The document outlines ten underutilized features of SharePoint that can enhance productivity and collaboration. Key features include Document Sets for managing multiple related documents as a single item, unique Document IDs for stable references, and Organizational Charts for visualizing team structures. Additionally, it discusses functionalities like Conditional Routing for content organization, Asset Libraries for managing digital media, and the integration of aggregate calendars with Outlook to streamline scheduling.

1. The 10 Best SharePoint Features
You've Never Used (But Should)
Christian Buckley, Axceler
cbuck@axceler.com
@buckleyPLANET
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cbuck@axceler.com cbuck@echotechnology.com @buckleyplanet
425.246.2823 425.246.2823 @buckleyplanet http://buckleyplanet.net
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2. About
Christian Buckley, Director of Product Evangelism at Axceler
• Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server
• Most recently at Microsoft, part of the Microsoft Managed Services team
(now Office365-Dedicated) and then Advertising Operations
• Prior to Microsoft, was a senior consultant, working in the software, supply
chain, and grid technology spaces focusing on collaboration
• Co-founded and sold a collaboration software company to Rational
Software. At another startup (E2open), helped design, build, and deploy a
SharePoint-like collaboration platform (Collaboration Manager), onboarding
numerous high-tech manufacturing companies, including Hitachi,
Matsushita (Panasonic), and Seagate
• Co-authored „Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing
Real-World Projects‟ link (MS Press, March 2012) and 3 books on software
configuration management.
• Twitter: @buckleyplanet Blog: buckleyplanet.com Email: cbuck@axceler.com

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Tackle 10 common business problems with proven
SharePoint solutions
• Set up a help desk solution to track service requests
• Build a modest project management system
• Design a scheduling system to manage resources
• Create a site to support geographically dispersed teams
• Implement a course registration system
• Build a learning center with training classes and
resources
• Design a team blog platform to review content
• Create a process to coordinate RFP responses
• Set up a FAQ system to help users find answers quickly
• Implement a cost-effective contact management system

4. Axceler Overview
Improving Collaboration since 2007
Mission: To enable enterprises to simplify, optimize, and
secure their collaborative platforms
Delivered award-winning administration and migration
software since 1994, for SharePoint since 2007
Over 2,000 global customers
Dramatically improve the management
of SharePoint
Innovative products that improve security, scalability,
reliability, “deployability”
Making IT more effective and efficient and lower the total
cost of ownership
Focus on solving specific SharePoint problems
(Administration & Migration)
Coach enterprises on SharePoint best practices
Give administrators the most innovative tools available
Anticipate customers‟ needs
Deliver best of breed offerings
Stay in lock step with SharePoint development and market trends

6. What’s New in SharePoint 2010
• Administration upgrades
• Social tools
• Content Management capability
• Office web applications
• Search functionality
• Solution Development

7. • Administration
• PowerShell offers more than 550 cmdlets through
the SharePoint Administration shell allowing Admins
to script deployment and administration tasks.
• Health Assessment is a rules engine introduced in
MOSS 2007 has been further integrated into the
platform, alerting Admins to configuration issues
and suggesting best practices.
• Web Analytics provides usage analysis and
diagnostic logging features to consolidate event
logs, performance data, and usage analysis into a
single reporting database against which Admins can
build their own reports.
• Sandbox Solutions can be executed in the context of
a User Code Service that provide Admins the ability
to monitor and meter solution resource consumption
to protect the farm from misbehaving code.
Outline by Chris Beckett at blog.SharePointBits.com http://bit.ly/IifjZu

8. Social Networking
Noteboard is a micro-blog
where users can post short
notes on MySites and
aggregate the notes of
colleagues they are following.
Social Tagging allows end
users to provide context to
content through use of “I Like
It”, comments, ratings and
keyword tagging.

9. • Social Networking
• Blogs got a major facelift, including the addition of comments, ratings,
and the ability to present calendar-based archives of older posts.

10. Social Networking
Enterprise Wiki is a new repository site template that adds a number
of features to the standard Wiki page including the ability to insert
reusable content blocks, and customized page layouts.

11. • Enterprise Content Management
• Wiki Editing is now the default page editing experience for
SharePoint 2010, providing an easy to use, rich-text experience.
• Content Lifecycle Policies have undergone a major enhancement,
allowing multi-phased retention and expiration policies to be defined
for a site, content type or list. The out-of-box actions list now
supports many additional options (beyond just delete) that includes
moving, copying, making a record, and custom workflows.
• Validation Rules can now be defined on fields and are applied at the
object model, not the user interface level. Items created through
code, script or the user interface can now have multi-field validation
applied consistently.
• Default Values are self describing and provide the ability to define
intelligent default values on content items. Default values can also be
location-aware, allowing default values to be defined down to the
folder level.

12. Enterprise Search
Faceted Search provides refiners that
allow users to add additional filters to
search results, configured based on
metadata, user context, location, and
time periods.
People Search Results have been
improved, with results now appearing in
a business card format.

13. • Office Web Applications are finally available, with the Microsoft Office
suite now offered as web-based extensions, allowing multi-user
authoring and real-time collaboration.
• Microsoft is positioning Office Web applications as an extension to the
desktop experience, not a replacement, and the Office Web Applications
CALs are included as part of a Microsoft Office desktop license.

14. • Solutions Development
• Client Object Model (OM) is a subset of the SharePoint object model extended to client runtime
environments including JavaScript, .NET and Silverlight variations. The Client OM provides unified and
simpler access to SharePoint content.
• Visual Studio 2010 Templates for just about every type of SharePoint custom artifact, the ability to
develop visual web parts based on User Controls, and native support for solution
packaging, deployment and debugging.
• Silverlight Web Part that now natively supports Silverlight applications, including the ability to save
Silverlight XAP applications as content in document libraries and render them in a Web Part.
• RESTful Data Services for accessing SharePoint content items, and the ability to develop custom
RESTful services based on ADO.NET Data Services and future support for WCF Data Services. The
REST-based API includes support for returning results in both AtomPub and JSON formats.
• InfoPath Forms are now natively integrated into the Ribbon UI for Lists and Libraries allowing
custom list views to be easily created and publishing from InfoPath. The improved InfoPath Web Part
now supports connections allowing InfoPath forms to consume and provide data to other Web
Parts, and InfoPath now supports sand-boxed code-behind without requiring the form to be
Administrator-approved.
• Access Web Applications are a new capability in Access 2010 to create and publish browser-based
Access applications that deploy as SharePoint site templates, and use native SharePoint lists for data
storage. Applications can include custom forms, navigation and reports and can include custom
scripts for data validation and application commands, actions and events.

15. Ok, now it’s time for
The 10 Best SharePoint Features
You've Never Used (But Should)

16. 1. Document Sets
What are they?
• Document Sets are like folders that contain multiple
documents or files, allowing you to apply metadata
and rules to the set of documents, as well as to each
individual item inside.
• Think of a Document Set as a Bill of Materials.
• They enable an organization to manage a single
deliverable, or work product, rather than needing to
juggle several separate documents or files.

17. • Document Set authors can:
• Create new multi-document work products
quickly and easily by using the New
Document command in a document library.
• Capture a version history snapshot of the
current properties and documents within
the Document Set.
• Start workflows on the entire document
set or individual items within the
Document Set to manage common tasks
such as review and approval.
• E-mail a link to the Document Set.
• Use the Send To command to move or
copy the Document Set to another location
(the destination must be configured within
Central Administration).
• Manage permissions for the Document Set.

18. 2. Document IDs
What are they?
• A document ID is a unique identifier for a document or document set and
a static URL that opens the document or document set associated with
the document ID, regardless of the location of the document.
• Provide a consistent way to reference items such as documents and document
sets in SharePoint where URLs can break if the location of the item changes.
• Creates a static URL for each content item with a document ID assigned to it.
• Allows you to move documents or document sets at different points in the
document life cycle. For example, if you create a document on a MySite or
Workspace page and then publish it on a team site, the document ID persists
and travels with the document, circumventing the broken URL problem.
• Allows you to customize the format of the IDs that the service generate via the
document management API, enabling custom document ID providers.

19. Document IDs must be activated as a Site
Collection feature, and then enabled

20. • You can configure some setting by going to Site Collection Settings >> Mange Document ID’s
• To view it in a
library, simply modify
the view and include the
attribute.

21. • You can view all of your Document IDs as a column
• If you right click on the Document ID and
select Properties, you can see the URL.
Note that it is not an explicit path to the
library – instead, it goes to the document
ID Redirector, which finds the document
wherever it has been moved.

22. • You can use the document ID Redirector in the DocCenter to find the document
Note that for existing documents some action has to be taken on the document to cause a
Document ID to be generated (like check-in/check-out.) Any new documents will have a
Document ID generated on upload... Or you can go into Site Collection Administrator and force a
timer job to stamp all the documents.
Additionally, Document ID’s are indexed so you can search on the property DocID

23. • Another way to find the Document ID is in View Properties

24. 3. Organizational Charts
What are they?
• Organizational Charts are a new Silverlight control available
through MySites.
• Provide a sleek new UI for team profiles.
• Highlight the need to build out your user profiles (whether or
not you enable the full capabilities of MySites)

25. • For organizations that have their end users complete their user
profiles, the organizational charts can be very helpful. They are
found on the tabs on your MySite

26. • The Silverlight control
makes the traditional org
chart visual and simple, with
management chain
above, peers on the
side, and direct reports
below, allowing end users to
quickly identify contacts
within an organization and
better understand
relationships.

27. 4. Promoting terms
to your taxonomy
What is this?
• As end users add tags / metadata to content, there is a need for proactive
governance of the metadata, promoting terms into the managed taxonomy.
Feature
Create or delete term sets
Add, modify or delete terms
Arrange terms in hierarchies
Define synonyms
Import terms
Promote managed keywords into managed terms
Create multi-lingual taxonomies

28. • Groups represent defined security boundaries in terms of taxonomy governance.
Multiple groups may be created within a Managed Metadata Service, with each
Group having multiple Terms Sets. Management (create, edit, delete) of Group
properties takes place here.
• One or more Term Sets (up to 1,000) are defined as part of a Group. Term Sets can be
created manually or imported through the interface. Management (create, edit,
delete) of Term Set properties, including Term hierarchy, takes place here.

29. • Individual words or phrases are added to a Term Set with governance and proactive
management (create, copy, reuse, merge, deprecate, move or delete)

30. A copy of the term will be created within the original term set.
Copy the term The new term will be named Copy of <original term name>. No child terms for the source term will
be copied.
Adds the reused term underneath the selected term in the tree view pane.
Reuse a term
You must have Contributor rights for the group for any term you want to reuse.
The selected term, as well as any of its synonyms and translations, will be merged into the selected
target term.
The original IDs of each term are preserved so that tags that used the old term IDs still work for
search (old IDs will not be available for new tagging).
Merge a term with another
Content tagged with the merged term will not be updated, but it will be returned in searches for the
term that is the merge target.
Terms can be merged only if they are siblings in the hierarchy in all term sets in which they both exist.
To merge terms, you must have contributor rights to the groups for both terms.
This action makes any instances of this term in any term set to which it belongs unavailable for
tagging. Any child terms of the term are not deprecated.
Deprecate a term
To make the term available for use again, point to it, click the arrow that appears, and click Enable
Term.
Move a term Moves the selected term, and any child terms for that term, to the selected target location.
Deletes the term and any child terms below it. If this term is a source term for terms that are reused
in other locations, it will be placed in the Orphaned Terms term set in the System group.
Delete a term
If the term is a unique term (not reused in other locations), the term is completely deleted.
If the term is a reused term, it removes the term from the current term set.

31. 5. “Ask me about” feature
(user profile property)
What is it?
• On your MySite, the overview tab includes an “Ask Me About” web part that helps
users in your organization find answers from people with the right answers. It’s a
simple feature, but extremely effective at exposing skills and interests in a readily
consumable format.
• You can build your skills and interests from available keywords already stored in
SharePoint or create new ones that are immediately available in the keyword
store, such as industries, internal project names, or technical capabilities to help
end users identify skill matches.
• Once added, these terms are displayed on the overview tab, where you can click
each one to find other users with similar traits.

33. 6. Conditional routing
What is this?
• SharePoint Server 2010 introduced metadata routing and storage by using
Content Organizer. Content Organizer builds upon document routing
features that were introduced in the Records Center site template in
SharePoint 2007.
• With Content Organizer, new site level features make it easier for
administrators and users to classify, route, and store content by using rules
based on metadata.
• Instead of directly uploading a document to a library or folder, users can
save, route, and automatically apply rules to a document.

34. • To do some basic routing, you need to ensure
the feature has been turned on.
• Once activated, you'll see that the Site
Administration section (in the Site Settings
page) has a link for Content Organizer Settings
and one for Content Organizer Rules.

35. • When you go back to the site, you'll also notice that a 'Drop Off Library' has been
created. This is your document's point of entry. Once a document is placed in this
Drop Off Library, the document will be checked against your rule and routed to its
final destination

36. • In order to route the
document, you’ll need to create
your rule. Go to Site Actions > Site
Settings. Under the Site
Administration section, click on the
Content Organizer Rules link. You
will see a blank list.
• Click the Add New Item link and a
form will appear. Give your rule a
name, select the content type that
the rule will apply to, select the
destination, and set the conditions –
such as routing a document based
on a value in a field, selecting the
column from the dropdown
provided and enter in the criteria.

38. 7. Asset library
What is this?
• A digital asset is an image, audio, or video file, or other reusable rich content
fragment that an organization uses in applications across the enterprise. The asset
library in SharePoint Server 2010 enables users to easily create, discover and reuse
existing digital assets within the organization.
• In SharePoint Server 2010 you use an asset library to store and share digital assets
with users. The asset library is a SharePoint Server 2010 library template that is
customized to use content types designed specifically for storing and cataloging
rich media assets.

39. An effective solution for managing digital assets specifies:
• The metadata to provide for each type of asset.
• The amount of storage space that is required for the assets.
• The performance issues to consider for serving the assets to users.
• Where to store assets at each stage of the life cycle.
• How to control access to an asset at each stage of its life cycle.
• How to move assets within the organization as team members
contribute to creation, review, approval, publication, and disposition
of assets.
• The policies to apply so that asset-related actions are audited, retained
or disposed of correctly, and protected as necessary.
• How assets are treated as corporate records, which must be retained
according to requirements and corporate guidelines.

40. • From the Create page, simply select Library and
then Asset Library. Give it a name and click Create

41. • Assets are presented visually,
making them searchable by
metadata, asset type, and other
attributes.
• Assets can be previewed

42. 8. Aggregated calendar
(with Outlook sync)
What is this?
• Teams can keep multiple calendars in sync by creating
layers, allowing end users to see color-
coded, overlapping activities.
• Users can then sync calendars to Outlook, comparing
their personal calendar side-by-side.

43. • Within a site, edit the Group Calendar by changing
the color of each entry.

44. • Go to the target calendar where you want to
provide the aggregated view, and within the
ribbon, select Create Calendar Layer. You will be
able to select each calendar view by URL.

45. • These aggregate views must be recreated for each
location in which you want the multiple views

46. • You can also link to Outlook from within the context
menu by selecting the option on the ribbon.

47. 9. Personal views
What are they?
• Personal views allow you to easily find content that you use regularly. When you
leave a page after sorting and filtering content, you lose all of your settings.
• By creating a personal view (with the right permissions), you can organize your
content the way you want to view it each time you visit the site.
• When you create a view, you can configure the audience for the view to be
personal or public. A personal view is available only to you when you look at the
list or library. A public view is available when anyone looks at the list or library.
• If you do not have permissions to create public views, the option to create one is
grayed out, and you are able to choose only to create a personal view.

48. • Create and modify your view by adding, removing, and sorting columns
from an existing view and use it as your baseline.

49. • You cannot change a personal view to a public view or a public view to a
personal view. You can use a public view as the starting point for personal or
public views. You can use a personal view as the starting point only for
personal views.
• When you create a view, if Create View is disabled you do not have the
necessary permissions to create a personal or public view. If the Create a
Public View option is disabled you do not have the necessary permissions to
create a public view.
• To create a personal view, you must have the contribute permission level for
the list or library, such as by being member of the default site name Member
group. To create a public view, you must have the design permission level for
the list or library, such as by being member of the default Designer
SharePoint group for the site.

50. 10. Meeting workspaces
What are they?
• SharePoint workspaces provide direct bi-directional synchronization of
library and list content between a SharePoint site and a workspace on an
individual client computer.
• Creation of a SharePoint workspace enables individual SharePoint users to
check out and check in SharePoint library documents from their local
computers, bring SharePoint documents and lists to their computers
where they can work online or offline, and synchronize local content with
a SharePoint site.

51. • A Meeting Workspace is
created by selecting the
option on a new calendar
items, allowing members
of the event team to
share documents and
assets for the purpose of
organizing the event, and
is a great way to focus
collaboration.

52. • If your meeting materials — such as agendas, related
documents, objectives, and tasks — are often scattered, a
Meeting Workspace site can help you keep them all in one place.

53. • The Meeting Workspace template is simple but effective in
keeping your event content organized. At the end of an event,
content can be saved off / archived to another location, and the
workspace and unnecessary content deleted.

54. Get the most out of OOTB
• Before you spend any time on customizing SharePoint,
understand what is possible out-of-the-box
• If you’re worried about “learning” on your primary
(production) system, look into test / temporary
environments from Fpweb or CloudShare

55. Questions?

56. Contact me
Christian Buckley
cbuck@axceler.com
+1 425-246-2823
@buckleyPLANET
buckleyPLANET.com