Located in Saint Louis, Missouri – Perficient offers a variety of technology solutions, including custom web applications, mobile technology, portals and collaboration solutions based on SharePoint technology.

In 2012 Perficient acquired Northridge Systems, a well-known IT consulting firm focused on SharePoint branding and collaboration solutions.

Perficient is known for their ability to create innovative and unique solutions on the SharePoint platform and the last two additions to their portfolio prove it well: “Group Health Cooperative” and “Marshfield Clinic”

The following showcase presents SharePoint websites designed, developed and implemented by Perficient.

If you know any SharePoint consulting company that has an impressive portfolio please let us know, we will be happy to showcase it.

I could still approve the pages by navigating to the “All Site Content” >> Pages, by selecting Publish from the drop-down menu when hovering over the pages. That told me the Publishing feature worked just fine.

By-the-way, for this instance, I was using SharePoint 2010 “Publishing Site” template without the Workflow. So, the only thing should show under Publish tab is the “Publish” button or if the page is already published “Unpublish” button.

So, I started to dig through the “Site Settings” to discover after couple of intense and frustrating hours that the Page versioning settings were wrong for that particular Page library. Something or someone change the settings.

Here are the steps I followed to get the Publishing tab back.
Go to one of the pages the Publish tab would not show and hit the “Site Actions” >> “Manage Content and Structure”. Click on the Pages list library and on the menu click on Settings drop-down and select “List Settings”.

Under “General Settings” click on “Versioning settings” link. Make sure you have these two options selected: “Create major and minor (draft) versions” and “Only users who can edit items” and hit OK.

Write about yourself or your consulting company, behind the scenes challenges, revelations, techniques and tactics you think the new SharePoint website redesign is a success.

Share your insights and experience with us by answering few or some of the following questions.
Feel free to deviate from the questions if you see fit.

- What version of SharePoint the website was built on?
- Was this site upgraded to a new version of SharePoint?
- How many Master Pages and Page Layouts have you used?
- Are you using any customized webparts? If yes, please explain.
- How the user experience was dealt with?
- What was your priority? Functionality? Aesthetics? Time?
- What was your strategy for mobile devices?
- What were the main technical challenges?
- What makes the website so special?
- How did you test the site and its functionality?
- How long the project lasted? From the first brief to the go live day.
- What’s the reaction to the new website?
- What lessons have you learned from the new site?
- How many people were involved in the website redesign?
- If you had to do it all over again what would you do differently?

Your successful story will be published in a new series of articles highlighting innovative methods and experiences of SharePoint redesign titled “How They Built It”.

Please use the following form to submit your story:

Sites of the Month is a monthly compilation of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

If you’re involved in the design, implementation or management of a SharePoint public-facing website or you know any websites not in the showcase we would love to add it to the ever-growing list.

Group Health Cooperative

The first SharePoint 2013 site showcased on our monthly review, Group Health Cooperative is a non-profit health care provider based in Wisconsin. Beautiful responsive design website.

City of London

Local Authority for the City of London, UK. The City of London provides local government and policing services for the financial and commercial heart of Britain. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Marshfield Clinic

Marshfield Clinic is the largest private group medical practice in Wisconsin and one of the largest in the United States. Website built with SharePoint 2013.

Stena LNG

Stena LNG is a first class provider of safe and reliable transportation of Liquid Natural Gas around the world. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Nyrstar

Nyrstar is an integrated mining and metals business, with market leading positions in zinc and lead, and growing positions in other base and precious metals. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Certifect

Certifect for Dogs is a flea and tick control product that starts killing ticks in as little as 6 hours and kills fleas, their eggs and larvae. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Fiat Turkey

Official website for Fiat Turkey. Fiat expanded its car production in Turkey. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

If you’re a web designer who has some HTML, CSS, and JavaScript knowledge, you already have the skills necessary to brand a SharePoint 2013 website. The latest Publishing Site features reduce the amount of SharePoint knowledge that is essential to successfully design and brand a SharePoint site.

The following list presents you with the latest public-facing SharePoint 2013 websites submitted to our constantly updated SharePoint showcase.

I hope you will be able to draw some SharePoint branding inspiration and direction from the following designs and maybe even convince yourself to give SharePoint 2013 a try.

Have I missed any interesting SharePoint sites? Feel free to submit it to the showcase.

The purpose of this article is not to judge or critique but merely to observe and share the findings with the fellow SharePoint enthusiast and in the same time to recognize and credit the teams involved in creating such masterpieces.

Get inspired by these highly-creative SharePoint websites and infuse some of these ideas into your next projects.

SharePoint has the tendency to spit out very long and ugly URLs and besides very few complex IIS tricks there aren’t many options out of the box to solve this issue.

In this article I will examine few available Vanity URL/Shorten URL solutions for SharePoint from third-party software providers.

Jan Tielens’ URL Shortener Solution

We start our quest for a better shorten URL solution for SharePoint with Jan Tielens’ URL Shortener. While his solution is free, very easy to deploy and perfect for a quick Shorten URL workaround method it would not be suitable for a proper Vanity URL option. He is using the popular bit.ly API to shorten the links. That means the shorten links would inherit the bit.ly domain name followed by some randomly selected letters and numbers. I can bet your marketing department would not be happy with this solution.

Compatibility: SharePoint 2010

Price: Free

Paul Liebrand’s SharePoint URL Shortener

This SharePoint feature created by Paul Liebrand allows end-users to generate shortened URLs against SharePoint content that can be used in documents, emails, navigation links, etc.

The latest version of this feature allows you to customize the short name before it gets created.

Compatibility: SharePoint 2007

Price: Free

SharePoint Joint Vanity URL

SharePoint Joint Vanity URL allows users to easily create short vanity URLs which point to more complex locations.

Shorten URLs can be pointed to pretty much anything online not just SharePoint sites or documents.

The best feature this product offers and separates itself from the rest of the pack is the ability to create vanity URLs that can be scheduled to start or end at a specific date for time specific uses.

Also, besides being the cheapest complete Vanity URL solution for SharePoint, the licensing covers unlimited server installs, free support and updates!

It took me less than 5 minutes to install the trial version on SharePoint 2010 server.
Upon vanity URL .wsp solution installation and activation a custom Vanity URL list was also created under the root Site Collection. Vanity URLs can easily be created and updated here.

I was able to create three vanity URLs pointing to various sources in no time.

Since I didn’t purchase the license, I cannot vouch for the support and updates included with the paid version, but based on the trial, SharePoint Joint Vanity URL is clearly the strongest candidate for my best choice of third-party Vanity URL solution for SharePoint.

Compatibility: SharePoint 2010.

Price: $99

SusQTech SP URL Manager

Developed by the well-know SharePoint consulting company, SusQtech, SP URL Manager is my second best choice to make your SharePoint links pretty. SP URL Manager from SusQtech allows you to create short vanity URLs that are easy to remember and get people to what they need quickly.

SP URL Manager can be easily installed by any SharePoint site administrator and activated on any or all of SharePoint sites in the farm. Once installed, the SP URL Manager tool can be accessed from any SharePoint document or webpage via the ribbon.

Compatibility: SharePoint 2010

Price: $499 (SP URL Manager license/server)
Price: $99/year Support & Updates (SP URL Manager Software Assurance)

SharePoint ShortUrl

Provided as a very lightweight solution file, SharePoint ShortUrl can be deployed on SharePoint 2007, SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint Server 2010. All the code and shortcuts are managed within the SharePoint environment.

Using SharePoint ShortUrl a shortened hyperlink can be created to any Page, List Item, Document and View within SharePoint. Also to any external URL including FTP and mailto.

With SharePoint ShortUrl you can create ShortUrl’s directly from the Site Actions Menu and/or any List/Library items Context Menu.

All the ShortUrl’s are stored in a regular SharePoint List which allows for all of the standard List functionality of audit trails, workflow, security permissions, item approval and so on.

Compatibility: WSS 3.0 & MOSS 2007 (32 & 64 bit systems), SharePoint 2010 Foundation and SharePoint 2010 Server

Price: $399 (Standard License for SharePoint 2010) – $699 (Enterprise License for SharePoint 2010)
Price: $299 (Standard License for SharePoint 2007) – $599 (Enterprise License for SharePoint 2007)

Muhimbi URL Shortener

The Muhimbi URL Shortener for SharePoint 2007 & 2010 (MuSH) makes it easy to share long and complex web addresses via email, verbally over the phone and social media platforms.

Although similar in functionality to publicly available services such as TinyURL and bit.ly, MuSH has specifically been designed with enterprises in mind by providing functionality such as:

- Users can specify their own Short URL Name.
- URL Shortener functionality can be accessed from SharePoint Workflows as well as as via external Web Service calls.
- Tight integration with SharePoint 2007 & 2010.
- Compatible with all web based applications and intranets.

Compatibility: WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

Price: $499/server

If I missed any notable Vanity URL/Shorten URL solutions for SharePoint, please feel free to post a comment, and I will update the list accordingly.

Sites of the Month is a monthly collection of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

If you’re involved in the design, implementation or management of a SharePoint public-facing website or you know any websites not in the showcase we would love to add it to the ever-growing list.

Odeabank

Odeabank is the first foreign bank to be granted an operating license by the Turkish Banking Regulatory in 15 years. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Liberty Seguros

Liberty Seguros is the 5th largest auto insurer in Brazil, with over 1 million insured vehicles. Liberty Seguros is among the largest insurance companies in Brazil and has become the largest international operation of Liberty Mutual Group. Website built with SharePoint 2007.

University of Winchester

University of Winchester is a British public university based in Winchester, Hampshire, England. University of Winchester offers innovative, forward-thinking learning & teaching. Website built with SharePoint 2007.

Associa

Associa serves associations of all types – from condo, mixed use, and master planned communities to luxury high-rise, active adult, resorts and golf – while also helping builders, developers and real estate professionals achieve their goals. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Fiat Fleet

Corporate Fleet Solutions is the sole contact for all makes of vehicle within Fiat Group Automobiles – Lancia, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Fiat Professional. Website built with SharePoint 2007.

DePaul University

DePaul University is the largest Catholic university in the US. DePaul is known and respected for its nearly 300 graduate and undergraduate programs and concentrations, and for the high caliber students who graduate with our degrees. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Maui Australia

Maui is New Zealand’s premier tourism company with operations also in Australia. Operations include car and motorhome rentals in Australia and New Zealand, a specialist caravan and motorhome manufacturing company. Website built with SharePoint 2007.

This is the twelfth post of our popular series on beautiful SharePoint website design by country. The purpose of this series of showcases is to enhance your SharePoint branding ideas on what you can do with SharePoint for public-facing websites.

With 406 islands and 7314 km of coastline (60 inches of coast per person!), Denmark is located in the Scandinavian region of Northern Europe. The home of the most fearsome warriors, the Vikings! The only country in the world to win few islands at the poker table, Faroe Islands. The skillful Danes are famous for producing all sort of goods but the most popular ones are: beer (Carlsberg & Tuborg), dairy, bacon and Lego!

The following showcase presents the Top 20 Best Rated SharePoint sites in Denmark. To see all the featured SharePoint sites from Denmark click here.

This showcase is updated automatically, based on your ratings. New SharePoint-based websites are added every day, so make sure you come back here to see who else is making to the Top 20 Best SharePoint sites.

Website design and development are two areas that have undergone constant major advancements over the years. These advancements have introduced amazing new technologies and innovations in order to maximize usability and improve online experience.

In SharePoint design world for 2012 we’ve seen a shy adoption of responsive design technique that creeps its way in the corporate world as well as more advanced design concepts and surprisingly more color.

Not surprisingly, responsive design in SharePoint websites stimulated quite an interest in the past year and having two of them in the top rated SharePoint sites list proves it well. (BrightStarr and GSE)

Almost 400 new SharePoint-based websites have been added to our showcase in 2012 bringing the number of SharePoint sites to well over 2,100.

The sites listed below are ranked based on the number of votes received from the visitors during 2012. To see all the websites added to our showcase in 2012 sorted by best rated click here.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support over the past years and to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Here are 10 of the best rated SharePoint websites for 2012:

1. BrightStarr

2. GSE

3. Fleury

4. Vaisala

5. Embraer

6. NORC

7. Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation

8. FIAT

9. Calphalon

10. Perennial Wood

Sites of the Month is a monthly collection of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

If you’re involved in the design, implementation or management of a SharePoint public-facing website or you know any websites not in the showcase we would love to add it to the ever-growing list.

Perennial Wood

Perennial Wood decking boards are made of sustainable southern pine wood and have a smooth, comfortable finish. Perennial Wood is real wood made to endure. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Energizer Holdings

Pick a country. Any country. Chances are, you’ll find Energizer products there. That’s because Energizer Holdings has operations in 50 countries and distribution in more than 160 countries. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

GENIVAR

GENIVAR is one of the world’s leading professional services firms, working with governments, businesses, architects and planners and providing integrated solutions across many disciplines. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Sodexo Brazil

The Sodexo Group is present in 80 countries and its main objective is to contribute to improving the quality of life of people, a goal shared by more than 319 000 employees of the company, who design, manage and deliver a range of solutions. Website built with SharePoint 2007.

Chicago Department of Aviation

Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) administers all aspects of two major airports – Chicago O’Hare and Midway International Airports. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

NAIS

The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is a nonprofit membership association that provides services to more than 1,700 schools and associations of schools in the United States and abroad. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Genuity

Genuity is Monsanto’s trait master brand that includes the latest technology in corn, soybeans, cotton and specialty crops. Website built with SharePoint 2007.

It is estimated that by 2015 more people will be using mobile devices to access the Internet than desktop computers, hence mobile devices accessibility has become a huge priority for web developers. There is no doubt that responsive design is now unanimously accepted as the way forward especially since World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) made CSS Media Queries a web standard.

Unfortunately the overall responsive design adoption on SharePoint-based websites is very slow compared to other popular content management systems. This is probably due to shortage of skilled SharePoint designers, the lack of understanding what the responsive design benefits are and the slow corporate (bureaucratic) decision making. Like they’re saying: “Bureaucracy slows things down“.

To help our SharePoint designer fellows to catch up with the latest responsive design trends we released a while back two popular SharePoint 2010 responsive design themes:

Responsive theme – Free SharePoint 2010 theme ready to be deployed with minimum effort.
Allegra theme – Premium SharePoint 2010 theme. A modern and attractive design that will help you reduce the time it takes to have your SharePoint responsive design site live in minimum amount of time.

The following list will present you with the latest SharePoint responsive design websites. The list is sorted automatically, based on our visitors’ ratings. New SharePoint branding examples are added everyday to our showcase. Come back to this page frequently to see new examples of responsive designs on SharePoint sites as well as other inspiring topics.

Furthermore, your input is very important, so let us know your thoughts, comments or concerns in the post discussion area.

Most of the talks at SharePoint Conference 2012 revolved around hosted Office 365 SharePoint service, the evolution and the future of SharePoint, mainly the release of SharePoint 2013.

Most of the demos at SPC12 were using Office 365, so it is very obvious that Microsoft is pushing hard its hosted Office 365 SharePoint service even though the on-premise SharePoint (2010/2013) still appears to be its favorite product.

A major part of the SPC12 keynote was devoted to the recently acquired business collaboration platform, Yammer and its integration with SharePoint 2013 which will be available in the next release, probably beginning of 2013, as well as the plans to make it available free with SharePoint Online and Office 365.

“While the new SharePoint has a lot of great social capabilities, we acquired Yammer to take social networking to the next level…” Jeff Teper – SharePoint VP.

SharePoint Conference 2012 Keynote

According to Microsoft, SharePoint is now the most popular collaboration solution on the market. And these numbers prove it:

- 135 million users
- 4,000 partners
- More than $2 billion in revenue
- 4 out of 5 Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint as their collaboration platform
- 66% Enterprise penetration
- As of this year SharePoint is worth approximately $6.5 billion

Initially intended as a document management tool, during more than 11 years of existence SharePoint had grown to a successful and remarkable multipurpose business platform becoming the fastest revenue growth product in Microsoft’s history.

This is the eleventh article of our series on Best SharePoint Designs by country. Throughout this series of posts we wish to improve your SharePoint branding inspiration by covering various countries where adoption of websites built with SharePoint has been a success.

According to the latest surveys, Finns are among the most polite, helpful and friendly people in Europe. Finland way of life is stress-free and easy going. Their love for hot saunas, more than 2 million of saunas, and winter sports is legendary. Finns are early adopters of emerging technologies making Finland an ideal testing ground for new solutions and technologies. Finland has the highest per capita use of new technologies and Internet in the world.

The following showcase presents the Top 20 Best Rated SharePoint sites in Finland. To see all the featured SharePoint sites from Finland click here.

This showcase is updated automatically, based on your ratings. New SharePoint-based websites are added every day, so make sure you come back here to see who else is making to the Top 20 Best SharePoint sites.

Sites of the Month is a monthly collection of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

If you’re involved in the design, implementation or management of a SharePoint public-facing website or you know any websites not in the showcase we would love to add it to the evergrowing list.

AG Insurance Jobs

AG Insurance is one of the largest insurers in Belgian market. Leader in the life insurance and No. 2 in damage insurance. AG Insurance distributes its products through various channels, each with its own brand. Excellent use of large backgrounds. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Renova Energia

Renova Energia is a Brazilian company generating renewable energy with expertise in matrices such as wind, solar and small hydropower plants (SHP). Renova Energia owns the largest wind farm complex in Latin America, located in Bahia. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

NORC

NORC at the University of Chicago serves the public interest and improves lives through objective social science research that supports informed decision making. Since 1941, NORC has made a lasting impact on the fields of social science and public opinion research. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Pestana

The Pestana Group is currently the largest Portuguese tourism and leisure group. Through its chain, Pestana Hotels & Resorts presently manages 44 hotels, spread over 3 continents. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

FIAT

Fiat is a global group with a clear focus in the automobile sector. Fiat was one of the founders of the European car industry and today has a manufacturing and commercial base of sufficient scale to compete as a global automaker. MOSS-based website.

Intervate

Intervate is a specialist provider of the entire spectrum of Enterprise Information Management solutions improving productivity and collaboration. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Energizer

Energizer is a well known consumer goods company operating globally in the broad categories of household and personal care products. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

SusQtech is a twelve-time Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and currently serves more than 140 association, government agencies, non-profit and commercial customers around the world.

Their SharePoint community involvement is well known. SusQtech is the organizer of the renowned SharePoint Conference .ORG, the only SharePoint conference exclusively for associations and non-profit organizations. SusQtech is also managing the largest LinkedIn SharePoint group and is the owner of TheSUG.org, an online SharePoint user group portal.

The following showcase presents SharePoint websites implemented and designed by SusQTech.

At this time you should be able to see all the images from the picture library displayed in the “MySlider” web part. That is because there is no markup associated with the slider.

So, for this to happen, we need to modify ItemStyle.xsl and ContentQueryMain.xsl files.

Open your site in SharePoint Designer and on the left navigation click on “All Files” and then “Style Library” next click on “XSL Style Sheet”.

Right-click on ContentQueryMain.xsl and Check Out >> “Edit File in Advanced Mode”. On line 35, right after

<xsl:variable name="EndListItem" select="string('&lt;/li&gt;')" />

Copy & Paste this code:

<!-- Start Slider Variable -->
<xsl:variable name="slideStart">
<![CDATA[<div class="leftPromo"><div class="flexslider"><ul class="slides">]]>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="slideEnd">
<![CDATA[</ul></div></div>]]>
</xsl:variable>
<!-- End Slider Variable -->

Next, look for line 103, and replace the code

<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$BeginColumn" />

with the following:

<!-- Start Customized Slider -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@Style='HomePage-Slider'">
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$slideStart" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- original code -->
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$BeginColumn" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<!-- End Customized Slider -->

Next, go to line 153, and replace the code

<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$EndColumn" />

with the following:

<!-- Start Customized Slider -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@Style='HomePage-Slider'">
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$slideEnd" />
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- original code -->
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$EndColumn" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<!-- End Customized Slider -->

Next, go to line 176, and replace the code

<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$BeginListItem" />

with the following:

<!-- Start Customized Slider -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@Style='HomePage-Slider'" />
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- original code -->
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$BeginListItem" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<!-- End Customized Slider -->

Next, go to line 206, and replace the code

<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$EndListItem" />

with the following:

<!-- Start Customized Slider -->
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="@Style='HomePage-Slider'" />
<xsl:otherwise>
<!-- original code -->
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$EndListItem" />
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
<!-- End Customized Slider -->

Check In ContentQueryMain.xsl and Publish a major version and the click OK.

Now, let’s modify ItemStyle.xsl. Right click on ItemStyle.xsl and Check Out >> “Edit File in Advanced Mode”. Scroll all the way to bottom and right after line 644 or the last closing tag for xsl:template, just before the closing tag for xsl:stylesheet, add the following code:

<xsl:template name="HomePage-Slider" match="Row[@Style='HomePage-Slider']" mode="itemstyle">
<xsl:variable name="SafeLinkUrl"><xsl:call-template name="OuterTemplate.GetSafeLink"><xsl:with-param name="UrlColumnName" select="'LinkUrl'"/></xsl:call-template></xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="SafeImageUrl"><xsl:call-template name="OuterTemplate.GetSafeStaticUrl"><xsl:with-param name="UrlColumnName" select="'ImageUrl'"/></xsl:call-template></xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="DisplayTitle"><xsl:call-template name="OuterTemplate.GetTitle"><xsl:with-param name="Title" select="@Title"/><xsl:with-param name="UrlColumnName" select="'LinkUrl'"/></xsl:call-template></xsl:variable>
<li>
<a href="{$SafeLinkUrl}">
<xsl:if test="$ItemsHaveStreams = 'True'"><xsl:attribute name="onclick"><xsl:value-of select="@OnClickForWebRendering"/></xsl:attribute></xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="$ItemsHaveStreams != 'True' and @OpenInNewWindow = 'True'"><xsl:attribute name="onclick"><xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping="yes" select="$OnClickTargetAttribute"/></xsl:attribute></xsl:if>
<img src="{$SafeImageUrl}" title="{@ImageUrlAltText}">
<xsl:if test="$ImageWidth != ''"><xsl:attribute name="width"><xsl:value-of select="$ImageWidth" /></xsl:attribute></xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="$ImageHeight != ''"><xsl:attribute name="height"><xsl:value-of select="$ImageHeight" /></xsl:attribute></xsl:if>
</img>
</a>
<p class="flex-caption">
<xsl:call-template name="OuterTemplate.CallPresenceStatusIconTemplate"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$DisplayTitle"/>
</p>
</li>
</xsl:template>

Go back to the homepage and edit the page. Next, edit the slider web part, click on Presentation and change the “Item style” to “HomePage-Slider” and click OK.

Now your homepage slider should pull the content automatically from CQWP.

If you didn’t upgrade your SharePoint 2010 server to SP1, anonymous users might get a Correlation ID error for the slider: “Unable to display this Web Part”.

To fix this issue you have two choices: Update your SharePoint 2010 or follow these simple steps.

Go to homepage, edit the page and on the slider web part settings click Export.

Go to MySlider.webpart you just download, and open it in NotePad. Look for CommonViewFields property and replace it with the following:

<property name="CommonViewFields" type="string">DocumentIconImageUrl;OnClickForWebRendering</property>

Back on the homepage, delete the original slider web part. (Yes, delete it). Go to Site Settings >> Galleries >> and click on “Web parts”. On the web parts page click on the Documents tab under “Library Tool” and click on “Upload Document” to upload the slider web part you just modified.

Go back to the homepage and add the slider web part back to the page. And that’s all.

You should now have an image slider fed automatically from a custom Content Query Web Part.

In this tutorial I will show you how to deploy a jQuery-based image slider on your SharePoint website powered by a custom Content Query Web Part and a picture library.

I decided to use FlexSlider as my homepage image slider because of seven reasons (among many). It is free, easy to use, responsive – adjusting beautifully to any screen size, jQuery based, support major browsers, custom navigation and touch swipe sensitive making a perfect pick for tablets and other mobile devices.

To keep this tutorial as simple as possible, I will use our freely available Responsive SharePoint theme to integrate the slider on the home page fed by Content Query Web Part. All the necessary files are available in the package. Assuming you’ve already implemented the Responsive SharePoint theme and everything works seamlessly we’re ready to dig in.

As you noticed the FlexSlider on the home page is hardcoded and the markup was provided in the home.htm along with the boxes used on the home page.

So, under your js folder you will need to have two JavaScript files: jquery.flexslider.js and jquery.min.js

First we need to create our slider content type.

On your homepage go to “Site Action” >> “Site Settings” >> Galleries >> Click on “Site content type”. Click on the Create link and on the next screen give your new content type a name. For the sake of consistency, I would recommend you use the same naming convention. Call the new content type MySlider, under Parent Content Type select “Digital Asset Content Types” and “Image”. Next, create a new content type group called “HomePage Slider CT” and hit OK.

Now, we need to create the slider image link column that holds the link when your click on the image. So, go back to your homepage and go to “Site Action” >> “Site Settings” >> Galleries >> Click on “Site columns” and click on the Create link. On the next page give the column a name, “Slider-Image-Link”, pick the type on the column: “Hyperlink or Picture”, create a new column group called “MySlider-Column”, set the format as Hyperlink and click OK.

Now, it is time to add the “Slider-Image-Link” column to MySlider content type. Back on the homepage go to “Site Action” >> “Site Settings” >> Galleries >> Click on “Site content type” and look for and click MySlider content type under “HomePage Slider CT” group. On the MySlider content type page click on “Add from existing site columns” link. On the next page select “HomePage Slider CT” group from the dropdown list, add your “Slider-Image-Link” column and click OK.

Now, that we’ve created the necessary content type and site column, it is time to create the slider picture library.
Go to homepage >> Site Settings >> View All Site Content >> click Create >>select Picture Library, give it a name, “My-Slides-Library” and click Create. Once the picture library is created let’s assign our “HomePage Slider CT” content type to it. Click on the Settings >> Picture Library Settings.

In the General Settings area, click on the “Advanced settings” link and next select Yes for “Allow management of content types?” and click OK.

Back in “My-Slides-Library” settings page, select “Add from existing site content types link”. On the next page select “HomePage Slider CT” group from the dropdown list, add MySlider to the list and click OK. Back in “My-Slides-Library” settings page click on the Picture content type and next “Delete this content type” under settings so the only content type available for “My-Slides-Library” is MySlider.

Since you’re still in the “My-Slides-Library” settings page, let’s create three more necessary columns that will handle the start/expiration dates for each image in the slider as well as the sorting order. These three new columns are optional but I’m very confident you will be very happy to have them. It will make your slider even more powerful by allowing you to set starting dates or expiration dates for your ads on the slider as well as an image sort capability.

So, under Columns create two new columns called Start-Date and End-Date. Assign them “Date and Time” type, “Date Only”, set the default value to “Today’s Date” and click OK. For the sorting column, create a new column called Sort-Order, set it as Number type, “Enforce unique values”, set the Min allowed value to 1 and Max to 99 and Default value to 99. Once done start uploading the images for the slider.

Now it time to add the slider to the home page. Go to Site Settings >> Edit Page. On the Header zone, click “Add a Web Part” and under Content Rollup select Content Query and then click Add.

Open the tool pane for the newly content query web part. Under Query choose “Show items from the following list:” and browse for “MySlidesLibrary”. Set the Content Type for “HomePage Slider CT” and MySlider. Setup the filters starting with the Start-Date (is less than or equal to) Today and End-Date (is greater than or equal to) Today.

For the Grouping and Sorting setup the Sort-Order in ascending order and for the “Fields to display” set the Link to “Slider-Image-Link;”, Image to “URL Path [Custom Columns];” and Title to “Title;”. Under Appearance give your web part a title, “MySlider” and set the Chrome Type to None, click OK and save the page.

If you save the page you will see there is more work to be done. At this time you will see all the images on the slider, that is because we didn’t set up the slider markup.

Feed Image Slider from CQWP – Part 2

We know your time is too precious to waste on the inner workings of SharePoint styling and by releasing this premium theme we hope we can help you with the SharePoint branding.

Our premium theme will allow you to give your SharePoint-based websites a modern and attractive face and in the same time will help you reduce the time it takes to have such sites live in minimum amount of time.

By following our easy to use documentation included in the package, and with your basic SharePoint designer skills you will be able to deploy your SharePoint site in a relatively short time, reducing production time lines considerably.

In addition, Allegra theme is a full-blown responsive SharePoint design. Its liquid layouts adjust to prioritize content based on available screen sizes removing the need for mobile versions of your website. From smart phones to tablets Allegra theme is the theme that fits all devices!

Watch the Demo

Screenshots

Theme Features:
- Fluid & Responsive Web Design
- Two-columns and one column
- Responsive Slider – Flexslider – jQuery-based Slider (Flexslider)
- Top and left dynamic navigation
- Ideal for any screen resolution (automatically adjusting to different screen resolutions)
- Compatible with modern browsers (tested successfully on Chrome, Safari, Firefox 12, IE9)
- Suitable for small SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites

What’s in the package?
- All the necessary CSS, images, html and JavaScript files
- Three Master Pages
- Four Page Layouts (We’ve got rid of all the Tables! Div tags only!)
- PhotoShop files
- PDF Documentation

Disclaimer
This theme was created for SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites.
We did not test this theme on SharePoint Foundation neither on SharePoint Online (Office 365).
This theme will not work on MOSS (SharePoint 2007)

Purchase This Theme using PayPal.
Price: $199.00

How PayPal Works

Please allow up to 24 hours for the download link to be emailed to you.
If you didn’t receive the download link after 24 hours please contact us.

Looking at the event viewer there were tons of 3355 errors on SharePoint (Cannot connect to SQL server. SQL Server not found.) and no errors on the SQL box.

Doing an online search I could see this Event ID 3355 was very popular and there were tons of posts dedicated to this topic.

So, I started with the obvious. Check the network connections, NIC cards, SQL box. All looked good, so I focused my attention on SharePoint server.

Another strange thing was that other five websites hosted on the same SharePoint box were working just fine except for the main important one.

\\YourSharePointServer\c$\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\LOGS

So, going through the SharePoint logs (see the above link on how to get to the logs) which were growing very fast and big (every hour around 2-3 GB of log files!) I noticed the error logs were populated 2-3 times/second with entries like this:

Unexpected While initializing navigation, found Page placeholder but object was not found at: /SITE/PAGES/PAGENAME.ASPX

So, I made my way to the page list for that site that hosted the page in question and removed the page
http://www.yoursite.com/Site/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Once the page was removed everything went to normal.

Turned out that page was created by a former employee who quit few days before, the page was left in draft status and the account was deleted from Active Directory. A Perfect SharePoint Storm!

I made sure the log files came back to a normal size and no other issues were present in the log files.

You’ve got to love SharePoint for all these wonderful adventures it offers.

Sites of the Month is a monthly collection of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

By the way, we would love to hear from you, so, if you designed a SharePoint-based website or you know any sites not in the showcase don’t forget to send it to us.

Fleury

Fleury is a Medical Diagnosis company based in Brazil, ranked second largest medical diagnosis company in Brazil. Fleury offers integrated solutions and services for medical diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic. Fleury provides services to more than 3,000 laboratories, 85 units of care and 29 hospitals. MOSS-based website.

Kraft Canada

Kraft is an innovation leader in the Canadian marketplace. Every year, Kraft invests significant resources to understand consumer attitudes and behaviours pertaining to food and eating. MOSS-based website.

Eudora

Eudora is the new brand from Boticário Group, owner of the O Boticario brand and 3000 franchise stores in Brazil. With more than 300 products, Eudora explores the sensual aspect of body care, hair, fragrance, makeup products and accessories. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Lewisham

Lewisham is a district in South London, England. Lewisham’s new website is the first port of call for anyone who wants to find out about Lewisham. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Global Reporting Initiative

GRI is a global network of some 30,000 people, many of them sustainability experts, contributes to its work. GRI’s governance bodies and Secretariat act as a hub, coordinating the activity of its network partners. Website built with SharePoint 2010.

Mighty Cars & Campers

Mighty Cars & Campers is part of Australasia’s largest rental vehicle operators and offers quality campervans and cars at low cost prices. MOSS-based website.

Faurecia

Faurecia is the 8th largest international automotive parts manufacturer in the world. It produces 6 types of car modules: seats, cockpits, doors, acoustic packages, front end and exhaust, in the US, Faurecia provides parts for GM, Chrysler, and Ford and for European and Japanese carmakers. MOSS-based website.

There is no shortage of information for banks to cover on their websites: credit cards, loans, mortgage, insurance, commodities, investment plans, location, just to list few. All this information has to be easily accessible, functional and visually appealing.

For this industry specific showcase I decided to stimulate your web design branding senses with a collection of 50 attractive bank websites built with SharePoint.

To see the complete list and to discover more banks with websites built on SharePoint platform click here.

The following list is updated automatically, based on your votes. If you like any of these website designs make sure you vote for them so they remain on this showcase. New SharePoint-based websites are added everyday to our showcase. Come back to this page to see who else made it to the list.

Navigate to your site root under wss/VirtualDirectories and then your site port number (usually port 80) then open the folder called App_Browsers and open compat.browser file using Notepad.

\\YourSP2010ServerName\c$\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\App_Browsers\compat.browser

Look for iPhone Safari Browser comment or any other mobile devices you see fit and change the value from true to false. Especially for iPhone Safari Browser, iPod Safari Browser and Android Safari Browser.

<capability name="isMobileDevice" value="true" />
Change to:
<capability name="isMobileDevice" value="false" />

In this third article on SharePoint Sites of the Month you will discover some inspiring and well designed websites based on SharePoint.

For this SharePoint branding jolt I selected seven beautiful websites built on MOSS. Yes, SharePoint 2007 still powers more than 80% of the public-facing websites in the world built on SharePoint platform, at least according to our statistics.

At the time of writing this article there were 418 websites based on SharePoint 2010 in our showcase out of 2,090.

The usual 5 year website redesign cycle will most likely kick in this or next year. Since SharePoint 2013/15 will probably not be released this year we should expect an increase in SharePoint 2012 adoption for public-facing websites.

Sites of the Month is a monthly collection of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

Kiwi Experience

Kiwi Experience is New Zealand’s famous travel network, offering you some of the most unforgettable experiences and tours on the planet. Kiwi Experience is the leading off-the-bus New Zealand experience; designed by travellers for travellers.
Highly customized MOSS-based site.

Kijken Kiezen & Kleuren

Kijken Kiezen & Kleuren is an initiative of the branches of the home furnishings department of Housing Intres BV affiliates based in Netherlands. They are specialized in home furnishings, curtains, blinds, carpet and vinyl. Colorful and stylish MOSS-based website.

NZTE

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is the New Zealand Government’s national economic development agency. NZTE focuses on industry sectors where New Zealand has a long-term competitive advantage in world markets, and on businesses with high-growth potential.

Central Ohio Technical College

Central Ohio Technical College (COTC) is a public two-year technical college located in Newark, Ohio. Founded in 1971, COTC shares a campus with Ohio State University at Newark and currently offers 31 associate degree and certificate programs.

Cleveland Clinic Wellness

Cleveland Clinic Wellness website is dedicated to providing truth and guidance for your total wellness journey. Cleveland Clinic provides integrated medical care to patients in the United States, Canada and around the world, and continue to be on the cutting edge of on-going innovative approaches to collaborative patient care, technology, and overall health and wellness advances.

City of Brampton

Brampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. Brampton’s population stood at 433,806 making it the 11th largest city in Canada.

Andorra

The sixth smallest nation in Europe, Andorra is a landlocked microstate in Southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France.

South Africa is one of the most captivating and diverse countries in the world. Striking mix of landscape, people, history and culture, South Africa can offer an inspiring and exclusive experience.

The following showcase presents the Top 20 Best Rated SharePoint sites in South Africa. To see all the featured SharePoint sites from South Africa click here.

This showcase is updated automatically, based on your ratings. New sites are added every day, so make sure you come back here to see who else is making to the Top 20 Best SharePoint sites.

Responsive design so far is the hottest topic of the year amongst web designers, along with the sudden increase of various mobile devices like smart phones, tablets and gadgets which have different screen sizes.

Basically, Responsive design removes the need for mobile versions of your website making your website future-proof for the new types of mobile devices.

The following free Responsive SharePoint theme will introduce you to a world of fluidity that would change your perspective (and stereotype) on what you can do with SharePoint.

This theme is ready to be deployed with minimum effort so you can have a responsive SharePoint-based website ready to go in less than 20 minutes.

At the time this article was posted, there were only few responsive SharePoint-based websites showcased on TopSharePoint.com, that proves how new this technique is in the SharePoint branding community.

We truly hope this free SharePoint theme will help you get started with responsive design and we expect to see some of your customizations popping up all over the place.

You can use the theme for free and without any restrictions. However, it is forbidden to sell or redistribute the theme without TopSharePoint.com permission. You may modify the theme as you wish at your own risk.

This work is licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Theme Features:
- Fluid & Responsive Web Design
- Two-columns
- HTML5 & CSS2/CSS3 based
- Two master pages (Main Master Page and Search Master Page)
- Two page layout
- Responsive Slider – Flexslider – jQuery-based Slider (Flexslider)
- Top and left dynamic navigation
- Ideal for any screen resolution (automatically adjusting to different screen resolutions)
- Compatible with modern browsers (tested successfully on Chrome, Safari, Firefox 12, IE9)
- Suitable for small SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites

Instructions

To enable the Responsive theme for SharePoint 2010 follow these simple steps.

Download the Responsive.zip file and extract the files.
There are three folders in the zip file:

MasterPages folder contains two master pages. responsive.master, the general master page used across the site, and the search master page responsive-search.master. Create new Blank Master Page in SharePoint Designer and Copy&Paste responsive.master code into it. Check the master page in and make sure you publish and approve it.

Page Layouts folder contains two custom page layouts (Responsive-Home.aspx and Responsive-Main.aspx) created for this theme. Responsive-Home.aspx is used for the homepage with the necessary scripts for the slider and Responsive-Main.aspx page layout is used across the site.
Import these two custom page layouts into “Page Layouts” site objects in SharePoint Designer by creating New Page Layouts and Copy&Paste the code into each page layout.

And finally, the third folder called responsive contains a css folder, images folder, js folder and html folder with the slider and boxes used on the homepage.
Place responsive folder under your site root. Your site root is located here: C:/inetpub/wwwroot/wss/VirtualDirectories/80 (or whatever port you’re using for the site). Make sure Network and Network Service accounts have read permissions for this folder.

Once all the files are placed correctly, it is time to set the responsive.master as the default master page.

Go to your site homepage and click on Site Actions >> Site Settings.
Under “Look and Feel” click on “Master page” and under Site Master Page select responsive.master and click OK.

Go back to the Site Settings and click on “Page layouts and site templates”. Make sure you have the “(Article Page) Responsive-Home” and Responsive-Main on the right side pane for Page Layouts.

Go to your site and edit all the pages to inherit the custom page layout “Responsive-Main”, except for the homepage which should inherit the Responsive-Home page layout.

Now, we need to take care of the homepage.

Navigate to the homepage and edit it: Site Action >> Edit Page. Click in the Page Content area and look for HTML markup button on ribbon. Select Edit HTML source and in the new pop-up window Paste the home.htm code, provided in the package under html folder. Click OK and Submit and Approve the page.

And finally let’s take care of the Search page.

We need to change the search results page first. On the homepage go to Site Actions >> Site Settings and under “Site Collection Administration” click on “Search settings”. Under “Site Collection Search Results Page” change the default setting to “/Search/results.aspx” and click OK. In order to see the “Site Collection Administration” option you need to be a site administrator.

Next, go to SharePoint Designer and Open Site (http://yourdomain.com/Search). Under “Site Objects” click on Master Pages and import responsive-search.master into the “Master Page” for Search site by creating a new Blank Master Page and Copy&Paste responsive-search.master code into it. Right-click on the Responsive-Search.master and pick “Set As Custom Master Page”.

And, you’re done! Enjoy the first usable “out-of-the-box” responsive SharePoint 2010 theme.

If you like the theme don’t forget to leave a comment or maybe you would like to show your appreciation and buy me a beer! Thank you and stay tuned for more!

Download Responsive Theme for SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites

We hope this showcase will enhance your creative web design ideas and make you think twice about what you can achieve using SharePoint for your public-facing websites.

Sites of the Month is a monthly collection of the most exceptional SharePoint-based website designs submitted to our showcase and picked by our staff based on their usability, design, creativity, improved user experience, custom functionality and ability to incorporate modern techniques.

qualia

Recognised by Condé Nast Traveller on their USA and UK Gold Lists and Hot Lists, qualia is a unique expression of Australian luxury and continues to set new benchmarks in global luxury travel. qualia’s distinctive style combined with its sun-drenched location and intuitive service makes it a luxurious resort on world-class standards. It’s a truly special place where everything has been meticulously considered to relax the mind and completely spoil the senses.
Highly customized MOSS-based site.

GSE

GSE is the state-owned company which promotes and supports renewable energy sources (RES) in Italy. Their modern website is built on SharePoint 2010 using media queries and responsive web design, adjusting automatically to any screen size.

Calphalon

Calphalon, makes a wide variety of high quality pots and pans. The company offers stainless steel cookware as well as anodized aluminum and few other materials.

The National Careers Service

The National Careers Service provides information, advice and guidance to help you make decisions on learning, training and work opportunities. The service offers confidential, helpful and impartial advice, supported by qualified careers advisers.

Home Made Simple

At Home Made Simple, it’s the personal touch that matters most. Whether it’s a delicious recipe, an inspiring décor idea or a refreshing approach to organizing, they strive to help you create a home that’s truly your own.
Home Made Simple is an attractive MOSS-based website. We love the creative colorful scheme, the use of ratings and the drop-down mega menu.

East Midlands Trains

East Midlands Trains offer a wide range of cheap train services throughout the UK. Based in Derby, East Midlands Trains is a British passenger train operating company and provides train services in the East Midlands. MOSS-based website.

Saïd Business School

The Saïd Business School is one of Europe’s youngest and most entrepreneurial business schools. An integral part of the University of Oxford, the School embodies the academic rigour and forward thinking that has made Oxford a world leader in education. MOSS-based website. Great use of drop-down mega menu.

I cannot stress enough how important page title is for user experience and for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Page Title is the most important SEO element, after the page content, and ignoring it you would condemn your website to a sudden SEO death!

With so many SharePoint-based websites submitted to our showcase I couldn’t help notice the amount of SharePoint websites ignoring the basic SEO rule for page title. “Home” in the page title is becoming the norm, especially on the newly released SharePoint sites.

According to the latest SEO standards, the brand name should be the first thing in the page title. A well structured page should display the page title in the following format:

Company Name | Page Title

The Company Name should be static across the whole site. The Page Title can be displayed dynamically using the existing SharePoint PlaceHolderPageTitle.

By writing this short tutorial on how to change the page title on your SharePoint site I hope I will cast some light on this ignored topic of such importance.

There may be other ways to change the Title Tag on SharePoint sites but I find this trick very easy to implement and I’ve used it for quite awhile with good results.

Open your site in SharePoint Designer and click on the Page Layouts under the Site Objects container on the left side. Find the page layout you’re using on your site, right-click on it, Check it out and Edit it in Advanced Mode.

At the top of the page look for the PlaceHolderPageTitle placeholder. Type your company name before the PageTitle FieldValue and you’re done.

<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server">
	TopSharePoint.com | <SharePointWebControls:FieldValue ID="PageTitle" FieldName="Title" runat="server"/>
</asp:Content>

Save the page layout, check it in and approve it. If you are using multiple page layouts make sure you repeat these simple steps on all of them.

Keep in mind that your page title needs to be changed on each individual page from the default Home to a more descriptive title.

There are two ways to do that. By clicking on the Edit button on the ribbon under Page tab to enter the edit mode or by clicking the Edit Properties button.

Located in the heart of Europe, Germany has always been known to be a wealthy and progressive nation, renowned for its beer, cars, football (soccer), clean energy, smart and passionate people.

With a population of over 80 million, Germany is definitely not short in talented designers, and in this case SharePoint designers.

The following showcase presents the Top 20 Best Rated SharePoint sites in Germany. To see all the featured SharePoint sites from Germany click here.

As I mentioned before, this showcase is updated automatically, based on your ratings. New sites are added every day, so make sure you come back here to see who else is making to the Top 20 Best SharePoint sites.

For this first month selection we decided to showcase few inspiring websites that do a very good job on making SharePoint websites not look like SharePoint.

BrightStarr

Four times award winners of SharePoint Gold partner and regularly singled out for incorporating cutting-edge design and technical excellence into all their customer engagements, BrightStarr knows SharePoint branding. Built on SharePoint 2010, BrightStarr website pushes the boundaries of what is possible with SharePoint. Responsive design based on the latest HTML5 technology, fully optimized for desktop, tablet and mobile, BrightStarr website is one of the very few multi-channel SharePoint-based websites in the world.

TAV Istanbul Ataturk Airport

In a city where airport operations play a vital role, Istanbul Ataturk Airport represents modernity and excellent service with its Domestic and International Terminals. For such a great airport a modern and exceptional website to complement its value was a must. Built with SharePoint 2007, Istanbul Ataturk Airport website is designed with usability in mind. Mega drop-down menu, jQuery Interface Elements, tabbing, interesting combination of neutral grey with vibrant orange; these are just few of the reasons we chose Istanbul Ataturk Airport for this first series on sites of month.

Vaisala

Vaisala is a global leader in environmental and industrial measurement headquartered in Finland and employs nearly 1400 professionals worldwide. Their colorful website built with SharePoint 2010 is attractive, modern and well structured.

O Boticário

O Boticário is the second biggest Brazilian cosmetic company and world’s largest perfumery and cosmetics franchising network.

Pousadas de Portugal

Pousadas de Portugal is a luxury Portuguese hotel accommodation in old Palaces, Castles and Monasteries. Pousadas brilliantly blend the tradition of a glorious past to the highest standards of today’s hotel profession.

Novozymes

Novozymes is the world leader in bioinnovation and a global manufacturer of enzymes, microorganisms and biopharmaceutical ingredients based in Denmark.

Almond Board of California

The Almond Board of California recognizes the diverse makeup of the California almond industry and values contributions offered by its growers and handlers.

We would love to hear from you. If you have any suggestions send them to us and we will be more than happy to showcase your website.

The green color scheme, as you will see in this showcase, is mostly used by environment-related companies and not surprisingly, due to the color’s effect on our body, by hospitals, clinics and other healthcare companies.

I have no doubt that if you didn’t settle yet for a specific color scheme to be used on your website this showcase will inspire you and hopefully help you decided on what way to go. And if green color is not the desired color for your project take a look at the previous posts on blue and red websites.

This showcase is updated automatically, based on your rating. If you like any of these websites make sure you rate them so they stay on this list since new SharePoint-based websites are added daily to our ever growing gallery.

Simply put, the out-of-the-box SharePoint user experience is somewhat generic. It begs for a visual and functional face-lift in order to be used as an effective tool for digital marketing as a public-facing website. In some ways, one has to assume this was Microsoft’s intention. Knowing it is impossible to satisfy everyone’s specific needs with one “silver bullet” product, Microsoft built a platform with a bevy of integration points, documentation, and development tools so that organizations can build exactly what they need. These customizations range from integrating an existing line-of-business application to a complete user experience overhaul “making SharePoint not look like SharePoint.”

The underlying issue, however, is that many SharePoint sites are functional and even fully responsive according to screen size but have sacrificed features like web content management (WCM) that are inherent to SharePoint. Essentially the capabilities of SharePoint have been limited by using it simply as a host for custom web sites or applications rather than a platform to build upon. We sometimes refer to this as developing “on top of” versus “within” SharePoint.

Generally speaking, there are two high-level approaches to customizing SharePoint:
1. Customize existing out-of-the-box functionality to meet requirements.
2. Develop custom solutions to add additional functionality to the platform.

In our experience, one of the most difficult parts of SharePoint customization is determining the best approach for a particular requirement. Is the requirement straightforward enough that existing SharePoint components can be used? For example, can we use content types or an existing web part such as the Content Query Web Part? Or is the requirement unique enough to require a custom web part or an external database? Realistically, because of varying requirements, seldom is the result one approach or another. The customizations are more likely to be a hybrid of leveraging and configuring out-of-the-box functionality and then supplementing the out-of-the-box with the deployment of custom code.

Given this, there are several core principles and best practices that govern whether a certain requirement falls into one bucket or another, and how best to address these principles, which are worth mentioning here. Note that many of the best practices Northridge uses from a SharePoint user experience and branding perspective are the same as those used from a SharePoint custom development perspective.

1. Deploy customizations in a repeatable manner from one environment to another. It is in everyone’s best interest that there exists at least one other environment other than the production environment and local development environments that can be used as a staging environment to perform testing against. To maintain consistency as well as sanity, customizations should be maintained as features that are packaged in a WSP solution file so that they can be deployed on separate environments with minimum effort and maximum consistency. Customizations that may not be able to be packaged in a WSP solution should be scripted in a PowerShell script that can be run against a server.

2. Preserve standard SharePoint functionality whenever possible. It’s likely that a number of the desired customizations can be done by manipulating and configuring out-of-the-box functionality. The Publishing Framework in SharePoint 2010 provides excellent components such as content types, page layouts, lists and document libraries, and web parts that may already support your needs with just a few tweaks. SharePoint provides the most value when used as a platform to build upon and not a hindrance to replace with customizations.

3. Stay away from existing files in the 14 hive. In a standard SharePoint 2010 installation, the files are installed in a folder named “14″, since the official version number for SharePoint 2010 is actually version 14 (and SharePoint or MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 is technically SharePoint 12, hence the files are in this version are in a folder named “12″). This “14″ folder has come to be known as the “14 hive” and when it comes to customization, the manipulation of any of the existing files in this folder can adversely affect the SharePoint installation involving patches or upgrades. Customizations from farm solutions that need to be deployed into the 14 hive should be deployed into new folders to prevent naming conflicts with existing files.

With over a decade of experience in the areas of business consulting, user experience, and collaboration technology, Northridge is a national leader in Microsoft SharePoint solutions and a dedicated Microsoft partner. Utilizing the SharePoint platform, Northridge creates user-centric experiences that integrate the appropriate visual, informational, and interactive design elements for target audiences.

This time we would like to take a close look at what’s happening in the SharePoint web design scene in Brazil.

Well known as the country of the future, Brazil, the biggest country in South America, has been long time associate with soccer, Samba, Carnival, scanty bikinis and beautiful beaches. Now with the recent awarding of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games and a thriving self-sufficient economy, Brazil is taking the world by storm.

Brazil is also one of the biggest centers of creative web design talent in the world and SharePoint has been experiencing a rapid and enthusiastic adoption amongst these talents. SharePoint community in Brazil is vibrant and well organized occupying a well defined place in Brazilian technology market. There are some truly brilliant SharePoint designers and studios that are doing incredible work and this showcase proves it.

This showcase is updated automatically, based on visitors’ ratings. New SharePoint-based websites are added frequently, so don’t forget to come back here to get more branding inspiration and to see who else is making to list. For a complete list of featured Brazilian SharePoint sites click here.

This is where SharePoint comes in. Besides the obvious plethora of useful features SharePoint provides, the special pricing structure for Charitable Organizations (501(c)(3)) makes SharePoint very attractive. Most of associations or societies fall under Charitable Organizations licensing option.

Even though Microsoft doesn’t make it easy to get the reduced license price the effort is well worth it.

Here are the Programs for Charitable Organizations offered by Microsoft.

To emphasize SharePoint popularity amongst associations and societies I decided to continue the industry specific showcase we started awhile ago with this list of 50 inspiring and attractive examples of SharePoint websites in the aforementioned category.

If you’re in search for real world examples of SharePoint branding I hope this list will inspire you enough, if not check out other posts we published before in the Related Articles section at the bottom.

For people who would question the method this list was created, I feel obligated to reiterate that the list is updated automatically, based on our visitors ratings. To see the complete list of associations and societies with websites build on SharePoint platform click these two links: Associations and Societies

To see the complete list and to discover more technology related companies with websites built on SharePoint platform click here.

The following SharePoint branding inspiration list is updated automatically, based on your ratings. If you like any of these website designs make sure you vote for them so they remain on this showcase. New SharePoint-based websites are added everyday to our showcase. Come back to this page to see who else made it to the list.

Red color is well known to be used in design world to grab attention and mostly to urge visitor to take action. It symbolizes power, love and passion. Red is often chosen because of its domination to other colors.

Below you will find 50 inspiring SharePoint websites that make great use of the red color in their design and will definitely give you great ideas for your next web design project.

This showcase is updated automatically, based on your voting. If you like any of these websites make sure you rate them so they stay on this list since new SharePoint-based websites are added daily to our ever growing gallery.

You can use the theme for free and without any restrictions. However, it is forbidden to sell or redistribute the theme without TopSharePoint.com permission. You may modify the theme as you wish at your own risk.

This work is licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Theme Features:
- Two-columns
- Fixed-width
- CSS based
- Three master pages and one page layout provided
- jQuery Slider
- Random header image
- Top and left dynamic navigation
- Ideal for 1024×768 screen resolution
- Suitable for small SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites

Instructions

To enable the Deliberato theme for SharePoint 2010 follow these simple steps.

Download the Deliberato.zip file and extract the files.
There are three folders in the zip file:

MasterPages folder contains three master pages. Homepage master page Deliberato-Home.master, the general master page used across the site Deliberato.master and the search master page Deliberato-Search.master. Import Deliberato-Home.master and Deliberato.master into the “Master Page” site objects for the main site using SharePoint Designer.

Also, import Deliberato-Search.master into the “Master Page” for Search site.

PageLayout folder contains a custom page layout created for this theme. This page layout allows you to display the left navigation and other custom functions. Import this custom page layout into “Page Layouts” site objects in SharePoint Designer.

And finally, the third folder called Deliberato contains a css folder, images folder and html folder with the slider used for the homepage.
Place Deliberato folder under your site root. Make sure Network and Network Service accounts have read permissions for this folder.

Once all the files are placed correctly, it is time to set the Deliberato.master as the default master page.

Go to your site homepage and click on Site Actions >> Site Settings.
Under “Look and Feel” click on “Master page” and under Site Master Page select Deliberato.master and click OK.

Go back to the Site Settings and click on “Page layouts and site templates”. Make sure you have the “(Article Page) Deliberato” on the right side pane for Page Layouts.

Go to your site and edit all the pages to inherit the custom page layout “Deliberato”.

Now, we need to take care of the homepage.

On your SharePoint Designer, under Master Pages, right click on the Deliberato-Home.master and select “Set as Custom Master Page”. This will set the Deliberato-Home.master as your default homepage master page.

Navigate to the homepage and edit it: Site Action >> Edit Page. click on “Add a Web Part” >> under Categories select “Media and Content” >> under Web Parts >> Page Viewer >> Click Add button.

Edit the newly added Page Viewer web part and type the following path in the Link textbox /Deliberato/html/Deliberato.htm. Add 580 (pixels) for the Height and 1020 (pixels) for the Width. Set Chrome Type to None and click OK. Next, make sure you see the Page Viewer web part populated with the custom slider and Publish the page and you’re done.

And finally let’s take care of the Search page.

We need to change the search results page first. On the homepage go to Site Actions >> Site Settings and under “Site Collection Administration” click on “Search settings”. Under “Site Collection Search Results Page” change the default setting to “/Search/results.aspx” and click OK. In order to see the “Site Collection Administration” option you need to be a site administrator.

Go to SharePoint Designer and Open Site (http://yourdomain.com/Search). Under “Site Objects” click on Master Pages and import Deliberato-Search.master from Deliberato package. Right-click on the Deliberato-Search.master and pick “Set As Custom Master Page”.

And, that’s all folks! Enjoy another simple and modern theme, and if you like it (or not) leave us a comment. It does help us to improve the next themes. Stay tuned for more!

Download Deliberato Theme for SharePoint 2010 Publishing Sites

Global Microsoft Gold SharePoint Partner, BrightStarr, understands the digital workplace and builds best of class, award-winning SharePoint and mobile solutions that increase employee productivity, elevate brands, and create multi-channel revenue opportunities. They are regularly singled out for incorporating a unique blend of both creative and technical skills to deliver extra-ordinary experiences with the perfect balance of form and factor.

BrightStarr are no doubt the experts in delivering engaging, feature-rich enterprise websites built on the SharePoint platform. Their websites focus on the user experience and aim to significantly enhance their customers brand, create interest and will ultimately help businesses grow.

BrightStarr have recently launched a new version of their website, one of the only fully responsive SharePoint 2010 websites in the world – adapting to any device, browser and platform.

Take a look at their newly redesigned HTML5 website as well as other beautiful SharePoint websites developed by this accomplished bunch. Also, watch the following video to see how Microsoft showcased BrightStarr:

For this inspirational post I compiled a list of the best designed hospital websites built on SharePoint platform from around the world.

Even though most of the hospitals offer the same healthcare services they do have some unique features that separate them one from another and the following examples of websites will emphasize this discrepancy.

One thing for sure all these hospitals have in common is the usage of SharePoint platform for their Internet facing websites. To see all the hospitals with websites built with SharePoint take a look at this ever-growing list we’ve gathered for the past years.

We truly believe that by showcasing few attractive website designs within a specific market we will not only provide you with a bit of SharePoint branding inspiration but also an insight in the ever-growing popularity of SharePoint usage for the public-facing websites, especially in the corporate world.

The following list is updated automatically, based on your votes. If you like any of these website designs make sure you vote for them so they remain on this showcase. New SharePoint-based websites are added everyday to our showcase. Come back to this page to see who else made it to the list.