Yes! Definitely use the Facebook Social Connector for Outlook – Just make sure you lock down your Facebook

Synopsis/Rant/Rave – Call it what you want

So if you know me well, you know that I am an avid blogger, always on twitter, I have my twitter feed my LinkedIn and my Facebook and probably the only thing I don’t expose to the outside is my SharePoint MySite at work. Now with the advent of the Facebook Social Connector for Outlook that you can get here, that opens up a whole new ball game in terms of how connected you are to the folks that you share an email with, or any email chain you find yourself being a part of.  Now, I am all for social interaction using these technologies, I am just warning folks out there that if you think it is a plug and go situation, AND you meet any of the below criterias; your goose may get cooked royally:

1. Your Facebook Account is left at the Default Privacy Setting
2. Your Facebook Account is purposely set to be very open “Everybody Access” to all or most elements
3. Your Friends on Facebook have non-professional statements or well… colorful statements that they post to their wall
4. People that you may exchange email with AND ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS but their Facebook Profile is OPEN have non-professional statements or well… colorful statements that they post to their wall

Now a flip side to that and the reason I am writing this blog… If you get SPAM from folks [Unsolicited Emails] and you want to know more about that person; and their Facebook Profile is something other than protected, well lets just say “…You can get all up in their business", for good and not so good reason. Take for instance the below.

 

An Unsolicited Email I received today after Installing the Facebook Connector – and what I could find out about the person

First here is the email…I have redacted most of the identifying information for the person as well as their mind you “Publicly Available” Facebook Information about them and their friends.

So the first thing I did was click on their Album, lets just see what pictures are out there… 

Now I am able to see the persons comments… now maybe there are more Albums out there that are restricted, which is good, but now you have to MANAGE your Facebook Profile Pic because you DO NOT KNOW who’s desktop it may show up on based on:

• An email YOU sent
• An email YOU sent that is then FORWARDED
• An email SENT to YOU and a group of OTHER folks who you may or may not know

well you get where i am going with this… anyway so now I decided to review comments…

 

and finally, I decided to look at the persons Info, now I also looked at the Wall and I did click on All Friends… but I am not going to put all this guys business on the street although it is again “Publicly Available”. 

 

 

Closing Thoughts

This is a brave new world we live in. Facebook in my opinion does not manage its users Privacy very well to begin with; but then again, they make money, and lots of it by partnering/selling to ad agencies via those Apps you so love every day.  It is up to you to be mindful of that fact and manage your own profile as best you can. A professional consultant like me who is always “Client Facing” can get into grave danger [yet again lol] If somone’s Wall Post is visable to a client while i am on-site and the comment is well…offensive or unflattering or.. well you know. Now I would be remised if i didn’t say some Positives about this.

Positives

1. Now you can verify and validate folks from your Outlook before interacting with them
2. If your kids or other family/associates/colleagues are on FB, now you can see what is going on even while you are at work
3. You are in the business of aggregating data
4. Your business thrives on social mechanisms to promote activities or events at your establishments (Bars, Pubs, etc.)
5. You want to live like that

And notwithstanding that, of course the Social Connector has benefits to SharePoint MySites, which I promote every single time I am at a client, or speaking at events, or bars, or anywhere you can find me.

My final Edict

Be Ye Forewarned!

How To: Setup SharePoint 2010 Activity Feed using Outlook 2010 Social Connector

Synopsis:  So a question was asked in a Microsoft Forum related Activity Feeds in MySites and Outlook. In a previous blog I outlined how to get Activity Feeds going in SharePoint 2010 however I didnt know at the time how to get Outlook Connector working to also bring that content into MS Outlook [a real cool feature by the way], enter SharePoint MVP Mike Oryszak who told us about that tool. Since I am a visual learner and I am sure I may forget how and where I mention this later on at a client site, I wanted to blog it for safe keeping

Part 1: Set Up Outlook & Make Sure you and the person you are connecting to have done a few Activity Updates – Yep That is IT.

Above:  So I sent an email from Hardeep to myself so i can have him represented in Outlook

Above:  Just to show you that in SharePoint under my MySite I can “follow” Hardeeps’ activity updates

Above:  So with the Social Connector in the bottom pane, click Add and the dialog box will come up…

Above:  Enter your credentials for the MySite on your network. Note here also that this can be used for ANY social networking

Above:  General Setting that you can modify

Above:  Further configuration

Above: Process Complete

Above:  In a few minutes you will see Hardeeps’ Activity Feeds in Outlook. Again a significant step because you dont have to leave outlook to use SharePoint

Part 2: Connecting to Other Social Networks

Above: So i waned to test out where else I could connect to. When you click Add again, now you get an option to connect to another Social Network

Above:  There are few options out there NOW! Linked In (but only 32-bit) and mySpace and I DONT USE MYSPACE ANYMORE. Got me in too much trouble

Above:  So before i knew it was 32-bit only. I went through the process

Above:  Execute the package

Above: Once you click OK

Above: wont work for me I am x64 bit.

Fabian Williams to speak at Information Technology Alliance Conference in Atlanta, Ga on April 27th

All,

I will be speaking about SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 at the Information Technology Alliance (ITA) on April 27th 2010. The event is at “The Buckhead Westin”

 

Lets not pass up the opportunity for a #SharePint while i am in town. I arrive a day ahead of my conference as a travel day.

No Code SharePoint BCS solutions with Workspace 2010 & Outlook 2010 & SPD 2010

Synopsis:

I have not done a blog in a while on SharePoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS) and as I prepare for my next SharePoint Saturday (Arabia), which will go into BCS from a SPD 2010 perspective I wanted to add some additional tid-bits on SharePoint workspace for people unfamiliar with it or its predecessor Microsoft Groove.

 

Below you will see screen shots for how to set up SharePoint Workspace 2010 (formerly Groove), and the integration to SharePoint Server 2010; further, I will demonstrate how you offline List/Libraries with both Workspace and Outlook to a SQL Server LOB system.

Above:  To create a new SharePoint Workspace link, you click “New”

Above:  There are a few options available to you here, in our example we will be doing a copy of SharePoint sites (offlining) to our local environment so we choose SharePoint Workspace

Above:  Enter the site that you are interested in Off-lining to Workspace

Above:  If you click “Configure” button you get the screen above which allows you to see exactly what is coming down to your Workspace… I haven’t played with modifying the default settings

Above:  Once you click “Ok”, you will have various site list and libraries that will sync up to your SharePoint Workspace; notice that the Site Pages are not supported.

Above:  Just as in Microsoft Outlook, as you connect to BCS External Content Types, you have to install a VSTO file on your local client (laptop/desktop) and this now will use BCSSync.exe to direct sync between your Rich Client and the LOB System.

Above:  this is the installation of the VSTO file

Above:  The VSTO file is successfully installed.

Above:  Same for additional list and libraries

Above:  ditto

Above:  ditto

Above:  When competed you see a check box to denote success and any warnings and errors.

Above:  Notice in the External List called “Store Sales” you have both a data view and individual view for the list. You are able to add, edit, and delete items in SharePoint workspace that will sync with SharePoint and the LOB system

Above:  As an example let us look at Elin Woods profile here, but we have renamed it Tiger for now…

Above:  We note that in the SharePoint browser UX we see the same thing as in Worspace

Above:  We make the edit to change the first name back to Elin…

Above:  We commit the change to the Workspace

Above:  We verify that the change is made as seen above….

Above:  Next we will connect Outlook to the same External List. To to this we will click on the “Connect to Outlook” icon in the SharePoint browser UX

Above:  When you do that, you will see the VSTO fill being installed on your local client

Above:  Once complete you now have access to the List in MS Outlook.

Above:  Verification phase… we are in SQL Management Studio looking at the LOB System

Above:  Next we will make a change to Fabian Williams Name

Above:  Save our Changes

Above:  Verify it in the Browser UX

Above:  Verify it in SharePoint Workspace

Above:  Verify it in the LOB System

SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 Release date Announced as May 12th 2010

According to Apan Shah, Director, SharePoint

Excerpt below taken from… http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2010/03/05/sharepoint-2010-office-2010-launch.aspx

 

Today, we officially announced that May 12th, 2010, is the launch date for SharePoint 2010 & Office 2010. In addition, we announced our intent to RTM (Release to Manufacturing) this April 2010. 

It’s an exciting time for us! We hope you can virtually join us on May 12th at 11am EST to listen to Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, announce the launch. You can register for the event @ http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/proof/pages/2010-launch-events.aspx. 

Arpan Shah
Director, SharePoint

Published Friday, March 05, 2010 2:52 PM by arpans