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.

I started the session on comparing ASP.NET web development and SharePoint portal development and then demonstrated some of the cool features in the area of collaboration and communication. Next, I demonstrated few OOTB Web Parts and introduced them the concept of Web Parts. Finally I demonstrated the Web Part development and explained them the key concepts on SharePoint development.

This 1 ½ hour session was targeted to all 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year students and it was very interesting to see around 100 participants early in the morning.

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.

I relocated back to Sri Lanka in December 2010 and initiated the conversation with our DPE and here I hear that they have already started planning for the same. Wow..! I was surprised and thrilled and finally we hosted our first ever SharePoint Saturday Sri Lanka yesterday with more than 200 attendees.

I presented 01 session for the Special Interest track and the session was all about how to build data-driven applications at the speed of thinking with Access Services feature in SharePoint 2010. There were more than 70 attendees and lots of them were new to the product and I felt the topic was a great selection because Access Services is not very hard to understand.

We had Dux Raymond, Michael Noel, Jey Srikantha, Shakir Majeed and Nalaka Withanage come down specially for this local event and the event was organized by Microsoft and Innovative-e. Also the event was sponsored by Virtusa, Creative, Greenwich, Millennium IT and Sanje Lanka and thanks a lot for all of them for the support extended.

Me presenting Access Services session

Me presenting Access Services session

Ask-the-Expert session

Ask-the-Expert session

Some of the guys behind the scene SPS SL

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.

Tech-Ed India 2011

Tech-Ed is an international annual technical conference organized by Microsoft Corporation in every continent to deliver high-quality technical content for the software professionals around the world. Microsoft India hosts Tech-Ed India every year and captures more than 2500 attendees and delivers more than 200 in-depth technical sessions over period of 03 days. Tech-Ed India delivered by more than 30 international speakers and they contribute to the success of this event by bringing their real-world industry experience to software professionals in India.

This 03-day event will focus on technical education, product evaluation and community. The event will include: Keynotes by Senior Microsoft Executives, Breakout Sessions, Hands-on-Labs, Instructor-led Labs, Product Team Tents, Free Microsoft Certification, Community Programs, Solution Expo, and many more social gatherings and opportunities for networking everywhere you look.

Tech-Ed-India 2011 for the 18th time will feature 200+ Deep-Dive Breakout Sessions, 20 Technology Tracks, 20 + Instructor-led Hands-on-Labs from 23rd March to 25th March, 2011. More information about the conferences is available here: http://www.microsoftteched.in

I will be speaking at the Tech-Ed India for the 2^nd time and I’m very happy to share my experience in the SharePoint Development track. Below is the information about my session if you are planning to attend:

Session Title: Developing real-life business process automation application with SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010

Session Abstract: SharePoint is considered as one of the best workflow hosting environments within Microsoft technology stack. Latest release of SharePoint product has been enhanced with lot of new features to make SharePoint is the ideal platform for building real-life business processes. While tools such as Browser, Visio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 have improved a lot there is always big room for Visual Studio to play when building powerful workflows. Let’s build a powerful workflow with Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010.

What am I going to cover: I will be covering mainly what are the workflow changes in SharePoint 2010. I will be spending less time with the slides and more time with my Demos. I will be doing 02 demos, 1^st one will demonstrate the new reusable workflow development feature building to SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010. Second demo will cover developing a workflow using Visual Studio 2010 including InfoPath Forms to capture user data, Custom Association Form developed with InfoPath to capture configuration data, Custom ASP.NET-based Initiation Form to capture workflow initiation data and a Custom Task Form developed with InfoPath to help continuity of the process flow.

Session Timing: 25^th March, 02 PM – 03 PM

After I came back to Sri Lanka, I started delivering MOCs again and I renewed my MCT for the 7^th consecutive time without any hesitation.

I need to mention that their new online payment and renewal process is a very big improvement.

Hoping to deliver lots and lots of MOCs for our Sri Lankan students/ employees.

I selected the same topic I delivered for the last year Tech-Ed India and the reason is I realized that the same session is being repeated in this year Tech-Ed as well. I realized how popular and important this topic is to developers.

The session was all about using Visual Studio 2010 and MSDeploy to deploy ASP.NET application at the speed of thinking. I realized most of the attendees found this topic really interesting and brand-new to them.

I started with an introduction to deployment pain point and then talked about what Visual Studio 2010 and MSDeploy provide us to deploy web applications efficiently.

Presenting @ .NET Forum

Presenting @ .NET Forum

If you are interested in the PPT, here it is: http://www.joyr.ws/downloads/MarDotNetForum.pdf

What’s new in SharePoint 2010 Central Administration Portal

You have seen all the developer features, workflow integration and other enhancements in SharePoint 2010. But, what does the Central Administration Portal offer to you in SharePoint 2010. Tune in to this session to see some of the coolest stuff that you can configure and accomplish in the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration Portal.

Look forward for the recoded session on http://www.virtualtechdays.com/default.aspx

Thanks a lot for Harish who is still counting on me though I’m not part of Indian MVP pool anymore.

PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010

Business Intelligence (BI) is quite old, matured concept. But Self-service Business Intelligence is a brand-new initiative from Microsoft to increase the reach and use of BI solutions. It is not an alternate to traditional BI implementations and it’s meant for totally different set of people having different set of objectives. Let’s examine what Self-service BI is and Microsoft solution for Self-service BI-PowerPivot. PowerPivot has 02 different implementaions-PowerPivot for Excel 2010 and PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010. Let’s try and explore both of them.

Look forward for the recoded session on http://www.virtualtechdays.com/default.aspx