Last week I had the privilege of speaking at the SharePoint Saturday event in Virginia Beach.  I talked about the upcoming release of CAML.NET 2.0, and I did a session on records management in MOSS.  The turnout was very good, with people coming in from all directions - some to speak, some to listen - but everyone came away with a very positive experience.

First of all, it was held at the brand-spanking new Advanced Technology Center at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, which is kind of an interesting story.  It's actually part of the Virginia Beach public school system - an innovative approach to providing high school students with literally everything they need for all things geeky!

The list of speakers was impressive, and I've got to hand it to Susan Lennon and the other organizers, who did an amazing job their first time out.  Becky Isserman (who is coming to Jacksonville to speak at our next JOG meeting next month!) gave a great talk on using Silverlight in SharePoint.  Todd Bleeker was there and they had to arrange a special room just for Joel Oleson because of the large turnout.  Joel's talks were very interesting and provided everyone with a unique perspective on SharePoint Governance and strategies for migrating to SharePoint.

You can download my records management slides from here.

This "SharePoint Saturday" idea is picking up steam around the country.  There is another one scheduled for New York and probably more to come throughout the year.  It's kind of like a code camp just for SharePoint.  I'm looking forward to participating in more of them.  If there's one happening in your area, then I highly recommend it.

Stay tuned.

Enterprise Content Management - Document Retention

Document retention is an important part of content management.  SharePoint provides out-of-the-box support for managing document retention using the built-in expiration policy feature of the information management policy framework.  The built-in expiration policy feature includes the ability to define expiration formulas based on document metadata, but there are many scenarios in which the expiration date depends on conditions external to a given document.  In this session, we'll explore the information management policy architecture in detail and learn how to extend the expiration policy feature by writing custom document expiration formulas that calculate the expiration date based on data pulled from elsewhere in the SharePoint farm.

Speaker: John Holliday, MVP Office SharePoint Server

Ever wished you could use a MOSS List as a mechanism for storing business data, but found yourself limited by the built-in WSS field types?  WSS 3.0 includes the ability to define your own custom field types.  Custom field types allow you to control the initialization, rendering and data validation behind your columns.  In this session, Dylan will walk you through creating and deploying custom field types and content types.

Meeting Details:

• Speaker: Dylan Phillips
• Date: June 19, 2008
• Location: Bank of America, Buliding 500, 9000 Southside Blvd; 2nd Floor; Sea Oats room
• Location Map:http://floridaofficegeeks.org/JOG/Pages/Meeting%20Logistics.aspx
• RSVP Required: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=129175

This session will introduce the CAML.NET.NET framework in detail, showing how you can use it to take full advantage of the CAML.NET query schema in your WSS and MOSS applications.

• Presented by: John Holliday
• Date: Thursday, August 23, 2007; 6-8 PM
• Location: MODIS Building, Downtown Jacksonville; Conference Room A, 2nd FL
• Meeting Location Map: http://floridaofficegeeks.org/JOG/Pages/Meeting%20Logistics.aspx
• For more information or to RSVP: http://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=119500

Ever wondered what opportunities exist for developers within Windows SharePoint Services v3?  In this session, you will see all the different options available to SharePoint developers such as Web Parts, event receivers, Features, solutions and custom workflows.  However it won't stop there.  You will also learn what you need to get started on your own in standing up your own SharePoint development environment to hit the ground running.

• Presented by: Andrew Connell
• Date: Thursday, July 19th, 2007; 6-8 PM
• Location: MODIS Building, Downtown Jacksonville; Publication Room A, 2nd Fl
• Meeting Location Map: http://floridaofficegeeks.org/JOG/Pages/Meeting%20Logistics.aspx
• For more information or to RSVP: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=119390

The next meeting on Thursday, June 28, 2007 will be a round-table discussion hosted by co-founder and fellow MOSS MVP Andrew Connell called Overview of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Developers.  This will be a great opportunity to ask questions about the platform and gain the benefit of Andrew's deep insights into the idiosyncrasies of SharePoint development.

Here is how Andrew describes the session:

What is this thing we keep hearing about called SharePoint?  Come to this presentation to learn what SharePoint is all about and what it brings to the table for your organization.  You'll walk away with an understanding of what you will get in the free version of SharePoint, Windows SharePoint Services v3, as well as the enterprise version, Office SharePoint Server 2007.  Finally, you'll also learn how your development team can customize this extremely extensible platform to meet your business requirements or to use it as the framework for custom applications.

This meeting will be a little different... bring your questions!  It won't be a full presentation, more of a dialog.

Details:

• Date: Thursday, June 28th, 2007; 6-8 PM
• Location: MODIS Building, Downtown Jacksonville; Conference Room A, 2nd Fl
• Meeting Location Map: http://floridaofficegeeks.org/JOG/Pages/Meeting%20Logistics.aspx
• RSVP Required: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=118825

We had a nice turnout for our monthly Jacksonville Office Geeks (JOG) meeting. If geeky stories about SharePoint and Office turn you on, and you're in the Jacksonville area, then you'll definitely want to bookmark this site. And check out our upcoming meeting schedule - we have a lot going on!

Last night, co-founder and raconteur extraordinaire Andrew Connell spun captivating tales about the new Web Content Management support in MOSS. Everyone was astounded and rightly impressed as AC shared his many insights into the new WCM features. Especially when he got to the part about creating your own custom fields in WSS and using them to create custom page layouts for building publishing sites. Man, if I only had this in WSS v2!

For more info about WCM, I'd highly recommend one of Andrew's webcasts, listed below. I learned last night that over 800 people signed up for yesterday's broadcast. Wow - things are heating up fast!

• MSDN Webcast - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management for Content Owners and Authors
• MSDN Webcast - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management for Site Administrators and Owners
• MSDN Webcast - The Evolution of Web Content Management in the 2007 version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

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