Why I Gave Up a High Salary for a Lower One

In life, we have to make decisions that aren't just about us. Sometimes we have to think outside of the box and bigger than ourselves. For me, this was my family. I accepted a job working from home, nearly 100% of the time, also called a telecommute or remote position, doing the same work that I was commuting one and a half hours each direction. Spending 11 - 12 hours a day away from them was not really a good thing. Sure, I was making big money, but at the expense of my relationship with my family. Giving up a 15% of my salary is expensive, but alimony and child support are even more expensive. The cost of repairing my car and lost work after an auto accident last year are also were very high.

I also believe that making this move will allow us, between my wife and I, to actually increase our earnings potential by not incurring costs for childcare so that my wife and I can both be working, even if her work is part-time. I also get to do software and infrastructure projects on the latest cloud offerings from Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. At my previous position, I was pretty much locked in to SharePoint 2010, and the customer made a decision to migrate to a cloud instance of SharePoint 2010, putting more nails in the coffin of innovation for this customer. The customer wanted to get out of the business of running on-premise application hosting, for cost savings. They're learning that there are many challenges to doing this and ultimately, they're going to have to give up some of their most important functionality if they want to completely transition to cloud SharePoint, where all they're getting is a site collection... no event receivers, no timer jobs.

As a recruiter, you should encourage your hiring managers to move in the direction of telecommuting whenever possible. This leads to better opportunities for your workers at a cheaper cost to your company because workers are willing to accept lower salaries for jobs that they don't have to drive to. The cost of electricity for powering workstation computing resources also shifts from the employer to the employee, a cost most sane people would accept in the name of saving gasoline and the inherent risks involved in driving.

I also get to pursue other professional interests having nothing to do with technology. I have an intense interest in Thoroughbred horse racing and pedigree analysis. Because I'm not spending all my time driving, I have an extra 2 -3 hours every day to explore these things. What could be better than having a backup plan?

7 Skills EVERY SharePoint Practicioner Should Have

As a 8-year veteran of working in the SharePoint space in a variety of capacities, there are 7 skills that every SharePoint practitioner should have in his or her toolbox.

1. Set Theory / Database Querying
The ability to sort, filter, and group any type of content based on metadata or other criteria is essential. Also included in this knowledge set is the understanding of relational data.

2. HTML
The content editor web part is your best friend. This is where you make most of your customizations in SharePoint, whether with text, images, or other static informational links that guide your user base's experience within your SharePoint Site. In the end, SharePoint renders primarily as HTML, XML, and JavaScript. Knowing how to manipulate these objects is to your benefit.


3. JavaScript
I repeat... The content editor web part is your best friend. Many things can be done in SharePoint without JavaScript, but we all eventually get that requirement that requires the SharePoint site to go above and beyond basic SharePoint functionality. The file link in the content editor web part that pulls your JavaScript will eventually need to be utilized. Learn the JavaScript that gets referenced from the content editor web part so you can tell your customers "Yes, I can do that."

4. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
You never know when someone needs a menu bar or other page element hidden!

5. Prepositional Logic
This is especially important if you're in need of a solution that involves a custom workflow in, say, SharePoint Designer.

6. Business Analysis
If you're in the SharePoint business, you're likely serving a customer who specializes in something other than SharePoint, and you are there to assist them with leveraging SharePoint to improve or automate a business process. You will not always have a Lean 6-Sigma Blackbelt at your side to assist you with this.

7. Lay-speak
At some point in time, you will have to be able to explain SharePoint's vast capabilities in simplified terms for C-level leaders, business unit leads, and other stakeholders. Always have some simple bullet points of SharePoint's capabilities ready to pull out at any time.

Utopia Found

So, I finally found my utopia... a 100% remote / telecommute SharePoint position that involves the latest technologies and doing both administration and development work on a SharePoint 2013 environment, hosted on Amazon Web Services. This is the latest standard of FedRAMP-approved cloud-hosted SharePoint implementation.

I took a major hit in pay to take the position, but it should be very much worth it. The savings on food, fuel, and time spent not commuting anymore should be felt immediately.

Please stay encouraged and know that these positions are out there and they're real. They're also very competitive to get, but they can be had.

A New Job Title

SharePoint Knowledge Engineer - I saw this job title on a job posting recently and thought this might be similar to knowledge manager or site collection administrator, but it could be a combined farm administrator / site collection administrator role.  Let this one steep for awhile and think of the many things it could mean.

One thing I know for sure. This job title does not follow any standard position titles defined within the Microsoft space and is creative at best... confusing at worst.

A Little Misguided...

I was recently at the Independence Day (4th of July) fireworks in my local community and began talking with an acquaintance who attends my place of worship with his family (our wives know each other pretty well, I got to know him a little better that evening). He works for a local non-profit and explained to me that the non-profit had just recently started using Office 365. I naturally congratulated him on the move and showed him some of my SharePoint-hosted app development work. The president of the non-profit organization also attends our place of worship, and, upon seeing him the following Sunday, I advised him to give me a call if he ever needed any assistance with Office 365 and SharePoint Online in particular. I explained to him that I had several years of experience with the Office 365 platform and have been developing custom solutions for SharePoint.

What he said next absolutely floored me. It went something to the effect of "yeah, we got Office 365 and SharePoint hoping to reduce the need for a developer..."

What???? Huh?

I'm just speculating here, but it appears that no one had informed the organization head (who happens to be a lawyer by trade) that SharePoint ebbs and flows with additions and deprecations of features and needs a steady support system in place in the organization to make SharePoint a viable solution for long-term use. What is offered out-of-the-box changes with every new version of SharePoint and customizations are occasionally required to keep SharePoint on par with the needs of the business. One key deprecation that is a case-in-point is Microsoft's announcement of the removal of the SharePoint Online public facing website from the Office 365 offerings. Not being a very quick-witted individual, I knew he was misguided in his thinking about SharePoint but didn't know at the time how to politely convey this to him, so I said nothing more on the subject other than a friendly reminder to call me if he ever ran into any trouble.

What's the moral?

When you implement SharePoint, implement it with the mindset that SharePoint is a complex tool that can do many, many things for your organization but it does not eliminate the need for one of your biggest organizational assets - your web developer - your prized Swiss Army knife that solves many of your most complex business challenges with thoughtful solutions. To get the most out of SharePoint, some critical skills - like HTML and even some JavaScript - that only your web developer can provide are still required.

New Add-in Available for SharePoint Online / SharePoint 2013

Now available in the Office 365 App Store, Course Scheduler provides an easy-to-use way of scheduling courses or webinars in your SharePoint 2013 site and allowing site users (with at least contribute permissions to the host web (parent site) to enroll in those courses. Admin users must have at least Manage and preferably Full Control permissions on the host web to add course catalog items as well as courses and announcements (news).

The store listing can be found here.

This add-in follows the spirit of the SharePoint 2007 "Fab-40" template called Event Registration and is now available for purchase. I used CAML queries and JavaScript along with the JS libraries JQuery and Moment.js. Before you get too excited, this is NOT a full learning management system (LMS). There is a very good LMS add-in available through LMS365 (http://www.lms365.com). This add-in is a simple, low-cost means of scheduling training and allowing users to sign up for those courses.

This is the first Office 365 Store Add-in that I've released. Here's to hoping for many more to come!

LightSwitch... Or Not.

As Microsoft often does, it took a great tool in LightSwitch, which had gained a pretty hard-core following of power users, citizen developers, business analysts, and even some seasoned developers, and completely threw it into the ditch, without any further, substantive explanation, just like it did for Silverlight.

How do we know this change is permanent?

1) They made no (I repeat, NO!) improvements to LightSwitch in the Visual Studio 2015 release candidate. It's a small wonder they included it at all.

2) Andy Kung left Microsoft.

3) Beth Massi (or whatever her married name is now) is also no longer doing LightSwitch content.

4) Jay Schmelzer so eloquently danced around the topic better than any Democrat politician could ever do when it was brought up during a podcast. Pertinent comments start around the 5:00 mark in the podcast.

So... what's next? I wrote previously that learning skills like JavaScript, JQuery, and CSS would be vital for survival in the SharePoint world. This assertion still resounds true today.  Another stack that I have just recently started learning is asp.net MVC, used in conjunction with Entity Framework. This development toolset, like LightSwitch (though in a much different way than LightSwitch), handles much of the data source connectivity for you and it JUST... WORKS. You can still work with fully relational datasets, created either by code-first or by scaffolding via Entity Framework. Code can be generated for you while still customizing the business logic, but you will still need to know HTML. HTML helpers and RAZOR syntax help shorten the code required to render the output.

Microsoft Virtual Academy has some great resources on MVC and Entity Framework featuring Christopher Harrison. Just search for MVC and Entity Framework.

The biggest disadvantage is the difficulty of implementing file / database relationships, which was very easy in LightSwitch, though "Mike" shows how to do both database and file system storage and relationships here. Interaction with SharePoint lists and libraries is exclusively through javascript and is still tedious enough that I wouldn't recommend it in good conscience to non-developers.

Takeaway for today - LightSwitch isn't dead, but it's future looks grim at best and appears to be marked for deletion. I suspect the same will occur with Access 2013 Web Apps. If you're trying to do anything with some Microsoft tool that isn't part of the .net core stack, don't count on it being there in two years.

The Future of Rapid-Development, No-Code Business Applications

As a follow up to my previous post on Access 2013 Web Apps and the fact that Microsoft will be discontinuing any further development of the InfoPath product, a major question remains on the future of custom forms development and data-driven business applications. I submit to you, in my humble opinion, that Visual Studio LightSwitch will be tabbed as the primary tool for rapid development business applications. LightSwitch has many options for creating, consuming, and exposing data. LightSwitch includes robust validation, easy screen customization, and the ability for coders to take their applications to the next level, but isn't necessary for business users who want to build nice, responsive (mobile device-friendly), data-driven applications.  The data can be external data stored in SharePoint, SQL Azure, and other common data sources, yet LightSwitch can also create its own data entities and relationships that it stores and exposes as OData through web services.  Access 2013 is good for quick prototyping, but as I'm finding out, its UI is not very customizable and has an overall data storage limit of 1 GB.

LightSwitch and its SharePoint-specific tooling known as Cloud Business Applications is available as a free add-on to the Visual Studio Community developer suite.

Other nice to have skills are HTML, JavaScript, and T-SQL. T-SQL is a necessary skillset if you want to host your data in SQL Azure.

Today's Worst Mis-Titled Job Description Award Goes To...

The Pew Charitable Trusts!

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/17632795?trk=job_view_similar_jobs

From their "SharePoint Administrator" job post...

"Position Overview:
The SharePoint Administrator will be responsible maintaining the organization’s SharePoint platform and several custom applications developed on the platform. In addition the Administrator will manage changes and enhancements to a handful of other custom .Net applications. "

"Design, implement, test and deploy  Share Point custom features  and packages, 2007/2010/2013 solutions programmed in ASP.NET/C# with particular attention to user interface design."

"Demonstrated experience  in Microsoft .NET development technologies, including Visual Studio 2012, C#, ASP.NET,  HTML, CSS, JavaScript,  LINQ, WCF, Silverlight, AJAX,CAML,XML,  XSLT, REST, and DOM "

DEVELOPER!  Not Administrator.

Sorry, but this is unacceptable for the recruiter or the hiring manager who labeled this as a SharePoint Administrator position when it is clearly a SharePoint Developer position.

Don't let this happen to you.
 

If Your Job Posting Contains "SharePoint Online"

If you are an employer and your job description contains the phrase "SharePoint Online", like any of these, you can expect that candidates seeking a 100% telecommute position are going to come knocking your door down, even if you do not advertise the position as a telecommute position - and rightfully so. If SharePoint Online offerings (part of Microsoft Office 365) can be accessed from any location via an Internet connection, those who are applying for positions to support this platform should be able to perform that support from any location, including their homes. Onsite support can be replaced by Lync video conferencing (if you subscribe to a plan that includes Lync) and possibly a phone call. Isn't mobility and location independence one of the core drivers of Office 365? Microsoft certainly thinks so, and I would have to agree with them.

Recent Announcement from Microsoft Could Affect Your Skillset Recruitment Efforts

So, Microsoft has officially announced that InfoPath 2013 will be the final version of InfoPath, but will support its use in its existing forms until 2023. Okay... so now what?

At SPCON2014, Microsoft has stated, in more detail, that it will shift its forms development platform from InfoPath back to Access 2013 and Excel, and that future versions of Microsoft Word will be enhanced to include additional forms capability to replace InfoPath.

In fact, Microsoft has made HEAVY investments into Access 2013 and subsequent releases as the new SharePoint 2013 Web Apps are also SharePoint Apps that can be packaged and monetized in the Office 365 SharePoint Store and in an enterprise's corporate App Catalog. Microsoft is actively polling for insights on how to beef up / improve future releases of Access even more.

As a recruiter, it will probably be in your best interest to, for now, still consider candidates that have expertise in InfoPath. However, you should probably give equal consideration to those users who have past experience in Microsoft Access for SharePoint Business Analyst / Power User openings.

As I have recommended before, obtaining an E3 subscription of Office 365 ensures that you will have access to the LATEST that Microsoft has to offer in terms of power user / citizen developer tools. Give Office 365 a free trial today!

Happy Anniversary!

This blog just celebrated 1 year and over 1,600 worldwide visits!  Thank you for making this blog a smashing success.

Now... on to business. Today's way-too-long initial application / resume submission goes to... (drumroll, please! .... ..... .... )
https://sclhs.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?job=20742

Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System!

If you want good candidates, don't show that you're willing to waste their time and energy right from the get-go. 

Office 365: The Official Enterprise Platform of CNN!

Justin Bieber - The gift that keeps on giving. 

Another Option for Business Users

So... you're a SharePoint power-user in your company, and let's say that you don't do programming, but you understand relational data models, queries, and application security models. What are your options for writing relational data-driven apps that you can publish to SharePoint? I was doing a freelance project for someone and it became obvious to me that my old stand-bys of InfoPath and custom lists with lookup columns just wasn't going to be enough. The data model was truly relational in nature and called for a little more of a heavy hitter.

Enter Access 2013 Web Apps... And a completely new experience.

It took a good textbook and a little time to catch on, but once I got the ball rolling, I was really able to make a truly mobile-friendly app that has a ton of functionality. Among the books that I purchased on this topic, here is the best one, in my opinion:


The application was easy to build, until I started using macros. Even then, the book I purchased (above) came in handy and I started getting more done. My client understood relational data models and eventually took over his own work on the project.

PROS:
1. Easy to build, once you figure out the navigation.
2. The data and all schemas are stored in SQL server and are able to be accessed and reported on by any SQL-compatible reporting / analysis tool.
3. The resulting application is EXTREMELY friendly to mobile browsers on both iOS and Android.
4. Includes several app templates to get you started.

CONS:
1. Little to no control over style sheets, which means...
2. No control over printer-friendly views.
3. Queries built in the application are read-only. I repeat: READ-ONLY. To replicate the functionality of UPDATE queries, data macros must be built with triggers to update existing records or create ancillary artifact records behind-the-scenes if you're not editing the active record on your screen.
4. I read somewhere that each app only has a 1 GB storage limit.
5. The only file type supported as a table field is an image file. You can try to upload any file type in an image field, but the web app will try to force it into an image file type. Not sure what the reasoning behind this is, especially when SQL supports just about any binary file type.

Overall, I like this product, but it is definitely in its infancy. It will need some work when it comes to ease of customizing security beyond the external SharePoint permissions, file types, and scalability. Be on the look-out for improvements in future versions of this application! It looks like Microsoft intends on putting quite an investment in re-inventing Access and using it to build effective cloud apps!

Freelance Recruiting

Attention Recruiters:

There is another way to find top SharePoint talent: freelance exchange websites.

One that I have recently come across is http://www.freelancermap.com

Check out my Freelancermap profile.

This site had a number of remote work possibilities that I found interesting, so I definitely inquired.

Another is http://www.elance.com Easy to use time sheets, proposals, and project workspaces. If you can imagine it, it's here.

The third is http://www.oDesk.com References (like certifications) are checked and verified.

The forte of these sites is finding specialists for short-term assignments or projects, though you can recruit for full time work, and you can recruit world-wide for affordable talent. Two unique features about using this forum for recruiting is that these sites is that you can see (to varying degrees) the actual availability of candidates you are looking to hire, as well as feedback from previous projects on which the candidate has worked. The workers are competing for your business, so you will also be able to keep your costs fairly low. True market price will prevail in this environment, however, be ready to pay more if you want someone whose primary language is English :-)



 

You Don't Have to Be a Weatherman To Know Which Way the Wind Blows.

Which direction is the wind blowing in terms of SharePoint?

Answer: JavaScript/JQuery (read "function") and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, read "look and feel"), if you want to do anything above and beyond out-of-the-box with SharePoint 2010 and 2013.

With every new release of SharePoint, Microsoft is allowing SharePoint to be more flexible, but at the cost of becoming less user-friendly for non-developers. The newest release of SharePoint, SharePoint 2013, makes heavier use of "apps" that can be customized through script.

SharePoint Designer 2013 has taken away its Design view, and thrown the form customizations over the fence to InfoPath 2013.  InfoPath 2013 has some limitations, and so the most effective way to change the function of your SharePoint sites is to use JavaScript and JQuery. This means that even a Site Collection Administrator would be well-served to have knowledge of JavaScript, JQuery, and CSS.

Fortunately, there are many good books available on both subjects, and even books focused on using JavaScript, JQuery, and CSS within the context of SharePoint 2013. I would highly recommend also getting a book on the use of InfoPath 2013 and even Office 365, Microsoft's cloud-hosted SharePoint solution.

For an all-in-one book, I recommend "Pro SharePoint 2013 Branding and Responsive Web Development". "JavaScript and JQuery: The Missing Manual" is also a good read if you're starting anew with any type of development/programming and has good cross-references within.

Best of luck, and happy coding!

Hard Truth #3: Taleo = Turn-Off

Let me take a moment to be like the rare woman who is actually brutally honest with a guy and explains to him why he's just not attractive to her, which, I know, rarely happens, but it's a defining moment of true epiphany when it does happen and the guy can improve himself 1,000 times over than if a woman doesn't give the guy some tough love. With that said, here's my tough love to my beloved recruiter community.

If you're REALLY interested in finding quality candidates, be more personal and save the formal application until after the interviews are completed and an offer is accepted. Taleo and other lengthy online job applications are an impersonal turnoff. To use this step as the first impression to your candidate is nothing but a hassle for the applicant for a job that they might not want after interviewing or that they might not be hired for, especially when other recruiters simply accept and review résumés by e-mail. To make matters worse, many Taleo sites require a separate login and repeated entry of the (mostly) same information over and over again. While Taleo offers a Universal Profile, many companies simply do not use it. If a company simply refers a me to a lengthy Taleo application, 99 times out of 100 I will simply move on to the next job posting unless there is really something in that job or company that I want very much (with SharePoint professionals, there's usually not much that makes a particular position stand out above others. The Taleo application is just not worth my time or any other applicants' time UNLESS an offer has been made to the candidate and the candidate has accepted. If I have already interviewed, been made an offer, and I have accepted the offer in writing, I will gladly take the time to fill out the formal application.

So, what's the answer? A simple email address for sending a searchable résumé to or some other SIMPLE résumé uploader, along with collecting only basic contact information (name, address, phone, e-mail, and the standard citizenship question) is tolerable. A company named Tribridge has successfully implemented Taleo in this way, with just basic contact information and a résumé upload... and I gladly applied for their available position. The same can be said for McDonald's, who posts some of their corporate jobs on LinkedIn, with a fast, simple application initiation with résumé upload. If collecting résumés by e-mail, the recruiter can simply collect a few days worth of some e-mailed resumes, enter them into a searchable repository, then search the group of attachments for key words to find qualified candidates.  Use Taleo as an on-boarding step, not a recruiting step.

Leave the lengthy application form to those applying for government security clearances.

Do You Have SharePoint Telecommute Positions Available?

If you have SharePoint Telecommuter positions available, you can post them here. Gain an edge on your competition by posting your jobs through a targeted website and audience. Except where an organization's network is not accessible through Internet / VPN connectivity, most SharePoint positions can be supported remotely, from home. Get qualified candidates now!

If you have any other telecommute / telecommute / Work-from-Home positions (anything not related to SharePoint), you can post them here.

If you post your positions through one of the two links in this post, your position will appear prominently at the top of the page.

Happy Recruiting

An Important Milestone Plus a Friendly Reminder...

First, the good news... SharePoint Recruiter Central has now reached over 1,000 visitors!  People are finding us through Google searches, and the stats show that the most visited page is the Definitions #3: Site Collection Administrator page. I am glad this definition is getting the attention it so desperately needs. This role is vital to a positive ROI of any enterprise's implementation of SharePoint.

And now, the bad news... I am still seeing waaaaaaaaay too many job postings that simply say "SharePoint Administrator" or "Senior SharePoint Administrator" for positions that have a heavy developer component to them. Someone please slap these recruiters around for me and direct them to my blog and to the Administrator and Developer definitions pages. :-)

The New Playing Field for Recruitment of SharePoint Skills

It is every IT worker's dream: to commute from the bed directly to the computer sitting just feet away from the bed (or in a den) and be at your workplace without driving so much as a furlong (1 furlong = 1/8 mile for the non horse racing enthusiasts). There may be a brief detour to the shower and maybe the refridgerator. No saying goodbye to the kids, the wife, or most depressing of all, the loyal family dog, and no sitting in congested traffic.

Unfortunately, telecommute work isn't always an option, either because an enterprise's network is a closed one, or the hiring company has simply refused to accept the new paradigm.

Because there actually are companies out there willing to adopt this new method of productivity, SharePoint workers are seeking out these positions. The companies that don't adopt telecommuting and adapt their business definitely put themselves at a distinct disadvantage in recruiting, and nowhere is this more true than in recruiting SharePoint talent. SharePoint experts have more than enough options for places to work as it is and many wouldn't give a second thought to abandoning their current on-site role for one that requires no commute. SharePoint was not made specifically with telecommuting in mind, but SharePoint and telecommuting work very nicely together, and even moreso now than ever before with the increased prevalance of cloud-hosted SharePoint environments like Microsoft's Office 365 (SharePoint online). It doesn't matter if the candidate is an administrator, developer, designer, or a site collection administrator... all of the above can telecommute. All that is needed is a computer and an Internet connection, and probably a phone for speaking with customers.

BOTTOM LINE: If you want to hire top talent, make telecommuting an option for the SharePoint position whenever possible and you, as a recruiter, can simply post your jobs and watch the applications roll in... no more sending recruiting e-mails just hoping and praying for a few replies.

Did I mention "no workplace germs?"