The ‘Create a SharePoint Scripting Resource Center’ session Christophe Humbert and I delivered at SPTechCon yesterday was a fun session. The recording of our session is available for download if you are interested in watching.

I showed how I used my jQuery Library for SharePoint Web Services to improve data quality by enhancing an out of the box form using the SPRequireUnique, SPDisplayRelatedInfo, and PreSaveAction functions. In this installment, I’ll show you how I created part of the nice dashboard-like page to display the current state of things to each Project Manager using Data View Web Parts (DVWPs).

Paul has come down with a bad case of the flu, so we’re rescheduling today’s live online SharePoint Charts and Graphs Workshop. It will now run next Wednesday, November 18, 2009, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

The basic functionality within the SharePoint interface is limiting when it comes to presenting graphical information. In a set of live online, upcoming workshops, we will present ways to display information with charts, graphs, and through animations, all without recourse to the server.

This is yet another blog post on comparing dates in XSL in a data view web part.

During my presentation on “Charts and Graphs in WSS” at SharePoint Saturday this weekend, I turned on Camtasia and recorded the hour long presentation. Instead of embedding it the way I normally do, I’m making it available for download since it’s over 40 megs. Right click the link and choose “Save target as…”. This will place the recording on your harddrive so you can listen at your convenience.

SharePoint is really a collection of capabilities. At its heart, it is a Portal that exposes information customized for a particular user. It has extended functionality to quickly build features inside this portal to enable Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise Search. It has ventured into Social Computing and Collaboration by creating shared work spaces, supporting blogs and wikis and allowing people search. With the inclusion of PerformancePoint in its licensing, it also becomes a strong Business Intelligence offering, though it will require expanded knowledge of that capability to implement. It starts to break down when pushed to work as a Business Process Management Suite or Application framework.

You have now connected a SharePoint filter to a single workbook that contains multiple worksheets with multiple pivot tables and are driving all of the pivot table filters with one single filter from the SharePoint Dashboard.

Most organizations have been using Excel to do analysis, create charts and design dashboards for years, yet there is a lot of functionality in Excel that is not easily accessed in SharePoint, sometimes even for those with Excel Services. The question becomes, how does one translate their work from Excel to SharePoint? This means more than linking to an Excel workbook in a Document Library; rather, it requires displaying the charts and dashboards directly within SharePoint.

Although implementing a KPI dashboard like this one might look complicated it is not. By using the Data View Web Part you can create your own dashboards plus extras. The solution does not do anything special (only displays colorful icons) but your managers will love it.