kalmstrom.com and Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint gives a lot of possibilities to any organization, so the kalmstrom.com development work has become increasingly aimed at this platform. Also my lecturing and development of custom solutions, as well as the kalmstrom.com Tips section, mostly involve SharePoint nowadays.

Outlook connection
When I first begun developing my software the brand name was kalmstrom.nu Outlook Solutions, and the main platform was Microsoft Outlook. As business grew ".nu" became ".com", and "Outlook" became "Business".

We are now developing more and more for SharePoint, but we keep up to date with the latest in Outlook and are happy when we find ways to combine Outlook and SharePoint, to take advantage of the best of both platforms.

HelpDesk OSP was one of the first kalmstrom.com applications that connected Outlook and SharePoint, and last year came Kanban Task Manager.

Very soon we will release a new version of KBase, the kalmstrom.com knowledge base. It will have SharePoint as a sharing alternative to a database, and the articles can be read in SharePoint as well as in Outlook.

SharePoint certifications
I love to explore what can be done with the SharePoint platform. I am proud that I have gained all the  Microsoft certifications available for SharePoint 2010, and I hope to take the SharePoint 2013 exams later this year.

Future SharePoint additions
I plan to add a SharePoint connection to all my products. When that is done, TimeCard users will be able to reach their calendars from any smart phone device, so managers can get their time reports without having to worry about what operating system the users have. Resource booking with Calendar Browser will also be easier to do away from the office, and eventually Folder HelpDesk will be merged with HelpDesk OSP.

Custom solutions
After I left my position at Skype the kalmstrom.com team has taken on more comissions for custom solutions. In these cases I do not just design the applications but also take care of most of the coding. The kalmstrom.com team helps me with testing and documentation. Most of these solutions build on SharePoint, just like the SharePoint Quality Assurance application I recently created for a Swedish chemical industry.

For SharePoint entirely
kalmstrom.com solutions may also be used only inside SharePoint, without a connection to another platform, like Outlook. Today we have Kanban Task Manager for SharePoint already on the market. This version of Kanban Task Manager may be used together with the Outlook version, but several big organizations use the SharePoint version alone for their project and task management.

Document Tagger for SharePoint document libraries is still in Beta, but we hope to publish the final version in June. On top of that I have some ideas for new products I hope to release later this year.

Lecturing
I use my knowledge of SharePoint as lecturer on advanced IT courses, and this spring it has been a stimulating task to teach IT professionals from various companies how to create SharePoint 2013 no-code solutions. I also introduced people from the Swedish Armed Forces to their custom version of SharePoint 2010.

The kalmstrom.com Tips section
The Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website has become very popular, and we now have many tips for the 2010 and 2013 versions of SharePoint. For some of the tips I have used material from my teaching. The kalmstrom.com YouTube channel has 15 videos in the SharePoint 2013 playlist, and all these are also shown in the kalmstrom.com Tips section, together with more information about the exercise in the video.

kalmstrom.com SharePoint usage
The kalmstrom.com team members have all achieved a good knowledge of SharePoint, by studies and by experience. Not only do we use a SharePoint team site but also three of our own SharePoint products: HelpDesk OSP for the support tickets and for publishing bug reports with embedded images, Kanban Task Manager for the tasks of the different development projects and for website changes and extensions and recently also Document Tagger for better management of our shared documents and presentations.

Apart from that I have created several apps that simplify our workflow, for example a Check e-mail solution that checks downloads and sends evaluator reminders and e-mails to Community Members.

I am always on the look out for new ideas on how to make further use of the SharePoint platform, and rest assured, I have a lot of them myself!

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

Swedish Armed Forces Learn SharePoint

Besides designing the kalmstrom.com software, I like to lecture on advanced IT course. During this first half of 2013 I have had an interesting commission: to teach SharePoint to intranet editors from the Swedish Armed Forces.

Intranet editors
The Swedish Armed Forces uses a SharePoint 2010 intranet, and to get the most out of this platform the organization decided to educate its intranet editors. The courses were organized by Cornerstone, Microsoft Gold Partner and the leading Swedish institution for in-service training courses.

Custom SharePoint 2010 solutions
The Swedish Armed Forces has implemented a custom SharePoint 2010 intranet with many site collections, and my task was to teach the editors how to use it. This intranet has some intresting solutions that I don't think are so common elsewhere.

Permissions
All 400 editors can edit on any site of this big intranet, but they cannot publish anywhere. This means that it is easy for the editors to add documents or change pages, but the additions and changes do not take effect until an editor with permission to publish on the particular site releases them.

The most common scenario is probably that the editor with publishing rights also makes the changes, but for other scenarios the Swedish Armed Forces has chosen to give editing possibility to all.

Navigation
Maybe you have watched my video in the kalmstrom.com Tips section where I show how to create a common navigation in a small site collection? The Swedish Armed Forces have done the same on a bigger scale, because they have one common navigation for all their site collections. This is of course very convenient for the editors, as they have the permission to edit all sites.

Social features
The Swedish Armed Forces have expanded the inbuilt social features of SharePoint 2010, to encourage users to comment and be active in other ways. This is a feature that benefits all users, not just the editors.

Stimulating task
For me the teaching is stimulating. I appreciate the interaction with the students, as they often ask interesting questions and give me new ideas.

The classes from The Swedish Armed Forces gave me the idea for a product I have described in the kalmstrom.com Ideas section. That is why I have used their official documents as an example on how highly structured documents can be managed in a SharePoint list.

Do you need help with SharePoint, Office or Windows education or teaching aids? I can provide it all, so please contact me!

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

Connect Outlook Knowledge Base To SharePoint

The kalmstrom.com knowledge base for Outlook has been with us for many years, both as a stand alone application and used in combination with the kalmstrom.com issue tracking tool Folder HelpDesk for Outlook.

Now we will soon release version 3 of KBase. Even if  current users will still recognize the Outlook add-on it has a new systems design that gives many more options than before. One of them is the possibility to connect KBase to a SharePoint intranet.

Later addition: This version has now been published.

This addition also makes KBase more interesting to in combination with HelpDesk OSP, our issue tracking tool for Outlook and SharePoint.

Sharing options
The earlier KBase versions depended on Exchange and an Outlook public folder or shared mailbox. This was the best when I first created KBase, but today we have more advanced options.

In version 3 my team and I have used another way to share information: a database or a SharePoint site. KBase can create a new Access database for you on a file server, and should you prefer to use an SQL Server database KBase supports all versions, both in-house and hosted.

If your organization uses SharePoint 2010, 2013 or Office 365 SharePoint, I recommend SharePoint as sharing option. Then the articles may actually be watched, edited and created directly in SharePoint even if it is easier to add formatting and embed images when you do it from your KBase installation in Outlook.

Reach articles from anywhere
The SharePoint sharing option has the advantage over the other two alternatives that the articles can be reached directly via the internet. The default view shows all articles grouped by category and type, just like in Outlook, but you can of course create any SharePoint views for the article list.

When you use a database for sharing you can instead publish the articles to web pages and make them reachable from anywhere that way. This feature is also suitable for SharePoint users who want to publish the KBase articles outside the intranet.


KBase articles may also be watched in Outlook Web Access and Outlook.com, but due to limitations in these platforms the articles will not appear exactly the same as in Outlook.

Introduction
Do you think KBase sounds interesting? In the slideshow below we give an introdution to the new KBase. Please watch it and keep an eye on this blog. I will soon come back and tell you that KBase V3 has been released.


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

InfoPath Form Library For SharePoint 2013

In an earlier blog post I explained how to customize a SharePoint form with InfoPath.

In this article I will go into more depth and give some additional comments on InfoPath and SharePoint forms.

The demo below shows how to create an InfoPath Form Library in a SharePoint 2013 site and how to add a form to it.

Fill out forms in any browser
With InfoPath Forms Services, which is part of the Enterprise versions of SharePoint 2010 and 2013, you can manage forms and form templates in a SharePoint site, and users can fill out these forms in any web browser. They don't need to have InfoPath installed, and they don't have to download anything.

Decide where data should be saved
InfoPath forms store data in XML files, so compared to list forms they are more flexible but they also require more knowledge. List forms store the data directly in a SharePoint list, so data can only be saved to that list, but data from an InfoPath form can be saved to various locations.

This means that users can publish their filled out form to any admin specified location by just pressing a submit button. In my demo I also show you how to specify where the data should be stored.

Investment form
In my tutorial I have used a form for investment suggestions as an example. Here users can fill out the name and the cost of the suggested investment and select a proposed start date.  They can also express in free text what goal the investment will help them to achieve.

All suggestions submitted via this form will be gathered in a document library, where the manager can set an alert for new additions. With a SharePoint library view that displays the relevant columns it is easy to review the suggestions, and in the video below I also show how to create such a view.


Step by step guide
In the kalmstrom.com Tips section you can find the same demo as below but also a downloadable step by step guide. There everything I do in the video is documented with text and screenshots, so that you can use it as a first exercise.

After that I hope you will able to expand the use of InfoPath forms and libraries to suit the needs of your organization. Good luck!



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

kalmstrom.com Tips And Ads

The Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website is becoming increasingly popular, but it also requires some work from our side.  To  avoid  burdening the kalmstrom.com applications with the costs of maintaining the tips section, we have decided to add advertisements to the Tips pages and tutorial videos. I will also have ads in the blog posts introducing these tips and tutorials.

Special knowledge
I have certified expert knowledge of Microsoft's products, and the Tips section was created to share some of it to Members of the kalmstrom.com Community.

After a while more people discovered the kalmstrom.com Tips pages, and nowadays this section of our website has as many visitors as the product pages. The kalmstrom.com channel on YouTube is also popular and gains more followers each week.

SharePoint, Outlook and Excel
Many of my most recent tips are about Microsoft SharePoint 2013, and earlier we published tutorials on SharePoint 2010. I think most organizations will use SharePoint in the future, so I want to spread knowledge about this platform and also adapt the kalmstrom.com products to it.

Outlook and Excel will also come with us into the future, so we have a number of tips on these products too. Several other tips are gathered under the heading "Miscellaneous". You are welcome to have a look!

Google ads
The kalmstrom.com products are of course my first priority, but as so many people find my tips and tutorials useful I would like to expand that side of the business too. One way of doing this is to allow advertisments, and we are now trying a Google ads placement on the Tips pages and in the general video tutorials.

I hope the ads will not be too disturbing. Quite the contrary, I hope visitors will find them interesting and click on them – because that is when we get paid!

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