Customer Case: The University of Alabama at Birmingham

The university was searching for a solution that rendered SharePoint “usable” for a huge population of users. THE CUSTOMER: The University of Alabama at Birmingham INDUSTRY: Education PLATFORM: Microsoft SharePoint 2010 “We found Virto to be very helpful with support issues and very attentive to our needs as a customer – much of the functionality found in the Virto Workflow Activities Kit arose from our project requirements.” R. Kevin Gunther-Canada MA | Director, Information Management and Communications ...

November 22, 2016 · 3 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Global Multimedia Content Corporation

As a result of Virto ONE components implantation, the company achieves new levels of efficiency. THE CUSTOMER: A global leader in multimedia content INDUSTRY: Media company PLATFORM: Microsoft Office 365 Microsoft SharePoint 2013 MicroSoft SharePoint 2010 “We chose Virtosoftware for both comprehensive/configurable functionality and price. Virto team is very responsive in addressing any issues we may have and are open to ideas for enhancements and new products. Virtosoftware makes high-demand products that increase adoption and satisfaction from our customers.” Director, Information Technology at the multimedia company ...

November 22, 2016 · 2 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: SharePoint Field-Based Reminders Scheduling

How to send Office 365 calendar reminders based on a list’s date field value. Request a free consultation Business Requirements SharePoint email reminder for a task’s Start Date should be sent for each item individually according to a number of days specified in a custom list field. Virto Software Components Used Virto SharePoint Alerts and Reminders. Solution Summary An energy company has required the ability to send calendar event reminders to users within a schedule specified for each event. The reminders for the list task must be sent in 2 or 3 days before the Start or Due Date. Office 365 Alerts add-in allows users to send reminders, using different types of custom schedules. Among other features, Office 365 Alerts add-in has the option to send alerts Before or After X number of days (X value is specified for each item in a number field of the list). As an example, you can add a number column “Days number for alert” to your events or tasks list (or any other list type). Then create a new reminder with Virto SharePoint Alerts and Reminders add-in and customize an alert sending schedule. In this reminder, the email message will be sent at 11:00 in the X number of days (X is the value from the “Days number for alert” field) before the Start Date. You can also customize the reminder message view and add any field values to this email. You can learn more about other options to send an Office 365 alert and download and try its 30-days free trial. ...

November 22, 2016 · 2 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: SharePoint One-Click Registration Form

A department of University of Alabama at Birmingham needed a simple registration form for its Lunch and Learn events. Request a free consultation Business Requirements A department needs a simple registration form for its Lunch and Learn events. Ideally, the form should allow a user to simply click a button and sign up to attend, but with several user attributes (name, address, department, etc.) are still needed to be collected. A confirmation email to the registrant and the event organizer should be sent immediately; a reminder email should go to the registrant 24 hours before the event. If the event is cancelled or the date is changed, the registrant should receive notification of the cancellation or update. After the event, the user should receive a follow-up email requesting that s/he fill out a post-event survey. ...

November 22, 2016 · 4 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Form Layouts for Different Users or Groups

How to create layouts to display certain SharePoint 2013&2016 form fields for predefined users or groups only. Request a free consultation Business Requirements SharePoint 2013 list can be displayed with multiple form layouts for different company departments (user groups). Virto Software Components Used Virto SharePoint Forms Designer. Solution Summary Virto Forms Designer for SharePoint 2013 allows users to create custom form views for distinct users\groups. This feature is essential to secure the company’s sensitive information and allow access to certain data for users with permissions only. Also, the layouts improve usability by displaying the same list’s form for each department. It is possible to hide certain fields or tabs according to user/group permissions. If defined conditions allow a user to have access to several views, the view with highest access priority will be displayed. For example, let’s create a form for Dev department. You can start with default view and align all form controls as needed. Then click Save. On the next step click “New” in the Layouts on ribbon and create a layout. Here you can define the name of layout, set the list of groups and users with permission to view this layout. Note: If defined conditions allow a user to have access to several views, the view with highest access priority will be displayed. The smaller the number, the higher the priority. Now you can edit several views in SharePoint Forms Designer. And you still can apply distinct fields view permissions to every custom view of Virto SharePoint Forms Designer. ...

November 22, 2016 · 2 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Sending Out Corporate Emails

Send email to employees without ability to unsubscribe Request a free consultation Business Requirements Send email from CEO to employees list. Employees should not have the ability to unsubscribe at their leisure. Virto Software Components Used SharePoint Workflow Activities Kit; SharePoint Alerts add-in. Solution Summary The solution was created for a broadcasting company with a large number of users. Prior to this change MailChimp was used but that wasn’t desirable as employees could unsubscribe at their leisure. With Virto solution, the company was able to send emails “from” the CEO to all employees as well as newsletters from the corporate communications department. Solution 1. (SharePoint 2007, 2010, 2013, Office 365) Virto’s smtp workflow action allows sending email to everyone, in keeping with the executive’s request. Solution 2. (Office 365) Virto SharePoint Alerts add-in can be used to create and send SharePoint emails in an intuitive interface. Even a non-power user is able to create beautiful newsletter with pictures, links, tables and text formatting. SharePoint email sending schedule can be also predefined. ...

November 22, 2016 · 1 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Booking Meeting Rooms in SharePoint

Our customer required a possibility to book Outlook meeting rooms from within SharePoint Online. Let’s explore how it was perfored with Virto Office 365 calendar app. Request a free consultation Business Requirements A single view to combine and manage all events from Exchange Online shared calendars and SharePoint Online calendars. A possibility to create events in SharePoint Online calendar and book conference rooms sourced in Exchange Online. Send out meeting invitations to SharePoint users, Exchange addresses and external addresses. Virto Software Components Used ...

November 22, 2016 · 1 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Email Alerts Triggered by Certain Field Changes

Create alert to track field changes and ensure any important events are not missed Request a free consultation Business Requirements Receive an alert as soon as a value in the required field was changed. VirtoSoftware Components Used Office 365 Alerts add-in Solution Summary Iowa State University needed a solution to receive an alert when a certain field of the list was changed. This business process can be used for instance to inform about a task/project completion, the same solution also works as a tool to track any important changes in the list. You can customize the alert really simple with Office 365 Alerts add-in by Virto. In this example, I’ll create an alert for a project list. After a certain phase of this project is completed, the user makes a note in the predefined field and the project manager receives an alert with a request to approve. Create an alert in Office 365 Alerts add-in. Select the list, type of alert event, and the alert title. Define alert recipients on the next step. I`ll create a really simple alert message. But you can design complex custom alert emails with tabs, pictures, links, tags, fields values tracking, and many other features. You can learn more about all features in the online documentation or by downloading a fully free trial of Virto Office 365 Alerts. On the last step, I define the alert condition and sending the schedule. The alert will be sent immediately after any changes in the list field “Ready”. After this alert is triggered, the project manager receives the letter. ...

November 22, 2016 · 2 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Meeting Rooms and Calendar Events in One View

Outlook meeting room schedules can be combined with calendar events into a single view. Here is described the relevant customer case with Virto Calendar app. Request a free consultation Business Requirements To check Outlook meeting rooms’ availability in a SharePoint Calendar in day, week, month or year view. This way, a user will always know if a meeting room is available at the time and date they want, and the room availability does not conflict with his scheduled events. Solution Summary Office 365 OOTB options do not enable users to display Exchange Online meeting room in SharePoint calendar and integrate conference room schedules with other meetings. The Virto Calendar app functionality allows you to view the availability of a certain meeting room right on your SharePoint Online calendar screen. You can correct your busy schedule in one view, and change meetings or events according to availability of a certain room. You need to create events in your Outlook and pick available rooms. Next, open Virto Calendar in your Office 365, and check the required box in the Virto Calendar app settings to display the list of Outlook meeting rooms. You can see all your event combined with Outlook meeting rooms. Note: the Exchange Online meeting room data sources in Virto Calendar have Read Only permission. If you have full access to an Exchange Online meeting room, you can also view the name of event in this room. If your permission is restricted, you can see the room booking schedule only. ...

November 22, 2016 · 2 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Conference Room Reservation with Approvement

VirtoSoftware provided The University of Alabama at Birmingham with a solution for conference room reservation with approvement. Request a free consultation Business Requirements The customer needed their executive conference room to be available for reservation for all the employees across the organization. Reservations should be routed to the room owners for approval. Details about actual reservations should not be visible to anyone except the conference room owners and the person who created the appointment. Content should not live in Outlook. Recurring items are allowed. Since the room is an executive conference room, actual reservations can be “bumped” by VIPs; cancellation notices caused by this situation should be sent to the person originally reserving the room. Virto Software Components Used ...

November 22, 2016 · 3 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Lists Migration in SharePoint Online

How to migrate lists in SharePoint Online with Virto Backup & Recovery tool Request a free consultation Business Requirements Perform list migration between site collections in SharePoint Online. Restore “Person” and “Lookup” columns. Business Requirements Virto SharePoint Online Backup & Recovery solution. Solution Summary We have the following “out of the box” solution: Save the list as a template (list settings -> save list as template), download saved template from the List Template Gallery, and load it in the List Template Gallery at the site collection, where we want to restore the list. This option works properly only if the list does not have column types “Person” and “Lookup”. “Person” column may be restored, but its values may not correspond to the original list. The values ​​in the “Person” type columns are stored as 19; #User Name (where 19 is ID User and User Name is username) and restored by their ID. User ID is unique within the site collection. That is why when you transfer the list to another site collection, this ID may be assigned to another user or do not exist at all. Lookup field also can`t be restored with the List Template. Even if we restore the list with lookup field by saving as a template, the values from lookup will not be restored. The ID of list from the referenced column is stored in the list template. And the list receives a new unique ID after restoring from a template. We can use Virto SharePoint Online Backup & Recovery tool to solve this issue. Virto Backup & Recovery Cmd is a migration solution that allows you to save / restore data in SharePoint Online. You can view the detailed example of SharePoint Online backup solution in Virto blog. ...

November 22, 2016 · 2 min · Sergi Sinyugin

Customer Case: Adding Lookup Links in Alert Emails

As example, you can add a link to client card view form from lookup field in your alert Request a free consultation Business Requirements The ability to add link to company details card in Virto SharePoint alert email. The company details column is a lookup column. Virto Software Components Used SharePoint alerts add-in Solution Summary The additional feature of Virto Office 365 alerts add-in allows you to customize your SharePoint Online alert to receive an email with links to lookup fields with additional information. All lookup fields are displayed as links, so you can customize your alert report with more additional details. For example, a Virto client recieved a daily summary alert of all changes from its clients list. The list has a lookup field “Company”. When the client recieves the alert email, this “Company” lookup field is displayed as a link to item`s view form. You just need to click on link to see more company details from lookup field. You can download the fully free 30-days SharePoint alerts add-in to create informative alerts in your SharePoint Online. Try all its features right now! ...

November 22, 2016 · 1 min · Sergi Sinyugin