As the old adage goes “Where there is will there is way!”, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”, or as the Tamil saying goes, வல்லவனுக்கு புல்லும் ஆயுதம். “If you have the ability and talent, you can achieve success with whatever (minimal) resources available at your disposal.” (for more on this check here)
As long as I have a notepad, I can create scripts, HTMLs, jQueries and magical flip/ bling CSS effects on any page. Mostly on Office 365 SharePoint Online pages hehe! But, this is not about the wonders of all that you can do with Notepad.
This is about what other options you have at your disposal, that would allow you to build stunning appealing Site Pages in a matter of hours with a list of useful online resources that I use and like. So, here goes:
Number 1:
Top of the list is LayoutIT: http://www.layoutit.com/ this is a bootstrap front end code builder. You can spin up a responsive grid system page with rows and columns effortlessly. All you have to do is drag and drop your number of containers/rows and how many columns you want in it? 6/6 or 4/4/4 or one row? Its all visual and it can’t get any easier than that.
Once you are satisfied with your mockup skeletal design, you can download the code and customize it to your sites/client requirements.
Here you can see nested Containers and Rows with Column and Navigation elements. You can remove and add additional divs, CSS and Scripts as well and download the file. (You can sign up, but you can get the code forgoing the option as well..pretty cool in my opinion)
Note: Make sure to include your cdn in the file you downloaded (duh!) Even better, get the latest minified(or not) bootstrap libraries into your Site Assets/ Scripts reference them instead.
Number 2:
http://dabblet.com/ This site is super cool as I like how it has multiple visualization options for your scripts and custom classes. Ya don’t have to wait at all! I’m an impatient person and I was to see the result right away and it works great for me 😉
What you see below is the “Result” of the rendered bootstrap script I quickly drafted from LayoutIT above. So far so good and pretty cool eh?
You want to learn angular/ bootstrap/ jQuery. Want to curiously browse other folks attempts at learning the same and get inspired by their solutions? Want to share your solutions with the community?
Want to style your code? Want to check the syntax? Get the references to latest CDNs and include them automagically? You get the idea…. get to Plnkr!
If you have a GitHub account, you can use it to join login with the same on Plnkr as well. Its all awesome. Save your plunks and show off your work!
Ofcourse there is also W3schools editors you can try
With these tools under your belt, you can tackle some of the day to day design challenges if your environment doesn’t have development tools yet and you still wish to be productive and contribute to the team, progressing towards your assigned task completion – these can come in very handy.
These are a few of my go-to tools and I wanted to share them with ya! Now, after all that mentions, if I don’t show something colorful, I’ll feel I didn’t give you any take-aways for the time you spent reading this. 🙂
So here ya go: My last post talked about getting SharePoint Site Usage reports in Office 365 SharePoint Online page and how you can get a cool looking dashboard with Excel Web Access web part.
If you would like to include Document Library analytics into the page as well with some prettied up links to Most viewed/popular documeents in the site’s libraries then
Try using LayoutIt for getting your desired bootstrap grid that appeals you
Take it to dabblet/plnkr and include the cdns for bootstrap for responsiveness and styles
Get the URLs for links you wish to display in your SharePoint Online site page., it could be your Most Popular Library items from the library ribbon icon, your top documents/ contributors. Your web site/blog address etc., and then include that in your script’s anchor tag with button style.
I used a library called font-awesome to derive icons from there for using in my images. They have a wide collection of icons CSS styles to choose from and I like to use them in all my projects.
So here goes: http://dabblet.com/user/SwethaSan
Below is the script with all external reference links to fontawesome as well as bootstrap cdns for responsiveness.
Here is the video/script on display at dabblet in its full swing!
This is just a kick starter for all the possible things you can do with designing and making your Office 365 site functional until you get your tools deployed and available to use.
These are some of my go to options. Please feel free to comment/share other tools you use that makes your lives easier to provide efficient solutions that meets clients needs and satifies their requirements and we can learn together.
Sharing is most definitely caring and the more we share we grow stronger together! 🙂
With that wise thought of the day, signing off from www, is Swetha! Have a beautiful Thursday folks, may it bring you all sorts of happiness and productive solutions your way.
Today is one of those days, where you feel like all the efforts you put selflessly do have good karma associated with them that the universe keeps track of and gives back at a most desired time and place.
#blessed and #humbled to be surrounded by some of the kindest people I’ve met via IT usergroups in Northern VA and Washington DC at Microsoft Corporation events. So many great things to be thankful for and this touched all our hearts today, immensely.
Thanks Jason and Tim! Your recommendations filled my family with pride and joy & that meant a LOT to me. 🙂
I have very few memories of my dear departed dad,
1. But, his advice ‘When you pass-away, you should ensure that your footprints are left behind for others to follow and remember you by, as a leader that lead by example and not as a spectator’ is deeply rooted in my mind. I think I’m slowly,softly but surely imprinting my own prints in the world, one foot at a time.
2. Second he passed on by example. I might have been three or four at that time and was pestering him to take me home after a very long walk in the hot sun. We were almost near our destination where he spotted a really tired, shriveled looking older lady looking lost by a bus stop. He wanted to go ask if she was OK, I protested saying I want to go home, for which he patiently explained how it is important to not just help those that ask for, but to be there for those that are in need of help but can’t ask or even don’t know how to. She didn’t even have sandals in the hot tar road. He gave away his sandals, gave money for her trip, waited till the bus arrived and specifically instructed the conductor to drop her off wherever her hometown was. He gave the money he had and then the lady thanking him profusely with teary eyes, held me tight and gave me a kiss.
She blessed me and said I should be as good and kind as he was. I, to this day remember that incident and so many other incidents when my mom literally gave away ALL that she had to support those that were in need on several occasions and literally built from scratch-successfully that too, all the while she herself didn’t have much to build up on, but confidence and family support.This is where I come from, who I am and will always strive to be. This is why I am the way I am too I guess. Could be perceived as right/ wrong, its all just a relative term and to each owns interpretation isnt’ it!? 🙂
Immaterial of the outcomes of any voluntary or involuntary actions or reactions mine, be some desired and the rest imposed upon, I must say, The Universe has been consistently kind to me and I am grateful for all that it brings my way. Family, friends, acquaintances and adversaries. They all enrich my life, and aid me in becoming a better human being.
What I have here and now, that guiding angel whoever it be,always seems to have my back, are that continues to keep me going strong, chiseling me to its desired perfection. All relative ofcourse, but all heartfelt and genuine. God bless you all kind folks out there. who expressed their opinion of who they think I am. As always I will strive to give my BEST and then some more, leaving no stone un-turned to do justice for all the kind words.
May peace of mind, love and laughter be with you always and for ever!
Thanks again Jason, Tim, Rima and above all Mack Sigman, who has been my huge support!
Hope to be successful in any service role I undertake, for I truly believe I can make a difference and anyone that knows me, know my passion for this. 🙂
Hope to continue collaborating even more with you all via WSPDC-FEDSPUG and I am positive that our community will only grow stronger than ever on the cloud and in-person.
Can’t wait to see you all soon! Have a blessed eve and weekend! 🙂
It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that it was a training heaven of sorts for any Office 365/ SharePoint geek. Be it a curious user, an inquisitive beginner or a passionate proponent of Office 365 SharePoint, there were boat loads to learn from the various tracks offered in the conference.
Governance, Security, Development, Search and MUCH MUCH MORE taught by none other than the most respected MVP SMEs of Microsoft and Microsoft product leaders themselves.
What more could an attendee ask for? Wait…what? Training materials from the sessions, as well?
Oh! no worries…you got those too AND ALL of them sesssions, immaterial of which track you chose to attend. You get ’em all thanks to the smart planning and generosity of SharePoint Fest conference planners! WOOT! You guys rock!
I got them ALL, therefore, my team & organization gets them all as well. DOUBLE WOOT!
So much to adapt and implement and its all for the better.
BIGGEST TAKEAWAY for me personally were two things
This line by Mr. Benjamin Niaulin “Me/ We and WE+Process is OneDrive/Office365 Groups and Team Sites” This explanation, answered a lot of questions I had.
Info about the upcoming webinar on “FUTURE OF SHAREPOINT & ONEDRIVE”.
ANY organization public, private or in-between, that is doing ANYTHING, cloud(Office 365), Hybrid(On Prem & O365) or On-Premise SharePoint, MUST attend this FREE webinar on May 4th. May the 4th better be with youif you want to know what is coming your cloud way, so you can better plan and implement several features and support your end-users with their Office 365 and SharePoint implementations.
What if you can’t attend this session you ask? No-worries, you can always watch the recorded video of the event later.
What if you refuse to watch the video too you ask? Well, then you’ll just be left behind. 🙂 And no one wants that for oneself or their environments. Well all know that second and third hand news becomes diluted. Hearing for ourselves from the ones who ARE the masters of the topic is the best way to stay in the lead.
So, without further ado and after all that build up: Here is what Microsoft has to say about the event-
“Come celebrate SharePoint and see
Keynote speaker: Jeff Teper-CVP OneDrive, SharePoint
unveil our new vision and roadmap for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business, both on-premises and in the cloud with Office 365.
Following the live keynote from San Francisco there will be a number of on-demand sessions detailing our upcoming innovations. Whether you’re a user, IT pro, or developer, we’ll have a lot to share as part of this historic moment.”
If this LANDING THE FUTURE OF SHAREPOINT keynote is anything like the keynotes from SharePoint Fest DC Conference, then we all are in for a treat. CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO REGISTER FOR THE SESSION- NOW
What? March #FEDSPUG #WSPDC #ProductivityEDU session
On?
Building a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) on SharePoint Online
All IT departments need to keep track of assets for which they are responsible from the physical servers, virtual servers, switches, to IP addresses, software, licenses, and other less tangible things. Many shops keep all of their IP addresses on a spreadsheet and prove just how bad it is when multiple people need access at any given time. Scott is going to show you how to keep track of all of those configurable items using SharePoint to improve your IT shop’s collaboration and communication because 90% of all downtime is due to a bad change in the environment. Starting with the CMDB, you’ll see how you can expand it to enable change management, release management, and more based on the ITIL framework.
By?
Scott Brewster
Scott Brewster has been involved in SharePoint since 2008 and got his MCTS in MOSS 2007 Configuration in September 2008. He then started working as a farm administrator, but has been mainly focused on the web front end and client-side configuration since October 2012. Most of his clients have been with the government in the intelligence community or the Department of Defense. He works for Xcelerate Solutions in McLean, VA, automating their business processes on Office 365 and helping them prepare for their own SharePoint offering.
Speaking in front of a group of people can be nervous experience for some of us and its totally OK. Not everyone is devoid of stage fear/ fear of presenting ideas. Perhaps we feel like our ideas aren’t worth sharing, or maybe we don’t feel confident about our presentation skills or it could be anything else that puts a mental block for us when we ponder speaking speaking in front of a group of people.
Whatever be our case or story, anyone who wants to speak in front of anyone else, will definitely benefit from checking out this awesome #Nintex blog on public speaking, where Nintex experts share their tips and tricks that works for them. We can learn from each other and a lot from this post.
Feeling #excited and fortunate to be included in the list and happy to contribute. Thanks Tammy Batey! 🙂
If I can speak, so can you! If you have a story to tell (Office365/SharePoint/Nintex related – lessons learnt, solutions implemented, hurdles crossed) and want to share, email me at swetha.sankaran@gmail.com
Perhaps we can have you share your story in our next #WSPDC, #FEDSPUG usergroup session in our 15 minutes of fame section or a full section even! Limitless possibilities. 🙂
Peace, love and happy SharePointing on the cloud. Oh! and a very happy new year!
I am an administrator and I CAN NOT see anything in my SharePoint admin center. This is affecting 1000’s of users functionality(educators and classroom collaboration as well as admins and team sites) and any help is much appreciated.
Please find screen shots attached. This is very important we get it fixed for our schools.
I just got back from submitting my art works for display at a gallery in our area and do what I do, as soon as I get home.
What, take my shoes off? Nope, turn the TV ON, which is ON CSPAN by default and by choice. I was mildly surprised to just happen to start the TV when this section of discussion was ‘broadcast-ed’ 🙂
I had to blog and share, as it relates to K12, educators and more importantly to poetry all those which I care about- a LOT too.
NOVEMBER 22, 2015
U.S. Poets Laureate Discussion
Poet Campbell McGrath moderated a discussion between current U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera and former U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan.”
The educator’s question is something that has had me pondering on and off for a while now.
I used to eagerly await my english period so I can listen to the wonderful Mrs. Leema Xavier’s rendition on the various poems in our collections. At times describing how John Milton lamented after he lost his sight, then how beautifully she would read all those wonderful William Wordsworth’s lines, all those daffodils, friends and foes and how many miles we had before we slept! I LOVED poems primarily thanks to her and her style of teaching. My love is still unadulterated, and while the content/quality of my works are questionable, I do write and create and hey, its all relative eh!
But for those that didn’t have any exposure to poetry or might not, here are what the amazing U.S Poets Laureate had to say, I in particular enjoyed their delightful sense of humor! Thanks @BookTV and @CSPAN
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan-
“I had no exposure to poetry as a child and I don’t feel dismal about these things. There is in us something that wants something, that keeps seeking it until it finds it.”
“A certain kind of mind will HAVE to have it and WILL find it and will ALWAYS SEEK IT!” Woot! Personally, I still do-constantly, hence I am a jigyaasu(eternal seeker)
“A sensitive mind acquires language, acquires great trove of potential.Poets always come from weird spots and never from where they are supposed to! ” 🙂
Current U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera-
“I like to do with Middle and High School kids something like wordathon, conversatiothon, cause its hard to get the words out.
“like, what am I gonna write, like — therefore?!” 🙂
Everyone has a conversation and are listening, taking words they like that come to them and use them as they are moving! When they read, they are WILD poems! I would recommend put on headphones and it’ll be a lot of fun Woot!
