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	<title>Pentalogic Technology &#187; SharePoint Planner</title>
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	<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net</link>
	<description>Company blog and SharePoint Tricks and Tips</description>
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		<title>Date Range filtering with the new version of FilterPoint, PivotPoint and Planner.</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2011/12/date-range-filtering-with-the-new-version-of-filterpoint-pivotpoint-and-planner/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2011/12/date-range-filtering-with-the-new-version-of-filterpoint-pivotpoint-and-planner/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:18:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Ryan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Calculated Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Filter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FilterPoint Web Part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PivotPoint Web Part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint webparts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PivotPoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=2645</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[FilterPoint has had the ability to send Date Filters but a common request has been Date Ranges – like showing everything this month, last year or between two arbitrary dates. The good news is that we&#8217;ve added this in to FilterPoint as of version 1.2 The bad news is that this will only work with our other SharePoint products [...]]]></description>
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<p>FilterPoint has had the ability to send <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/filterpoint/fp-manual/fp-configuration/filter-style/date-picker">Date Filters</a> but a common request has been <strong>Date Ranges</strong> – like showing everything this month, last year or between two arbitrary dates.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://static.pentalogic.net/filterpoint/date-range.png" alt="FilterPoint - Date Range Filtering" width="357" height="186" /></p>
<p>The good news is that we&#8217;ve added this in to FilterPoint as of version 1.2</p>
<p>The bad news is that this will only work with our other SharePoint products – <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner">Planner</a> and <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/pivotpoint">PivotPoint</a> – it won’t work with SharePoints built in List View web part (LVWP).</p>
<h3>That’s disappointing!</h3>
<p>Yes it is &#8211; it’s just a limitation of SharePoints filtering I am afraid, but all is not lost!</p>
<p>This page shows how you can do things like <strong><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/filterpoint/fp-manual/fp-configuration/date-range-filtering">Month filtering using calculated columns</a></strong> and this blog article shows how you can setup <a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2009/11/howto-filter-items-current-calendar-month-view-sharepoint/">“Current Month/Previous Month” views using nothing more than Calculated Columns and View filters.</a></p>
<h3>Upgrading</h3>
<p>As always you can upgrade without losing any settings by downloading and running the latest trial version and selecting “Upgrade” when prompted (don’t forget you need the a recent version of <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner">Planner</a> (v2.6.9+) and <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/pivotpoint">PivotPoint</a> (2.2.0+) to accept date range filters.</p>
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		<title>SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner Update &#8211; dealing with Public Holidays</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2011/09/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-update-dealing-with-public-holidays/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2011/09/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-update-dealing-with-public-holidays/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:28:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[PivotPoint Web Part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PivotPoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vacation Planner]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=2404</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How to easily add and display Public Holidays in your SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner Dashboard.]]></description>
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<p>Customers who use our <a title="SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner Toolkit" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner">SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner Toolkit</a> often ask about the best way to deal with public holidays.  Public Holidays tend to affect the whole team.  So you want them clearly marked on your Vacation Planner dashboard, but you certainly don&#8217;t want to have to enter each public holiday for each team member as a separate event.  And you probably also don&#8217;t want to be firing off absence approval requests for each holiday either.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/4th-july.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2518" title="4th july" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/4th-july.png" alt="" width="672" height="236" /></a></p>
<p>So here are our suggestions on the best way of handling Public Holidays within the SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner Toolkit.</p>
<p>First you need <a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner/"><strong>modify your list</strong></a>.  Go to list settings and open up your &#8220;Reason&#8221; field.  In addition to your existing reasons for absence add a new reason &#8211; Public Holiday.</p>
<p>Then open up the settings for your &#8220;Requested By&#8221; column and make sure you have &#8220;Allow Multiple Selections&#8221; checked.</p>
<p>Now you need to <strong>modify your <a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-absence-wall-chart-dashboard/">Planner web part</a></strong><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-absence-wall-chart-dashboard/">.</a></p>
<p>So, &#8220;Edit Shared Web Part&#8221; then, under your &#8220;Category&#8221;  picker, check the <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration%2Fconfig-split-multiple-values.htm">&#8220;split multiple selections box&#8221;</a>.  This is key if you want to be able to create just one event for each public holiday but have it show up against each of your team members.</p>
<p>Now go down to the Planner Colors section of the Toolpart and update your color coding by column section to include an extra color code for your new Reason for absence that you created in your list &#8211; Public Holiday &#8211; I am going for a nice orange.</p>
<p>Now check your <a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-diy-guide-part-3-set-up-an-absences-to-date-dashboard/"><strong>PivotPoint web part</strong></a>. For this to work you are going to need PivotPoint 2.1.4 or above.  <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/pivotpoint/download-pivotpoint">Download it here</a> if you don&#8217;t have it already (free to all PivotPoint v2 customers, or v1 customers with Premium Support). In the Toolpart make sure that in the <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/pivotpoint/pp-manual/pp-configuration/pp-split-multi-value">&#8220;Split Multiple Values&#8221;</a> dropdown you have chosen &#8220;Split Records&#8221;.  This will ensure that when we enter a 1 day public holiday for 4th of July, for example, 1 day gets entered against each team member in the pivot table.</p>
<p>Finally, before we start adding events, to ensure that we don&#8217;t accidentally fire off approval requests and notifications all over the place, <a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-part-4-create-an-absence-approval-workflow/">access the Reminder web parts</a> that you have set up and in the &#8220;Reminder Testing&#8221;  section at the bottom of the Toolpart enter your own email address so that any emails generated whilst you are adding the public holidays go to you.  This will be a better solution than simply switching the Reminders off as you work, as it will mean that if any &#8220;real&#8221; requests are submitted whilst you are working you will be able to redirect them, rather than them being lost.</p>
<h3>Add a Public Holiday</h3>
<p>So, from your Planner dashboard add a new item.  Let&#8217;s do 4th July. Set it up as an all day event.  Set yourself as &#8220;approved by&#8221;, you will need to approve the event before it will show up in people&#8217;s dashboards.  Now add your whole team to the &#8220;Requested By&#8221; field.  It&#8217;s easiest to do this using the Address Book.  Now ensure you have selected &#8220;Public Holiday&#8221; in your Reason field.  Approve the request.  Discard all the &#8220;Request approved&#8221; notifications that are redirected through to you.  And now you will see your public holiday, nicely marked against each of your team members.  Repeat as needed for all of your other public holidays, remove the redirect from your Reminder emails and then you can relax for another year!</p>
<p>I hope this helps you in using Vacation Planner.  If you have any questions or requests about the Vacation Planner we would love to hear them.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><a title="SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1385" title="staff-vacation-banner2" src="http://static.pentalogic.net/staff-vacation-banner2.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="150" /></a></strong></em></p>
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		<title>SharePoint Planner &#8211; New Version Release, every minute counts!</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2011/08/sharepoint-planner-new-version-release-every-minute-counts/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2011/08/sharepoint-planner-new-version-release-every-minute-counts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:50:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gantt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint 2010]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=2433</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Use SharePoint Planner for accurate and detailed planning, display Gantt and category charts with 10 or 15 minute scheduling slots.]]></description>
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<p>We were recently contacted by a customer who was going to be responsible for organizing a visit from a Very, Very important person.  The visit would only last a couple of hours, but would involve many people and needed to be planned down to the minute.</p>
<p><span>The client wanted an easy to use graphical representation of the project, in SharePoint, for everyone to refer to and update as the event progressed.</span></p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at how the project might have looked in an out of the box calendar view:  <img class="size-full wp-image-2436 aligncenter" title="Calendar" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Calendar1.png" alt="" width="544" height="184" /><span> <span><span><span> </span></span></span></span></p>
<p><span>Hmmm, don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s really giving us the kind of info we need.  We have 7 items here, scheduled over a 3 hour period from 12 noon to 3pm, items fall in to different categories and are assigned to different people.  We&#8217;re not really getting that from this view are we? </span></p>
<p><span>Actually, the view is quite misleading.  The first event &#8220;Close Streets to Traffic&#8221; looks as though it lasts for one hour from 12.00 to 13.00 right? Wrong, this is actually a 40 minute event, starting at 12 and finishing at 12.40.  This may not seem like a big deal but there are times when this kind of accuracy really matters &#8211; it&#8217;s easy to see how running 20 minutes late at a VIP event could lead to VIP tantrums!</span></p>
<p><span>So how about the out of the box Gantt Chart? OK, so we have access to a little more info on who is doing what, but now we can see nothing at all on timings. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/standard-Gantt-view1.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2447" style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;" title="standard Gantt view" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/standard-Gantt-view1-300x282.png" alt="" width="240" height="226" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">We can zoom though, and this is what we get when we do maximum zoom.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="size-full wp-image-2438 " style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;" title="gant max zoom" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/gant-max-zoom.png" alt="" width="407" height="191" /></p>
<p>Well it&#8217;s certainly an improvement, but it&#8217;s not great is it?  We are on maximum zoom here are it&#8217;s still quite difficult to see the detail of what&#8217;s happening when.</p>
<p>We thought we could do better.  So we added to <a title="SharePoint Planner Web Part" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner">SharePoint Planner</a> the ability to set timescales to 10 or 15 minutes.  We think this gives a much clearer view for fast moving projects like this. Either in the classic Gantt view, most usually used for projects: <a title="SharePoint Planner Web Part" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2448" title="gantt1" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/gantt1.png" alt="" width="661" height="209" /></a>Or in a category view for exactly what each of your team members should be doing at any one time:</p>
<p><a title="SharePoint Planner Web Part" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner"><img title="category 2" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/category-21.png" alt="" width="683" height="236" /></a></p>
<p>The new 10 and 15 minute scheduling options allow you to schedule events more accurately and deploy resources more effectively.</p>
<p>This is a new feature in <a title="SharePoint Planner Web Part" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner">Planner version 2.6.6</a>, so if you are using an older version of the software it would be worth <a title="Upgrade SharePoint Planner Web Part" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-download-2">upgrading now.</a></p>
<p>Or if you don&#8217;t yet use SharePoint Planner why not give it a try today with <a title="SharePoint Planner Free Trial" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-download-2">30 day free trial?</a></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" scrolling="auto" src="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/download-sharepoint-planner" width="750"></iframe></p>
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		<title>SharePoint Planner Webpart &#8211; new version released</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/09/sharepoint-planner-webpart-new-version-released/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/09/sharepoint-planner-webpart-new-version-released/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:30:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint webparts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WebPart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=1439</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner Webpart new version released including enhanced functionality for printing and resource planning.]]></description>
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<p>Just a quick note to let you all know that we have just released a new version of <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner" target="_blank">SharePoint Planner web part </a>- v2.6.4.</p>
<p>The new version includes a couple of handy new features that might be useful for you.</p>
<p>The new <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration%2Fconfig-split-multiple-values.htm" target="_blank">Split Multiple Values</a> option will be useful in resource planning in circumstances where you want to enter multiple category values into one list item, but still view each individual category&#8217;s activity as a separate line in your Planner view.  For example you might want to create a list item for a project meeting, with several people in attendance.  In a Gantt view of project tasks it would be appropriate to show this meeting as one item.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/chatsworth-gantt21.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1447" title="chatsworth gantt2" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/chatsworth-gantt21.png" alt="sharepoint planner gantt chart" width="556" height="141" /></a></p>
<p>But in a category view of staff availability/commitments you would want the meeting to appear as a separate item for each staff member involved.<span id="more-1439"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/chatsworth-category.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1448" title="chatsworth category" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/chatsworth-category.png" alt="sharepoint planner category chart" width="592" height="233" /></a></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration%2Fconfig-split-multiple-values.htm">split multiple values </a>feature now gives you this option when working with a category view.</p>
<p>Another new feature allows you to <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration%2Fconfig-word-wrap.htm" target="_blank">word-wrap long labels.</a> By default Planner truncates long labels, and this isn&#8217;t a problem when you are in front of your screen as you can see the full label of an item in the tooltip simply by hovering over it.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/wordwrap-off1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1451" title="wordwrap off" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/wordwrap-off1.png" alt="" width="657" height="198" /></a><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>However, for those of you who like to print your planner views, the tooltip isn&#8217;t an option.  So we have provided the option to word-wrap long item labels, ensuring that you have all of your information to hand when looking at hard copy versions of your Planner charts.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/wordwrap-on.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1452" title="wordwrap on" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/wordwrap-on.png" alt="" width="648" height="263" /></a><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<p>We hope you find these small improvements useful.  We have spent quite a bit of time comparing the functionality of Planner with what&#8217;s available out of the box in SharePoint 2010 and although Planner is more than 5 years old now we have been pleased (and a little surprised!) to find that Planner still offers significant benefits for resource and simple project planning.  We will be sharing more of our insights into the good the bad and the ugly of resource planning in SP 2010 in a future post.</p>
<p>This is likely to the last minor upgrade of Planner before we move to version 3 early in 2011. Version 3 will include some of your most regular feature requests like grouping multiple categories, dynamic sizing and rich tooltips; and will also harness the power of Silverlight now available in SP 2010 to deliver a much richer display and improved printing capabilities &#8211; watch this space!</p>
<p>If you are an existing customer you can <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-download" target="_blank">download the new version here.</a></p>
<p>Or if you don&#8217;t already use <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-download" target="_blank">SharePoint Planner why not try it free for 30 days?</a></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" scrolling="auto" src="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/download-sharepoint-planner" width="750"></iframe></p>
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		<title>SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner &#8211; DIY Guide part 5 &#8211; the system in action and Out of the box options.</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-diy-guide-part-5-the-system-in-action-and-out-of-the-box-options/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-diy-guide-part-5-the-system-in-action-and-out-of-the-box-options/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:17:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[PivotPoint Web Part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint webparts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WebPart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=1285</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[See the SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner system in action with dashboards and automated request and approval process.  Plus explore out of the box options.]]></description>
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<p><em>This is Part 5 of the </em><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/07/create-a-sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner/"><em>SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner – DIY Guide</em></a></p>
<h3>See the System In Action</h3>
<p>So, now let&#8217;s reap the rewards for all of our hard work and see the system in action.</p>
<p>I need to book a day off for a hospital appointment on Friday 9th of July.  I can see all the absence bookings for my department and the number of days I have had off this year on the absence dashboards above. I&#8217;ve only had 1 day off for Medical Appointments so far this year and I am allowed 3 so that&#8217;s fine &#8211; but 3 people are off on that day already, it&#8217;s going to be tough, but I really need to go to that appointment.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/planner-2.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="planner 2" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/planner-2.png" alt="" width="660" height="108" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/my-absences2.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1289" title="my absences" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/my-absences2.png" alt="" width="640" height="75" /></a></p>
<p>So, as you can see, I can add a new item to the planner straight from the link in the webpart, I don&#8217;t need to go to the list.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/form-fill.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1286" title="form fill" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/form-fill.png" alt="" width="505" height="457" /></a></p>
<p>Ryan receives the absence request email and from looking at his dashboards he can see that although I am well within my Medical Appointments entitlement approving this absence is going to leave him really short staffed on Friday &#8211; but he can&#8217;t face the thought of listening to me moaning about my in-growing toenail for another 3 months, so he approves the request.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/absenses-to-date3.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1290" title="absenses to date" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/absenses-to-date3.png" alt="" width="638" height="121" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/planner2.png"></a><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/s-a-p-2.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1292" title="s a p 2" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/s-a-p-2.png" alt="" width="656" height="125" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/absence-request.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="absence request" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/absence-request.png" alt="" width="329" height="292" /></a></p>
<p>Once the request is approved I get an email notifying me, and the status of the absence changes from &#8220;pending&#8221; to &#8220;approved&#8221; on the absence planner.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/absence-approved.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="absence approved" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/absence-approved.png" alt="" width="320" height="158" /></a></p>
<p>And for the final step in the process, is the email to Ryan on Thursday, to remind him that I am off the next day, giving him chance to make sure all my work is covered.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/off-tomorrow1.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="off tomorrow" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/off-tomorrow1.png" alt="" width="316" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>So now we should have no excuse for messing up staff absence planning ever again!</p>
<h3>So Can&#8217;t I do this with SharePoint out of the Box?</h3>
<p>Well some of it. Clearly, your basic list and filtered views are all set up in SharePoint out of the box.</p>
<p>When it comes to your dashboard views there are some limitations.</p>
<p>This is how your Vacation Planner Wall Chart looks out of the box:</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/calendar-view.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="calendar view" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/calendar-view.png" alt="" width="635" height="339" /></a>or as a Gantt view:</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/vacation-Gantt.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="vacation Gantt" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/vacation-Gantt.png" alt="" width="635" height="195" /></a>We have lost all of our color coding, it&#8217;s not possible to show the name of the person who is absent, unless you make this the title of the event, and we have no way of distinguishing between approved and pending items.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/group-by.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-1296" title="group by" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/group-by.png" alt="" width="375" height="351" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">For the &#8220;Absences to Date&#8221; and &#8220;My Absences&#8221; dashboards we can achieve something similar, if a bit clunky, out of the box.  From the settings tab in your Staff Absence Planner list, choose edit current view.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Head down to Group By and choose Requested By and Reason.  Then expand the Totals section and choose # Days Absence and sum.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This will give you a view like this:</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/group-by-dashboard.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1297" title="group by dashboard" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/group-by-dashboard.png" alt="" width="558" height="308" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The information is all there, but I have to work to get at it.  For example Ryan can see that I have had 11 days off this year, covering 3 separate occasions, but he is going to have to drill into each individual event and get his calculator out to figure out how many of my days off have been annual leave, training or Medical.</p>
<p>Then on to the workflow emails. It is possible to generate email alerts for the absence request and the request approval, but the solution isn&#8217;t perfect.  For absence requests an administrator can set the list up to email all line managers within your company or department, every time a new request is added to the list.  This means that managers will get absence requests from their own staff, but also from all other staff as well.  The only way to avoid this would be to set up a separate absence request list for each line manager.</p>
<p>For the request approved/rejected email the requester will need to set up an alert on each request as they create it, asking to be alerted any time anything changes on that list item.</p>
<p>When the alert emails arrive, this is how they look:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter" title="alert email" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/alert-email.png" alt="" width="503" height="458" /></p>
<p>There is no way to edit the email, and give the recipient clues on what they are supposed to do with it.</p>
<p>The final &#8220;John Smith is off work tomorrow&#8221; email, cannot be generated in SharePoint out of the box, as it doesn&#8217;t do date based alerts.</p>
<p>You could do this with Workflow and Event Receivers, but that means having some technical knowledge and breaking out SharePoint Designer and/or Visual Studio.</p>
<p>So &#8211; can you build a staff absence planning system with SharePoint out of the box?  I guess the answer is &#8220;kind of&#8221;. It is possible to build a basic system but it&#8217;s going to lack some useful functionality and may now be enormously user friendly.</p>
<p>We hope you&#8217;ve found this useful.</p>
<p>If you would like to try the Vacation planning system you can <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner/download" target="_blank">download a 30 day free trial version here.</a></p>
<p>And as always, if you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear them.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner/download"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1385" title="staff-vacation-banner2" src="http://static.pentalogic.net/staff-vacation-banner2.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="150" /></a></p>
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		<title>SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner &#8211; DIY Guide part 2 &#8211; set up a &#8220;Wall Chart&#8221; Dashboard</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-absence-wall-chart-dashboard/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner-absence-wall-chart-dashboard/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:51:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WebPart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=1263</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Create a SharePoint Staff Vacation and Absence Planner Wall Chart dashboard for real time monitoring of staffing and absence, straight to your desktop.]]></description>
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<p><em>This is Part 2 of the </em><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/07/create-a-sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner/"><em>SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner &#8211; DIY Guide</em></a></p>
<p>So having set up our Vacation and Absence list yesterday, we can now apply Planner webpart, to create a vacation and absence dashboard like this:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/staff-absence-planner.png"><img class="aligncenter" title="staff absence planner" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/staff-absence-planner.png" alt="" width="656" height="125" /></a></p>
<p>So staff and managers can easily see who is off when, and when it will be possible to request leave.</p>
<p><span id="more-1263"></span></p>
<p>If you don&#8217;t already have our <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-download" target="_blank">Planner webpart you can download the free trial version here</a>.</p>
<p>You will find all the <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=installation%2Finstallation.htm" target="_blank">installation instructions you need here.</a></p>
<p><img class="alignright" title="planner config" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/planner-config.png" alt="" width="263" height="297" /></p>
<p>Now we are ready to set up the Planner web part.  Decide where you would like this to display, perhaps your HR home page, or your team home page, select <strong>Site Actions</strong>, <strong>Edit Page</strong>, <strong>Add a Web part</strong> then select <strong>Planner</strong>.</p>
<p>From the top right hand corner of the Planner web part which will have appeared on your page click <strong>edit</strong> and <strong>Modify shared webpart</strong> you will now see the Planner Configuration Panel on the right hand side of your screen.</p>
<p>So, we are going to set the Planner up like this:</p>
<p><em><strong>Planner Style:</strong></em> By Category</p>
<p><em><strong>Planner Source:</strong></em> is the view you just set up, so in our case: <strong>Staff Absences &#8211; Approved and Pending</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Category:</strong></em> Requested by, so the names of the people requesting absence will appear down the left hand side of the Planner.</p>
<p><em><strong>Label: </strong></em>Approval Status, so each absence will be labelled <strong>Approved</strong> or <strong>Pending</strong>.</p>
<p>You can leave <em><strong>Period</strong></em> set at <strong>auto</strong> Planner will display in the format most appropriate to the items you have entered into your list and you can easily scroll back and forth and zoom in and out.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/planner-colour-code.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-1111" title="planner colour code" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/planner-colour-code.png" alt="" width="266" height="355" /></a></p>
<p>The next section we are going to change is <em><strong>Set colour by column</strong></em>.  We are going to set this by the <strong>Reason</strong> column, and choose a different colour for each of the Reason choices we set up in our list.</p>
<p>This will allow us to see at a glance why a team member is absent.  In this section you should also choose where and how to display the color coding key, ours is underneath the Planner chart.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s the Planner set-up done.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration%2Fconfiguration.htm" target="_blank">For more information on Planner set up and configuration click here.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration%2Fcolours%2Fcolours_bycolumn.htm" target="_blank">Or take a look at this for more info on using color coding in Planner.</a></p>
<p><em><strong>In the next section we will look at setting up our &#8220;Absences to Date&#8221; dashboard, using PivotPoint webpart.</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner/download"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1385" title="staff-vacation-banner2" src="http://static.pentalogic.net/staff-vacation-banner2.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="150" /></a><br />
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		<title>SharePoint Staff Vacation Planner &#8211; DIY Guide &#8211; Part 1</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/08/sharepoint-staff-vacation-planner/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:03:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WebPart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=1107</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Create a SharePoint staff vacation Planning system with Pentalogic Planner and Reminder webparts. Including approval workflow and planner dashboard.  No coding required.]]></description>
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<p>SharePoint offers a great foundation for non-programming business people to build applications around our business processes, just the way we want them.  This guide will show you how to build your own SharePoint staff vacation and absence planning system.</p>
<p>Staff vacation and absence planning can cause trouble and strife in any organization.  The good old wall planner can work for staff who are all in the same physical locations . . .</p>
<p>. . . . until you approve an absence then forget to enter it on to the planner, and then allow someone else to book vacation at the same time, leaving your department under staffed.</p>
<p>. . . . .or until you forget that Sam has booked a week&#8217;s vacation and call him up furious on Monday morning asking why he isn&#8217;t in work.</p>
<p>. . . . . .or authorize Jenny&#8217;s week off in the Caribbean only to get a thorough ticking off from HR because you have allowed Jenny to exceed her annual leave entitlement.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been guilty of all these crimes in my time. So I was pleased to find that with SharePoint we can make things a little more organized, and using our <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/pivotpoint" target="_parent">PivotPoint,</a> <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/reminder" target="_blank">Reminder</a> and <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner" target="_blank">Planner</a> web parts together we can set up a slick little Vacation Planning system in just a few minutes.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/montage-for-blog.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1303" title="montage-for-blog" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/montage-for-blog.png" alt="" width="604" height="372" /></a></p>
<p>So, what we are aiming for here is:</p>
<ul>
<li>A dashboard &#8220;Absence Planner&#8221; display, which will be accessible to all staff via SharePoint.</li>
<li>A personal and managers &#8220;Absences to Date&#8221; dashboards.</li>
<li>An automated Absence Request approval system</li>
<li>An email reminder to line managers of imminent staff absence.</li>
</ul>
<p>To be clear: this is not a ready made &#8220;Vacation Planning&#8221; template or application, its a guide showing how you could build your own system, using some of SharePoints built in features and then add a little pizazz with our web parts. Its going to take a little work to set this up for your organisation but then it should be a better fit than a packaged solution.</p>
<p>Setting up the Vacation Planner should take you about an hour if you have our webparts already, a little more if you need to download them.  So we have broken this guide up into 4 parts, which we will be publishing over the next 5 days:</p>
<h4>Today &#8211; set up your Staff Vacation and Absences list and filtered views</h4>
<h4>Part 2 &#8211; set up a Staff Vacation Planner dashboard with SharePoint Planner webpart</h4>
<h4>Part 3 &#8211; Set up Absences to date dashboard with SharePoint PivotPoint Webpart</h4>
<h4>Part 4 &#8211; Set up a absence request and approvals workflow with SharePoint Reminder Webpart</h4>
<h4>Part 5 &#8211; see the system in action, and see how much of this you could achieve with SharePoint out of the box.</h4>
<p>For those of you who can&#8217;t wait that long, you can <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner/download" target="_blank">download the full PDF guide and a 30 day free trial of the webparts here.</a></p>
<h3>First set up your List</h3>
<p>We are going to use a Calendar List, add some extra columns, and switch on Approvals.</p>
<p>So, from which ever section of your site you want choose select <strong>Site Actions</strong> from the top right of the page, then from the dropdown, select <strong>Create</strong> then from the <strong>Tracking</strong> tab, select <strong>Tasks</strong>.</p>
<p>Call your list whatever you want &#8211; <strong>Staff Absence Planner </strong>works for me, decide whether you want it to display in the quick launch menu  &#8211; probably no need as few people will need to access the list that way once we have our system set up.  Then select <strong>no</strong> in the <strong>Alerts</strong> option.  Click OK and you list is set up.</p>
<p>Now go to the <strong>Settings</strong> tab in your list and first of all choose <strong>Create Column</strong>. We are going to add a few extra columns to the list. Add the columns <strong>Requested By</strong> and <strong>Authorized By</strong>, the column type for both of these is &#8220;Person or Group&#8221; and you want them both to display in the default view. Make these mandatory fields by clicking <strong>Yes</strong> for <strong>Require that this column contains information</strong>. Now we are going to add a column to show the <strong>reason</strong> for the absence &#8211; annual leave, maternity leave, training, sabbatical, whatever.  The column type for this column is going to be <strong>Choice </strong>and again we are going to made completion of this field mandatory, and show the field in the default view. Finally a column for the <strong>number of days</strong> of each absence, we want this to be a number column, I have set the minimum value to 0.5 days and the maximum to 30 days, and again we want it to be a mandatory field.</p>
<p>Next let&#8217;s <strong>switch on Approvals</strong>.  Back in the <strong>Settings</strong> tab of your list choose<strong> List Settings </strong>and from the <strong>General</strong> tab choose <strong>Versioning Settings</strong>. In <strong>Content Approval</strong> click <strong>Yes</strong> and we are done with the list set up.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/turn-on-approvals.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1148" title="turn on approvals" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/turn-on-approvals.png" alt="" width="574" height="492" /></a></p>
<h3><a name="veiw"></a>Set up Filtered Views</h3>
<p>Now for the filters.  If you haven&#8217;t made much use of filters before it may be worth having a look at these resources:</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/category/filter/" target="_blank">SharePoint filter techniques articles</a></p>
<p>Filters can really enhance the power of SharePoint lists, and we are going to use 3 here in our vacation planner.</p>
<h4>#1 &#8211; Approved and Pending Absences for Planner</h4>
<p>We want our Planner to provide a dashboard display for all staff, showing absences requested and approved.  So that staff can see when it will be possible to book an absence and managers can decide whether they wish to approve a staff absence request.</p>
<p>Our list actually contains 3 approval status&#8217;s &#8220;Pending&#8221;, &#8220;Approved&#8221; and &#8220;Rejected&#8221; we don&#8217;t need to display absence requests that have been rejected on our Planner, so we are going to set up a list view to show just &#8220;Pending&#8221; and &#8220;Approved&#8221; requests.</p>
<p>Go back to <strong>Site Settings</strong> and choose <strong>Create View</strong>.  From the menu here choose <strong>Standard View. </strong> N.B.  This choice is very important &#8211; Planner only works on Standard views. In the Create View Page add a name for your view, we have used <strong>Staff Absences &#8211; Approved and Pending</strong>. In the <strong>Audience</strong> section be sure you have checked <strong>Create Public View</strong> this again is an essential for Planner to work.  In the column section choose the columns that you wish to display to people who are creating or entering a list item.  This will not impact of the Planner display.</p>
<p>We are then going to skip over the &#8220;Sort&#8221; section and from the <strong>Filter</strong> section choose <strong>Show Items only when the following is true.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/filter.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1108" title="filter" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/filter.png" alt="" width="465" height="323" /></a></p>
<p>Column <strong>Approval Status</strong> is equal to <strong>Pending</strong> OR column <strong>Approval Status</strong> is equal to <strong>Approved</strong>.  Click OK and we are done with the filter.</p>
<h4>#2 &#8211; Approved absences for managers &#8220;Absences to Date&#8221; Dashboard</h4>
<p>Set up of this is exactly the same as the last one, except we are going to call it &#8220;Absences to Date&#8221; and just show items where column approval status is equal to approved.</p>
<h4>#3  &#8211; The Magical [Me] Filter, for &#8220;My Absences&#8221; Dashboard.</h4>
<p>If you haven&#8217;t used this filter before you are going to love it!  It shows whoever is logged in just the list items relating to them, so its ideal for our &#8220;My Absences&#8221; dashboard view, but also has a whole host of other uses.</p>
<p>We need a Standard, public view again &#8211; yes even though it&#8217;s &#8220;My Absences&#8221; it&#8217;s still a public view or other people won&#8217;t be able to use it.  Call it <strong>My Absences</strong> then head down to the filter section and choose to show items where column <strong>Requested By, is equal to [Me]</strong>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Me-filter.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1259" title="Me filter" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Me-filter.png" alt="" width="458" height="235" /></a></p>
<p>So, now we have laid the foundations for our system by setting up the basic list and filters.</p>
<p><em><strong>In Part 2 we will create a &#8220;wall chart&#8221; dashboard, using SharePoint Planner webpart.</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/staff-vacation-planner/download"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1385" title="staff-vacation-banner2" src="http://static.pentalogic.net/staff-vacation-banner2.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="150" /></a><br />
 </strong></em></p>
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		<title>SharePoint List Superpowers</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/07/sharepoint-list-superpowers/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/07/sharepoint-list-superpowers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:02:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Reminder]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=1196</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Lists are at the heart of SharePoint and we can achieve some pretty outstanding things with them.  But certain types of lists have certain special powers, and understanding which lists have which superpowers is key to knowing which to choose for a particular job.]]></description>
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<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/superheroes.png"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1206" style="margin: 10px;" title="superheroes" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/superheroes.png" alt="" width="241" height="212" /></a>Now we all know that SharePoint Lists are pretty amazing things: easy to use, searchable, customizable&#8230; Where would we be without them?</p>
<p>But did you know that each list type comes with its own special “Superpower”?</p>
<p>If you understand the different superpowers of each list type it makes choosing which list to use on any given occasion much easier.</p>
<p><span id="more-1196"></span><br class="spacer_" /></p>
<h3>Calendar Lists – Repeating Events</h3>
<p>For the meeting every Monday, or the staff Birthday list, or the equipment that needs to be serviced every six months Repeating events are what you need.</p>
<p>You have plenty of flexibility to set up your events to repeat daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, when to start them, when to finish them and how many recurrences to include.  So this is the superpower you need if you want to avoid manual entry of events that repeat regularly.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Repeating-Events.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1197" title="Repeating Events" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Repeating-Events.png" alt="" width="629" height="335" /></a></p>
<p>It would be nice to be able to get a little Reminder of upcoming repeating events: “It’s Jane’s Birthday next week.” for example.  Of course this isn’t possible with SharePoint out of the box, as SharePoint alerts don’t offer a date based alert option, like the one you get in Outlook.  You can of course get “Due Soon” and “Overdue” alerts for your <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/reminder" target="_blank">Repeating Events with our Reminder webpart</a>.</p>
<p>It would also be pretty super to be able to see your repeating events on the Gantt view of you Calendar list &#8211; but you can&#8217;t do this either. On a SharePoint out of the box Gantt your weekly team meeting will display as one loooong event, whereas with a Gantt chart created from <a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/02/sharepoint-gannt-charts/" target="_blank">the same list using our Planner web part, repeating events will display exactly as you would want them to.</a></p>
<p><em>(That&#8217;s the end of the shameless product plugs now &#8211; promise.)</em></p>
<h3>Task List – Assigned To</h3>
<p>If you want to stop stuff falling through the cracks this is the one to go for.  You know the drill:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Have you booked the flights  to the SharePoint Conference?”</p>
<p>“No I thought you were doing that?”</p>
<p>“No, I told you to book them!” . . .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With the Task List (and also Issues and Project Task lists) “Assigned To” feature this need never happen again, as you can ensure that all of your tasks have an owner and that the owner of a task gets an email every time a task is assigned to them.  But there are two things you need to do to ensure this superpower works as it should do.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/task-assign.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1198" title="task assign" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/task-assign.png" alt="" width="639" height="234" /></a></p>
<p>First, although “Assigned To” is one of the default fields in this list type, it isn’t set up as a mandatory field, so when you set your task list up be sure to change your list settings to make entry of data into this field compulsory.</p>
<p>Second, you have to remember to switch email notifications on. This is done in List Settings &#8211; Advanced Settings.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/email-notification.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1203" title="email notification" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/email-notification.png" alt="" width="560" height="133" /></a></p>
<p>Following these 2 simple steps will have your Task List Superpower fully loaded and ready to go.</p>
<p>Of course it would be great if the owner of the task got an email when the task is due, but that doesn&#8217;t happen with SharePoint out of the box &#8211; however, if you use our <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/reminder" target="_blank">Reminder webpart</a> . . . . .</p>
<p><em>(OK, so I work in marketing, I start to twitch if I see an opportunity for a product plug and miss it.)</em></p>
<h3>Issue List – Comments History</h3>
<p>This is ideal for when you just need to know exactly what has been happening over the course of time – who said or did what, when and to whom.  It’s ideal for service desk issues, customer complaints, maybe staff performance tracking.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Comments-History.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1204" title="Comments History" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Comments-History.png" alt="" width="482" height="334" /></a></p>
<p>Whilst all SharePoint lists offer a Version History which is great for audit and compliance, version histories can quickly get a bit unwieldy and difficult to manager.  The Issues list Comments History lets you see what has been going on at a glance &#8211; Kryptonite!</p>
<h3>Discussion Lists-Threaded Discussions<a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/threaded2.png"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-1213" title="threaded" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/threaded2.png" alt="" width="335" height="478" /></a></h3>
<p>You know those group emails, about a particular project, the annual conference, the monthly sales figures.  It’s the email that gets sent to 40 people asking for comments and feedback which quickly becomes an unmanageable mess as you lose track of who is replying to whom and exactly which email response the boss is so very angry about.</p>
<p>Threaded discussions solve all this be letting you see exactly who commented when, who has replied to what, and how the weird tangent that Bill and Sue have wandered off on got started in the first place.</p>
<p>These have some similarities to the comments history superpowers enjoyed by Issue Lists, but where version history just lets you see a chronological sequence of events, Threaded Discussions lets you see the relationship between those events.  To anyone who has ever taken part in forum discussions it will look quite familiar.</p>
<p>If you have any other superheroes who you think deserve a mention we’d love to hear about them.</p>
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		<title>Tell Us Your SharePont Story and Win a Flip Video</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/02/tell-us-your-sharepont-story-and-win-a-flip-video/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/02/tell-us-your-sharepont-story-and-win-a-flip-video/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:09:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PivotPoint Web Part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint webparts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CrossTab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reminder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=581</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of our New Years Resolutions for 2010 was to: &#8220;find out how people really use our stuff&#8221;. We really want to understand how people use our Planner, Reminder and Pivot Point in the real world.  We know we have clients from a huge range of industry sectors, so it will be great to see [...]]]></description>
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<p>One of our New Years Resolutions for 2010 was to: &#8220;find out how people really use our stuff&#8221;.</p>
<p>We really want to understand how people use our <a title="Pentalogic SharePoint Planner" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner" target="_blank">Planner,</a> <a title="Penalogic SharePoint Reminder" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/reminder" target="_blank">Reminder</a> and <a title="Pentalogic SharePoint Pivot Point" href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/pivotpoint" target="_blank">Pivot Point</a> in the real world.  We know we have clients from a huge range of industry sectors, so it will be great to see how our software helps with the special challenges of your area. And we know that some of you use 2 or 3 of our products together: we would love to know what you are doing there.</p>
<p>So this year we want to find out how you use our products in your SharePoint environment. If we know how you use them it will help us to improve them!</p>
<p>Just send us a quick email telling us a bit about your business and how you use our products and we will enter you into our free prize draw for the chance to win a funky Flip video camera.</p>
<p>We would really appreciate your help on this one, so if you have a minute free please<a title="Win a Flip Video" href="mailto:clare.stone@pentalogic.net" target="_blank"> send us a quick email.</a></p>
</td>
<td><a title="Flip Video" href="http://www.theflip.com/" target="_blank"><img title="ultra_pink_front_nousb" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ultra_pink_front_nousb-125x300.jpg" alt="ultra_pink_front_nousb" width="125" height="300" /> <br />
 </a></td>
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</table>
<h4>Terms and Conditions</h4>
<ol>
<li>You must be a user of Pentalogic Technology Software in order to enter (free trial users are welcome to enter.)</li>
<li>Entries must be sent to <a href="mailto:clare.stone@pentalogic.net" target="_blank">clare.stone@pentalogic.net</a> with the subject line &#8220;Case Study&#8221;</li>
<li>The draw will take place at 12 noon GMT on Monday 1st March, you entry must be submitted by 12 noon GMT Sunday 28th February to qualify.</li>
<li>All entrants agree to take a 30 minute phone call from Pentalogic Technology, to clarify details of your case study.</li>
<li>All entrants agree to their case study being published by Pentalogic Technology, on line or in print.</li>
</ol>
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		<title>5 things you never knew you couldn&#8217;t do with SharePoint Gantt Charts</title>
		<link>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/02/sharepoint-gannt-charts/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.pentalogic.net/2010/02/sharepoint-gannt-charts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:15:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Clare</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint webparts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gantt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SharePoint]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.pentalogic.net/?p=519</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sometimes it&#8217;s all too easy to forget what it was like to be a new SharePoint user.  Sometimes you need a wakeup call to remind you of the &#8220;WOW&#8221; moments of delighted surprise when you discovered an amazing new feature, and the &#8220;AAAGGGGGHHHH!&#8221; moments of frustration, when you hit upon something SharePoint obviously should do, [...]]]></description>
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<p>Sometimes it&#8217;s all too easy to forget what it was like to be a new SharePoint user.  Sometimes you need a wakeup call to remind you of the &#8220;WOW&#8221; moments of delighted surprise when you discovered an amazing new feature, and the &#8220;AAAGGGGGHHHH!&#8221; moments of frustration, when you hit upon something SharePoint obviously should do, but for some inexplicable reason just doesn&#8217;t.</p>
<p>We got our wakeup call this week when we were putting together a product features chart for our <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner" target="_blank">Planner web part &#8211; which is an easy to use planning tool, with a Gantt chart view</a>.  We like to do this with all our products, to see how we stack up against the competition, and against SharePoint out of the box.</p>
<p>When we looked at SharePoint out of the box, some of the basic things that you would expect from a Gantt chart just weren&#8217;t there.  Here are our top 5 &#8220;missing in action&#8221; feature in SharePoint Gantt charts:</p>
<p><span id="more-519"></span></p>
<h3>1.  No Color Coding</h3>
<p>Seems obvious.  All you organized souls out there with colored marker pens and highlighters that you use on your wall planners would naturally expect to be able to color code your SharePoint Gantt charts &#8211; and you would be disappointed.  Color coding is not possible.</p>
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<td>Here&#8217;s a simple project Gantt chart in SharePoint out of the box &#8211; a little dull don&#8217;t you think?</td>
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<td style="border: 1px solid #ffffff;"><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Gantt-no-color-coding1-12.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-545" title="Gantt-no-color-coding1-(1)" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Gantt-no-color-coding1-12.gif" alt="Gantt-no-color-coding1-(1)" width="666" height="246" /></a></td>
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<td>And here&#8217;s exactly the same calendar list displayed in a Pentalogic Planner <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration/colours/colours_bycolumn.htm" target="_blank">Gantt chart &#8211; color coding</a> allows us to see the completion status of each task &#8211; so much more informative!</td>
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<td style="border: 1px solid #ffffff;"><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-547" title="planner-color-coded1" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/planner-color-coded11.gif" alt="planner-color-coded1" width="666" height="159" /></a></td>
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<h3>2.  No Zooming in to see the detail</h3>
<p>In most projects there are times when you have a lot going on all at once.  It&#8217;s nice to be able to <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration/configuration_toolbar.htm">zoom in and take a look at the detail</a> of a particular time period and then zoom out to take an overview of the whole project.  Sadly this just isn&#8217;t possible with a SharePoint out of the box Gantt chart.  Your view is 3 months, no matter how long your project is.</p>
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<td>So if there is one day in your project that is chock full of meetings, like this:</td>
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<td><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/otb-no-zoom12.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-551" title="otb-no-zoom1" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/otb-no-zoom12.gif" alt="otb-no-zoom1" width="666" height="196" /></a></td>
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<td>you&#8217;ve got no way of seeing exactly when they are, who should be attending &#8211; like this view from our Planner:</td>
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<td><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-552" title="planner-zoom2" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/planner-zoom21.gif" alt="planner-zoom2" width="673" height="216" /></a><br class="spacer_" /></td>
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<h3>3.   No Printing</h3>
<p>For us techie types who are permanently attached to a monitor the concept of printing may seem a little old hat.  But for the rest of the world, those people who attend meetings where there may be no computer present (!) and people want to huddle round a paper version of the plan &#8211; maybe even scribbling notes on it &#8211; this is really quite important.  Like many things SharePoint, out of the box Gantt charts are just not designed to print &#8211; and that can be really quite frustrating. Whilst our Planner doesn&#8217;t have the world&#8217;s most sophisticated printing options we do at least off a basic <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=faq/printing/faq_printing.htm" target="_blank">printer friendly version</a> &#8211; for everyone who still loves paper!</p>
<h3>4.  No Labels</h3>
<p>As you can see from the examples above, with Planner you can use labels to add that extra layer of information to your Gantt charts.  In this example we have used them to show who a task is assigned to, but you could use them to show the <a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner/planner-manual?p=configuration/config_plannersource.htm" target="_blank">values in any column in your list</a>.  Really quite useful &#8211; but simply not available with SharePoint out of the box Gantt charts.  Hmmm, disappointing!</p>
<h3>5.  No Recurring Events</h3>
<p>Recurring or repeating events are a mainstay of calendar usage.  Let&#8217;s try adding a regular weekly project meeting to this one.</p>
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<td><a href="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/otb-recurring-events1.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-553" title="otb-recurring-events" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/otb-recurring-events1.gif" alt="otb-recurring-events" width="673" height="198" /></a></td>
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<td>Oh dear, the meeting doesn&#8217;t really go on for a whole six weeks does it?  Should I bring a sleeping bag?  Book a dog sitter?</td>
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<td><a href="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-products/planner"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-554" title="planner-recurring-events" src="http://blog.pentalogic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/planner-recurring-events1.gif" alt="planner-recurring-events" width="680" height="267" /></a></td>
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<td>Oh right &#8211; when I look at the view in Planner I can see that it&#8217;s actually just once a week for six weeks &#8211; what a relief!</td>
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<p>SharePoint out of the box Gantt charts just don&#8217;t support recurring events.  Enter one into your calendar list and the Gantt chart will show one event, which starts with the first recurrence and ends with the last.  This surely must be a bug rather than a deliberate omission?</p>
<h3>Well, that does all sound a bit disappointing &#8211; but surely all that will be fixed with SharePoint 2010 right?</h3>
<p>Wrong! Although you do get some ability to zoom in and out with SP 2010 in the current beta at least, the rest of the omissions remain as is.  But maybe things will change with the release candidate?</p>
<p>So, those are our top 5 &#8220;missing in action&#8221; features for SharePoint Gantts, what are your most annoying missing features?</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="230" scrolling="auto" src="http://www.pentalogic.net/sharepoint-knowledge-base/download-sharepoint-planner" width="750"></iframe></p>
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