I recently got a chance to touch base with Caroline Marwitz of SharePoint Pro magazine. Caroline provided a few very though provoking questions in an interview format that was then posted to SharePoint Pro Mag here: http://www.sharepointpromag.com/blog/sharepoint-pro-by-admins-devs-industry-observers-23/sharepoint-2013/sharepoint-designer—144254 It covers some of my thoughts on the current and future versions of SharePoint Designer. Check it out and provide some comments and your own thoughts if you have a few minutes.

Do you learn best by watching examples/demonstrations? Do you want the ability to be able to watch the videos anywhere you are regardless of presence of an internet connection? If the answers to these are yes and yes then you might find that our DVD-ROM based video tutorials are just what you need! We are dedicating this newsletter to highlight our top DVDs and provide you with some more information on what you should expect to find inside of each video tutorial package.   SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is one of the Most powerful features …

A few months back, I had written an article on using SharePoint Designer 2007 and InfoPath 2007 to automate business processes. The solution uses InfoPath to create a powerful electronic form, publishes it to a SharePoint form library, then routes that form through a workflow process using a workflow created in SharePoint Designer. Creating your business scenarios in this fashion will let you design true end to end solutions, without using any code, that will save you Tons of time! This article has finally made it onto MSDN. Check it out here in its entirety: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff355359.aspx. You can also check …

Asif Rehmani presented this session at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009 during the week of Oct 19, 2009. SharePoint Designer 2010, a free application, is “The Preferred” tool to design powerful no-code solutions and applications in SharePoint 2010. In this session you will get a broad overview of the capabilities of the tool, from site customizations such as modifying Site Metadata, managing Site Security, or creating Site Content, to building List or Site based Workflows and connecting to a variety of Data Sources. You will also learn about the new ribbon interface of SharePoint Designer 2010 and shows how best …

We are back once again with another free webinar. This one is going to be all about using Data Views in SharePoint Designer to get to… well Data of course . This presentation will focus on how you can get access to SharePoint List data and then manipulate it as needed. However, keep in mind that Data Views can be used to get to any type of external data as well (web services, databases, xml files, rss feeds and more..). The webinar is scheduled for 10/1 at 1pm Eastern. Come join us if you got time: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/983842921

Chapter 15 from our book (Professional SharePoint Designer 2007) is now available for free on MSDN. Bryan Phillips wrote that chapter. Congrats Bryan! Here is the location of that chapter: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd819165.aspx

My colleague at Captare Training, Coskun Cavusoglu, and I are presenting two free Webinars. Details are below. Hope to see you (virtually) there: Yes You Can! Powerful Forms Creation InfoPath Forms with Integrated SharePoint Designer Workflows – Live Webinar Date: Wednesday, May 27th Time: 2 to 3 pm Eastern (1 to 2 pm Central/11 to Noon Pacific) Forms and workflows are essential to business processes. Companies usually rely on programmers to create the forms and workflows using code. NOT ANYMORE! SharePoint MVP Asif Rehmani delivers this powerful webinar! If you have access to Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer you can create …

Let me first start by saying that SharePoint Designer (SPD) is not for everyone. I believe it does have its place with the Power Users, and Site Administrators within the organization, but if not used properly, it can severely damage your sites and potentially your whole Portal. My reasons for liking it are the following features in SPD: Creating Sites and Lists and Libraries within those sites Being able to backup your sites or site collections. Also, you can restore your site at any location Designing powerful Workflows for a list or library within a site Using the Data View …