Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 – Added Features

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Hi Everyone. We’re still on track for the big release next week – plus – a few new features have snuck into the 2.0 build: The Files Feed and support for Cases.

Files

The Files feed is a quick way to filter for only those feed items that contain documents. You can open the Files feed from the Feed Actions menu:


Above: The Files Feed and Action Menu

Cases

The feed web part now identifies case feed items and will render them with a Case icon for easy identification. Case feeds work like any other feed. You can use the Action menu to open the case feed and create new post and comments – or – you can open the case and jump over into SalesForce.


Above: A case feed item and the Action Menu options.

Look for Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 to be released next week!

Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 FAQs

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Hi Everyone. As we approach the launch of Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 I wanted to provide answers to common questions I am receiving:

Q: What’s new in version 2?
A: A Lot! See my earlier posts for details and screenshots. Some of the more noteworthy improvements include: a completely new (and customizable) UI, faster performance, improved caching, a new middle-tier library and support for: @mentions, following and trending – among many other improvements.

Q: Can I do an in-place upgrade from version 1.x to version 2.0?
A: YES! The upgrade process is very simple. You can use the InstallWebPart utility to automatically retract/remove the old version and add/deploy the new one. Alternatively, you can use STSADM or PowerShell commands to do the retract/remove and the add/deploy. All existing instances of the web part will automatically be upgraded to the new version.

Q: When upgrading do I need to rerun EasySetup or PrepareSharePoint.exe?
A: No. If you already have a working 1.x solution deployed the new version will inherit all of the existing configuration settings.

Q: I have the BETA version of 2.0 installed. Can I upgrade to the final version?
A: YES! Just retract/remove the beta and add/deploy the final version using STSADM or PowerShell. See the documentation for the command syntax if you are unsure.

Q: I have the 1.x solution installed and would like to try the 2.x version – but retain the option of downgrading to the 1.x solution. How can I do that?
A: By default, the 2.x solution changes how the user tokens are stored. This new format is incompatible with the 1.x solution. To retain backwards-compatibility, add the AppSetting ‘Chatter_Compatibility_Mode’ to all your web.config files and set the value to ‘true’. This will allow you to go back to the 1.x solution if you so desire. Note: running in this mode will reduce the security of the user-tokens.

Q: What version of SharePoint does this support?
A: Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 is compatible with on-prem installations of the Foundation, Standard or Enterprise editions of SharePoint 2010 or 2013. This software is NOT compatible with O365/SharePoint Online due to platform restrictions. There is also no 2.0 version for SharePoint 2007.

Q: What are the SalesForce requirements?
A: Your users must have Chatter Free or Chatter Plus licenses on your instance of SalesForce.

Q: Is there an Evaluation Version?
A: YES! The solution will run in Enterprise Evaluation mode for 15 days from the date you first installed the product. You can test all of the Enterprise features with the following restrictions: An evaluation banner message will appear in the web part and the feed results are restricted to only three items.

Q: How much does the solution cost?
A: Version 2.0 has two flavors – Standard and Enterprise. The Standard License is a one-time charge of $299 per farm (unlimited users) and allows you to use the Feed Web Part only. This license DOES NOT include: Ribbon Integration, Sharing of pages/documents/items from SharePoint, Share from Anywhere, File Upload, Search Integration and Sync. The Enterprise license includes all of the solution functionality (similar to the old 1.x license) for a one-time charge of $599 per farm PLUS per-user licenses. User licenses start at $1.50 per user for less than 1000 users. Customers interested in the Enterprise license should contact me for a quote.

Q: I am interested in the Enterprise license. How do I know how many user licenses I need?
A: I have created a License Calculator tool which is included in the ZIP file. Run the tool from one of your SharePoint Servers (see the documentation for details). It will determine the user count based on the larger of the user count in the User Profile Service (if provisioned) or the largest site collection. It will then add 10% and round the number up to the nearest tenth to give you a suggested license size. You may choose to increase that number if you know your user base will grow quickly. Otherwise you can purchase additional licenses in groups of 100.

Q: We already have purchased the 1.x solution. How do we get version 2.0?
A: 1.x customers under maintenance as of November 1, 2014 will be receiving the 2.x solution at no cost and will be grandfathered into the Enterprise licensing model for the number of users recommended by the License Calculator tool. 1.x customers not under maintenance must repurchase the solution under the new licensing terms.

Q: Do you offer support or maintenance?
A: YES! Yearly Support and Maintenance contracts are available. The cost varies depending on the license type. For Standard licenses it is $1000/year per license. For the Enterprise license it is the greater of $1000 or 20% of the total license cost (farm+user licenses).

I hope these are helpful. If you have a question not addressed above please feel free to contact me. Look for the Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 launch during the week of November 3rd!

On Deck: Chatter for SharePoint 2.0

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Hi Everyone! As you can guess from the title we are getting close to the release of the next major version of Chatter for SharePoint. This project began almost a year ago and is finally coming to fruition. I’d like to thank my BETA testers for their feedback. Since the BETA was released last month there have been major changes to the codebase, including general bug squashing and significant performance improvements. The majority of the work has been around performance and I am happy to report that version 2 is far faster in rendering feeds and performing feed actions than the 1.x codebase. In many areas – it’s as much as a 100% performance increase. This is due to an entirely new caching design. While the 1.x solution cached entire feed pages – the 2.x code caches individual feed items and dynamically builds feed pages on the fly. This new caching was not implemented in the BETA – but you will be able to see it very soon.

Which leads me into the next topic – the general availability of version 2.x. Plans are to release the final version the week of November 3rd! I’m in the final debugging stages – soon to be updating the installer and documentation.

Next – a final reminder about the licensing change. Only Version 1.x customers who are under maintenance as of November 1, 2014 will be grandfathered into the new Enterprise licensing model at no cost. New and existing customers not under maintenance will need to purchase the 2.x solution and license it under the new terms.

Finally – some screenshots (just because everyone loves screenshots)

Screenshot of the Read Only Feed View

The Feed – with the new Trending Panel open.

A feed item with Topics.

Comments on a feed item with attachments.

New dropdown action menus.

The new Edit Mode info panel – licensing details will be visible here.

The Web Part Properties panel is now just one section for easy management of settings.

Thanks again to all my customers who have invested in the Chatter for SharePoint solution. This version represents a year (on and off) of development – with features and improvements suggested by you. I hope you continue to find it useful. I’ll be updating the site the week of November 3rd with the release announcement. Existing customers will be notified via email with download links and instructions for requesting new license keys.

Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 BETA

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Hi Everyone – apologies for being a few days late with the Beta – wanted to fix some last minute things before I let this code into the wild. We’re still on track for a mid-October November release.

Couple of things:

First – you can find the 2010/2013 Beta download links on the Chatter for SharePoint page. Just a reminder – there is no SharePoint 2007 port of version 2. The 1.8.x codebase will be the last for 2007. All good things must come to an end.

Next – You are going to be testing BETA software. It is not perfect. It is not finished. It has bugs. It will do weird things. It may smell bad. Don’t even think of installing this on your Production systems. Please see the Release Notes for full details and installation/upgrade instructions.

You don’t need to be an existing customer or have the 1.x code installed to test this software. The Beta can be installed on a clean farm or it can upgrade existing 1.x installations of Chatter for SharePoint.

In the download you will find a License Calculator tool. If you are going to be upgrading to 2.x and want more than just the feed web part you will need the Enterprise license – which is farm + per-user licensing. This tool will help you determine your user-count and suggest a license size. You will need this information when purchasing 2.x licenses. The tool must be run from one of the servers in your farm and with a farm admin ID.

If you are going to download and test this I only ask that you provide feedback to support@sharepointsnapple.com. I need to know what’s working, what’s not, what could be better, etc.

So please – take version 2.0 for a spin and let me know how I can make this product even better.

Thanks!

Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 UPDATE

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Hi Everyone! It’s been awhile since I posted about the next release of Chatter for SharePoint so I wanted to bring you up to date on the development progress. I’m going to share some screenshots of the solution, talk about the updated and new features in this version, the beta and release schedule and finally licensing and pricing.

Disclaimer – the screenshots are from the upcoming beta release. The CSS is not quite finished yet so there will still be some fit-and-finish improvements.

Above: The Chatter Feed Web Part

 

The UI is all new in Version 2 of the solution – a simple and clean design which focuses on content. As promised, all of the key elements have CSS tags and the branding can be tailored to fit your needs. Speaking of content – the screenshot above illustrates one of the many new features: Metadata scraping of links embedded in posts. Image and description tags are parsed from compatible pages and the rich content is rendered in the feed post.

The solution was also completely refactored and restructured. A new middle-tier library has been created that encapsulates the Chatter API calls and other common code. Next to the new CSS/UI this has been the most time-consuming aspect of the project.

Above: New Search Results Web Part

 

Another new feature is the Chatter Search Results web part – which is designed to be used with the Search Center. This replaces the fairly-complex Federated Search Connector configuration with an easy plug-and-play web part that you drop onto the Search Results page. The web part doesn’t require any configuration beyond the setup of the solution. This new approach addresses the limitations in the Federated Search configuration of SharePoint 2013 dealing with authentication.

New/Improved Features

 

  • Redesigned and customizable UI
  • New jQuery animations and transitions during Ajax postbacks
  • New middle-tier API library
  • New Search Results Web Part (replaces Federated Search components and related issues with permissions delegation)
  • Localization support (English only at launch but other languages are now possible)
  • Performance improvements for feed load times and postbacks
  • Support for RSS output of feed data
  • Trending Topics (In Progress)
  • Follow (In Progress)
  • @mention auto-complete (In Progress)
  • Encryption of user tokens within SharePoint
  • New licensing modes – Evaluation, Standard and Enterprise + Users
  • Custom Installer
  • 3rd party signed binaries for the ClickOnce Authorizer

      Removed features: SharePoint 2007 Support, ‘Share on SharePoint’ feature

Deprecated features: The Federated Search Connector is not included in version 2.x – however any existing connections will continue to function in this release. I strongly recommend switching to the new Search Results Web Part as soon as possible.

BETA and Release Plans

 

Looking to release the BETA version to customers during the week of September 15th. This will be a time-limited version that will allow you to test all of the features. I am requesting any testers provide feedback by the end of September so I can remediate issues and promote the code to production.

If all goes well with the BETA I will look to finalize the code, supporting documentation and related components through September for a mid-October release.

Licensing and Pricing

 

As previously stated, the licensing model for this release is changing. There are now two offerings: Standard and Enterprise. The Standard license grants you the right to use the Feed Web Part only. All other features are not available with this license, including: Upload to Chatter, Search Results, Ribbon Integration (Sharing of pages, items and documents; Finding items in feeds), RSS Feed, and Profile Sync. This license is per-farm with an unlimited number of users.

The Enterprise license includes all of the solution functionality and is licensed per-farm plus per-user licensing. The user-count is calculated based on the site collection with the largest number of users.

Pricing for the Standard License is $299 per farm. Maintenance on the Standard license is $1000/yr per license.

Pricing for the Enterprise License is $599 per farm + per-user licensing. Maintenance on the Enterprise license is the greater of $1000/yr or 20% of the total license cost per year; Per user licensing starts at $1.50 per user for less than 1000 users. Contact me for a quote. Note – non-production farms can be licensed for $599 per farm (no additional per-user costs) as long as your production farm is fully licensed.

Current customers under maintenance will be grandfathered into the new Enterprise licensing model for this version at no additional cost. Version 1.x customers not under maintenance will need to re-purchase the 2.x solution under the new licensing terms.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions and look for the BETA of Chatter for SharePoint 2.x to be released during the week of September 15th!

File Access Issues

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Hi All – Seems that Box.com has disabled my account for reasons unknown. I am working with their support folks to get my account reactivated. Hopefully we’ll be back in business tomorrow.

UPDATE: We’re back in business – sorry about any inconvenience.

 

 

Chatter for SharePoint 2.0 News

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Hi Everyone! Wanted to share with you the current progress of the Chatter for SharePoint 2.x development, some tentative dates and the new licensing model. The version 2.x solution development is proceeding as planned and on target for a Q3-2014 release.

New features/improvements that are done and confirmed for 2.0 include:

  • EasySetup (delivered early)
  • 3rd party digitally-signed binaries (delivered early)
  • Consolidation of SalesForce APIs into middle-tier library
  • Encryption of user tokens within SharePoint
  • Localization support
  • New licensing model

Other features currently under development include*:

  • Performance improvements
  • Redesigned Wall UI; new Metro style alternate UI
  • Support for user-customizable CSS styles
  • Improved support for touch interfaces
  • New jQuery animations and transitions
  • Support for @mention auto-complete
  • Trending Topics
  • Follow
  • Recommendations
  • Sharing multiple documents simultaneously
  • RSS output of feed data
  • And more…

Unfortunately I do need to strike one feature from the roadmap. Regretfully the O365/SharePoint Online support will not make this release. There are simply too many restrictions on these platforms (the first and killer being no external web calls) to make Chatter for SharePoint work. As these platforms evolve hopefully Microsoft will allow more flexibility with the API and network access.

Another important change is that the 2007 version is not being upgraded to 2.0. A number of factors went into this decision: the age of the platform, number of customers on 2007 and my bandwidth were all considered. The 1.x version will continue to be sold and supported for 2007 but there will be no new (significant) features for the platform. Current 2007 customers under maintenance upgrading to SharePoint 2010/2013 will get the 2.x comparable version at no additional cost.

And finally I wanted to talk about licensing. Chatter for SharePoint has been more successful than I ever imagined – and I am very thankful for the business of each of my customers and being able to help them integrate Chatter and SharePoint in their organizations. The 1.x licensing model was affordable and easy to understand and implement. It made the barrier-to-entry low enough for even the smallest companies to invest in this solution. Its adoption and success has costs though – and as I wish this to continue the licensing model must evolve and be commensurate with the features and services offered. So the new licensing model looks like this:

  • Standard License ($299/Farm; unlimited users; maintenance is $1000/yr) – Includes the web part only
  • Enterprise License ($599/Farm + per-user licensing; maintenance is the greater of $1000 or 20%/yr) – Includes all functionality (Web part, Ribbon Integration, Search, Sync and Upload)

The Enterprise per-user costs are tiered based on the number of users in the site collection. For example, if you have 5 site collections with 100,200,300,400 and 500 users respectively then you would license for the 500 users. Per user licensing costs will be quoted upon request.

Current customers under maintenance will be grandfathered into the new Enterprise licensing model for version 2.x automatically at no additional cost. Version 1.x customers not under maintenance will need to re-purchase the 2.x solution under the new licensing model.

Look for more updates on version 2.x in the coming weeks. Thank you for using Chatter for SharePoint and for your suggestions/comments. Please keep them coming – the 2.x feature list is largely by user request.

* This post contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, the results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements I make. Customers who purchase my applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.

Happy Holidays!

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Hi Everyone – Just wanted to take a moment to thank all of my customers and blog followers for visiting the site and trying/using my software this year. It’s been a fun and exciting year for SharePoint Snapple and I have great plans for 2014. So Thank You for making 2013 so special and stay tuned for even more exciting stuff next year.

Taking a break for the holiday but before I do I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas (or insert your holiday here) and a very Happy New Year!

Marc