An in-between project: WPF screensaver for communicating our company values + news

A few weeks ago one of the TopForce founders asked me for an idea for communicating company messages to the TopForce employees. He was considering the usage of a screensaver for this. He had several requirements:

1. It must be easily possible for the TopForce management to push new messages on-the-fly to our employees
2. The displayed screensaver is attractive and draws on the attention of both the TopForce employee as coincidental passers-by
3. The screensaver has a professional layout and styling

Being a SharePoint guy and fan, I immediately thought of applying our SharePoint based intranet for the management and distribution of the screensaver messages. Management can be done via a dashboard page containing multiple ListViews for the different categories of messages. Distribution can be done via SharePoint Lists.asmx webservice. So that's for addressing requirement 1. For the second requirement I considered WPF, you can do all kind of screen graphics and (dynamic) behaviour with that - from very simple to most advanced. For the last requirement; well I'm a developer, not a designer. Different roles, and especially different talents. I directly admit that I do not posses enough designer talent. But luckily I've several colleagues that are especially strong on the User eXperience area. Frodo Jansen did a very good job on desinging the screen-layout, addressing the third requirement.

The sketch of the software architecture for this mini application looks like this:

An impression of the end-result:

Business announcement of Duet Enterprise

Today the expected announcement on the next version of Duet is made public.
At the PDC09 Duet Enterprise has been presented to the audience, followed by a press release. In my opinion, the PDC is somewhat of a strange location to announce Duet Enterprise. The PDC participants are mainly IT developers and architects. The (justifiable) first audience of the Duet Enterprise proposition is however business management. This is visible in the information disclosed so far (view the solution brief). It eluminates the (foreseen) business value of Duet Enterprise, to get more value out of your company's investments in both SAP and Microsoft environments.

Details about the product itself are not yet exposed; system architecture nor infrastructure. We'll still have to wait for that. The good news for now is that both SAP and Microsoft have committed themselves, and in a shared uptake, to invest strategic in Duet. That clear commitment had been lacking until now.

Recovering from Access Denied [The File Exists (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070050)]

This week I restored a local virtual development environment, which I hadn't used for a couple of months. I wanted to reactivate this virtual image because it has a complete installed MOSS environment tailored for a development task. However, when I tried to access any of the local SharePoint sites within the image, be it Central Admin or a provisioned site; for each I received an Access Denied. The error: The file exists. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070050). Really annoying, because I needed to quickly be up-to-speed.

Luckily, I was not the first to run into this particular problem. Especially this blog shed light on the problem cause, and on how to solve it. In the process of reactivating the image, I was required to re-associate the local account within Active Directory. As result, AD issued a new Security ID (SID) for that account. And SharePoint internally checks on this SID, not on username, to determine whether an account is to be granted access. The SID is for that purpose administrated per SharePoint site in its content database.

The solution is thus to replace in the SharePoint content databases the invalid old SID with the new issued SID. In essence, this involves the following repair steps:

1. Use the dsquery command to determine the AD context information of your account
2. Use this to query for the AD Object, and derive the Security ID from it (property objectSid)
3. Convert the binary SID into HEX
4. Open a SQL Server Query tool, and replace in every SharePoint content database the invalid SID by the determined correct SID

Our proposition on SAP + SharePoint integrated HPW

I've written a leaflet on combining the strengths of SAP and SharePoint for a seamless integrated High Performance Workplace. This leaflet is published on our company website. For convenience I also include it here.

Unlock the value of SAP business processes within a SharePoint based HPW

For your enterprise/organization, the SAP environment is part of the company’s most important and valuable assets. However the business processes and functionality within this SAP environment are often not widespread distributed to the employees. This hinders the adoption and application of Self Service processes. By unlocking the structural SAP business processing within the familiar workplace of nowadays information workers, the application and operation of such functionalities appears familiar even for the casual user. More and more, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is the platform underlying the enterprise portal.

Since the start of TopForce in 1999, we have come across numerous SAP installments at diverse customers. Mostly large enterprises and government organizations, but also mid-range sized companies. In this period, we have gained a lot of experience and insights on the strengths of the SAP products and environment: SAP ERP, CRM, XI/PI, ESS, MSS, Enterprise Portal, NetWeaver platform. As a portal consultancy organization, we also have knowledge and hands-on experience with the potentials of the Microsoft SharePoint platform. Since the introduction of the 2007 version it has rapidly become the rising star as platform of choice for deploying enterprise portals. The combination of these two puts TopForce in an excellent position to foresee the issues to deal with when unlocking SAP business processing within a SharePoint front-end. In 2007 SAP appointed TopForce as Special Expertise Partner Duet™. In the Netherlands we are the only licensee to implement Duet™ on top of SAP business processing for incorporation within the Microsoft Office end-user environment.

Our vision

Our well-established 5-layer architecture forms the basis for any service oriented architecture in which TopForce is involved. The strength of this architecture is that it completely decouples the presentation aspects

of any application, from the business processing and responsibilities. Exactly what is also needed to deliver a robust and future proof integration between SAP business processes at the back-end within the visual scope of your enterprise portal.

For the specific business situation of unlocking SAP business processing to your enterprise portal, we have expanded the 5-layer architecture into our conceptual integration architecture. Inputs for this integration architecture are the HPW concepts, and guiding principles on both business and IT level to delimitate the solution space.

Our approach

The driving force behind any IT project is the business gains one wants to achieve. For TopForce this is the starting point also on projects to unlock the SAP business functionalities by including them within the enterprise HPW. Which business processes are most viable to unlock via the enterprise portal to the employees? What kind of user interaction and design should best be applied to facilitate the requested User eXperience, even for the casual user? Also part of this initial analysis phase is to examine the current IT landscape, and the active or available integration mechanisms. The next step is to design the outline of the solution, and map this on our defined integration architecture. Hereby keeping a strong eye on the current IT environment and the medium-time IT roadmap of the enterprise. This design is then implemented within the IT landscape, typically involving configuration and development activities at both the SAP side to expose its processes, as within the SharePoint/portal side to incorporate the user interaction. A best practice here is to follow small steps, delivering in quick results and wins.

Our building blocks

The most significant parts here are the TopForce 5-layer architecture for realizing the HPW, and the detailing of this into our referential integration architecture. Also we have ready-to-employ technical building blocks for realizing a loosely-connected integration between the structural SAP business back-end, and the SharePoint based enterprise portal as the information worker’s familiar HPW.

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint integration interoperability HPW

Expectations on DUET 3.0

With the forthcoming release of SharePoint 2010 in sight, it is clear that this will be the foundation application platform for other Microsoft products. Project Server, Business Intelligence strategy, Dynamics CRM, and so on. In context of SAP / Microsoft interoperability, it is interesting to watch what will happen with the DUET^TM offering, a joint SAP and Microsoft product. The DUET versions so far (1.0, 1.5) cannot be considered a success story in real practice. A lot of licenses are out there in the market (1 million licenses at 500 customers in the last 2 years), but almost no concrete applications. There are several reasons for that:

• The minimal set so far of supported SAP business packages / functionality
• The lack of development support in the current DUET^TM versions; to custom extend the minimal set
• The extra complexity and costs within the IT infrastructure due to the separate DUET server

SAP nor Microsoft have yet published the future roadmap of DUET^TM, nor recommitted themselves recently to continue this. However, several signals indicate that it will be continued, and that it will be re-architectured. For instance, at the SAP TECHED this week within Vienna it was told that DUET 3.0 will be based on SharePoint 2010. Talk of an unexpected surprise J. At the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 last week in Vegas, DUET was not or only marginally mentioned. I expect this to be intentionally, because DUET is a joint SAP + Microsoft happening; and they will use a common podium to present the [near] future roadmap of DUET^TM.

Information that is already leaking out:

• No more dedicated DUET server to handle the communications between SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft Office; but relying on the SharePoint 2010 platform/server to handle this
• UI aligned with next version of Office; Office 2010
• SAP potentially shifting away from Java in favor of ABAP (wonder why that could be…)
• Functionality around reporting and sales management, time management scenario’s

Given the foreseen dependency on a.o. SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010, it will be clear that I do not expect the appearance of DUET 3.0 before around the end of 2010. Also interesting is in what sense DUET 3.0 will be dependent on the SAP NetWeaver (SAP’s Business Process Platform) roadmap: new capabilities, functional and technical. Once again, it is a joint uptaking by SAP and Microsoft; and it therefore requires alignment with the technology and business roadmaps of both companies. No simple action, but since the companies have a common interest here and a common opponent (Oracle), I’ll certainly expect them to come up with something significant. They simple have to.

Some interesting related and recent links:

• [Blog Steve Fox] SAP TECHED 2009
• [Blog Kristian Kalsing] The new DUET architecture
• [Blog Josh Greenbaum] DUET Lives! SAP and Microsoft’s Office Interface Still Alive and Kicking
• DUET 1.x & SAP: Architectural overview
• [Blog Kent Weare] TechEd 2009 - Day 5

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint DUET integration interoperability HPW

My take on SPC 2009 and SharePoint 2010

Most substantial impression after attending SharePoint Conference 2009, is that the next version of SharePoint [2010] incorporates lots of modifications, improvements and extensions. SharePoint 2010 really has it in it to become a full-blown application platform. Of the large collection of changes and additions, the following are most significant for me (from a consultant + developer perspective):

• Sandbox deployment model - enables us to push managed code to hosted SharePoint environments
• Improvements in the UI - improved usage model and experience, more attractive Web2.0-kinda layouts, integration/embedding of the Office Ribbon, cross-browser support (via XHTML)
• BDC evolution into BCS - symmetric client and server usage model, bidirectional transfer from+to LOBsystem, largely improved BDC Designer (SPD and VS) for defining the external system connections, part of SharePoint Foundation iso Server license, ...
• SharePoint Workplace 2010 - Groove evolution provides SharePoint functionality and usage model when offline; and transparently synchronizes upon reconnect
• InfoPath Forms handling - performance and robustness improvements, new and improved controls (e.g. DateTimePicker, PeoplePicker), improved rules management, modify list/library forms via InfoPath Editor,
• Modifications to "My Site" - new visual organizational browser, direct status updates (cq LinkedIn, Facebook), knowledge mining, social tagging, ...
• ALM extensions - new Visual Studio project templates, transparent deployment to SharePoint environment, TFS integration, navigate SharePoint from within VS 2010 context via Server Control, ...
• VS 2010 development experience - graphically design a webpart, Client-side Javascript Object Model, Developer Dashboard
• SharePoint Designer 2010 - transitioned into a fully functional tool within the SharePoint solution creation lifecycle, navigation focus around SharePoint artifacts, administrator able to restrict usage, export to solution package (WSP)
• Seamless combine work of business analyst / functional designer and developer - the outline of a solution can first be prototyped in SPD, and then moved into VS 2010
• Search extensions - improvements in the User Experience, Social Search enabled, incorporation of FAST Search (in the high-end SharePoint edition)
• Data management - validation at list- and item-level, cascading Lookup reference deletes, lookup to multiple item-fields, large list support, LINQ to SharePoint
• SharePoint capabilities OOTB - new and improved functionalities and capabilities; functional + technical
• WCM improvements - adoption of the Ribbon UI, inline editing, in-place positioning within pagelayout ('igoogle'), limiting the number of full-page refreshes upon content owner actions, Multilingual UI enables runtime language-switch, extended granularity Audience targetting, monitor the usage + size of a site
• Composites - Silverlight Web Part, REST, Business Connectivity Services, Access Services, custom workflows in SPD, Visio Services (ao workflow visualizations)

Another important aspect for me was the focus on SAP/MS interoperability. The conference gave me the chance to catch up with leading community members Kristian Kalsing and Matt Ordish. We discussed our past experiences, and future directions + expectations. And we strenghtened our mutual bond...

Last but not least; it's good to see the attention and recognition SharePoint receives. Within Microsoft - Steve Ballmer pronounced SharePoint 2010 as his lovebaby; from analysts; and the massive interest by the conference attendees. We all felt a common excitement about the forthcoming version. 7000 SharePointers (developers, architects, consultants, [power] users) can't be wrong, SharePoint is here to stay and prosper.

Second day at SPC2009, SAP/MS interop community members unite

The most interesting session of the whole conference for me was this day, being 'Revolutionizing the SAP User Experience...with SharePoint', presented by Matthew Ordish. It is in fact the only presentation on the conference on SAP/MS interop. Matthew was pleasently surprised by the number of attendees, at forehand he expected a number of 3 to 4. But instead the room was pretty filled. In combination with talks I had sofar with other conference members this gives me the impression that SAP/MS interop is certainly on the agenda of more people than you would expect. The talk was very good, Matthew really knows his stuff. He had some excellent architectural and conceptual slides, which I plan to reuse. Afterwards me and Kristian (naturally he also went to this talk) spoke and discussed with Matthew, I explained what I'm doing at the SAP/MS interop area within the Netherlands. We joined for lunch to continue our talk and exchange ideas plus experiences on the subject. Very interesting indeed. I certainly include Matthew within my list to contact when I've questions or want to checkout ideas.

Tags: SAP NetWeaver Microsoft SharePoint integration interoperability community