Confluence and Sharepoint

Well the Confluence - Sharepoint Connector went from beta v.0.5 to release 1.0 just like that. Rather a bit different to open source software I've played with (the connector most definitely isn't open source). Apart from having a flaky laptop with from which to run the demo, it went OK. I think I managed not to make a goose of myself in front of my workmates and boss.

The search function works a treat but only works with MOSS. You set it up as a Shared Service and off you go. One gotcha I found was that you need to keep the internal accounts available in Confluence as the search cannot currently work with anything other than Forms Authentication. (The Atlassian folks may have fixed this by now though).

Once you set up the LDAP authentication in Confluence to enable single sign-on, you can then configure Confluence to automatically pass your credentials to Confluence (automatic single sign-on). Doing this means that you lose access to the internally configured accounts. I quickly realised this as I hadn't configured my own account as a Confluence administrator. Oops... Backtrack, fix and re-enable...

For editing pages, the wiki is far easier (and richer) than dealing with Sharepoint and plug-ins allow for HTML content and for Word and Open Office documents to be used as a content editor (though I wonder how good they are). My boss liked the idea that you could roll up content from various Sharepoint lists, more or less creating "dashboard" style pages. I wonder what we'll do with it?

Cheers!

Uni's back for Semester 2 2008

This is my second semester of my Masters in Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. For anyone who asks, I wanted something to do with another 20 hours of the week, so I went back to part time study.

Last semester I only took one subject - Business Analysis Modelling and Design after having been sick in February. I did pretty well and scored first class honours (H1). Not a bad effort.

This semester I've taken two subjects Enterprise Systems and Information Systems Project and Change Management. I'll blog about them here as it will help to get my thoughts sorted out.

I've had classes for both now. Enterprise Systems is the most interesting immediately. It's based on Packaged Enterprise Application Software apps such as:

• Enterprise Resource Management (ERM)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Supply Chain Management (SCM)
• and others

We're using SAP in order to gain some practical experience. There's little point in just talking about them. I can't imagine we'll actually be much good but will have at least had some exposure to the software.

Project and Change Management I hope will be good as it progresses.

What I'm doing at work - Sharepoint and Confluence

I'm getting to know Confluence an enterprise wiki platform. Ultimately we want to be able to connect it to Sharepoint 2007 using the Confluence Sharepoint Connector, currently at v.0.5.


Using this, you can embed Sharepoint list data in Confluence pages and can display Confluence pages and tree structures inside Sharepoint WebParts. The Confluence content is also fully searchable from within Sharepoint too. So far, so good.

I'm doing up a demo for my team at work and expect to deliver it on Friday. I'll blog about it then.

Cheers
Mike

A bit about me

I'm living in Melbourne, Australia after having spent 8 years in Bendigo in Central Victoria where we were getting whole weeks with the temperature over 40 deg C. My mates and I would retire to one of the local dams just out of town; that is until there was a blue-green algae outbreak in it. At the moment, I reckon it'd be nice to see the sun again as we're in the middle of winter here in lovely Melbourne.

As far as work goes, I've gone from one end of the technical scale to the other: I used to paddle a canoe and take people bushwalking for a living, now I work in info tech. On realising that my body wasn't going to last a lifetime of canoeing and bushwalking, I fell into info tech and I love it to bits.

I've recently managed to land a job developing software full time with Melbourne Business School with (Microsoft) Sharepoint.

When I'm not working or learning more about computers, I love my wine and whisky, cooking, my girlfriend, musicians like Eric Clapton, Rogue Traders, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan (among others) and riding my bicycle.

cheers
Mike