Access 2007 is useful! Stop Press!!!

Access has generally been the whipping boy of database products, mostly scorned by "real database developers" due to the fact that it allows users to think they can create databases. However, for the first time, I think I have seen a glimpse of something truely useful for Access 2007.

Where else might Access be useful but in MOSS 2007! Tired of your old views? bored with datasheets? Management requesting graphed reporting information from a list you wish you'd stored in SQL? "Access View" to the rescue! New in 2007 (along with Gant views - another favourite) you can produce any Access report - and better, link it directly to the list of views available from the SharePoint list.

1 - Create your view

Simply select "Access View" and it will launch Access 2007, with your list information already marked as a linked table. For this example I selected the "Pivot Table" option - surely the best demonstration of why you'd want an Access view. A quick bit of playing and I was done.

2 - Publish the result to SharePoint.

As simple as selecting the "Publish to SharePoint" option. Save the file in a document library (best make a hidden one for the purpose of access views). Make sure that when the dialog appears you say yes to adding this view to the drop down list of views available in the list.

3 - Select your view

Woohoo! Look - there is my new view. Sadly it loads Access 2007, rather than say, displaying the pivot chart directly in a web page, but I guess it is still a big step.

4 - Enjoy the results

And here is my completed pivot chart - 10mins from start to finish, no development, no reporting services, and Management can play to their hearts content.

Word 2007 Content Placeholders and the Word 2003 plugin for Office 2007

It's to Microsofts credit that they have provided a plugin for Word 2003 that will allow the reading of a Word 2007 .docx file. And it (mostly) works. If however you need to use some of the new features office 2007 - such as the content placeholders you'll find that the content inside them won't render. I'm hoping they'll fix this soon.

If you haven't checked out content placeholders you can file many articles on it, but here is a reasonable overview on content placeholders in Office 2007. It's a great new feature, but as usual not without it's limitations, such as handling repeating sub groups, and the definate need of a configuration editor that others outside the Office team have had to write.

Forms Authentication in MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0 - Not all that...

One of the great heralded features of the latest SharePoint release has been the integration of forms authentication Membership/role providers from ASP.NET 2.0, essentially allowing seamless integration of any list of users from any datasource to Authenticate to SharePoint/MOSS - the default one being through aspnetdb. I don't want to cover that, as it's been more than detailed elsewhere. I just thought I'd reveal a few of the important gotchas that you'll experience after getting it working.

• You cannot create lists from excel spreadsheets, or make any use of a DataSheet mode for lists
• You cannot (easily) publish an InfoPath form to a form library. (Our workaround was a second web application set to basic auth)
• Give up hope of seeing any SharePoint plugins in Office documents
• You won't get a "Edit in Word" style option for office documents of the context menus
• As with all forms authentication you won't be able to download files directly using code means like WebClient() in C#
• RSS Readers won't be able to get past forms authentication to subscribe
• I'm sure there are other features similar that won't work

I think all this is a bit of a shame, as all the user creation user controls etc are provided for you, and it's quicker than Account Creation Mode for WSS 3.0, and works in MOSS 2007. It may still be the solution for you in a non-active directory world, but be very sure that the features that you are losing can afford to be lost