Lightning Tools has a full suite of products available for SharePoint 2013. The good news is that they are still very much required even with the SharePoint 2013 improvements. The even better news is that if you buy a product for SharePoint 2010, you get the SharePoint 2013 version free of charge with your support and maintenance contract.
So, what’s available and why do you still need it?
Lightning Conductor Web Part
The Lightning Conductor Web Part is a cross site collection/cross web application rollup web part that can be easily configured by an end user. With SharePoint 2013, you now have the Content by Search Web Part. Although the Content by Search Web Part is a powerful product, it really needs the help of an administrator and developer to create the result sources and the view templates. The Lightning Conductor is configured without these requirements allowing any Site Administrator to configure their own rollup and build their own views without writing code or configuring search result sources. Below is a screenshot of how the Lightning Conductor can be configured in SharePoint 2013.
Download the free trial of the Lightning Conductor from: https://lightningtools.com/lightning-conductor-web-part-2013/
Meta Man 2013
Meta Man is a Business Connectivity Services connectivity tool for SharePoint 2013. SharePoint Designer 2013 can be used to create external content types in SharePoint 2013 but only for Microsoft SQL, WCF, or .NET Assemblies. Meta Man 2013 is a standalone executable tool that can be used to connect to Microsoft SQL, Oracle, OData, and ODBC data sources without the need to write any code. The BDC model file is created within minutes saving endless amounts of development time or SharePoint Designer frustration.
Download a free trial of Meta Man from: https://lightningtools.com/products/meta-man-2013/
Data Viewer Web Part
Since SharePoint 2003, we have enjoyed the Data View Web Part from Frontpage or now SharePoint Designer. The Data View Web Part is now virtually impossible to use in SharePoint Designer 2013 as the Design view and Split View have been removed. If you simply want to add styling or conditional formatting to a SharePoint list/library or external data source, you now cannot do so without code. Lightning Tools have developed the Data Viewer Web Part for SharePoint 2013 that now empowers you to connect to external data sources and SharePoint lists to provide this functionality. Below is a screenshot of applying conditional formatting from within the browser.
Download a free trial of the Data Viewer Web Part from: https://lightningtools.com/products/data-viewer-web-part/
Social Squared
Social Squared is a SharePoint 2013 discussion board replacement. The out-of-the-box SharePoint Discussion Board is much improved in SharePoint 2013 compared with its predecessor. It provides badges, featured posts, Like, and Questions which is a vast improvement. However, there is still a lot of functionality that Social Squared provides that users would expect from a discussion forum. This functionality includes:
· Forum Groups
· Moderation
· Abuse Reporting
· Reply with Quote
· Forum Reporting
· Sticky Topics
· Lock Topics
· Terms and Conditions acceptance
· + Much More
To download a free trial of Social Squared: https://lightningtools.com/products/social-squared/
DeliverPoint 2013
DeliverPoint 2013 is on its way! SharePoint 2013 permissions management has not changed a great deal. With the new ability to ‘Share’ content, it is more likely that permissions are going to be broken in many more places in SharePoint 2013 making it even more of a challenge to manage permissions. DeliverPoint 2013 provides end users with an in-context way of not just reporting, but managing permissions. Users can see who has permissions to sites, lists/libraries and items even if the permission is granted via an Active Directory group. DeliverPoint is not just for SharePoint farm administrators, but Site Owners and Site Collection Administrators too.
To download a free trial of DeliverPoint: https://lightningtools.com/products/deliverpoint-2010/
Lightning Tools also offers an app version of Social Squared and Lightning Chat which can be found in the SharePoint App Store: http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/sharepoint-help/buy-an-app-from-the-sharepoint-store-HA102897470.aspx
Remember! Buy a SharePoint 2010 product and get the 2013 version Free within your annual support and maintenance contract.
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