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Sharepoint Training for End Users... nice, when it works

Microsoft finally got around to creating some interactive training and videos for end users to learn Sharepoint 2007.  There are two versions: Standalone (which will run on any PC) and Portal (which you can deploy to your existing Sharepoint server for the benefit of users).  The training looks really good, so far.  There’s lot of it. 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102488011033.aspx

I think this training component should be part of any Sharepoint or Business Portal deployment. 

 On my test server, the training solution works perfectly.  However, I've had problems deploying the "hosted" Sharepoint version at two customer sites. 

The first was a fairly bone-headed mistake: when you fill in the details for the Office Sharepoint Training Solution wizard, it auto-fills the hostname of your SQL server.  This actually needs to contain the SQL instance name, so if you have a named instance and don't put in "server\instance", you'll get a named pipes error:

An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server)

More information has been written to the server event log. 

 The other error is a little more strange.  I've only seen this on one of the servers I've installed this on, but when you view training, you have two icons in the top right corner of the window: Complete Training and Continue Later.  If you click Complete Training, it may hang and never close the window; the status of the  training will not update properly and the user won’t be able to continue later. It gives a weird message:

Assignment Not Available
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
  This assignment is not available because it has been submitted as complete.

You can review this assignment after it is returned by your instructor. 

But there doesn't appear to be any way for the "instructor" to "return" the assignment.  The workaround (temporary) is to close the browser window without clicking either icon.  It leaves the status as incomplete, but at least you can open it later.

This has only occurred at one site.  On the test server I set up, it works perfectly.

The advantage of deploying this training to MOSS is that you can track your users' progress in their training.  But if you want to take the easy route, you could just download the desktop version, which is exactly the same.  It runs a little faster, too.

Read the complete post at http://www.sharepointblogs.com/wsspectacular/archive/2008/01/15/sharepoint-training-for-end-users-nice-when-it-works.aspx