SharePoint Applications

Today while building out some demo sites for Eidenai I went hunting for SharePoint Site Definitions and found that in the real world people happily still think in terms of scenarios rather than execution.

The first find was Mart Muller's Tam Tam WikiSharePoint. This is a Wiki implemented a a collection of WebParts. The Tam Tam WikiSharePoint web part  is an entry point which creates the list (a thesaurus) and displays results. The Search WikiSharePoint web part provides a search box, and Tam Tam WikiSharePoint TreeView displays the thesaurus as a tree. All pretty cool.

The next find was the Collutions CBlog for SharePoint available on GotDotNet. The nifty part here is that Jim Duncan used the app to produce his own blog. I also see Bill Simser on the project members list. I had the chance to finally meet up with Bill and chat about SharePoint over lunch in Calgary last week, it was a fun conversation.

Also, just yesterday at the TSPUG meeting someone asked about setting up Forms Authentication for SharePoint sites and unfortunately not much has been written on the topic. Then today I see a new entry on GotDotNet entitled "Forms Based Authentication on SharePoint Technology Sites Using ISA Server." There's some good timing.

Speaking of Site Definitions, I was going to provide links to a couple previous examples including the Sarbanes-Oxley Accelerator which installs to SharePoint. Unfortunately it no longer appears on microsoft.com (though the marketing remains), and apparently lives on a GotDotNet project site instead. Which would be fine if it didn't require membership to see what's going on or grab bits. Last year at TechEd we were told "not only will work continue for SOX Accelerator, in fact we're planning future versions of it." I guess the speaker didn't know back then that he would be expected to write that next version in his spare time.

I'd take this as a sign that you should probably grab the Business Scorecards Accelerator while it lasts. The other accelerators are pretty handy too, and I've heard good things about the Sales Proposal Acelerator, though it isn't a SharePoint component. Enjoy.