...In with the New

Microsoft have just announced that they have received Department of Defence 5051.2 certification (DoD 5051.2) for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Great huh? But what does it mean? DoD 5051.2 is a US Government standard for records management. Any records management solution used in the US Government must have this. It's also becoming a de facto standard in other industries too.

Microsoft have developed an add-on pack to provide the additional features required by the DoD 5051.2. If you want to comply with this standard you will need to run this (soon to be released) add-on pack as well. If you don't need to comply, then kick back and relax.

Read more here:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/records-management/microsoft-delivers-on-dod-50152-cert-promise-001323.php

Out with the old...

Got any servers running the Beta 2 Tech Refresh of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server? Well, the bad news is that it expired on May 15^th. The good news is that you can get information on how to upgrade to the released version here:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/3df597d0-bad0-4c73-9c26-a10bb80449881033.mspx?mfr=true

Knock, Knock...

MOSS 2007 allows users to send an e-mail to request additional access to a site. But do you know who this e-mail goes to? Or for that matter do you know where to go to configure this?

This setting is available from the Site Permissions page. To access this go to Site Actions – Site Settings – People and Groups. Now click on the Site Permissions link in the left hand panel. From this page you can select Access Requests from the Settings menu.

If you cannot see this menu item you (or your SharePoint Administrator) should check that the Outgoing Mail Server setting is configured for your environment. This is done through the Operations section of the Central Administration site.

So how does SharePoint determine what e-mail address to use by default? It's simply whoever initially created the sub-site. It can only be set for sites that do not inherit permissions.

So here's a pop quiz for you: Let's assume Bob created a sub-site called Department X along with a child site called Projects. Initially Projects inherits its security settings from Department X. Then Sue comes along and configures the Projects subsite to use unique permissions. Who do you think SharePoint will use for the Access Requests settings?

• Bob
  
• Sue
  
• No-one
  

I'll give you a hint, the answer rhymes with True.

ForeFront SharePoint TechCenter

Microsoft now have content on TechNet specifically about ForeFront and SharePoint - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/forefront/serversecurity/sharepoint/default.mspx. ForeFront is Microsoft's anti virus product. It includes 8 anti-virus engines to scan content. Up to five of these will be used during any individual scan. This ensures good coverage across a range of attacks. Seven of the engines are from external vendors - AhnLab, Authentium, CA, Kaspersky, Norman, Sophos and VIrusBuster.

There doesn't seem to be many other vendors offering SharePoint 2007 AntiVirus software just yet. McAfee and Symantec still only advertise a SharePoint 2003 product. Hopefully more vendors will step up soon. With SharePoint becoming increasingly popular as the collaboration and file storage platform, anti-virus is going to be a must-have feature.

SharePoint User Group tonight

The SharePoint Conference has been a great success. There were some really good presentations and I've enjoyed catching up with a lot of people that I haven't seen in a while. So far the most fun part has been the unicycle - pictures to follow.

Of course the real highlight is the SharePoint User Group meeting that is going to start at 5:30pm. This is going to be in Room 2 on the lower level. Andrew Connell is going to join Mike Fitz and Joel Oleson on the panel to answer your questions.

Looking forward to seeing you there

SharePoint APAC Conference Session Recommendations

Going to the SharePoint APAC Conference on Tuesday and Wednesday this week? Here are my agenda recommendations. I'm presenting the session on MOSS and Enterprise Architecture – the rest of the sessions compliment this theme. There are a lot of other great sessions on though so make sure to check out the schedule.

Tuesday

Code	Session	Room	Time
ARC01	MOSS and Enterprise Architecture	Lower Level Room 4	11:00
ARC03	Business Data Catalog and LOB	Ballroom B	13:20
ARC04	BI with Excel Services	Ballroom B	14:25
ARC05	Web Content Management Overview	Ballroom B	16:10

Wednesday

Code	Session	Room	Time
ARC10	Multilingual Portals	Lower Level Room 2	09:15
ARC06	Search Technical Drilldown	Ballroom A	11:00
ARC11	Document Management & Taxonomy	Lower Level Room 2	13:20
DEV06	Coding Compliance Components	Lower Level Room 3	14:25
Pan01	Panel Discussion with SharePoint Experts	Ballroom B	16:10
SUG01	Sydney SharePoint User Group	Room 2	17:30

Technorati tag: SPCAPAC

Presenting at the SharePoint APAC Conference

I've just finished a round of presentations on SharePoint Enterprise Search. Next week I'm off to the SharePoint APAC conference in Sydney to give another presentation. The topic is "How much can MOSS replace your Enterprise Architecture?"

If you are around, do drop by and say Hi. When not presenting I'll be at the Unique World stand. Don't worry – you won't be able to miss the stand.

Find out more about the conference at http://www.microsoftsharepoint.com

All Joost Up

I've managed to get myself a Joost invite. This is the future of TV. I've been interested in the convergence of TV and PC technology for some time, and Joost looks like the best combination I've seen to date. It took me about 2 minutes to get this up and running, and my initial experience is positive. The picture quality isn't great, and I've been disconnected once or twice from the shows that I was watching, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun.

I don't have any invites yet, but as soon as I do I'll pass them around. It looks like Joost may be days away from launching, so that mightn't even matter soon.

Update: I can send invites now, so if you want one, just drop a comment with your e-mail address