SharePoint Skater

Simply put, you can't trigger a workflow from an anonymous user.  The workflow must run in the context of the current user account, and of course there isn't one when you're anonymous.  If you do try it, you'll probably see the following error:

It seemed simple enough.

SharePoint farms can take several forms.  Probably the most common one is the single-server farm (not to be confused with the "Simple Install", which is almost always a very bad idea).  If you're low on hardware -- or you just don't want to shell out for an extra server OS -- you can start out with all of your services on a single box and expand later as needed.

The high point -- of the sessions I attended -- was SharePoint Search Challenges and Tricks, by my former associate (and MOSS MVP) Matt McDermott.  Aside from the usual (yet pertinent) look at search scopes, custom iFilters, and external content sources, Matt gave us a look at some lesser-known features, like crawling large files outside of SharePoint by using DFS in conjunction with Server Name Mappings.  There was also some great demo integration with the tagging abilities of MS Live Photo Gallery, and of course the usual cameos by his canine companions.

Later this month I'll be speaking at the Dallas/Fort Worth SharePoint User Group, along with Pete Henehan -- long-time MCT and my distinguished colleague at Improving .  Together, we'll be exploring simple ways to improve user experiences with SharePoint.  To make that talk more effective, I'd like to hear from average users about what you hate, what you need, and what you just wish the IT people would understand. 

If one day, for no apparent reason, you notice that your default SharePoint content types have disappeared, you may have made the simple, unwitting mistake of reusing a GUID in a custom content type.  This can cause a very confused SP server to hide all of your out-of-the-box content types. 

Recently a fellow list member ran into a snag while trying to create a calculated field of the form [DateTimeField1 + TimeValue].  Ostensibly, his problem was the lack of seconds in the displayed value; in reality, however, the initial approach betrayed an all-too-common misunderstanding of the way date and time values are treated in SharePoint.

My brand-spanking-new employer, Improving Enterprises, had a guest speaker yesterday.  Luke Hohmann of Enthiosys led us through one of their latest Innovation Games (he's written a book by that same title), called Buy a Feature.  You can try it free right now while it's in beta.