Tag Archives: training - Page 3

Free e-courses about Windows 7

Posted by on May 18, 2009 No comments

Microsoft is offering 3 free e-learning “clinics” about the upcoming Windows 7. So if you do not have time to find out every new feature by yourself, have a look at the modules.

You get free access for one year. Access to the site is usually rather slow, but still acceptable. And a tip for the Internet Explorer 8 users: make sure you activate Compatibility View for the site, otherwise content is not displayed properly on a lot of interactive pages!

The links:

Post-session material

Posted by on March 19, 2009 No comments

For those who followed my SharePoint introduction session on the Microsoft SMB Roadshow, here are some links that will help you evaluate Microsoft Office SharePoint Server or Windows SharePoint Services:

Excel Services with Excel 2003

Posted by on November 17, 2008 No comments

One of our customers is still running Office 2003, but wants to use Excel Services. There seems to be some confusion if this is possible or not. As far as I am concerned, it is very well possible, although there are some prerequisites, and some limitations. These are my observations from an end user perspective:

  • The files in SharePoint need to be in .XLSX or .XLSB format, it does not work with .XLS. You can install the Office File Converter pack, which will allow Excel 2003 to save files as xlsx. 
    I had some issues installing it, but installing Service Pack 3 of Office 2003 fixed all issues.
  • With Office 2003, you can not limit the display of the workbook in Excel services to a specific area (worksheet, named range…). It always displays the full workbook if you open the file in Excel Services. In the Excel Web Access web part, you can limit the display to a worksheet or a named range. 
  • Office 2003 can not work with parameters, that allow you to change certain values dynamically in the worksheet (e.g. using filter web parts). 

If you want to know more about Excel Services from an end user perspective, have a look at the Microsoft online training material.

Why “SharePoint for Dummies” is not enough for your end users…

Posted by on June 20, 2008 No comments

Very often, I talk to IT-people about providing end user training for their SharePoint implementation. Recently, on two separate occations, two IT managers made the same remark: “Just give them the “SharePoint for Dummies” book and they will be fine.”

I really hate it when people talk about “dumb” end users. But this set aside, I want to make clear why this is not really a good solution for end user training for SharePoint:

  • A SharePoint end user training should always be a custom training: the SharePoint feature palette is so vast that while books discuss most of the features, companies only use their 20% of the functionalities. So why bother giving information about the ones you do not use?
  • There is more to it than just SharePoint functionality: very often, the implementation of SharePoint brings changes in work methods, procedures, information sharing… Those are specific for your organisation.
  • You need to sell your SharePoint solution to your internal audience. People are resistent to the change in their work habits, even if it is an improvement. Giving a book is not a very good sales pitch.

Microsoft released some interesting material to accomplish this: the SharePoint Training Kit, the SharePoint Internal Buzz kit. Very good material, but don’t make the same mistake: don’t throw this at your end user “as is”. Customize, customize…