SharePoint 2010 Content Types Tutorial In New kalmstrom.com Tip

When managing a SharePoint site you want to centralize the administration as much as possible, so that changes and addition are easily distributed and you don't have to repeat them many times. One way of achieving that is to use CSS files in SharePoint, just like you do on other websites, but if you use SharePoint 2010 I also suggest that you take a look at the Content Types.

Centralized management
Content Types was first introduced in SharePoint 2007, and in SharePoint 2010 they have been more elaborated. The Content Types enable SharePoint administrators to manage the settings for a category of information in a centralized and reusable way. If you for example have several subsites that use the same kind of documents, it is much easier to update templates and settings only once instead of doing it for each sub site. Content Types are inherited from the site they are created in and downwards, so often it is suitable to create a Content Type in the root SharePoint site. That is what our CEO Peter Kalmstrom does in the demo on SharePoint Content Types below.


Collection of metadata
With a SharePoint Site Content Type you can describe what metadata should be used for certain documents and how they should be presented. If you for example want to use a Content Type for contracts, you probably want to have start and end date in them and maybe also cost center and partner. The Content Type helps you formallize these details so that they can be used in several sub sites, and a change in the Content Type will reflect to all the sub sites using that Content Type. In this demo Peter shows how to create a new Content Type and how to connect it to Document Libraries in three different sub sites.


Other useful tips
When Peter is demonstrating the Content Type he also shows a lot of other SharePoint features, like to create different kinds of columns, create and modify views, save as a template, add Quick Parts, work with Web Parts and much more. He also explains how to add a shared view of all documents using the same Content Type to the SharePoint site. This can be done with the help of the Content Query Web Part available in the SharePoint 2010 Server and Enterprise versions.



Microsoft certified SharePoint specialist
Peter Kalmstrom has earned all the available Microsoft certifications for SharePoint 2010, and he is also a certified Trainer. On the kalmstrom. com website you can find many useful tips, not only on SharePoint but also on Outlook, Excel and more. Welcome to read more about Peter's tutorial on the SharePoint Content Types page!

Educational Apps In Aakash2, The World's Cheapest Android Tablet

The company behind Aakash, the world's cheapest tablet, has launched Aakash 2 in two new versions where many of the earlier drawbacks are fixed. The new Android tablet sounds like a gold mine for students.

In January I wrote about this inexpensive Indian Android tablet and said I would have reason to come back to it. Now I have, and I thank kalmstrom.com developer Kanak Joshi who helped me with the research for this article.

Government support for Aakash
The Indian Government supports the development of the cheap Android
tablet, and that has led to the use of two names for what is
actually the same product. Aakash is the name of the tablet when it
is supplied to the Government for delivery to students across India
at a subsidized price. UbiSlate7 is the commercial version made available for all.

Two versions
Ubislate has now come in two new versions, Ubislate 7C and Ubislate 7+. They seem to be rather alike, and both are very cheap even if the price is a bit higher than for the first Aakash - around 50 EUR or 65 USD. The two versions are similar and only differ when it comes to display quality and internal storage.

Better battery and speed
The new Ubislate 7 uses a modified version of Android 2.3, with on-screen touch buttons. It is possible to use it as a phone, which you cannot do with the much more expensive iPad, but the Android tablet has no camera. The battery time of Ubislate 7 is three hours, and it is faster than the earlier versions. Ubislate 7 has WiFi & GPRS connectivity and 3G modems are supported via USB. More details can be found on the website of the developing company, DataWind.



Educational aim
As a former teacher I find it fascinating that this cheap Android tablet has so many tutorial apps included. Ubislate is primarily meant for students, to help bridge the digital divide in India, and it comes with a range of educational applications. All textbooks used in Indian secondary schools are there, just like the Wikipedia app and much more.

Long wait 
Like the former versions Ubislate 7C and 7+ has been sold out months before release, and people have been worried about when they would get their tablets. The buyers of Aakash 1 were probably disappointed when they finally received their purchases, but I hope the ones who waited for version 2 will be more satisfied.

Neither I nor Kanak have had the opportunity to test the new Android tablet, but I still wanted to tell you about it. There have been some complaints, for example about the too small touch buttons, and the price is higher than intended from the beginning. Still DataWind seems to be on the right track.

Outlook Calendar TimeCard With Enhanced Meeting Request Handling

Do your team members use the Outlook calendar for time planning? Do they send meeting requests to each other every now and then? In that case you should take a look at TimeCard, the kalmstrom.com application for time reporting from the Outlook calendar. Today TimeCard has been updated with a new feature for smooth meeting request handling.

Tag Outlook calendar appointments with time reporting data
With TimeCard the team members use normal Outlook calendar appointments to report time and expenses. They just tag their appointments with Customer, Task, Project or other data selected from dropdowns, and that makes the Outlook appointments ready for reporting to the central database – still from within the Outlook calendar. To make it even easier for the team members the administrator can set some values as default, for example internal time.

Meeting request data automatically added
If one team member sends a meeting request with TimeCard data to other members who also use TimeCard, the same data is added automatically in the calendars for all the members who accept the meeting.

Say that Mr. Wachowski requests a meeting with Mr. Anderson and Mr. Smith to discuss a quotation for the ABC company. He tags the meeting request with ABC and Quotation. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Smith both accept the invitation, and that means that they will not only get the time and the place in their own calendars – with the new version of TimeCard they will also get ABC and Quotation without having to add it.

Reporting inside the Outlook calendar
No more work has to be done for the time reporting of this meeting. Everything is already there in the appointment. The reporting dialog is opened with a button that TimeCard adds to the Outlook calendar ribbon/toolbar, and with a click on another button this and all other appointments each team member wishes to report will be sent to the central database with all the data included.

Free upgrades for Members of kalmstrom.com Community
If you are a Community Member and already use TimeCard, you are welcome to upgrade your installation to get the new meeting request feature.

Is your organization a Member, but for another kalmstrom.com application? In that case you may use TimeCard too, without paying anything extra for it. We strive for a long relationship with our customers, and therefore we give free use of our products to Community Members. Just contact the kalmstrom.com sales department, and we will be happy to send you a registration key for TimeCard also.

Try it for two months
To give organizations a chance to try TimeCard with a monthly time report, we offer evaluators a trial period of 60 days with the same extensive support as we give to our Community Members. Welcome to download TimeCard for the Outlook calendar and give it a try. I am sure you will like it!