Posts Tagged ‘Free’

Free SharePoint 2013 training for End Users

Date:January 7th, 2016 Author: Tags: ,
Category: Community, Training Comments:0 ;

It’s a common problem when IT systems are implemented that we give little thought to End Users and they are expected to just ‘figure it out as you go along’.

I think it’s particularly acute for software like SharePoint as it’s a huge, complex product and can be used in so many different ways.

There is a huge amount of information available for Developers, Administrators and Power Users – but surprisingly little aimed at End Users.

So to help we’ve partnered with ClipTraining.com – one of the leading providers of online training videos for software products – to bring you a totally free training course for SharePoint 2013.

clip-training-logo-small

We were particularly impressed with ClipTraining’s approach of breaking down each course into short to-the-point task based videos – this allows you to work through the whole syllabus or jump into specific areas when you ‘just need to get something done’.

Free? What’s the catch?

None!

You have to register by the end of March – you can then use the online training as much as you want until the end of 2016.

Pentalogic and ClipTraining will receive your registration details but we are committed to treating you fairly. We won’t rent, sell or disclose this to anyone else and we will not bombard you with emails!

Register Now!

Help us spread the word!

If you think this is useful then please help us spread the word.

  • How about that colleague who is new to SharePoint?
  • Tweet to your followers.
  • Someone asking a question in a forum who needs a helping hand?

About ClipTraining

ClipTraining’s eLearning library includes training videos for the full Office suite (Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, OneNote, Publisher, Visio) as well as Windows 10, Skype for Business, Yammer and OneDrive.

Everyone is sure to learn something new about the tool they use every day – increasing productivity and saving hours of work.

Included are ClipTraining’s convenient administrative tools to track user activity, and easily organize and manage your entire team’s learning.

Purchase for individuals for just pennies a day – or get access for your whole organisation to slash your training and helpdesk budgets.

Opening an URL in a new Window from a SharePoint list

Date:June 22nd, 2012 Author: Tags: , , , ,
Category: SharePoint HTML Calculated Column Comments:2 ;

HTMLCC-logo

A missing feature from SharePoint’s URL column is the ability to open links in a new window. However, our free HTML Calculated Column lets you do this in just a few easy steps.

Step 1: Get the software

Download our software from here: HTML Calculated Column Download

It’s free, but you’ll have to sign up to our newsletter. Don’t like our newsletter? Just unsubscribe. No logins, no e-mail reselling, no spam, no drama.

Just run the installer on your server and you’re done.

Step 2: Create a Text column

Add a simple Text column to your list (not a Hyperlink column). Create it as normal, call it ‘URL’ or something similar, and put an URL in it.

Calculated columns (both SharePoint’s and ours) don’t support Hyperlink columns, so it isn’t possible to use these in the formula below.

Step 3: Create an HTMLCC column

Next is our Pentalogic HTML Calculated Column (catchy name, eh?). Create it as you would a normal calculated column, and put the following formula in it:

=”<a href='”&[URL]&”‘ target=’_blank’>Link</a>”

The part that does the actual new window opening is the “target=’_blank’”, and [URL] is the name of your text column. You can customize the formula however you like; possibly with the help of our Calculated Column Cheatsheet.

When you save, you’ll see our cautionary malicious code warning. If you have users you don’t trust able to add/edit items in this list, then… well… sack them (or have them sacked). Then tick the box and click OK.

And while we’re here…

The “[?]” link to our site in the column title has been removed: We heard how annoying it could be, so we got rid of it.

Just upgrade to the latest version (1.3) to update your existing columns.

Let us know what you think of our free SharePoint tools and our other SharePoint web parts: [email protected]

SharePoint Timesheets – What are your options? Part 3: Free Solutions

Date:November 10th, 2011 Author: Tags: , , , ,
Category: General, SharePoint TeamTime, SharePoint Timesheets Comments:6 ;

Following on from Clare’s previous two posts on Native SharePoint Timesheets and Plug-in one, I’ll be running you through the options for creating SharePoint Timesheets for free.

During the early development of SharePoint TeamTime we looked at our potential competition, including the free alternatives. Of those we found, the following three were the most notable:

  • Fab 40 – Timecard Management: One of the famous Fab 40 templates (2007 only)
  • Built-in Timecard List: A little known built-in Timecard list (2010 only)
  • Open Source Project: Paul Beck has kindly published an open source solution (2010 only)

Fab 40 – Timecard Management

The Timecard Management template was produced by Microsoft as a demonstration of the capabilities of WSS 3. In Microsoft’s own words:

The Timecard Management application template helps teams track hours spent working on various projects. The site enables team members to ‘punch in’ on a particular project and ‘punch out’ when they cease work. The system automatically generates the time worked by project, and can show managers who is working on a particular project…

This was one of the favorites out of all the templates we tried. In fact, the punching in and out functionality was a feature we emulated into TeamTime. I’d like to think of TeamTime as a spiritual successor to this template.

Built-in Timecard List

SharePoint 2010 has a built-in Timecard list, that is hidden from normal view for some reason. Although this is by no means a complete solution, it’s freely available to anyone able (or willing) to activate the feature and create it though SharePoint Designer 2010.

Laura Rogers has a very helpful walk-through for creating one of these lists: Out of the Box Timecard and Holiday Lists. Here is a description from her blog:

In SharePoint 2010, there’s a little-known built in feature.  There are list templates that can be used for time card tracking, with a holiday calendar that ties into the time card.

Open Source Project

Paul Beck has published a four part blog series on creating a Timesheet solution from scratch, entitled Timesheet solution for SharePoint 2010. He then went a step further and published his code to CodePlex for anyone to use. In his own words:

A common requirement on Intranets is to have a timesheet template on SharePoint.  There are solution for company timesheets.  I wanted to build a timesheet application that was scalable, reportable and friendly for SharePoint.

If you want to skip the source code, his third article in the series (Part 3 – Installation) has a link to the pre-built package.

This solution is slightly different from the others, as it stores its data in a separate SQL Server database; which may not be an option for everyone.

Lastly

I hope you’ve found our  SharePoint Timesheet series useful. If you know of any better alternatives, please let us know. We’re not afraid of a bit of competition. Winking smile

ViewRescue for SharePoint 2010 – Updated!

Date:March 30th, 2011 Author: Tags: , , ,
Category: General, SharePoint Free Tools, SharePoint webparts Comments:0 ;

View Rescue

We’ve recently updated our free ViewRescue tool for SharePoint 2010 to version 1.1.2

This latest version will now work with customized Master Page templates, as long as you have an “AdditionalPageHead” control in your template.

See our website for the latest version (you can install this over the top of the existing version to upgrade) and details about this free tool  that fixes a common annoyance in SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 and the mystery of the disappearing view selector menu

Date:March 8th, 2011 Author: Tags: , ,
Category: General, SharePoint webparts Comments:34 ;

Remember the good old days, before SharePoint 2010, when a dropdown on the top right of a List View Web Part (LVWP) allowed you to select different views, quicly and easily?

In SharePoint 2010 we have lost this handy feature.  On some pages, a substitute does exist in the Breadcrumb on the title bar (which is part of the Ribbon, at the top of the page). It took us a little while to actually realize was there – but once we found it, it was very welcome.

SharePoint List View Selector Menu

But wait, all is not well. as Kerri from one of our partners – LookOut Software who develop CRM software for SharePoint – pointed out even the breadcrumb option disappears on the majority of pages. It disappears if you

  • Add another list view web part
  • Add any other web part such as a Content Editor Web Part containing things like instructions for the list
  • 3rd party web parts like our PivotPoint or FilterPoint tools that work really well alongside list views for creating dynamic dashboards.
  • use your list on a wiki page – and remember most of the pages in SharePoint 2010 are wiki pages by default now.

Also you don’t get it if you’ve created a new page and added a list view web part to it.

Once it’s gone, you have to resort to the following ninja moves to change a view. Select the list title (or something in the list) > List Tools > List, Current View dropdown > Then the view you want. 4 clicks? My finger is getting sore SharePoint!

This bugged me so much that I decided to look into it further and ended up developing a little tool which  – well – rescues the view selector drop down.

If you just want the solution you can skip the rest of this post and download our free fix for this annoyance – ViewRescue

View Rescue for SharePoint 2010

If you’re interested in the techie details then read on…