Mobile Posting to SharePoint 2010 Lists

In working with one of my latest projects (www.tmcacademy.com), I needed to create a process by which announcements could be easily updated in the event of a school delay or closing. One could argue that posting is a relatively simple task by flipping on the computer, logging in via the web, and creating an announcement that is pre-programmed to post on the homepage by a variety of methods, but this is the age of mobile computing. There should be an easy method for posting from a tablet or smartphone that doesn't require third party software (There are many mobile apps that allow for this, but setting it up for clients is not a easy process and simply not a supportable scenario). There is, of course, the text-only "mobile" translation, built in to the SharePoint 2010 web delivery mechanism, but this is of virtually NO value. It is WAY too confusing to navigate and FAR too different from the "real" web experience to fulfill anything useful (Again, like updating the site in the event of a delay or closing). This is an unfortunate shortcoming of SharePoint thus far, considering what mobile devices are actually capable of (The same technology delivers full-featured game consoles that support HD textured 3D engines). I digress.

An easy approach for the project is to leverage a very useful feature built into SharePoint; email-enabled lists. In the case of having a SharePoint server in-house, the farm(s) would first need to be setup to accept inbound email (Web or cloud hosted arrangements often set this part up for you). An excellent tutorial for this process can be found here. Once this part is up and running, enabling lists and or document libraries is simple.

View the list or document library in a browser and make sure to be signed in with an administrator account.

• Under List Tools, click List, then List Settings

• Under Communications, click Incoming e-mail settings

• Flip "Allow this list to receive e-mail?" to Yes, then enter the beginning of the email address. This can be just about anything, baring odd characters, such as !@#$%^&*()/ \
• The domain of the email address is determined by the server \ farm setup, and cannot be changed from here
• The other options can be configured as needed and appropriate to the scenario

• Click OK to finish

From here, we have effectively built a way to simply email in updates to the site from any devices that supports email, regardless of technology. This eliminates the need for an additional interface and is immediately ready to accept information from clients. The rest is up to filtering, formatting, and web part controls, which is a matter of preference and fit to the business need.

Enjoy!

Projects with Details to Come

So I've kept quite busy working on new projects. I was contracted to re-imagine the web presence for The Mission Church Academy and Preschool (http://www.tmcacademy.com), and I'm excited to have a brand new web environment in full production and receiving new visitors. Please stop over and take a frolic through the new site! I'm planning a few posts on how to accomplish some of the nifty elements within the upcoming weeks, such as leveraging SharePoint email-enabled document libraries and jQuery animation. See you again soon!