I was fortunate to meet and collaborate with the SharePoint fans in Southeast Asia for the 2^nd time during SharePoint Conference 2011. I have been having a very tough time with my projects and personal life, but I still wanted to go and present @ SEA SharePoint conference this year as well.

I flew 7^th midnight from Colombo to Singapore and reached there just before they start the key note. It was very exciting to see such a big crowd for the 2^nd time in Singapore and I was very happy that I made it to the conference.

I presented 02 sessions and 1 of them in the technical session and the other one is in Voice Of Customer track.

Day 1 Session 1 – Deep Dive on Business Connectivity Services
Level – 300
Track – Developer
This session was targeted for developers who have some experience in using BCS. This session talked about advanced topics such and adding behaviors to ECTs with BCS Actions. This session also demonstrated how to surface LOB data using SharePoint Search and how to make them more meaningful using Profile Pages. Finally this session demonstrated on how to configure User Profile Services to supplement User Profiles with LOB data.

Day 2 Session 2 – Creating Internet-facing Sites Simplified
Level – 200
Track – Voice of Customer
This session was targeted for non-technical audience and this was the 1^st time I was doing a non-technical session on a conference. I demonstrated how Virtusa Pvt. Ltd. simplified the way we build internet-facing sites using a Framework we built with bunch of re-usable components.

After 09 months from the start of the local SharePoint forum, today I got an opportunity to present. I did Part 1 of 02 parts sessions on workflow development. I wanted to fill the vacuum in the area of developing SharePoint based workflows using WF and SharePoint but I wanted to start with the basics so that everyone can get the maximum out of forum sessions and also to make sure I address all different levels in the audience.

In this first part I covered OOTB workflows, Visio workflows and SPD workflows. I also talked about the enhancements in the workflow services and discussed about the enhancements in SPD in the area of developing workflows.

There were nearly 30 attendees and I was not lucky enough to have someone to take pictures. I will be doing the part 2 of this series and please join with me to explore the capabilities in developing workflows with Visual Studio 2010, WF 3.5 and SharePoint 2010.

Here is the 4th article on the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) using SharePoint Designer 2010. Here we create a new External List to surface data coming through the External Content Type (ECT) we created in the 3rd article.

http://www.sharepoint24x7.com/2011/04/article-%e2%80%93-business-connectivity-services-bcs-part-iv-%e2%80%93-creating-an-external-list/

I know all of you have been waiting to hear about Tech-Ed India 2011. It was the largest technology gathering in the region. I regret that I couldn’t attend the Day 1 Keynote and Speaker dinner. All what I heard is it was a great starting to the event.

It was great to see more than 2500 attendees and most of them were from different part of the country-India. There was no SharePoint session in Day 1 and Day 2 was targeted for SharePoint Administrators we had 05 sessions in the SharePoint Administration track. All 05 sessions had room-full crowd and it was interesting to see a very active Q & A sessions at the end of every session.

Day 3 was my day and it was the day we had to lock the session hall doors due to large audience. We had 05 great SharePoint sessions targeted for developers and some people didn’t move out of the room because they didn’t want to stand for the next session. My session was just after lunch and it was great to see people were coming in even 10-15 minutes before session star time. I couldn’t finish all my demos due to limited time and I had to answer the questions while the next session is going on. Overall, I’m very glad to see 350+ audiences for the session and it was very fruitful for all of them.

Joy @ Tech-Ed India 2011

Joy @ Tech-Ed India 2011

Big crowd for SharePoint Sessions

Joy @ Tech-Ed India 2011

My session listed among other sessions

Apart from the technical side of the event, it was my pleasure to meet my Indian MVP colleagues once again. I will never ever forget how they treated me and how happy they were when they noticed one of the big vertical banners had my face. Even I got surprised to see that and I’m very much grateful to Microsoft Learning for helping me to build my brand all over the world.

Microsoft Learning Banner

Also I cannot forget how privileged we are to have a special round-table discussion with Brian Hall – General Manager – Internet Explorer and Windows Live and we had a nearly 03 hour session talking about the future of Internet Explorer and Windows Live.

Round table with Brian Hall

Finally, my special “Thank You..!” goes to Harish Ranganathan and Vinod Kumar for fighting very hard to position me among the other great speakers and keeping trust on me. This was my 2^nd Tech-Ed India appearance and looking forward to continue this with all of your support. I will not be able to forget 23^rd – 25^th March, 2011 and it will be one of the greatest memories in my life.

People, who couldn’t make it to Tech-Ed India this time, keep on checking http://www.microsoft.com/india/teched2011/default.aspx for the recorded sessions.

Here is the 3^rd article of the Business Connectivity Services (BCS) article series. I have demonstrated how we can create an External Content Type (ECT) to bring data from an external system into SharePoint. Check out the article on: http://www.sharepoint24x7.com/2011/03/article-%e2%80%93-business-connectivity-services-bcs-part-iii-%e2%80%93-creating-an-external-content-type-ect-2/

Here is the 2^nd piece of my article series on Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint 2010. Check out the recent article on: http://www.sharepoint24x7.com/2011/02/article-business-connectivity-services-bcs-part-ii-%e2%80%93-terminology-solutions-types/

When I started my articles web http://www.SharePoint24x7.com people requested some content for BCS. I decided to write few articles on this topic and here you have the 1^st cut of it. Please take time to go through and provide your valuable feedback.

Article – Business Connectivity Services (BCS) Part I – Introduction – http://www.sharepoint24x7.com/2011/02/article-business-connectivity-services-bcs-part-i-introduction/

While I was in Sri Lanka, I got a request from the Head of Training and Delivery @ Virtusa to do a session on how they can align their business around the new release of SharePoint.

I had a very hectic schedule due to my project and SEA SharePoint Conference bus I managed to find a ½ day for them.

I spent a ½ day yesterday for Architects and Tech Leads in Virtusa discussing what’s new in SharePoint 2010, how this release focus on ISVs, how they can align their business around SharePoint 2010.

It was a very useful session and I managed to convey them that there are plenty of opportunities for them with new SharePoint 2010.

Of course Microsoft was the Platinum Sponsor and AvePoint, SYNERGY, MindTree and Quest Software are some of the other people who helped them to make it a success.

As an active SharePoint Server MVP, I was invited to speak at the conference and I ended up doing 03 sessions being the most busiest speaker in the event. I couldn’t believe we had 550+ attendees just for one product and over 02 days and it was very nice to see 19 attendees from my country (Sri Lanka) as well.

Mike Fitzmaurice did the keynote talking about the history of the amazing product and the factors which involved taking SharePoint to a 1^st class Collaboration Platform. There were 42 sessions in 04 different tracks followed by the keynote and I saw all the sessions had room full crowd and during some sessions we had people standing at the back of the room.

I delivered following sessions over the 02 days:

1. PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010
2. Building SharePoint 2010 Internet sites
3. New face of Access with SharePoint 2010 and Access Services

Overall, it was a very successful event and hats off to people like Steve Sofian, Randy Williams and Debbie Ireland who took the total responsibility of arranging the event and coordinating speakers and finding right speakers, etc…

You can download the session PPTs from http://www.envisionit.co.nz/SPevents/SEASPC/SitePages/Home.aspx

And I’m proud to be the only Srilankan speaker in this regional event.

I wish good luck for them on the future SharePoint Conferences and looking forward to contribute no matter where it is happening.  

Opening Note by Debbie

Opening Note by Randy

Contries participated

Mike doing the keynote

Me doing my 1st session

Me doing my 1st session

Speakers from India

Me doing my 2nd session

Me doing my 3rd session

Me doing my 3rd session

Microsoft decided to put together a series of webcasts to help grow SharePoint 2010 in the area of Collaboration. While Business Collaboration is the primary focus of SharePoint 2010, it has lot of meanings under the hood. This webcast series been promoted all over the India and were expected to be very popular.

Microsoft arranged 05 webcasts over 05 days of period to help individuals to register and make them aware what SharePoint 2010 can do in the area of collaboration and what are the underlying features in SharePoint 2010 actually provides this powerful business collaboration.

I got an opportunity to present in my favorite are of workflow development and I did a session named “SharePoint 2010 and Custom Workflows” which demonstrated all the key things in the workflow services in SharePoint 2010 which makes collaboration better. I saw more than 300 participants were online for the session and that was a very good no for an online event.

The complete list of session can be found here:

Virtual Tech Days is an online event targeted for the people who do not have time for attending in person for large conferences such as Tech-Ed and Community Tech Days. The other idea behind hosting Virtual Tech Days is to leverage Microsoft’s Unified Infrastructure to prove its capabilities.

Today I got an opportunity to take part of Virtual Tech Days to show my capabilities in the area of SharePoint. This was the 1^st time I did a public online session using Live Meeting technology and it was very surprised to see more than 500 participants online.

I delivered a session called “SharePoint 2010 and Custom Workflows” which demonstrated the integration with Visio 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 in the Business Process Management vertical within SharePoint.

See the complete list of sessions we executed over 03 days of time and try downloading session recordings from http://www.virtualtechdays.com/agendaDay1.aspx

My session can be found from http://www.virtualtechdays.com/agendaDay2.aspx

Today I was lucky to be part of Community Tech Days, Hyderabad and this was my 1^st speaking engagement for the Hyderabad community.

Organizing committee decided to have 02 tracks this time due to major focus on the technologies such as Virtualization, SharePoint and Visual Studio. We had 02 tracks – Developer and IT Pro and though we started marketing campaign little late compared to other cities, we got more than 600 participants.

I delivered 01 session on topic “SharePoint 2010 and Custom Workflows” which talks about all the aspects of new workflow services in SharePoint 2010. I wish I had more time to show lot more cool demos but unfortunately I had only 01 hour and 15 minutes to do my session.

I also managed to give 04 books as giveaways and the credits goes to O’REILLY for providing me books on time.

You guys know that photography inside Microsoft Campus, Hyderabad is strictly prohibited and sorry for not able to show you how crowded was the event and my session.

This is the place you can read more about it: http://blog.mugh.net/2010/08/community-tech-days-2010-in-hyderabad.html