SharePoint 2010 PDF iFilter

I’ve recently learnt that SharePoint 2010 surprisingly does not crawl the contents of PDF files (Does not search through the contents of PDF files). It seems odd that SharePoint is not capable this as PDFs will be the desired document format on SharePoint 2010.

Fortunately for us this can be fixed. Adobe have released a tool that can be installed into the SharePoint 2010 server, called iFilter. one this is installed the search function will be able to crawl the contents of PDFs. This is a server side installation so it will not require the user to do anything at all and it will be one of the first features that we will be installing, just to get it out of the way.

Install instructions can be found at https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/sites/itpro/Pages/Install-Adobe-PDF-iFilter-for-SharePoint-2010.aspx

RE

SharePoint on Mobile Devices

Being able to access SharePoint on the go is a major feature with the 2010 version. Out of the box, SharePoint will automatically redirect to a mobile site when accessed from such devices. However the out of the box look and feel is very basic, but you can still add and edit list items, access files and other functions etc.

 

The above screenshots show some examples of how a SharePoint site looks out of the box on a mobile device to end users. The only problem with using the out of the box mobile site, is that it offers no customisation with either the master page or the css files, and therefore are stuck with the very ‘light’ looking version. After a little research it does appear that there could be some solutions to the problem.

One document expresses that you have 3 options when it comes to the mobile site of SharePoint. The first is to do nothing, the second is a mobile app strategy and the third is a wrapper strategy. The mobile app strategy would give the best experience according to the author, however with almost as good an experience as the app is the wrapper strategy. The mobile app strategy would probably by best however at this early stage it would not be easy. The wrapper strategy would offer desktop content in a mobile skin and the desktop and mobile content would be the same compared to the out of the box mobile sites which offers a ‘watered down’ version. But if the mobile site is only going to be used by internal members of staff, the out of the box site will be just as good functionality wise.

It is also worth noting that when creating custom lists, that you will also need to create a mobile adaptor for it to display correctly on the mobile site. If you do not create one, that web part will not show up on the mobile site.

The Next 6 Months

Michael, myself, Dave and Tim had a meeting last Friday discussing the future of the project. In this meeting we made a basic plan for the next six months of the project.

Firstly, we need to complete the Project Initiation Document (PID) to the best of our abilities within the next two weeks before our meeting with the Projects team, so they can go through it with us, fill in any gaps that we weren’t able to fill and correct any mistakes that we may have made.

To acquire the servers that are needed for the project, we will have to fill in a ‘Work Package’ form, detailing the specifications of the servers that we require, this will need to be done fairly soon so we can get started on the project as soon as possible. When we have the servers, Tim will help us in setting them up and configuring them for our and the universities needs.

First step for Michael and I will be to create a sandbox area for ourselves to create a ‘demo’ of SharePoint 2010’s capabilities. This will be to show users essentially what SharePoint 2010 is and what it can do. While we are doing this we will be working with Project Services to acquire Registry’s requirements within SharePoint 2010. As the Registry department is the first department we will be setting SharePoint 2010 up for, we will need to know what they need from it, so we can create the appropriate space and workflows for them within the service. We will at some point be holding some presentation and training sessions for members of the registry department, this will be to show them what can be done with SharePoint 2010 and give them some idea of what they can get out of SharePoint. The training sessions will most likely be held later on in the project, to teach people how easy it is to make a WorkFlow.

SharePoint 2010 Migration Project

The next part of our project begins here. For those of you who are unfamiliar with out project, Michael and I have been researching the possibility of migrating the University’s current SharePoint 2003 Portal to SharePoint 2010. As the project progresses we will continue to update the blog to document our work and to inform you of the development of the project.

We have been in the research stage of the project for the last 9 months and are about ready to move onto the implementation stage. Over the next few weeks we will be working on the Project Initiation Document, this will detail the steps that we will be carrying out throughout the project.

If you are interested in the SharePoint project, feel free to subscribe to the project blog to find out how the project is going.