Here we are on Day 4 of Mindsharp's SharePoint 2010 Power End User (Beta) class, and it was another jam-packed day of information. Day 4 is about the time when most people over the age of 25 (not that I'm admitting to being in that group) start to notice a permanent hunch in their shoulders and an aching ear from that headset, so kudos to our instructor, Kay McClure, for keeping things up-beat and fresh! The well-timed breaks help out a lot, too.
SharePoint is not just Lists & Libraries
Today we started off talking about adding pages and content to our sites. Publishing Sites was not originally an "official" topic for this version of the course, but Kay caved to popular demand and was kind enough to show us the basics, as well as reference differences between Publishing and non-Publishing sites throughout the day's review of settings.
We added several different Web Parts to our pages so we could see the highlights. I think Friday the 13th struck a day early at Mindsharp training, because getting content into Web Parts did not go well and the instructor demo site decided to flip out. But rather than give up, Kay "made it work" (as Tim Gunn would say). A short break was in order so she and her on-site support, Bill, could whip things back into shape, and then we were back in business reviewing all those Web Part Properties. I found this review very helpful, particularly the discussion on Target Audiences.
Kay gave Bamboo a nice plug when we were talking about Web Parts – thanks for the shout-out, Kay!
You have the Power, Use it Wisely!
After playing with some pages and Web Parts, we moved on to Site Settings with site Look and Feel. I notice you can waste even MORE time with Site Themes, because you can now modify each individual theme component – have fun! I'm glad Kay talked about Publishing, because Publishing sites greatly expand the options you have to customize navigation in the top link bar and the Quick Launch. There are so many options it can make your eyes cross, so I was glad she demonstrated what each one did. There was an interesting Navigation option called Show and Hide Ribbon, but we couldn't figure it out during the demo – adding it to my homework list.
After lunch, Kay took the lab environment out of the mix and used a live SharePoint site to demo some of the things we've had issues with during the week due to problems with the classroom images (remember, this is a beta class). I've been impressed all week with the efforts to make sure we get answers to all our questions, something I've noticed in all the Mindsharp classes I've attended.
Next we looked at the Site Actions settings, like Manage site features, Site templates, Web analytics, and others. Then it was on to Site Administration. Here's another option that was available in SharePoint 2007 that I never knew about: Site Libraries and Lists. This is a shortcut to the Settings for all your site's lists and libraries, all in one place. Very cool! Also in Site Administration, it looks like we see an example of the new site workflow feature with two OOTB Web Analytic workflows.
As I suspected yesterday, we dove into metadata more with the Term Store Management tool. I am even more excited about metadata now. The Term Store Management tool lets you upload your organization's metadata taxonomy. Now, by adding a Managed Metadata column to your list, you can enforce metadata selection with the taxonomy instead of using Choice or Lookup columns. The taxonomy you select for the Managed Metadata column becomes available for Metadata Navigation. And if you don't want to bother adding Managed Metadata columns, simply enable Enterprise Keywords for your list: when users start typing, they will be given suggestions from the taxonomy you enter in the Term Store Management. I'm pretty sure there's even more integration with Search, so maybe I'll write a blog post on it soon…
We rounded out the day with a bonus: we took a peek at the Site Collection Administration settings, something that's probably normally reserved for the Administrator class. I won't go into it much, but I will say that the Administrator class is probably a wealth of information!
I hate to be repetitive, but Term Store Management made today's "Favorite" list. Metadata rocks!
Tomorrow is our last day of class, so be sure to come back tomorrow for the final wrap-up.