MySites is a new feature for SharePoint 2013 and adds the social element of everything that you are doing. Many of us have gotten used to the feeling of social networking on Facebook or LinkedIn and what MySites does is bring in that feeling that the user is actually a part of the social collaboration of sites. Though at first glance MySites offer little benefit to the user experience, what I am to detail is the advantages of integrating MySites into your SharePoint platform.
One of the most annoying features when you are first getting acquainted with MySites is the idea of "Sites I'm Following", but not having any of the sites that you are working on showing up on the site. One of the ways of leveraging this option is understanding the sites that you are working with, or sites that are relevant to you.
Since I'm working at a University, many of the people that will be on the platform are department or college members who do not need to know what other departments are doing. This means that they can easily identify all of the sites that are available to them as they choose to follow different sites. Next to the "Site I'm Following" section, you have the suggested sites list. This will update periodically as you increase the influence of the sites that you are using. It is important to remember that sub-sites are unique sites from their parents, even if the URL is similar. This means that when you are deciding which sites to follow, you can choose both parent and child sites and limit the navigation which you will have to perform in getting from one to the other.
Site Contents
Using the site contents link, you are directed to a page where you are able to modify your MySite based on your preferences. The site contents page will look similar to a regular SharePoint page when you are adding an app, but with some different effects. The social icon indicates that you have items in that list, but really those include the items that you are suggested to follow. This brings up the point that you are able to follow a document, which includes the ability to track when anything has happened to a document.
Newsfeed
One of the nice features which is included in the "Newsfeed" is the ability to keep track of information which is relevant to you. Whenever someone uses information relating to you, such as your name or your title, you're informed of this and it provides a link to the page in which the action occurred.
If you're having problems with your Newsfeed, one of the solutions is to make sure that your farm administrator has the proper access to get the information that it needs. In other words, if you've seen "It's a little quiet here..." then your farm admin probably doesn't have the correct rights.
About Me
The "About me" section is where the social aspect meets SharePoint. You're able to add information which you want available to others. When you click on edit profile, you are met with different categories. The first category, basic information, allows you to edit the basics.
Blog
The blog is an interesting feature that allows you to keep your own blog apart from site collections. It relieves the servers from having to deal with a blog in two location and means that you don't have to keep information on a different site. You can have people simply come to your MySite to gain all of the necessary information.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Working Through Workflows
Before you start working with workflows, you really need to understand what you want your workflow to do. One of the sayings that I've picked up from a friend of mine is "That's possible, but not the best way." Most people generally think of SharePoint when they start using it as a tool that should be designed with all of the bells and whistles of other products that they've already used. What I've found is that those bells and whistles may not exist exclusively, but they are there if you know what where to look.
One of the important things to realize is that you need to have workflows operating in the farm level. If you find that your workflows aren't working, a quick fix could be to contact your SharePoint Administrator and ask them whether or not the workflow server is connected to the farm.
When you start building your workflow, the first thing that comes to mind is how easy it is to say out-loud what you want to do. I would recommend writing this down and working through your words. What are you assuming is common sense? The reason I say this is that what may be common sense to you doesn't make any difference for a computer. Any programmer should already know this, but it's worth reiterating.
There are some differences between workflows in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013. Therefore, if you're used to working with SharePoint 2010, you might need to make some notes when transitioning to SharePoint 2013; however, the option to create SharePoint 2010 workflows is still available in SharePoint 2013. For instance, one of the features that is not available in the SharePoint 2013 workflow is the option to authenticate as a specific user or to grant certain permissions. This is one of the features that was previously available and if your workflow requires this functionality, you will need to make a SharePoint 2010 workflow.
If you are working in SharePoint designer and you are having issues where your workflow doesn't start automatically where you added the workflow to a list and in the workflow settings checked the boxes for starting the workflow automatically, check the options in the workflow itself. One of the issues that I've found that typically occur is that the workflow settings in SharePoint designer under "Start Options" for the workflow are not checked. If these options are not checked, each time the workflow is published or appended to a list or library, these options override the changes you made in SharePoint. Make sure you have these options checked in SharePoint designer.
The basics of each workflow is that there are different stages and follows a pretty logical order. Each stage can transition to other stages that the programmer desires, or follow conditions on where to transition. These options are accessed by clicking in the transition area and typing "Go to" as the action. If you would like to add conditions, simply type "If" and the options will appear as expected. The stage list is composed of stages that you've already created including "End of Workflow". "End of Workflow" tells SharePoint to stop the workflow.
The rest of the workflow should follow the logic that you've written down. It might take some getting used to, but a little experimentation in the beginning can be useful for seeing how SharePoint workflows operate. For more information on conditions see my post here.
One of the important things to realize is that you need to have workflows operating in the farm level. If you find that your workflows aren't working, a quick fix could be to contact your SharePoint Administrator and ask them whether or not the workflow server is connected to the farm.
When you start building your workflow, the first thing that comes to mind is how easy it is to say out-loud what you want to do. I would recommend writing this down and working through your words. What are you assuming is common sense? The reason I say this is that what may be common sense to you doesn't make any difference for a computer. Any programmer should already know this, but it's worth reiterating.
There are some differences between workflows in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013. Therefore, if you're used to working with SharePoint 2010, you might need to make some notes when transitioning to SharePoint 2013; however, the option to create SharePoint 2010 workflows is still available in SharePoint 2013. For instance, one of the features that is not available in the SharePoint 2013 workflow is the option to authenticate as a specific user or to grant certain permissions. This is one of the features that was previously available and if your workflow requires this functionality, you will need to make a SharePoint 2010 workflow.
If you are working in SharePoint designer and you are having issues where your workflow doesn't start automatically where you added the workflow to a list and in the workflow settings checked the boxes for starting the workflow automatically, check the options in the workflow itself. One of the issues that I've found that typically occur is that the workflow settings in SharePoint designer under "Start Options" for the workflow are not checked. If these options are not checked, each time the workflow is published or appended to a list or library, these options override the changes you made in SharePoint. Make sure you have these options checked in SharePoint designer.
The basics of each workflow is that there are different stages and follows a pretty logical order. Each stage can transition to other stages that the programmer desires, or follow conditions on where to transition. These options are accessed by clicking in the transition area and typing "Go to" as the action. If you would like to add conditions, simply type "If" and the options will appear as expected. The stage list is composed of stages that you've already created including "End of Workflow". "End of Workflow" tells SharePoint to stop the workflow.
The rest of the workflow should follow the logic that you've written down. It might take some getting used to, but a little experimentation in the beginning can be useful for seeing how SharePoint workflows operate. For more information on conditions see my post here.
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