FDA Part 11 compliance

Tech Trek – 2011.07.14

I’m conducting research on US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Part 11 compliance which deals with regulatory requirements for electronic records and signatures. It is an interesting topic especially with the today’s reliance in computer technology and transition of most enterprises from paper-based system into digital medium.

I was able to find the following reference written by Microsoft since my expertise lies in the of use SharePoint for content management. I’ll update this blog as I find more details about what the process entails.

Draft SharePoint 2010 Configuration Guide for 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance (xps format)

Microsoft Life Sciences

UPDATED [2011 July 23]:
See blog post update in the comments.

Launch PowerPoint files into slideshow mode

Tech Trek – 2011.07.06

I was researching for methods to launch PowerPoint documents into slide show mode from a SharePoint document library. In SharePoint 2010, a document will launch into presentation mode once you save the file as “PowerPoint Show” format i.e. resulting into ppsx file extension.

Unfortunately, the side effect of this approach launches the dialog box below and prompts the user to confirm the operation for security reasons.

More interestingly, I’ve noticed that there is a feature with the new PowerPoint web viewer to start the slide show. By default, you will have to manually click a button when using the “View in Browser” option.

It caught my eye that there was a “PowerPointView=ReadingView” parameter being passed to the URL. After some research, I was able to find that there are a couple of options for this property. Viola! I was able to launch the slide show mode by replacing the value of the parameter into “SlideShowView” (camel-case required).

http://site/_layouts/PowerPoint.aspx?PowerPointView=SlideShowView&PresentationId=url

To that end, no dialog prompt was needed since the document was not opened using PowerPoint application. Unfortunately, launching this the first time will take time since it loads the viewer and the file into memory. Also, you will have to create such links manually, or may resort into creating custom menu actions to make it available to users.

MSDN resource: PowerPointView

SharePoint “List does not exist” error

Tech Trek – 2011.06.18

One of the most annoying things about working with technology is getting ambiguous error messages. I got a support call from a SharePoint user reporting an error while clicking “Add new item” link, or “Edit item” button.

From the looks of it, one might think what happened to the SharePoint site. The user could see the list, navigate the site, and have the correct permissions — right?

Apparently, SharePoint will throw off this error when you configure alternate access mapping (AAM) and the user has the incorrect protocol on the URL. For example,

https://intranet/ instead of
http://intranet/, or

http://intranet.company.com/ instead of

https://intranet.company.com/

For SharePoint, it displays this error since it cannot resolve the URL when launching the form even though it was able to load the website. So, before you freak out that the list may have been deleted and scratch your head, why? Take a look into the address bar and correct the protocol to see if that will resolve the issue.

Team Foundation Server 2010

Tech Trek – 2011.06.10

I’ve finally finished attending a week-long workshop on Team Foundation Server 2010. It is somewhat a trip back to memory lane for me since I have previously used the product in a different development team. A lot has changed since then especially in support of Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) Agile methodologies. What is amazing is how it has grown over the years to cover not just the following areas from its earlier releases:

• Modeling tools within Visual Studio used by Software Architects
• Version Control used by Developers
• Requirements Gathering used by Business Analysts (BA)
• Project Management used by Project Managers (PM) or Scrum Masters
• Test Management used by Software Quality Assurance (SQA)
• Build Automation used by Software Configuration Managers (SCM)

Although, as always Microsoft tries to accommodate various audience groups to capture a bigger market. This is great on one hand so that it doesn’t alienate other team members due to their skill set, but it can also lead to confusion amongst users. Here are some of the client applications that can connect to Team Foundation server:

• Team Explorer via Visual Studio Shell
• Team Web Access – ASP.NET based site
• SharePoint site
• Microsoft Project integration for importing work items
• Microsoft Excel i.e. importing various lists
• 3rd party providers like Telerik TFS client, etc.

Overall, I’m impressed that somehow a tool is able to put all these components together. Unfortunately, the reality sets in since one has to plan and choose the specific capabilities that are applicable to a team based on the organization’s structure and size. With sophistication comes complexity, and with advancement leads into a learning curve.

Just as any piece of technology, what is important to remember the first Agile manifesto:

“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”

Our business is software development that involves people, and collaborations include cross-functional discipline that cannot be replaced by any framework or technology. Still looking forward into getting our development tool set together just like any carpenter or mechanic that requires the appropriate power tools to do his trade.

How about you, what tools does your organization use for any of the areas mentioned above?

SharePoint “sands of time” projects

Tech Trek – 2011.06.05

I was recently in a seminar conducted by Habañero Consulting group titled “Navigating a Successful SharePoint journey.” As validated by the speakers, the biggest challenge that we face is not how we accomplish things technically but navigating the ins and outs of projects that can become quicksands in our career. It can become a quicksand since it sucks all the time and effort to complete a project but:

• Eventually not being used, or becomes abadon-ware;
• Not targeting the correct business opportunities even when users adopt the solution

This is especially true in a SharePoint implementation since it can involve stakeholders from cross-functional teams with different motivations. One of the trick is finding the right approach that will work with the background of the development team, the project sponsor, and the actual end-users of the system.

In summary, one key factor that was missing in the event session were samples on how one could measure the ROI’s of a successful journey apart from just the “soft” benefits. It is true that metrics is a case-to-case basis but the second bullet point above should be the primary consideration of any organization when starting the journey in the first place.

So why is this post titled “sands of time” projects? I recently recalled a scene from the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie where King Sharaman advises Prince Dastan, the lead character that he shouldn’t have went along with his brothers invading the holy city, Alamut.

“A great man who would have stopped what he knew to be wrong, no matter who was ordering it.”
– King Sharaman

What resonated with me on how it relates to us technologist. Sometimes we get involved on projects that we know were done for the wrong reasons but don’t have the onus to take a step back and think why we should doing them. It doesn’t mean turning projects down but building up the business case should done first instead of getting gung-ho. Unfortunately, we don’t have the dagger to turn back time so tread carefully when navigating on such journeys.

Disable toolbar in SharePoint list views

Tech Trek – 2011.04.29

One of the new features of SharePoint 2010 is the ability to create views of a list or library without folders. Although, helpful in navigation aspects this can be confusing to users while uploading documents especially when toolbars are available.

Unfortunately, there is no option to disable toolbars in the “Modify view” option. So, use SharePoint Designer and look for the following element and replace it with the value of “None”:

<Toolbar Type="Standard"

Viola! Toolbar and ribbon menu is gone so that users don’t upload documents where they shouldn’t. As a sidenote, below are the available property values from MSDN library. It’s amazing how they are not consistent with the Web Part values, though.

SPView.ToolbarType Property

InfoPath 2010 Improvements

Tech Trek – 2011.04.27

Finally, I got into doing another InfoPath 2010 form where I’ll highlight a couple of new features that I liked in a current project.

Design Templates
One of the great new design elements is the availability of commonly used templates. This makes form building quicker so that as a Developer, you don’t have to come up with a layout from scratch.

New Controls
If you had a chance to work on InfoPath 2007 or earlier, you will welcome a couple of new built-in controls that were unavailable in previous versions. A couple of them that are useful are the following:

• Person/Group Picker – though, I’d wish for an easier method of returning Active Directory profile properties
• Date & Time Picker
• Browser-based support for combo boxes, lists, etc.

Rules Designer
It will be very much hard pressed creating a form without some formatting (hiding/showing elements) or data validation requirements. An improved rules designer and inspector are now available in 2010 version which makes it more easier to define these in the form.

Data Connections
This leads to an existing feature that InfoPath extended since most likely forms require connecting to an existing SharePoint list, database, XML, and the newly added REST web services.

Ribbon UI
One thing that drives me nuts is the lack of consistency for application interface, although, this maybe a cliché at this point with Microsoft. Finally, they have caught up InfoPath, Visio, and Project with the rest of its product family so you’ll have to re-orient yourself again.

Publishing Options
There are a couple of new options when publishing forms into a SharePoint site and by far Quick Publish will likely be taken for granted but a nice addition especially since it makes it easier to push the changes to the server.

This is not meant as a comprehensive list and not all of them maybe perfect but I’ve touched only a couple of the elements that have been useful to me by far. A couple of new features that is next on my list is to integrate a digital signature solution that I spearheaded for our organization and the ability to create custom forms for a SharePoint list.

In summary, we are now able to realize the n-tier application architecture that has been promoted more than a decade ago because of the maturity of technologies that are not necessarily built by Microsoft. What I like about it most is the ability to quickly develop fancy looking functional business forms so that you can give it a “form” (no pun intended). This is not something new in Visual Studio and other “drag & drop” development tools but good luck on teaching that to business users, or those who may not have the team to build them.

Now, if it can only be as pervasive as the PostScript Document Format.