Michigan Unit Blog

Sogeti’s own C# MVP Dave Giard will be presenting “Real World Lessons in Windows Workflow Foundation” April 13 at the Ann Arbor .Net Developers Group at 6pm. He will be giving the same presentation again on April 14 at the Greater Lansing .Net User Group as well.

About Workflow Foundation, Dave says:

Many applications require workflows to manage scenarios such as approval processes and complex business logic. Often these tasks can last for weeks and require status tracking, waiting for input from external persons and systems, and execution of parallel work.
Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) assists developers in creating a workflow for an application by providing a library of common tasks, a framework to coordinate those tasks, and a graphical development environment. WF is built on top of the .Net framework and integrates seamlessly with SQL Server and with WCF.
In this presentation, I will demonstrate the basics of WF, demonstrate how to create and call a workflow and the options for hosting a workflow. I will show how to use the task library and extend WF by creating your own tasks.

Sogeti announced today that it has been awarded the 2010 Microsoft Application Compatibility Factory Partner of the Year award, an honor given by Microsoft in recognition of Sogeti’s leading role in enabling organizations to smoothly transition to new operating systems like Windows 7. This is the second consecutive year Sogeti has been selected to receive this honor. Read the full press release here.

In the last year Sogeti has worked with hundreds of clients to identify and mitigate issues with Windows 7 migrations, and has performed more Application Compatibility engagements for Windows 7 than any other Microsoft partner.

This latest award further solidifies Sogeti’s leadership role in delivering exceptional Microsoft-based solutions. In July Sogeti was awarded with Microsoft’s Enterprise Partner of the Year.

Software developers around the area will come together next weekend to put their skills and abilities to work for good causes. Ann Arbor Give Camp is being held at the campus of Washtenaw Community College and runs from September 17-19. Now in its third ieration, Give Camp will seek to help nine charities in need of web site solutions or other IT-related projects.

Susan Anspaugh-Yount, a Sogeti consultant in the Enterprise Microsoft Solutions practice, is looking forward to leveraging her skills for a worthy cause. “This is a great opportunity to give back in a tangible way,” she said.

Give Camp is still looking for talented volunteers. For more information, visit http://annarborgivecamp.org.

Sogeti’s own David Giard has been awarded with Microsoft’s prestigious MVP award in recognition for his contributions to the Microsoft development community.

Dave is not only a skilled and accomplished developer and architect, he is also a well-traveled public speaker, appearing at developer conferences throughout the region. He is also president of the Great Lakes Area .NET User Group. Dave is also a prolific podcaster and blogger.

Way to go Dave!

Capgemini and Sogeti have been honored today with Microsoft’s coveted Enterprise Partner of the Year award. This outstanding achievement reflects Sogeti’s vast expertise and commitment to excellence on the Microsoft stack. A press release issued today by Sogeti reads,

“Cap Gemini S.A., with its subsidiary Sogeti, is one of the world’s foremost global providers of consulting, professional technology and outsourcing services, and Microsoft is pleased to recognize Capgemini and Sogeti as a Microsoft Enterprise Partner of the Year,” said Mark Hill, Vice President, Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “As one of Microsoft’s top worldwide partners on Window 7 as well as a strong partner in ERP and SharePoint solutions, Capgemini and Sogeti help customers transform their businesses through the innovative use of Microsoft technology. In addition, Capgemini and Sogeti offer solutions based on Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite for communications and collaboration thereby helping our customers realize the benefits of Cloud technology.”

Read the full press release here.

Sogeti Michigan’s own SharePoint experts Dave Wollerman and Jesse Murray will be appearing tonight at the June Meeting of the Southeast Michigan SharePoint User Group. The meeting is featuring a Panel of Experts that will take questions from attendees on all things SharePoint.

The meeting will be held at 6pm at the Microsoft Office at 1000 Town Center Dr., Southfield Town Center, Suite 1930 in Southfield. For more details visit the user group’s web site.

This is a great opportunity for users in SharePoint community to have their tough SharePoint questions answered by some of the best in the business.

Last night Dave Giard, a .Net architect from the Michigan Unit, delivered a “Grok Talk” detailing how to get started with the new ASP.NET MVC Framework. The video for that talk is now available:

Dave’s blog offers Grok Talks, interviews with software development experts, and even a TV show called Technology and Friends. You can catch it all here.

We are excited to announce that Jonathan Tanner of Flint won the Zune HD with Microsoft Marketplace giveaway at the Sogeti booth during the Microsoft SharePoint and Visual Studio launch event.

Congratulations Jonathan!

On Thursday, June 3, David Giard will deliver a “Grok Talk” entitled “Writing your first ASP.NET MVC Application”. He will discuss Microsoft’s new Model View Controller architecture, a new framework for developing web applications in .Net. The talk will be held at Sogeti’s Michigan office in Farmington Hills at 6pm.

A Grok Talk is an informal presentation meant to illuminate a technical topic. Sogeti’s Michigan Unit hosts occasional Grok Talks so consultants can educate one another on the numerous technical challenges and solutions they encounter in the field. These talks benefit our consultants in two ways: they expose a new technology we are likely to encounter, and they offer opportunities for us to refine our presentation skills.

The talk will be made available remotely. For details contact Dave Giard.

SharePoint 2010 offers many improvements in workflow that promise to deliver more functionality and ease of use to users. Along with SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio, Microsoft has added Visio 2010 to the workflow developer’s arsenal of tools.
Visio 2010 allows non-technical business users the ability to author workflow processes using a familiar, easy-to-use tool. A new template appears in Visio called Microsoft SharePoint Workflow. It includes objects which map to activities included in SharePoint Designer workflows. The Visio diagram can then be exported into SharePoint Designer 2010 for further development.

A SharePoint 2010 workflow modeled in Visio 2010