Did you know that as of SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 you can give the worksheets a customized name when exporting your report to Excel?  If you didn’t, or you did but never took the time to find out how you’d implement that, I’ll show you here and now!

For this example I’ll be starting off from the report created in my earlier post on Cascading Calculated Fields.

The result can be downloaded from my Skydrive through this link.

A Developer’s Blog · Reporting Services

I think I’m not alone missing the possibility in WSS 3.0 to include multiple columns from the target list when creating a lookup or user field in a list.

If you have read my former posts about custom fields and reordering of list fields you already know what you need to create such field types yourself.

Multiple column lookup field for SharePoint « Second Life of a Hungarian SharePoint Geek

Welcome to Print Overview where I will show you several ways to print cleaner pages or to print specific lists.  All of the examples use some form of JavaScript or JQuery to perform the solution.  The nice part is that you only have to add a Content Editor Web Part CEWP and put the code in to make it work. 

Each page will show you a sample list or page that can be printed as described below.  The code and other steps that just adding a CEWP will also be listed on the page.

Site – PrintOverview

Various editions of Microsoft Office 2007 include SharePoint support component, which is installed by default: Microsoft Office >> Office Tools >> Windows SharePoint Services Support. Specifically the “Edit in datasheet” feature is supported by the sub-component named “Microsoft Office Access Web Datasheet Component”. I went and checked out the components installed for my Office 2010 – and the analogous components were marked as installed:

Now that appears to be an issue. It would be interesting to know if anyone else ran into the same situation or was it just me. The workaround was easy – install back Windows SharePoint Services Support for Office 2007. Below is a screenshot – I only needed this specific part of the office and nothing else:

Ivan on Software: Cannot Edit SharePoint 2007 List in Datasheet after Office 2010 Beta is Installed

In my the first two articles of this series, Visual Indicators for the Masses and Embed KPIs as a List View, I discussed ways to create simple KPIs in WSS. This article will show how to make calculations on top of date-time fields.

KPIs for the Masses: A Dashboard based upon a date-time field | EndUserSharePoint.com

With most SharePoint development being done in VMs, it is useful to have a set of sysprepped base VMs that can be cloned at any time to create a new environment, whether it be for a new project, to test some tool or software, or whatever. Sysprep is a great tool for virtual domains because it will generate a new security ID (SID) for every server created from the sysprepped image to prevent conflicts between servers on the same domain.

Most of the software needed for development can be installed prior to running sysprep on the virtual machine,but SQL Server and SharePoint (at least the configuration of SharePoint) are generally exceptions. These apps typically must be installed post-sysprep in order for them to operate correctly, and this is an involved and tedious process. Fortunately with SQL Server 2008 R2, we now have SQL Server Sysprep, which will allow SQL Server to be installed and imaged, but not configured until a new VM is created from the base image. Woohoo!

So, the general steps are as follows:

1. Install a virtual machine with Windows Server 2008 R2, PowerShell 2.0 and all other desired client software (Visual Studio, Office, SharePoint Designer, etc…)
2. Install SQL Server 2008 R2 as a Prepared Image
3. Install SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485(office.14).aspx) either manually or using the Prerequisites Installer tool
4. Install SharePoint 2010 bits, but DO NOT run configuration wizard
5. Run Sysprep.exe to prepare server
6. Clone server
7. Boot clone and execute PowerShell script to perform the following actions:
   • Complete configuration of sysprepped SQL Server 2008 R2 database server
   • Configure SharePoint 2010 farm

Creating a cloneable SharePoint 2010 Development Environment with PowerShell, Windows Sysprep, and SQL Server 2008 R2 Sysprep – Overview

In previous versions of SharePoint it was impossible to add corners to a Web Part with just CSS (unless you were building sites for only the latest browsers). The best way was to style a container DIV on the Page Layout and put a Web Part Zone inside. Then, a Web Part in that zone would appear to have round corners. This method greatly reduces the flexibility of SharePoint because there can only be one Web part in each Zone for the effect to work.

Styling Web Parts in SharePoint 2010 has become much easier than in MOSS 2007. There are several reasons for this and I will highlight a few.

The addition of a style class on a cell that contains the entire Web Part gives a big advantage to adding styles. In MOSS this did not exist. This is helpful because now you can simply add a border, background image or color to the container cell with the class “s4-wpcell-plain” and it will be applied around and behind the body and header of the Web Part.

PointBridge Blogs – Office 2010 Wave

The backgrounds in SharePoint 2010 were designed to allow end users to change gradients by simply picking solid colors on the settings page. For example if you choose an orange background color the result is a fade from orange to lighter orange. The change can be very subtle but is an effective way to create an attractive site. This is a significant upgrade from older versions of SharePoint where, in order to change the branding, you would have had  to undertake the time-consuming task of editing all of the gradient images one by one.

PointBridge Blogs – Office 2010 Wave

Project Description
Starter Master Pages for SharePoint 2010 are a clean, commented starting point for creating your own SharePoint 2010 branding. Starter Master Pages were known previously as Minimal Master Pages in SharePoint 2007.
Project Details
In the tradition of those SharePoint branding folks that came before me, I have put together two minimal master pages that can be used to start a SharePoint 2010 Branding project. They contain only very minimal HTML styling in order to accommodate some of the specific needs of SharePoint 2010 and are commented throughout. I hope you find them useful as a good starting point for creating branded SharePoint sites. If you make improvements upon them that could be used to improve the Starter Master Page experience for others, please share the changes with me through the CodePlex site or through my blog comments.

Starter Master Pages for SharePoint 2010

I’m sure there are a lot of SharePointers out there who are excited about the 2010 release and as I have been working my way through the installation and configuration of this updated beast, I have also been providing you with posts along the way sharing my experiences.  Today isn’t any different, and in this two part series I will be providing you with a guide to upgrading your SharePoint 2007 content databases to SharePoint 2010.  There are already some great resources out there regarding upgrade options and preparation guidance including those from Microsoft on the TechNet Site and others which I will list at the end of this article. The prime focus of part 1 of this 2 part series will be to outline the many tools that are available to you at no cost, assisting and ensuring that your SharePoint  farm and SharePoint databases are up to scratch and ready for 2010.  The series will proceed as follows;

1. Upgrading your Content DB to SharePoint 2010 –The preupgradecheck
2. Upgrading your Content DB to SharePoint 2010 – Using the Database Attach method

Upgrading your Content DB to SharePoint 2010 – Part 1 – The preupgradecheck | SharePoint George