Working with SharePoint 2010 Foundation Master Pages

By John Lukosky

The master pages SharePoint 2010 utilizes are features from ASP.NET 2.0. They provide the ability to lay out the framework of a rendered page separate from the page containing the content. While master page customizations were an essential feature in the previous version of SharePoint as well, there have been many notable and important changes from 2007 to 2010. This article attempts to:

• Consolidate some of the basics of working with SharePoint 2010 master pages
• Highlight some of the changes between the previous version and the new version 
• Provide insight into some of the more common and useful customizations

Types of SharePoint 2010 Master Pages

 This section was largely derived from Quick Overview of Master Pages in SharePoint 2010 by Corey Roth

v4.master

Default team site master page. Provides ribbon bar and other UI changes.

Characteristics

·         Site actions are updated for 2010 and appear on left.
·         Ribbon bar is available

default.master

Sites upgraded from SharePoint 2007 use this unless they are changed to use a v4 version.

Characteristics
·         Site actions on right side and are same as SharePoint 2007 version
·         No ribbon bar.

minimal.master
Master page contains almost nothing. It is used by the Search Center and Office Web Applications. This master should not be confused with minimal master pages from 2007 which were trimmed down custom master pages developed by users. The minimal.master is now an out-of-the box master page. These trimmed-down custom master pages are commonly referred to as Starter Master Pages in SharePoint 2010.

Characteristics of minimal.master
No navigation included

Starter Master Pages
Commonly referred to as “minimal master pages” in SharePoint 2007, these quick start pages are created by developers to better enhance their ability to quickly create and customize a functional master.

Sources for Starter Master Pages
Starter Master Pages for SharePoint 2010 by Randy Drisgrill

simple.master
This master is used by login and error pages. To customize these pages, a replacement page must be created and stored in the _layouts directory on the server. For more information see Default Master Pages in SharePoint  on MSDN.

Pages using simple.master
·         Login.aspx
·         SignOut.aspx
·         Error.aspx
·         ReqAcc.aspx
·         Confirmation.aspx
·         WebDeleted.aspx
·         AccessDenied.aspx

Other Master Pages
Other miscellaneous master pages are generally not manipulated when branding a site.

 These include:

·         application.master
·         applicationv4.master
·         dialog.master
·         layouts.master
·         layoutsv3.master
·         pickerdialog.master
·         rtedialog.master
·         simple.master
·         simplev4.master
·         mwsdefault.master
·         mwsdefaultv4.master
·         admin.master
·         popup.master

Upgrading a Master Page to a SharePoint 2010 Master Page

This section draws from the MSDN article at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee539981.aspx.

Many of the commands previously found in menus and toolbars now exist inside of the Ribbon. As a result, if the existing master page does not contain the Ribbon, many commands will be unavailable.

Controls on the Server Ribbon

These controls have been relocated into the Ribbon in SharePoint 2010:

·         Publishing Console - <PublishingConsole:Console>
·         Site Actions Menu -<PublishingSiteAction:SiteActionMenu>
·         Sign-in and Log-in Control (if using a custom login, it can be moved into the Ribbon).

Required Content Placeholders

Placeholder Control	Description	New
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderQuickLaunchTop" runat="server">	Top of the Quick Launch menu.	Yes
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderQuickLaunchBottom" runat="server">	Bottom of the Quick Launch menu.	Yes
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server"/>	Title of the site.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead" runat="server"/>	Placeholder in the head section of the page used to add extra components such as ECMAScript (JavaScript, JScript) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to the page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderBodyAreaClass" runat="server"/>	The class of the body area.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="SPNavigation" runat="server">	Control used for additional page editing controls.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderSiteName" runat="server">	Name of the site where the current page resides.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderPageTitleInTitleArea" runat="server" />	Title of the page, which appears in the title area on the page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderPageDescription" runat="server"/>	Description of the current page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderSearchArea" runat="server">	Section of the page for the search controls.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderGlobalNavigation" runat="server">	Breadcrumb control on the page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb" runat="server">	Breadcrumb text for the breadcrumb control.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderGlobalNavigationSiteMap" runat="server">	List of subsites and sibling sites in the global navigation on the page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTopNavBar" runat="server">	Container used to hold the top navigation bar.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderHorizontalNav" runat="server">	The navigation menu that is inside the top navigation bar.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderLeftNavBarDataSource" runat="server" />	The placement of the data source used to populate the left navigation bar.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderCalendarNavigator" runat="server" />	Date picker used when a calendar is visible on the page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderLeftNavBarTop" runat="server"/>	Top section of the left navigation bar.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" runat="server">	Quick Launch bar.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderLeftActions" runat="server">	Additional objects above the Quick Launch bar.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server">	Main content of the page.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderFormDigest" runat="server">	Container where the page form digest control is stored.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderUtilityContent" runat="server"/>	Additional content at the bottom of the page. This is outside of the form tag.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTitleAreaClass" runat="server"/>	The class for the title area (now in the head tag). Customizations that add a WebPartZone in a content tag to this placeholder will cause an error.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderPageImage" runat="server"/>	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTitleLeftBorder" runat="server">	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderMiniConsole" runat="server"/>	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTitleRightMargin" runat="server"/>	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTitleAreaSeparator" runat="server"/>	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderNavSpacer" runat="server">	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderLeftNavBarBorder" runat="server">	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderBodyLeftBorder" runat="server">	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderBodyRightMargin" runat="server">	Not part of the UI, present for backward compatibility.	No

 

Add the Server Ribbon
The Ribbon is a new addition to the UI. SPRibbonPeripheralContent controls render in this area but can be moved outside of the Ribbon if desired.

Steps
Copy and paste the following into your master page.

<div id="s4-ribbonrow" class="s4-pr s4-ribbonrowhidetitle">
  <div id="s4-ribboncont">
    <SharePoint:SPRibbon runat="server" PlaceholderElementId="RibbonContainer" CssFile="">
      <SharePoint:SPRibbonPeripheralContent runat="server" Location="TabRowLeft" CssClass="ms-siteactionscontainer s4-notdlg">

     <%-- Insert the Site Actions Menu Here --%>
     </SharePoint:SPRibbonPeripheralContent>
     <%-- Insert the Global Navigation Here --%>
     <SharePoint:SPRibbonPeripheralContent runat="server" Location="TabRowRight" ID="RibbonTabRowRight" CssClass="s4-trc-container s4-notdlg">

     <%-- Insert the Top-Right Corner Controls Here --%>
     </SharePoint:SPRibbonPeripheralContent>
    </SharePoint:SPRibbon>
  </div>
  <div id="notificationArea" class="s4-noti">

    <%-- Notifications will appear in this div element. --%>
  </div>
  <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="SPNavigation" runat="server">
    <SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server" ControlId="PublishingConsole">
    </SharePoint:DelegateControl>
  </asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
  <div id="WebPartAdderUpdatePanelContainer">
    <asp:UpdatePanel ID="WebPartAdderUpdatePanel" UpdateMode="Conditional" ChildrenAsTriggers="false” runat="server">
       <ContentTemplate>
          <WebPartPages:WebPartAdder ID="WebPartAdder" runat="server" />
        </ContentTemplate>
        <Triggers>
          <asp:PostBackTrigger ControlID="WebPartAdder" />
        </Triggers>
    </asp:UpdatePanel>
  </div>
</div>

 

Maintain the Position of the Server Ribbon While Scrolling

Make the following changes to your master page to keep the Ribbon from scrolling with the content.

1.        Move the content of your site inside the following div elements.

<div id="s4-workspace">
  <div id="s4-bodyContainer">
    Content
  </div>
</div>

If your page is fixed width, add the class s4-nosetwidth to the s4-workspace div

Example
<div ID="s4-workspace" class="s4-nosetwidth">

2.        Move the title area of your site into a div element with the following ID.

<div id="s4-titlerow">
  Title Area
</div>

3.        Update the body tag and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) rule to not scroll. The body tag and rule would look similar to the following.

<body scroll="no" ...>
  Body Content
</body>

 

Add Controls to the Master Page

 There are a set of controls that are required for SharePoint to function: SPPageManager, ScriptManager, and ScriptLink controls.

Add these controls to your master page
1.        Open your master page file.
2.        Copy and paste the following code to add the ScriptManager control to the page. This must be within the form tag but before the Ribbon.

<asp:ScriptManager id="ScriptManager" runat="server" EnablePageMethods="false" EnablePartialRendering="true" EnableScriptGlobalization="false" EnableScriptLocalization="true" />

3.        Copy and paste the following code to add the SPPageManager control to the page. This must be within the head tag.

<SharePoint:SPPageManager runat="server" />

4.        Copy and paste the following code to add the ScriptLink control to the page. This must be within the head tag.

<SharePoint:ScriptLink defer= "true" runat="server"/>

5.        Save your master page file.

Prevent Areas from Appearing in Modal Windows

To keep divs or other defined blocks of your master page from appearing in modal windows (those popups that appear when adding documents, viewing document properties, etc), add the class “s4-notdlg”.

This problem should only occur in the following circumstances:

1.        Site uses a custom system master page (often the same master used by the publishing pages).
2.        Custom master has omitted s4-notdlg from the class tag of areas to hide in modal windows.

 

Examples

The following area will appear in modal windows:

<div class=”cccontent”>
<!—your content à
</div>

Adding s4-notdlg to the class will prevent this

<div class=”cccontent”>
<!—your content à
</div>

 

Add a Content Placeholder to use Web Part in Master Page Area

Although you cannot insert a web part in a master page, a custom (empty) contentplaceholderid can be created which can then be utilized by page layouts to insert the part.

Steps in SharePoint Designer 2010

1.  Add a uniquely named content placeholder in your custom master page
example:
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderCopyright" runat="server"/>

2.        Within a page layout insert custom content for the placeholder
<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderCopyright" runat="server"></asp:Content>

3.        Insert a web part using designer into the newly created area. If the same part is to appear across all pages using the layout, do not use a web part zone, simply insert the part directly into the area.

Suggested Resources

Blogs, Posts, and other helpful resources

• Quick Overview of Master Pages in SharePoint 2010 by Corey Roth
• Starter Master Pages for SharePoint 2010 by Randy Drisgrill
• Randy Drisgill SharePoint Branding Blog
• Default Master Pages in SharePoint Foundation on MSDN
• Upgrading a Master Page to a SharePoint 2010 Foundation Master Page on MSDN
• Branding SharePoint – A blog in the life of a SharePoint graphic Designer
• Heather Solomon (if you haven’t bookmarked her site already, I’d be surprised.)
• Erik Swenson’s SharePoint Branding & Design Blog
• Erik Swenson’s Guide to SharePoint 2010 Base CSS Classes (this deserves its own bookmark)
• Chris Obrien’s Customizing the ribbon

 Forums and Communities

• SharePoint 2010 – Using SharePoint Designer, InfoPath, and Other customization forum

 

Leveraging SharePoint for HR: Free Workshop & Demo July 20th

Look here to read the AIIM Study about SharePoint Strategy.

My co-presenter Ken Efta has written a synopsis of the study for the EndUserSharePoint Blog.

Register now. Space is limited.

I hope to see you there.

SharePoint ROI: Building a SharePoint Business Case

One of the most common conversations around SharePoint, and other enterprise collaboration technologies, centers on ROI.  How do you build a business case to justify the value of making an investment in SharePoint?   Although this question will no doubt continue to be discussed and debated for years to come, the AIIM 2010 SharePoint report, sheds some positive light on SharePoint ROI, with 68% of organizations that have implemented SharePoint experiencing expected, or better than expected, returns on investment.

Figure 24: AIIM 2010 SharePoint Report

The above information helps support the “hard ROI” conversation, but what about SharePoint’s “soft ROI”?  What “softer” (indirect) benefits and value will an organization experience when implementing SharePoint and what should be emphasized when building a SharePoint business case?  The AIIM SharePoint report found that the two most common benefits emphasized in SharePoint business cases were Improved Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing, with Better Management of Content Chaos & Productivity form Improved Business Processes coming in third and fourth, respectively.

Figure 23: AIIM 2010 SharePoint Report

It’s interesting to note that Improved Communications with Outside Partners/Customers/Regulators ranked last, indicating a lack of focus on using SharePoint as an external facing tool to date.  As SharePoint 2010 puts more emphasis on the use of SharePoint for internet (.com) purposes, it will be interesting to see how / if this prioritization changes.  (on a side note, I’d like to point out that Allyis’  public website, www.allyis.com site was developed on SharePoint 2007 and we plan to migrate to SharePoint 2010 ASAP! )

If you’re in the process of building a SharePoint business case, the AIIM 2010 SharePoint report provides great perspectives, data and information you can leverage to sell SharePoint within your organization.   Also, you might be interested in checking out some of the many blog posts that Ethan Yarbrough has posted on the topic of enterprise social computing and collaboration ROI.

Top 5 SharePoint Uses

SharePoint functionality is wide and diverse and not all of its uses, bells & whistles will be relevant to every organization.  According to the most recent 2010 AIIM SharePoint report, underwritten by Allyis, many companies surveyed already have solutions in place for areas SharePoint supports, such as Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management systems and the presence of such incumbent systems influences what aspects of SharePoint functionality that are used and how organizations plan to strategically integrate SharePoint moving forward.  All that being said, the SharePoint report found that the Top 5 current & planned uses of SharePoint in organizations were for:

1. Collaboration
2. Document Management
3. File-share
4. Portals & Intranets
5. Social E2.0 Tool

And, as you can see in the following report chart … search, BPM, employee profiles, forms management and several other applications are not far off in their importance when it comes to SharePoint usage either.

 

Figure 8: AIIM 2010 SharePoint Report

Obviously, prioritization of these SharePoint uses will vary from company to company. If you’re currently using SharePoint, what are your Top 5 Uses?  Do they map to the functional areas AIIM surveyed for in the report?

Organizations Not Developing SharePoint Strategy before Implementing SharePoint

The newly released, AIIM 2010 SharePoint report, underwritten by Allyis, shows that one third of organizations implementing SharePoint have no plans on how or where (or where not) to use SharePoint, clearly indicating a lack of upfront strategic direction and planning in many SharePoint implementations.

Figure 12: AIIM 2010 SharePoint Report

 This information, coupled with 23% of respondents claiming SharePoint implementations have been implemented by individual departments without overarching coordination and another 26% saying their SharePoint implementations have been driven by IT, with little information management input, begs the question “Why is there such a lack of strategic business oversight and alignment in SharePoint strategy, planning and implementation?”  The business issues organizations are attempting to address through SharePoint are more than likely spread across multiple lines-of-business, and so too, should be the planning and strategy for its implementation and use.

Employee Onboarding with SharePoint

By - Ethan Yarbrough and Ken Efta 

Companies with an existing investment in SharePoint often miss opportunities to maximize their return on that investment when they think too narrowly about where and how the platform can be applied in their organizations.

SharePoint is far more than the polished document library it often gets reduced to. Applied creatively, it can streamline cumbersome paper-heavy, manual administrative processes and free key company personnel from the role of paper-herders to become more critical strategic contributors.

The typical corporate HR department is a perfect place to consider the potential impact of an intelligent, strategic SharePoint installation.

Consider the weight of paper present in just one aspect of the HR department's role: new employee onboarding. Many HR departments still struggle with a document-heavy, manual distribution and collection system when it comes to critical employee onboarding forms and records. A University of Michigan study found that only 40 percent of companies they surveyed in 2008 had technology in place to automate such processes.  The same study reported an average of 30 steps in the typical employee onboarding; an average of 14 separate systems and logins used; 45 days to get the employee fully enrolled and productive; and an average of eight percent of compliance paperwork that is never collected.

The HR department needs to be freed up to do more strategic things than manage forms in the early stages of the employee lifecycle such as facilitating connection to the company and relationships within the company for the new employee.  Such drawn out and inefficient onboarding processes are more than a mere hassle for companies. They have a direct negative impact on the company's long term success and profitability. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that 80 percent of new hires decide within the first six months of employment whether they will stay with a company long term and a 2009 Salary.com survey found that the number one factor influencing employees' decisions to stay is whether they have good relationships at work.

Given the high cost of employee turnover and recruiting new talent, it is critical that companies begin, as early as possible with an employee, to facilitate satisfaction with the company as well as a substantive connection to peers, both of which become bases of the employee's decision to stay with the company. This is strategic HR.

Companies with an existing investment in SharePoint can support HR's shift from administrative to strategic involvement with new employees first by leveraging the platform's information management capabilities in four areas that can be of critical value to an HR department trying to move beyond paper processes:

• Collection of information in an electronic format: the company needs systems that efficiently and securely collect all critical employee information in digital form for storage in a database. SharePoint's Web-based and InfoPath data capture capabilities make it possible to allow current (and even prospective) employees to enter information directly into forms consolidating key employee information within SharePoint.
  
• Consolidation and discoverability of information: you collect the information because you need to access it during the employee's tenure. You can't access it if you can't find it, though, and you can't trust what you find if you can't be sure it's the definitive version from the definitive source. SharePoint 2010 offers a Content Organizer feature that allows a user to upload documents into a single "Drop Off" Library. These documents are then routed to their final destination libraries according to business rules that evaluate the information provided by the user. Users don't have to worry about knowing the correct library on the site into which they'll upload their documents-Content Organizer does the work for them. And if a document is not able to be routed properly, a periodic notification is sent to an administrator.
  
• Management of information through defined processes: Different people and different departments need to use the information collected in different ways and at different times. SharePoint supports workflows to allow HR departments to assign onboarding tasks and route documents to the right people at the right time. Workflows can also be configured to ensure that all steps in the onboarding process are completed in order and at the right time, that the new employee has acknowledged policy statements, and to ensure that steps in the process are less likely to be skipped.
  
• Auditing: Knowing, at any moment, what hasn't been collected from an employee or what information now needs to be changed. With SharePoint a user may be sent a notification as part of a mandatory step in a workflow and may also choose to opt-in for notifications when certain information changes. In the case where an HR manager needs to understand how and why certain employee information changed, SharePoint offers solid auditing capabilities to trace how employee records have evolved over time.

When integrated with specialized employee management software SharePoint can become a vital presentation layer, making the information in the specialized tools accessible in multiple configurations and contexts company wide.

But SharePoint can be utilized in employee onboarding for more than just information management. Given the social computing capabilities of SharePoint - most notably SharePoint 2010 - the opportunity exists to begin facilitating crucial relationships and information sharing by connecting the new hire to communities of new peers within the company even before day one.

If you're using SharePoint to collect new employee information electronically, extend that effort to let the newly hired employee build their employee profile page before day one. If the system is configured to suggest "friend" connections based on profile similarities, you can empower your new employee with an active personal network even before their first day.  They will walk through the door not as a stranger that other employees may or may not eventually come to know, but as a peer whose interests, experience and expertise is already known to the team.

It is not always within the authority of the HR department to dictate enterprise software decisions. However, in organizations where the decision has already been made to invest in SharePoint, HR has an opportunity to influence some of the utilization decisions toward tools that, through the improved employee satisfaction and retention they can yield, can improve the company's return on its software, recruiting and training investments and, thus, improve its bottom line.

Free Webinar Will Show Value of Social Networking on Your Intranet

Hey, remember a few posts ago when I set off a passionate debate about email? I said "I hate email" and advocated for enterprise social networking on our SharePoint intranet as one way to replace it.

To me the evidence is clear: increasing employees' connections with each other is good for the company in a lot of measurable ways. It increases productivity. It improves innovation because it helps employees connect with a more diverse set of peers. It makes relevant information easier to find. It can decrease turnover by improving relationships and it can lower the cost of employee onboarding and training.

But now you don't have to take my word for it. You can register for this free Webinar happening July 14th -- "Transforming Your Business with Enterprise Social Networks" -- and hear Dion Hinchcliffe and Cubetree CEO Carlin Wiegner make the case that: "Enterprise Social Networks are increasingly replacing email for business communications, and fast becoming a "must have" part of workplace infrastructure."

I'm not involved in producing the Webinar. It's put on by the people from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference. But I will be listening.

After that we can have another debate if you want. Debates are fun.

Publishing SharePoint Web Pages Using Visual Studio Workflows

By Joseph Peck

In a recent a project, we had a need to control and automate the publishing experience for job posts on an Internet-facing SharePoint site. The purpose of automating this process was to ensure consistent formatting, control the navigation design, and facilitate the use of custom pre-formatted
Web parts.

To this we began designing a SharePoint list to capture and organize content that was needed to build each Web page of the site. The list included multiple text and rich text fields along with metadata used to select relevant custom Web parts from the Gallery. Once the list item metadata is saved, the Visual Studio 2008 workflow automatically does the rest.

The summary Visual Studio workflow actions are as follows:

1.       Check for pages with duplicate names.

2.       Duplicates are checked out and Web parts removed.

3.       New page is created with custom layout and named.

4.       Header is built and inserted in a Web part on the page.

5.       Content filled out by user is inserted onto page using Visual Studio template.

6.       Automatic selection and application of custom pre-formatted Web part based on list item metadata.

7.       New/Edited page is published as a Major Version.

8.       Navigation link moved to correct folder and hidden.

 

The first step of the workflow checks for existing pages in the pages library with the same name. If one is found, that page is checked out and all Web parts are removed. If a page is not found, the workflow selects a custom layout specific to" job posts," creates a new page, and names it by concatenating the job title with the job code.

In the next step, the header is built using the job title/code concatenation along with pre-formatted HTML that is inserted into a Content Editor Web part. This Web part, in turn, is inserted into the header Web part. The HTML includes a button that is built dynamically with an updated query string that automatically passes the job title and number to the job application form. The main body content is then built using only rich text fields that the user has completed. This content is laid out using a template within the Visual Studio 2008 workflow and then inserted into another Content Editor Web part, and then added to its zone on the page.

Using specified metadata from the list item, the workflow then selects 2 of a possible 48 pre-formatted custom Web parts from the Gallery and inserts them in the pages right zone. Once this is done, the workflow checks in and publishes the page as a major version.

Finally, the SharePoint site was built with very specific navigation requirements that included highlighted tabs in the top navigation for all pages and left navigation exposed or hidden, depending on the type of page. When a user is on a job posting page, "Careers" in the top navigation and "Current Openings" in the left navigation are highlighted, but a link to the page should not show up in the current navigation. To solve this problem, the workflow selects the new page in the left navigation and moves it to the Current Openings header. It then changes the new page's state to ‘hidden'.

Additionally, the workflow will automatically remove a page when a publisher changes item's status from Active in the Job Posts. Other areas in the site leverage data views to surface job posts in featured areas driven by key metadata within the list item.

This automated process of publishing SharePoint pages with a Visual Studio 2008 has greatly reduced the time to publish pages and has improved consistency in design because the user no longer needs to manually build or select Content Editor Web parts.

Making the ROI Case for Social Collaboration -- Enterprise 2.0 Boston

Show me the ROI.

I was in Las Vegas last week at Realcomm, a technology conference for the commercial real estate industry and "Show Me the ROI" was the theme of that conference. Leave it to the real estate industry to cut right to the heart of the matter. They want to see technology deliver dollars. If it does, it's cool. If it doesn't they don't want to bother with it.

I think it's time for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference to adopt some of that same attitude.

Tuesday started with keynote presentations. Unfortunately, the longest presentations were just product demos from Cisco and SAP for their social collaboration tools. I get it, they're sponsors and sponsors make the conference possible. But dedicating premium keynote spots to product demos projects an image that, unlike Realcomm, this conference thinks technology for technology's sake is enough. There's definitely a lot of nifty whizbang technology available now to increase peer-to-peer connectedness and to make information and expertise more discoverable. But no one is going to take it seriously until you show them how the technology leads to better numbers -- either increased revenue or decreased costs.

An interesting aside: Microsoft SharePoint is the tool everyone loves to hate at this conference, but in the two Microsoft sessions I've been in over the last two days, both times the Microsoft presenter has made the case that:

1. problems exist in organizations that collaboration technologies can solve, and
2. solving those problems can deliver benefits to the organization that you can measure in dollars

For example, in this Microsoft whitepaper, you'll find this figure: "Employees who are connected to a wide range of colleagues generate $83,000 more in revenue per year than employees with an average number of colleague connections."

SharePoint, SAP, Cisco, Socialtext, Jive, ThoughtFarmer, NewsGator, Drupal, or someone else -- you decide. But let's talk about these tools like business people, not technology fans. Don't lead with features, lead with benefits. 

The day ended more promisingly than it began. After lunch I went to a session called "Enterprise 2.0 Value Propositions" where, through a lot of good back and forth between the audience and panelists Oliver Marks and Dennis Howlett, it became clear that there is an ROI case to be made for Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools and that you can attach the benefits of those technologies to the balance sheet's operating metrics that business leaders care about. 

Here are six returns on investment I managed to write down during the exchange:

1. Sales acceleration
2. Better inventory replenishment
3. Time savings
4. Faster ramp up of new employees, faster to productivity
5. More diversity in collaboration groups that can lead to better innovation
6. Reduced training costs

Each of these makes the balance sheet look better and you can probably think of more.

One-photo Guide to Collaboration Software

Here's the sponsor page from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference event guide:

Dion Hinchcliffe mentioned in his presentation this morning that IBM, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft already represent 85% of enterprise social software sales, but there are other strong players. Jive, for example, is one company that keeps popping up on my radar screen lately.

I'm not making any judgements one way or another. But it is interesting to see who thinks this is an important market to fight for.