make sure it stays that way. You can look forward to many more informative video demonstrations from kalmstrom.com.

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

Use SharePoint Surveys For Polls And Questionnaires

When you quickly need to collect opinions from a group of people I don't think there is a faster way than to use a SharePoint Survey. It only takes a few minutes to create it, and provided people are logged in and really do answer you can have the result in a few minutes more. You can even get a graphic presentation of the result or export it to Excel!

In a new article in the kalmstrom.com Tips section I describe step by step how to create a survey in SharePoint 2013. The steps are similar in earlier versions, as this feature has not changed much since SharePoint 2007.

Survey app
When you create the survey app it looks much like a normal list, but there are some differences. You see one of them when you select answer type for your survey question: the survey list has a rating scale answer type, in addition to choice, single or multiple lines of text, Yes/No and other more common answer types.

The other difference comes when you have entered a question and selected answer type and other settings: there is no OK button like in other lists. Instead you can choose between Next Question and Finish. If you select Next Question, you can add another question with the same or a new answer type.

Survey + Workflow issue
A drawback when you use a survey is that it does not support workflows, and this is something to keep in mind. If you for example want to archive survey results to another SharePoint list, you cannot do it with a workflow.

However, for archiving kalmstrom.com has a better solution: SP Archive. With SP Archive you can send SharePoint list items to an Access or SQL Server database in a customized manner that gives you more influence over the process than you get with a workflow.

Study Group Surveys
When I created the Tips article about SharePoint Survey creation I thought about Study Manager, the new kalmstrom.com SharePoint Solution under development.

Study Manager is installed in its own site collection, one for each subject. In this site collection teachers add the self-study material that Study Manager gives a framework for, but it should also be used for wider cooperation and information on the subject.

All users have access to the Study Manager root site, so here you can gather news feeds, videos, forums and surveys that is interesting for all teachers and students. Each study group or class has its own subsite, which can be used for material of the same kind intended only for the group.

I hope this survey tip will be interesting not only to Study Manager users but to many more. The SharePoint Survey is a convenient tool that should be used more than I think it is.

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

Enhanced kalmstrom.com Customer Care

Today’s blogger, Rituka Rimza, is the sister of my Indian partners Jayant and Vijayant Rimza. I had met Rituka in their home and at team events, and when she did her internship at the kalmstrom.com office I understood that she is as intelligent and hard-working as her brothers.

I therefore offered Rituka to stay and work part time after the internship, and from the beginning of January she joined the team as a full time employee. Rituka’s main responsibility will be sales and customer care, but she will also assist in marketing and documentation. Here is her story:

Before introducing myself, I want to thank Peter and Kate for letting me use this platform to introduce myself to you.

When I was studying in higher secondary school there were lots of fun events in my annual school function, and I was leading some of them. The results of my leadership were appreciated, so during that time I realized that I am interested in management and leadership.

Therefore I decided to continue my studies in the management field. So far I have completed my Bachelor of Business Administration degree from a reputed university of Indore, India. Right now I am pursuing Master of Business Administration with E - Commerce stream at the same university, and I will complete my MBA degree within six months.

While pursuing my Master degree, I decided to polish myself with some additional skills. I had training in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Internet Marketing, and after that I wanted to enhance my skills by working with kalmstrom.com Business Solutions. I applied and got the opportunity.

From Trainee to Sales and Marketing Assistant
In June 2014 I started my training at kalmstrom.com as a Technical Writer. I am cooperating closely with Kate Kalmstrom. She has more than 35 years of writing experience, and she has taught me how to make content attractive and meaningful and how to present it in an appealing way. It was a very big day for me when Kate offered me to join the kalmstrom.com team after the training period and said she liked to cooperate with me.

After six months of training I am now continuing with the kalmstom.com team as an employee. Kate thought I can handle the sales and marketing responsibilities too and gave me a new title: Sales and Marketing Assistant.

Now the biggest challenge for me is to meet Kate's expectations, and my next step will be to manage things more independently and reach the title, Sales and Marketing Manager. But before that there are lots of things for me to learn and improve.

Personal Opinion
It is a wonderful and completely different experience to work with kalmstrom.com Business Solutions. Here I have learned many new things and had a chance to work with different products and new technologies.

I am grateful to Kate Kalmstrom because she deemed me worthy and believe in me. Kate has been a teacher too, and this makes cooperation between us very smooth even though we communicate virtually. She explains everything thoroughly. I believe her guidance will brighten my future and assist me in making me perfect and exploring new heights in my field.

Challenges
Working with kalmstrom.com is not easy, because you must be very versatile. There have been lots of challenges for me, for example writing about products which are completely new to me, making video demonstrations, managing social media marketing and the sales e-mails and adding text and images to the website with HTML coding.

Study Manager
I worked on many already existing kalmstrom.com Solutions. Soon I also got a chance to work with a brand new product for teacher controlled self-studies in SharePoint, Study Manager. I have taken part in its development from the first quotation to the sponsor to example data and manual, and I am looking forward to start marketing and selling it. I hope my efforts will be beneficial.

Personal Life
In my free time I like reading knowledgeable and interesting stuff and play with my nephew “Oggy”, who is two years old. I am a shopping addict, and my hobbies are dancing and writing. I like to wake up with music, as it keeps me stress free whole day.

My family supports me strongly. Two other members of my family are also part of the kalmstrom.com team Jayant Rimza, MCP, Lead Developer and Vijayant Rimza, Lead QA Engineer. I am very lucky that I am part of such a family.

I feel appreciated in the kalmstrom.com team, and I think it is because I work hard and learn quickly. I see a great future in kalmstrom.com Business Solutions, and I will be happy to give subscribers and evaluators the best possible service. I hope to meet you soon, by e-mail or chat!

By Rituka Rimza
Sales and Marketing Assistant
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

Kanban Task Manager For Outlook With Swim Lanes

Today I can show you in a slideshow how version 3 of Kanban Task Manager for Outlook will look. The update will principally have the same new features as Kanban Task Manager for SharePoint V3, which was released in January.

Kanban Task Manager is one of the most popular kalmstrom.com Solutions, and we are happy that so many find it useful for project and task management inside Outlook or SharePoint.

These are some of the enhancements in version 3:

• Swim lanes
  Horizontal lanes  on the kanban board make it possible to group the tasks. Use two or many, as suits your organization – or don't use them at all if you like the current kanban board better.
  
  If you use the lanes, you will not only get the grouping possibility on the kanban board. In addition to the other Excel reports there will also be statistics on lanes activities, like "Overdue status of Tasks per Lane", "Number of Tasks per Lane",  "Time spent per Lane"  and more.


• Move tasks with Ctrl + arrows
  If you prefer using the keyboard instead of the mouse, you will be able to move  tasks between and within phases with a combination of Ctrl and the right, left, up or down arrow.


• Move tasks with a finger
  This is of course only applicable, if you have a touch screen, but if you have that it is very convenient.

• Responsive design.
  The new version uses responsive web design, which makes the user interface adapt better to different screens. Even if you have a small screen, you will be able to read and navigate without a lot of re-sizing, panning, and scrolling.


• Zoom into tasks and out again
  To see details or get an overview you can either use the new bar to the left of the filter dropdowns or do as you do with web pages: Ctrl + the plus or minus key.


• Instant Search
  Now Kanban Task Manager will start searching automatically and show hits as soon as you write something in the Search field on the kanban board. The more you write, the more exact the hits will be.


• Support for Russian
  Kanban Task Manager for Outlook V3 will be in Russian if you have a Russian Outlook.

When Kanban Task Manager for Outlook V3 has been released, the responsible developer, Jitu Patidar, will tell you more about the new version. It will not take long, but while you are waiting, please have a look at the slide show!

Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions

SharePoint Picture Management - 6 Ways To Add Images

A SharePoint site looks more appealing when you add images to it. It can be photos of team members or successful events, or it can be pictures with links that work as clickable icons or hotspot images. In a new article in the kalmstrom.com Tips section I describe six different ways of adding pictures to a SharePoint page.

Customization possibilities
I recommend you to work with the image so that it looks as you want it before you add it to SharePoint. Even if SharePoint itself gives some editing possibilities, for example to change displayed size, it is not a picture editing program.

Add image in web part
Before SharePoint 2010 the only way to add an image to SharePoint was to place it inside a web part. This is still an option, and it is useful, for example if you want to have a certain background color for your image or when you want to add a slideshow to the page.

Add image directly to page
From SharePoint 2010 it is also possible to insert images directly on a SharePoint page. The images can be fetched from your computer or from the site collection, and you can also add a link when the picture is fetched from another website.

Beware of URL images
I recommend that you never fetch image links from sites you have no control over, because if the image is moved or deleted it will no longer be displayed on your SharePoint page. It is better to upload the image to the Site Assets or some other document library and fetch it from there.

Images with links
In my series of tutorials on SharePoint links I give some examples on how you can link images. Please have a look at the Tips articles on how to create a PowerPoint picture and make a SharePoint button of it, how to create an image with clickable regions and how to create your own promoted links, like the tiles you find on the default SharePoint team site. There's a lot you can do with images and links, and it's fun!

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

Indian Traditional Wedding For kalmstrom.com Office Manager

Today our Sales and Marketing Assistant Rituka Rimza will tell you about a traditional Hindu wedding.

The kalmstrom.com team had an occasion of joy when one of our colleagues, Office Manager Vipul Dindulkar recently married Deepti Mokate. She has completed her masters in commerce and right now she is working as an interior designer.

I could not join Vipul’s wedding party, and therefore it is a special pleasure for me to write this blog post. This way I learned more about the marriage even if I was not there, when I was talking to my workmates about the marriage ceremony.

Multiday Wedding
Indian weddings are multiday functions that involve many ceremonies, rich in color, tradition and culture.

In the oldest sacred Vedas texts of Hinduism it is written: “A Hindu man does not become his complete self unless he is married and has the support of his wife.”

In Indian weddings the red color is the symbol of good luck. With the red saari or lehenga it is necessary to wear red colored ornaments for wedding purposes. Deepti wore a red sari heavily embroidered with golden threads and red bangles.

Deepti loves simplicity, and she avoids too much makeup and ornaments. She believes in real beauty, and that makes her more beautiful.

Varmala

Varmala or Jaimala, is an important religious ritual that takes place when the groom arrives to the venue.
Here the bride and groom exchange garlands and the guests throw flowers and rose petals on them to wish them good luck. In the photo above Vipul is putting his garland around Deepti’s neck, and to the right you see them in their beautiful garlands.

Saat Phere or Seven Vows
The most significant ritual, that completes the wedding, is Seven Vows, or Saat Phere in Hindi. In the seven vows ritual the couple takes seven rounds of a holy fire, and every round has its own significance. With every round both bride and groom pray to God and make one promise to each other.

These were the vows given by Vipul and Deepti:

1. Vipul promised Deepti that he would take care of her and provide food, and Deepti promised to share these responsibilities and help him in every possible way.
   
2. Vipul and Deepti promised each other to be loyal and faithful.
3. Vipul promised Deepti that he would work hard to bring wealth and prosperity into the house, and Deepti promised that she would take care of his family like it was her own family.
4. Vipul and Deepti promised to support each other at every hard stage of life and share each other’s happiness.
5. Vipul thanked Deepti for completing his life and making it beautiful, and Deepti promised Vipul that she will take part in all festivals and rituals alongside Vipul’s family.
6. Vipul and Deepti prayed to God for beautiful, heroic and noble children and promised each other to be responsible parents and provide the children a good education.
7. In the last round Vipul and Deepti promised each other to be a faithful companions and live their life with love, friendship and mutual trust.

After that Vipul and Deepti legally became husband and wife.

Sketch Artist
At the wedding party an eye catching person was Mr. Purushottam Bhatkar. He is Vipul’s friend and a polished sketch artist. In the left photograph he is making a sketch of our Lead QA Engineer Vijayant Rimza. It is incredible that he made that sketch in just 10 minutes.

Mr. Bhatkar is a craftsman too. Right now, Mr. Bhatkar and his team is creating a wooden Khajuraho temple. After completion it will be shipped to New York.
kalmstrom.com Team
The kalmstrom team is like a family, where we share and cheer each other’s happiness. The wedding day was of course very special for Vipul, and the rest of the team was present to give the couple their best wishes.

The best quality of our kalmstrom.com team is that we work together like building blocks. Every one helps others to move ahead, and this quality comes with sparkles in Vipul. He is a good team builder and he manages lots of things around the office. We all wish him and his new wife a happy married life!



Rituka Rimza
Sales and Marketing Assistant​​
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions