SharePoint Blog vs Wiki Smackdown
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Transcript of SharePoint Blog vs Wiki Smackdown
A case study:
Building a Knowledge Base Solution on top of SharePoint 2010?
Slideshare v1.9
A case study:
Building a Knowledge Base Solution on top of SharePoint 2010?
Adam Cogan
Chief Architect at SSW
Microsoft Regional Director
@AdamCogan
Delivering Awesome Web Applications
Agenda
The importance of a KB
Key Requirements
‘Nice to have’ requirements
The Importance of LiveWriter (the Rich Client)
Blogs vs Wiki
Alternatives
The 4 SharePoint Alternatives
Conclusion
The Future
Knowledge Bases!
Easy to manage• Add• Change• Remove articles
Easy to search and find Nice URLs
What are we talking about?
Colin Wood
http://support.scinaptic.com/
Thanks to...
Chief Architect at SSW
Developing custom solutions for businesses across a range of industries such as Government, banking, insurance
Microsoft Gold Partner
Microsoft Regional Director
VSTS MVP
@AdamCogan
About Adam
The Importance of a KB
A bug report...
In the normal world, we hope for a response like this:
Support Response
From: [email protected]
Thank you for reporting this error. To prevent future errors, we recommend you ensure all your drivers are up-to-date. Unfortunately, we are unable to address your more serious psychological problems.
Have a good day,BillAdobe Support
Do you use balloons in screenshots instead of a 'Wall of Text'?
http://sharepoint.ssw.com.au/Standards/Communication/RulesToBetterEmail/Pages/HowToUseBalloons.aspx
A better way...
Customer sends Question
Answer with URL
http://sharepoint.ssw.com.au/Standards/Management/RulesToSuccessfulProjects/Pages/KB.aspx
Knowledge Base... A better way
Responding to a known issue with a KB article
Sample Response 1
Dear Harry,
Thank you for taking the time to report the issue for SSW Code Auditor. I'm happy to let you know that this is a known issue and has been addressed in our knowledge base. Please see http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/KB/KB.asp?KBID=Q260000 for details.
Kind Regards,Bob
Responding when you cannot reproduce the issue
Sample Response 2
Dear Harry,
Thank you for taking the time to report the issue for SSW Code Auditor.
I am sorry to let you know that I cannot reproduce this. Could you please provide me with more details, or even better would I be able to connect to your PC - it is simple and you can see everything I do. To do so, you can send me an appointment for an appropriate time or add me to your MSN Messenger, my address is xxx@s*w.com.au
P.S. Don't forget to run SSW Diagnostics, ensuring that you only get green ticks.
Kind Regards, Bob
Informing of a Fix
Sample Response 3
Dear Harry,
Done. The code changed from
xxxtoyyy
Thanks for reporting this bug - our software gets better with help from every customer like you.
This fix will be available in the next version shortly.
Kind Regards,Bob
Note: In this email, you can offer them an interim build
Informing of an update
Sample Response 4
Dear Harry,
Thank you for taking the time to report the issue for SSW Code Auditor. I'm happy to let you know that this problem is fixed in this release.
Please download the new version at http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/Download/download.aspx
P.S. Don't forget to run SSW Diagnostics and gets all green ticks www.ssw.com.au/diagnostics
Kind Regards, Bob
?
SEO – Nice URL, nice title tag
Clipboard functionality like in Word
Copy-Paste Images
Ribbon bars with easy formatting (h1, h2, h3 etc)
Key Requirements
Nice HTML
No Word-inserted CSS! ...
Key Requirements
Ordering by ‘category’
Not date ...
Key Requirements
Comments
Can group KB article in multiple categories
Publishing/Approval Workflow
Sort by rating and popularity
Image handling
ie. renaming ...
“Nice to have” requirements
The Importance of LiveWriter (the Rich Client)
Live Writer Extensions
...
LiveWriter has two big holes
No ‘save as’ to move the image locally
No ‘Save as HTML file’
Blogs vs Wiki
Create blog
Create content Categorize into at least 2 Check Image Check URL
Repeat for Wiki
SharePoint Blog vs SharePoint Wiki
On blogs
But not good enough
None on Wiki
only for internal users called 'Note Board' that display on their mysite
...
Verdict on Comments
Verdict on Comments
SharePoint 2010 Wiki’s don’t have a commenting system
SharePoint 2010 Blogs have an ordinary commenting system (no threading, no spam detection etc)
Suggestion to Microsoft: built in web part to add one of the main 3rd party commenting systems:
www.Disqus.com www.IntenseDebate.com www.aboutecho.com How could Microsoft solve this... (two ways)
How to Solve the comment problem
Option 1
Insert a web part called DISQUS comments
Option 1:Install a SharePoint feature that
In page layout dropdown
Select a 4th layout 'Basic Page with DISQUS‘
...
Option 2:Install a SharePoint feature that
Option 2
On blogs - missing
On Wiki – doesn’t save (WTF?)
Verdict on Ratings
Blog- http://adam-sp2010demo/sites/TJsBlog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=2
Wiki with spaces – http://adam-sp2010demo/sites/TJsWiki/Pages/Two%20Must%20Have%20Tools%20for%20a%20More%20Readable%20Web.aspx
Wiki with dashes - http://adam-sp2010demo/sites/TJsWiki/Pages/Two-Must-Have-Tools-for-a-More-Readable-Web.aspx
Verdict on Url Problem
SEO marketers want to stuff different keywords into the:
Page Name, Page Title, URL and Meta Description Problem.
SharePoint 2010 Wiki’s assumes the same text in first 3 and offers no way of editing the ‘Meta Description’ tag.
This is an incorrect assumption and should be fixed in SP1 (if Microsoft wants to get it used in the CMS world). http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/Standards/BetterSoftwareSuggestions/SharePointTeamServices.aspx#WikiSEO
...
SEO – Page Name, Page Title, URL and Meta Description Problem
Keep these 2 the same Let me change the
URL
Alternatives
?
Alternatives
WordPress
Wiki – Screwturn Wiki
SharePoint Wiki
SharePoint Blog
...
Alternatives
WordPress
WordPressNice URLs
LiveWriter
Wiki (over Blog)
Minimal Customization - Need to add a view (not sorted by date)
PHP
User Experience is consistent with intranet
Rating System
Integrated Authentication
Found using SharePoint search3/9
Wiki – Screwturn Wiki
Screwturn WikiNice URLs
LiveWriter
Wiki (over Blog)
Minimal Customization - Need to add a view (not sorted by date)
.NET
User Experience is consistent with intranet
Rating System
Integrated Authentication
Found using SharePoint search5/9
SharePoint Blog
SharePoint BlogNice URLs
LiveWriter
Wiki (over Blog)
Minimal Customization - Need to add a view (not sorted by date)
.NET
User Experience is consistent with intranet
Rating System
Integrated Authentication
Found using SharePoint search5/9
SharePoint Wiki
SharePoint WikiNice URLs
LiveWriter
Wiki (over Blog)
Minimal Customization - Need to add a view (not sorted by date)
.NET
User Experience is consistent with intranet
Rating System ?
Integrated Authentication
Found using SharePoint search8/9
SharePoint Wiki!
Winner is...
The 4 SharePoint Alternatives
PROBLEM!
Can’t use Wiki with LiveWriter!
1. Live Writer - Publishing to SharePoint Blog Site
2. Word 2010 - Publishing to SharePoint Blog Site
3. Live Writer - Publishing to SharePoint Wiki Site via Blog
4. Rich text editor - Directly in SharePoint Wiki Site
Options
...
1. Live Writer - Publishing to SharePoint Blog Site
Open Live Writer and Add Blog Account:
1. Connecting to SharePoint
1. Add the URL to your SharePoint 2010 Blog Site
Connecting to SharePoint - Done!
1. You will be prompted whether you wish to download editing theme from Blog site
File New Blog post
Publish
1. Creating Simple Post - Live Writer
1. Blog post on SharePoint
Copy from Word to LiveWriter (Ctrl+Shift+V)
1. What about existing Word docs?
"It seems hit or miss whether the images come into Live Writer"
Copy and Paste separately
1. Images from Word?
1. Live Writer - great for image editing
Migrated Word doc
Each image as an attachment to the Blog Post Item
This is great - Post + images live as 1 unit in SharePoint
Good for moving and migration Deleting post, everything is gone
1. How Live Writer publishes images in SharePoint Site
Live Writer is simple to use
Feature packed Rich Text Editing
Copy and Paste directly from clipboard (SnagIT straight into Live Writer Rich Text Editor)
Familiar office ribbon in version 2011
Preview your blog post within Live Writer with the styles from your SharePoint blog site
1. Advantages
No nice URLs
Can only publish to SharePoint Blog Sites not Wiki Page libraries.
Customisation needed (need time/budget)
Versioning / publishing controls
Wiki has better out-of-the-box which blog sites do not have.
Separate application on the desktop required (minor)
1. Disadvantages
Not recommended
1. Conclusion
2. Word 2010 - Publishing to SharePoint Blog Site
Word 2010 has in-built Blog publishing capabilities
Allow us to publish our existing Word formatted KB articles relatively seamlessly
2. Connecting to SharePoint
2. First time
2. Choose SharePoint Blog
2. Enter URL of SharePoint Blog Site
2. Enter a Post Title
2. Publish
2. Word Document will be updated to reflect the published state of the Document
2. Go to SharePoint
Word 2010 creates new images in the Photos library of the Blog site with a unique name and references them in the Blog Post
2. How Word 2010 publishes images in SharePoint Site?
Images randomly named in folder
Association to blog post?
Suggestion to MS: Fix this so that it is the same as the Live Writer approach and is consistent across their products.
2. Images - No good
Customize Site HomePage to change the Webpart display(s)
Posts are listed top to bottom by default so probably some user interface modifications required
Have to decide if we need the ‘Comment’ functionality on existing posts
Theme and Brand the Site (MasterPages) CSS etc. to look similar to current WebSite
Add search capabilities to Site
If Search Server Express 2010 is used, add Search Webpart to Homepage
Work out URLs to be used and how it can be achieved in SharePoint
2. Additional Development Tasks Required
Word 2010 publishing is better for Publishing / migrating existing articles as it is more seamless and is quicker to get them into SharePoint
Use Word for the rich text editing experience which most users are familiar with
Spell check is awesome
2. Advantages
Word 2010 adds a lot of unnecessary styling
Some functionality in Word 2010 will not be supported in Blog Site
Not easy to re-style blog posts once created – no CSS classes referenced (this is the same for the blog post).
2. Disadvantages
Not recommended
2. Conclusion
Ultimate solution!
Use LiveWriter to publish to blog and then to wiki
3. Live Writer - Publishing to SharePoint Wiki Site via Blog
Nice URLs
Each article is a page that can have a proper URL with no URL rewrites
3. Benefits of the Wiki
Publish to a blog site
Copy the content from blog item
Paste to Wiki Page
Move images into a image library
Fix the image links
Delete blog item
3. There is no direct route
Copy and paste the text into the Post title as well.
The reason we do this is so that we can click to open the blog post when published to blog site:
Create a sub heading called Issue and set its html style to Heading 3
Type your text in normal paragraph style:
Paste screenshots into Live Writer
Select the image
Change the picture to original size
Publish
SharePoint
Open up the actual blog post
Edit the post
Copy Body content
Navigate to the Support Wiki Library
Create new page
Give the page a name - the KB article number
Paste the contents of the blog post into the editor
The article will retain its formatting form the blog post and will now be visible in the editor of the wiki page:
The hack
Remapping images...
When the blog post was created the screenshots were created as attachments to the Post List item. Yes we could leave them there and maintain the link form the wiki page to them but we probably want to copy them off to the Site Assets library in the Team Site and change the image source links to point to Site assets
Move images to Site Assets do the following
Open up SharePoint Designer 2010 and open up the blog Site and the main team site so that they appear as separate windows (so we can drag drop between them). Potentially you could up up two browsers in explorer view of blog and KB library.
All Files view
Go to the All Files view and Select the images from the posts list (you need to know the list item ID of the blog post) and select copy
Got to the SharePoint Designer window where the Support Site is Open and navigate to the Site Assets library and select paste
Go back to your Wiki Page in Edit Mode and Switch to Html Source Mode
Change all URL references to be relative to the 'Site Assets Library' within the team site:
Publish
Done! ;-)
Article is published
To modify UnPublish Make changes Republish
Can use Live Writer as the editing tool which is focused on creating blogs/articles in a rich text editing environment
Using the benefits of Live Writer publishing with the benefits of a Wiki Page
3. Advantages
A “few” steps involved...
Very manual process remapping / moving images which kind of defeats the point of easy content editing
Suggestion to MS: Allow the ability to directly publish to a Wiki from LiveWriter.
3. Disadvantages
Not recommended
3. Conclusion
4. Rich text editor - Directly in SharePoint Wiki Site
Assuming you want to use SharePoint Foundation, you can’t use Enterprise Wiki
No ratings No tagging
Use the Team Site with Wiki Library
4. Wiki Options SharePoint Foundation 2010
Create a standard Team Site in SharePoint Foundation
Create a Wiki Library
This will take you into Rich Text Edit Mode for editing page.
Click icon to add chart
4. Rich Text Editor - Blog
Click icon to add chart
4. Rich Text Editor - Wiki
Apply styles to text
Spell check your content (sux)
Insert and format tables
Embed graphics or video
4. The Rich Text Editor
Spell check not as good as word
Need to manually check it http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/Standards/Rules/RulesT
oBetterTechnicalDocumentation.aspx#WordSpellingAndGrammarChecker
4. The Rich Text Editor
But...
4. Done!
4. Layout is ugly
RTE (Rich Text Editor) CSS classes
...
4. Identify CSS classes
format .ms-rteElement
How styles/themes work
If you have no site them applied to a site (default – no theme)
CSS files are resident in the 14 hive (SharePoint 2010)
Once you apply a theme the CSS files are auto-propagated to themes folder of the site and you can modify the CSS form here
How do you customize...
4. Identify CSS classes
1. Apply a theme to the site and customise the CSS file associated with the site theme which is stored in the themes directory of the site
2. Add a custom CSS file to the Site Assets library of the SharePoint Foundation 2010 site and reference the CSS by creating a custom masterpage with a CSS reference. This masterpage can then be set as the Site masterpage.
3. Directly modify the CSS files in 14 hive on server (access not available to do this and not a good approach) if no site them used.
...
4. Customising the RTE Styles of the Wiki Editor - 3 options
Go to the themes folder and open up the corev4-XXXxxx.cs and modify the RTE classes
This approach is flawed in that if revert back to the default (i.e. no theme) all your CSS is lost and also if you change theme all your ccs is lost.
...
4. Option 1 - Change theme
Copy and paste the v4.master in SPD and give it a new name
4. Option 2 - Link to custom CSS
Create a CSS file in notepad and save it with a .CSS extension. Add the CSS RTE styles you wish to change i.e. H1 0r H2 etc. Upload this file to the Site Assets library of the SP 2010 Team Site.
Open up MasterPage and add CSS reference in the head content as below (note no publishing infrastructure so you cannot use the spURL tokens):
4. Option 2 - Link to custom CSS
CSS remains regardless of changes to site them and 14 hive file changes.
Better than option 1
Also now that we have a masterpage for the site we can add another essential modification to a hosted SharePoint site which is Fix “Active X” warning on opening the site
http://www.getsharepoint.com/blogs/ms/
...
4. Option 2 - Benefits
Not an option in a hosted environment
4. Option 3 - Directly modify the CSS files in 14 hive on server
Go to Versioning settings of Wiki Library and turn on versioning with major and minor version s and require content approval:
4. Publish/Version
Add new page
Add images you have to upload – they are put into a folder for the wiki page in the site assets library.
To add images you have to upload separately
They are put into a folder for the wiki page in the site assets library
4. Images?
Full control of editing experience
Nice URL structure without the need for URL rewrite code which is required for blog
In-built publishing/versioning
Adding a new masterpage for CSS and removal of active x warning gives even more customisation options such as moving the location of the search bar to more prominent location which is essential for a KB Site. The default search location is not obvious in SP 2010 Foundation team sites
Images uploaded to Site Assets in a folder specifically for Wiki Page
No additional software install required (minor)
4. Advantages
No copy and paste images from the clipboard
No use of multiple content types in Wiki Library for Pages http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/turn-on-support-for-multiple-content-types-in-a-list-or-library-HA010378236.aspx
4. Disadvantages
Recommended
4. Conclusion
Conclusion
Rich text editor - Directly in SharePoint Wiki Site
Conclusion
The Future
This right click menu makes working with images a nasty experience ...
Live Writer is no panacea until they fix the big holes in handling images
we need a right click menu item on the image ‘convert to local image’
...
Write a web end point that tricks Windows Live Writer to think it's talking to a blog server (but saves it to file instead)
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheWeeklySourceCode55NotABlogALocalXMLRPCMetaWebLogEndpointThatLiesToWindowsLiveWriter.aspx
The Future
Summary
The importance of a KB
Key Requirements
‘Nice to have’ requirements
The Importance of LiveWriter (the Rich Client)
Blogs vs Wiki
Alternatives
The 4 SharePoint Alternatives
Conclusion
The Future
Find me on Slideshare!
http://www.slideshare.net/SSWConsulting/