SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 Tips & tricks

Stupid mistake creates severe error in SharePoint 2010: "UIVersion property is invalid"

2011-08-31T11:57:00.002+02:00

So which property? Where can you set UIVersion? Several places, but also in the feature definition. I had put the version number "1.0.0.0" in UIVersion instead of the Version field of the feature, and BANG! System Error!

So if you get "UIVersion property is invalid" when trying to administer your features then check your features :-)

SharePoint 2010 custom master page and submit button on dialog pages not working

2011-08-29T13:20:00.005+02:00

I got a strange error when i was working with a branded master page. No matter what I did I got an Javascript error ("Function Expected ... in/around- c=a.frames(RTE_GetEditorIFrameID(b))", and some other strange errors) when I opened an item, e.g. editing a task or adding a task. This Javascript error causes the sumbit button to not work :-(.

Took me some time to find the cause, and it was not what I supected it to be. The cause was the following line:

meta content="IE=Edge" equiv="X-UA-Compatible"

It should be (what is default SharePoint 2010):
meta content="IE=8.0" equiv="X-UA-Compatible"

Problem connecting to a site collection using SharePoint Designer 2010

2011-06-15T07:36:00.002+02:00

Got a weird error when I tried to connect to a SharePoint 2010 site collection:

"An error occurred while trying to fetch data from your sharepoint site" + "The status is 'OK'"

No it's not ok!

Looking at different blog posts several suggestions were provided: different build version, IIS binding issues, and so on.

BUT what fixed it in my case was these steps (suggested by JacobEgholm):

In IIS select authentication for the web app that causes you headaches

Select Windows Authentication

Select Advanced settings and turn off Extended protection

Branding SharePoint 2010 My Site: Custom Master Page to replace mysite.master (MySitePublicWebPartPage)

2011-06-01T10:17:00.002+02:00

We where creating a custom master page to replace the OOB mysite.master. Our plan was to use one common master for all usage scenarios. Applying our master page we got a server error:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

in the method:

Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls.MySitePublicWebPartPage.OnInit(EventArgs e)

I had no clue what the issue was before i checked the implemntation of the OnInit() method using Reflector.

I turns out that pages inheriting from MySitePublicWebPartPage MUST have the content placeholder "PlaceHolderLeftNavBar" defined - it's hardcoded and NO check on null :-(.

Branding SharePoint 2010 My Site: Custom Master Page to replace mysite.master

2011-06-01T10:10:00.003+02:00

SharePoint 2010 upgrading issue: Found 7 web(s) using missing web template 100002 (lcid: 1044) in WSS_Content

2011-03-02T08:02:00.002+01:00

Upgrading a SharePoint farm that are using custom site templates turned out to not be as straightforward as it should. Running Test-SPContentDatabase resulted in several missing web template errors.

The issue is that when you install and deploy custom site templates in your new SharePoint 2010 farm you have to restart your server(s) - an iisreset is NOT enough.

After you have installed your solutions check that the site templates really are available. The template may very well be deployed at [14]\Template\[language]\XML, and even available when you select Create New Site, but that is not enough. Why? Don't ask me.

Run the command Get-SPWebTemplate to actually verify that the template is really there.

I struggled hard until I found this article: http://projectserverblogs.com/?p=4294

After removing, reinstalling, redeploying and rebooting and running the powershell Test-SPContentDatabase one more time, all the Site Template releated errors where gone!

Re-deployment errors when working with custom content types for SharePoint 2010 in Visual Studio 2010

2011-02-25T08:20:00.005+01:00

I'm currently working on upgrading custom SharePoint 2007 solution packages implemented in Visual Studio 2008 and VSeWSS to SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010. I'm using VSeWSSImport as the tool for at least get most of the items converted automatically.

There are issues in the tool such as web part items are converted to modules, etc, but overall it's working ok.

The main issue I've been facing is a known bug in Visual Studio 2010 related to custom content types an redployment og solutions from within VS 2010. The annoying error I get is:

"Error occurred in deployment step 'Activate Features': The content type with Id '' defined in feature '{}' was found in the current site collection or in a subsite"

Microsoft have described a couple of work-arounds for this issue (KB2022443), but that was no help to me. Instead I'm using WSP Builder VS 2010 add-on, an manually deployment using Powershell - that always works!

SharePoint 2010 certifcation run ended today,

2010-12-21T12:34:00.002+01:00

and all 4 certifications for SharePoint 2010 passed. Then it's Christmas!

Just 1 to go! Just passed the PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010,Administrator (70-668) exam

2010-12-01T12:49:00.003+01:00

The last one: "70-576: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications" will be taken later this month (I hope :-)).

Impossible to delete the Search Service Service Application from the Gui in SharePoint 2010

2010-11-22T13:23:00.003+01:00

Ok, I had to get this issue as well: Corrupt Search Service application in my development environment. I was not able to delete it from Central Administration so I had to find the correct powershell comands. Clean up by runnning these two commands:

Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Identity "Search Service Application"
Stsadm -o deleteconfigurationobject -id [Guid returned from previous command]

Access denied when trying to crawl sps3://mydomain

2010-10-25T09:17:00.004+02:00

I've had a lot of Access Denied messages when configuring SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010, and especially when trying to switch service accounts or accounts to be used when SharePoint crawls content.

This time I got an access denied when trying to crawl sps3://mydomain. Checked account, password, assigned rights (Site Collection, Web Application Policies, etc), but everyhing looked ok. Hmmm... using Google I found and read a post in the Enterprise Search forum on msdn and this blog article.

These steps fixed my issue:

Go to the Service Applications page
Select the User Profile Service Application (NOT the link)
Click on the administrators button
Add your crawl / indexing count
Give it the permission: Retrieve People Data for Search Crawlers
Click Ok

The perform a new Full Crawl of your content source(s), and hopefully no access denied messages any more,

SharePoint 2010 User Profiles Syncronization fails

2010-10-25T09:00:00.006+02:00

In a SharePoint 2010 installation that I recently worked we got Failures in the log when trying to perform a User Profile Syncronication. The account, domain, etc where all correct. Having Googled a bit we thought that it might be a FIM related issue.

Opening the Syncroniztion Service Manager (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Synchronization Service\UIShell\miisclient.exe) we found the error: "The management agent failed on run profile "DS_FULLIMPORT" because of connectivity issues." Why??

We went through the checklists, guidelines and what we had done, and everyhing looked correct; correct user account, we've set the Grant Replicate Directory Changes permission on the cn=configuration manager, the FIM services where running correctly, etc.

But of course I had missed one step (there is always something :-( ): Granting Replicate Directory Changes permission on the domain.

So you must add Replicate Directory Changes permissions both on the domain AND the confiugration container!

It's all documentet on TechNet: Configure profile syncronization.

SharePoint 2010, REST API, JSON, Javascript , JQuery AND correct Date handling/serialization

2010-09-29T20:12:00.003+02:00

Today I created a Javascript that displayed the calendar events from a SharePoint calendar. I used Javascript and SharePoint's REST API to inject the result in a cusom Spot web part that I've written. Combining the REST API and JQuery was straightforwad, but I ran into trouble when I was going to display the calendar event's start date.

It turns out that JQuery date serialization and WCF date serialization differs. Luckily (for me) I found the description of the issue and a solution written by Steve Commisso. Read it here.

Key elements in the JavaScript:

$j = jQuery.noConflict();
Mr. Commisso's FixJQueryDate() function
jQuery.getJSON method
Correct SharePoint 2010 REST Url : http://sp2010/aweb/_vti_bin/ListData.svc/MyCalendar?$filter=StartTime+gt+datetime'" + now.format("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss")+"'
It's important to note the format of the REST filtering parameter and how it handles date and time values

SharePoint 2010 Certifaction Run Started!

2010-09-29T11:06:00.006+02:00

Then I've started my SharePoint 2010 certifaction run. I'm planning to complete all 4 by the end of the year.

70-573 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development. Sept. 2010. Passed!
70-667 TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring. Okt 2010. Passed!
70-668 PRO: SharePoint 2010, Administrator. Nov 2010. Passed!
70-576 PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications. Des 2010. Passed!

Using, embedding and deploying resources (gif, css, javascripts, etc) when writing SharePoint 2010 web parts

2010-09-22T23:13:00.003+02:00

I came across an article by Maurice Prather, "Web Part Class Resources - a forgotten storage location", and I also failed to answer his question; What are Web Part resources? I've never thought about this way of deploying resources used by and in my web parts. I've more or less always used the "classical" way of deploying my images, css, js, etc to the /layouts/mydirectory. That may change in the future!

But here is also anohter option, and that is to deploy the resources as WebResource. I'm not 100 % sure that I can answer you when to use what method, but i gues WebResources should be used in non-webparts scenarios, and/or SharePoint solutions where the same resource is to be used by different sharepoint items (Web parts, Application Pages, etc).

On CodeProject you'll find a working example where both methods have been used: Site Map Web Part.

SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration Masterclass with Michael Sampson

2010-09-21T08:48:00.004+02:00

On October 6. 2010 Michael Sampson will visit Bergen, Norway, and hold his SharePoint Collaboration MasterClass. It is a one-day seminar open to everyone. It will be heldein our (EDB Consulting Group) office on Bryggen.

More information here (in Norwegian): http://www.edb.com/no/Konsern/Aktuelt/Eventkalender/SharePoint-Roadmap-for-Collaboration-Masterclass/

Are you going to use PowerPivot in your SharePoint 2010 farm?

2010-09-15T10:47:00.006+02:00

Then make sure that you meet the following SQL Server 2008 R2 requirment that will have a great impact on your SQL Server license cost:

"You must have installation media for the Enterprise, Evaluation, Developer, or Data Center editions of SQL Server 2008 R2. "

That means that PowerPivot on top of SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition is NOT possible.

Install PowerPivot in a new farm

Install PowerPivot on an existing farm

Other comments:

PowerPivot for SharePoint adds SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise files to your SharePoint application Server

Configuring the People Picker in a trusted domain scenario and Sharepoint Foundation 2010

2010-09-14T17:58:00.003+02:00

If you get an Access Denied message when trying to run the stsadm commands such as setpassword and setproperty then open the command prompt windows as an Administrator, and try again.

Setting the correct search scope for the people picker:

stsadm -o setapppassword -password xxxxxx
stsadm -o setproperty -pn peoplepickser-searchadforests -pv "domain:first.com;domain:second.com,domain\user,password" -url http://sharepoint2010/

First.com domain trusts users from second.com. For the people picker to find users in the second.com domain a valid user in second.com domain has to be provided. Because we provide a user name and password we first have to set the password encryption key.

Error when deploying SharePoint 2010 web parts in an upgraded Visual Studio solution

2010-09-14T17:54:00.002+02:00

I had a Visual Studio 2008 web part solution that I upgraded to a Visual Studio 2010 solution. It looked like everything was going to be ok, but I got the following error in the ULS when trying to add the web parts to a page:

09/09/2010 14:08:36.82 w3wp.exe (0x269C) 0x1998 SharePoint Foundation Web Parts tkqj High WebPartAdder_InvalidDwpUrl

Checking the solution again the web parts where added as modules and not web parts to the solution.

I ended up deleting the web parts (except the source code of course), adding new web part items, and adding the deleted code. Now it is working as it should

Web parts dissapears from a wiki page or a content field when added

2010-09-14T17:50:00.003+02:00

I think there is a bug here. Several times I've experienced that my custom (and standard) web parts just dissapears when inserted in a wiki page or a content field on a publishing page. SharePoint thinks it is visible - append ?contents=1 to the Url - but no it is NOT there.

Create a regular web part page, add your web part and you should be up and running (again).

"The install in progress conflicts with a previously installed Microsoft Office 2010 Server product"

2010-08-12T20:31:00.002+02:00

Did you get this message "The install in progress conflicts with a previously installed Microsoft Office 2010 Server product" after an uninstall (on e.g. your development server) then it's very likely that there are som Office Web Apps garbage in your registry.

You may start with this article: "Installing Sharepoint 2010 over a previous version", or (as I did) just open regedit, search for "Web Apps" and just delete every entry you can find. Easy as hell, but proobably not something you would do on a production server :-)

What web parts comes with which SharePoint (Foundation, Standard and Enterprise) version / SKU / License?

2010-08-09T18:31:00.005+02:00

I'm happy to say that I didn't have to compile this list myself, but can safely redirect you to Ari Bakker's blog, and his nice page: SharePoint 2010 Web Parts by License Type.

Sumarized these are the important ones that comes for free (SharePoint Foundation):

ContentEditor.dwp
Image Viewer
Members
Page Viewer
Picture Library Slideshow
Simple Form
User Docs
User Tasks
Xml Viewer
Silverlight

Norwegian Language Packs for SharePoint 2010 available

2010-06-16T14:41:00.002+02:00

The Norwegian version of SharePoint Server has been avaiable for some weeks, but the language packs have been missing. Often it is best (at least for the administrators) to run the server in english, and using language packs to give the end user/editors/super users the right language.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=no&FamilyID=046f16a9-4bce-4149-8679-223755560d54

SharePoint 2010 features by versjon / SKU

2010-05-26T14:07:00.003+02:00

Great page for all (?) the answers about SharePoint 2010 and which versions contains which features/capabilities:

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/pages/editions-comparison.aspx

SharePoint 2010 Excel Services - "The workbook cannot be opened."

2010-05-19T10:47:00.002+02:00

Setting up a new SharePoint 2010 farm "by-the-book" introduces some extra tasks getting the service and pool accounts right. I was using a unique account for Excel Services and Performance Point services, but was getting the very generic error:

"The Workbook cannot be opened."

A quick Google search sent me to this article by Jeremy Jameson.

The conclusions here are that again there are powershell commands that will do the trick:

$w = Get-SPWebApplication
$w[0].GrantAccessToProcessIdentity("domain\account")

(per web application)

How to quickly find the Assembly Name when working with SharePoint 2010 in VS 2010?

2010-05-15T22:54:00.003+02:00

Finally I found a tool that integrates with Visual Studio 2010 that lets me extract the the complete Assembly Name (e.g "FrodesDelegateControl, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=73ed919f5d6aada1") from my current Visual Studio 2010 project.

How to: Create a Tool to Get the Full Name of an Assembly

It's so simple - why didn't I think of it myself? Read the article, create the application, install it and of you go.

The area of spelling mistakes, wrong PublicKeyToken, etc., is finally over!

Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0 and Social Networks - what does it take to succeed when trying to make changes?

2010-05-15T22:18:00.005+02:00

How to succeed when trying to change a organisation or company seems to be closely linked to the leader's networking strengths. See: Survey: Informal Networks Linked to Success of Change Initiatives, and:

93% of completely successful change initiatives were led by leaders with very strong or strong personal networks. Not one change initiatives described as less successful was led by leader(s) with strong or very strong personal networks.

Maybe not a big surprise (good and great leaders have always been good with people), but in a world where social networks - both internal and external - have become a driving force in many aspects and especially in how we are doing our work and collaborate, social "weak" leaders and managment are "doomed" to fail.

But the same survey also found that formal networks still are very important :
However, survey respondents overwhelmingly reported that those formally involved in change initiatives were more helpful than those outside the formal change teams.

One of the conlusions made by those analysing the findings is:
Change initiatives are dependent on leaders for moving the project forward, making decisions, and giving personal advice. The catch is to make sure that those leaders are accessible to others on the change team and available to help. Implied in survey results is that leaders are needed to play an active role on change initiatives, not simply sponsor projects from afar. HR can help by encouraging leaders to limit the number of change

Is this related to SharePoint 2010? I absolutely think so! Implementing SharePoint 2010, and maybe expecially its new social computing capabilities, will demand a (big?) change in how people in small and large enterprise collaborate. And as most of us don't really like changes, it will be challenging from top management to the people on the floor.

SharePoint 2010, PowerShell ISE, and Developer Dashboard

2010-05-15T15:45:00.004+02:00

To get my developer mchines ready for developing, customization, configuration and administration I have to go through the steps to automatically load the sharepoint powershell commands when starting PowerShell ISE, and get the developer dashboard ready:

Load SharePoint 2010 commandoer everytime I start PowerShell ISE:

Adding SharePoint 2010 PoweShell cmdlets to your PowerShell ISE

Enable the Developer Dashboard:

$contentservice = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService
$devdash =$contentservice.DeveloperDashboardSettings
$devdash.DisplayLevel =[Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPDeveloperDashboardLevel]::OnDemand
$devdash.Update()

Cannot create new sites in SharePoint 2010

2010-05-11T12:22:00.002+02:00

When I tried to create a new Enterprise Wiki site I got a general error message with a correlation ID. Checking the ULS i found the following error:

"Detected use of SPRequest for previously closed SPWeb object. Please close SPWeb objects when you are done with all objects obtained from them, but not before"

Not much help. But I found another artical by Todd Carter, who had debugged the issue, that activating the SharePoint Publishing Infrastruture would fix the issue. I had this feature already activated, but deactivating it and activating it fixed the issue in my case as well.

Configuring the User Profile Service in SharePoint 2010 - errors and issues

2010-05-06T12:06:00.004+02:00

Possible issues and errors:

"This User Profile Application’s connection is currently not available. The Application Pool or User Profile Service may not have been started. Please contact your administrator"

An iisreset is the first thing to do!

You are having problem getting the User Profile Syncronization started and can't get the Forefront Indentity Manager services to run.

"ERR: MMS(4828): libutils.cpp(10475): RegQueryValueEx of Server failed with 2
BAIL: MMS(4828): libutils.cpp(10477): 0x80070002 (The system cannot find the file specified"

Make sure the farm account you entered when installing SharePoint has all the needed access/rights in AD: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049(office.14).aspx . The issues is also discussed here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ilm2/thread/db5bb837-1e95-4b50-9441-8bb37f4f0ee3/
A manual fix to the problem can be found here: http://itgoran.com/index.php/2010/05/09/the-system-cannot-find-the-file-specified-the-server-encountered-an-unexpected-error-and-stopped-fim-2010-solved

ULS Log Viewer application available for SharePoint 2007 og SharePoint 2010

2010-04-30T11:00:00.002+02:00

I haven't seen this before today, but Microsoft released a great tool October last year: The ULS Log Viewer. A lot of features - inclduing real-time viewing of the logs => See the events as the occure! It works for both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

You'll find it here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ULSViewer

Upgrading Content Types in SharePoint 2010

2010-04-27T22:39:00.003+02:00

When you created Content Types solution in Visual Studio 2008 / SharePoint 2007 you very soon run into trouble when you were going to upgrade these content types with new fields. Code had to be writte :-)

This has now changed, and you will be able to to the same by adding the changes to the feature manifest:

The PushDown attribute on the AddContentTypeField action in the UpgradeActions element does the trick.

Setting up SmarterMail as a mailserver on a SharePoint 2010 demo machine

2010-04-27T22:27:00.004+02:00

I basically followed Reza Alirezai's blog post, but remember the following:

Make sure you don't have domain/server name conflicts. I usually set up a mailserver on the address sharepointmail.local, and set this name to point to IP 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file
Remember to set sharepointmail.local as the outgoing mailserver in Central Administration
Reporting Services use the Reporting Server config file and the SMTP server name has to be set to sharepointmail.local here as well. The correct config file is rsreportserver.config and is located in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10_50.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer
Define all the useres you need in SmarterMail setup and add the e-mail addresses to the your users in the User Profile store in SharePoint.

SharePoint 2010 and "There are no activities in your newsfeed" issue

2010-04-27T07:55:00.003+02:00

These are the reasons I've found for why you don't get any activities displayed on the My Site page:

You have to start the "User Profile Service Application - Activity Feed Job", and schedule it to run periodically; Central Administration -> Check Job status -> Job Definitions. In my demo environment I set it to run often to make sure I can demonstrate it well.
Add some colleagues on your My Site
Make sure some activities have been performed by any of your colleagues

I don't think that the "Activity Feed Job" is turned on by default.

SharePoint 2010 RTM is finally here!

2010-04-22T22:37:00.003+02:00

Downloaded it from msdn and installed it without any problems at all. Great work Microsoft. Before there always where issues to run into (especially when you run the "whole package" from one server), but this time it went a lot smoother althoug I got problems with the add-ons. I installed it on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP.

Services installed:

SharePoint base with all features
Excel Services
Reporting Services
Personalization services with my site and profile syncronization
Search
Visio Service
Secure Store Service
Managed Metadata Services

Complete SQL Server 2008 R2:

Database Engine
Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode
Analysis Services with the Adcenture Works databases (from Codeplex)

I'm currently struggling with the PowerPivot and the Reporting Services display:

Cannot add the PowerPivot package to the SQL Server .... several errors ... Gave it up for the time being! :-(
Cannot display reports created in the Report Builder and added to a document library... question asked in forum ... a strange url encoding error .... rsUrlRemapError :-(

Using a filter with a Excel Services and a Pivot parameter

2010-04-20T16:50:00.003+02:00

I was going to create a BI dashboard containing a Pivot table from Analysis Services and some KPIs. The Pivot table sholud be rendered by Excel Services and the content should be filtered on the current user's country (region he/she was responsible for). The conuntry information was stored in the user profile. Straightforward - I thought, but oh no that was wrong ...

Everything was simple and easy until I was going to connect the Current User Filter web part to the Excel Services Web part and filter the pivot on the curent user's country. What I discovered after quite a lot of googling and reading different blog posts, was that a Analysis Services Pivot table parameter expect a value that is not a "simple" value as e.g. "Canada", but rather "[Geography].[Country].&[Canada]".

In my case then the Current User Filter Web part that comes OOB with SharePoint was not suitable, and I had to write my own. This filter wraps the user profile value into the correct Analysis Service Pivot parameter syntax.

Finalliy the SharePoint 2010 Ignite Online training has become available

2010-03-25T10:23:00.004+01:00

SharePoint 2010 Ignite Online for IT Professionals
SharePoint 2010 Ignite Online for Developers

Now I don't have to book a whole week in Oslo (or somewhere else) to get the information, but download it and read it whenever I've time (e.g on the bus).

Material looks and presented by well known instructors.

SQL Server Analysis Servics vs Excel 2010 PowerPivot (and PowerPivot for SharePoint)

2010-03-21T20:42:00.002+01:00

In a meeting with some BI/accounting specialists last week I was challenged with the following question:

You talk about Analysis Services, PowerPivot and PowerPivot for SharePoint, but what is right for us, and when to use which tool?

I'm not at BI / Analysis Services specialist, but I really would like to bring to the table some guidlines that both explains the different tools and when to use what. Luckily I didn't have to create this comparison myself - Microsoft have already done it.

It really depends on your focus:

Organisational BI => Analysis Services

Personal BI => PowerPivot

Team BI => PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010

Read the whole article:

http://blogs.msdn.com/powerpivot/archive/2010/03/12/comparing-analysis-services-and-powerpivot.aspx

Project 2010 together with SharePoint 2010 - a very good match

2010-03-16T19:09:00.003+01:00

Project 2010 can now be used to syncronize tasks with SharePoint 2010. This is something that I think is great! The project leader can continue to do his/her planning in Project 2010, and when we collaborate during the project execution phase we work in a SharePoint team site. Great!

What if you participate in many projects and need to se all your tasks?

Sync every tasks list in every team site/project that you participate in with Outlook
http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2009/10/19/project-2010-introducing-sync-to-sharepoint.aspx

And/or

Use one or more og Bamboo Solutions web parts to aggregate tasks and other information into a Dashboard
Or get the complete Project Management Sentral - also from Bamboo. It's very powerfull and no Client Access Licenses (as you have with Project Server)
http://store.bamboosolutions.com/sharepoint-project-management-pmcentral.aspx

SharePoint 2010 My Site / My Profile Navigation and Menus Customization

2010-03-11T11:56:00.005+01:00

Adding Links to the Top Link Bar on My Site / My profile:

Add links for every user

Manage Profile Service / My Site Settings / Configure Personalization Site

Add links for every user (must have access to the the my site hosting site collection):

Site Actions / Site Settings / Top Link Bar (under Look and Feel)

Add links to my own main menu (on my site):

Site Actions / Site Settings / Top Link Bar (under Look and Feel)

Adding menu pages to the My Profile Tabs (Documents, Overview, Organization, etc..)

Site Actions / Site Settings / Quick Launch (under Look and Feel)

Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 official release dates

2010-03-07T16:59:00.002+01:00

The following can now be read on Microsoft's official SharePoint blog:

"Today, we officially announced that May 12th, 2010, is the launch date for SharePoint 2010 & Office 2010. In addition, we announced our intent to RTM (Release to Manufacturing) this April 2010.", Arpan Shah

Less than 2 months to go!

I'm ready for the SharePoint 2010 certifaction run!

2010-02-19T11:43:00.004+01:00

Finally I took the time to prepare myself and take the last SharePoint 2007 Certifaction: 70-542 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Application Development. I'm very happy with a passing score of 960 (out of 1000) :-)

I'm ready for the 2010 run!

Creating custom web services in a SharePoint 2010 environment

2010-02-09T17:36:00.006+01:00

I needed to write a custom web services to read and return all Term info based on a given Term name. I need that info to make adjustments to the File Classification Infrastructure scripts to upload files from the file system to SharePoint and set the correct Terms/Tags on the files.

Because SharePoint 2010 already are Ajax/Javascript enabled you don't need to make adjustments to SharePoint, but follow these very simple steps:

Add a App_Code catalog to your web application, e.g. c:\inetpub\wwrwroot\wss\virtualdirectoris\80\App_Code
Copy MySimpleService.asmx to c:\inetpub\wwrwroot\wss\virtualdirectoris\80 or to [14]/Template/Layouts/..
Copy MySimpleService.asmx.cs to c:\inetpub\wwrwroot\wss\virtualdirectoris\80\App_Code
Try your service: http://sharepoint2010/MySimpleService.asmx

That's it!

There are for certain issues, but it all depends on your scneario and what you need to do; KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid - but don't be stupid! :-) Of course you need to wrap-up and make a solution package of everything before you make it into a production environment...

Console Application, SharePoint 2010, accessing SPSite, and FileNotFoundException

2010-02-09T08:33:00.005+01:00

When you try to open a site collection using new SPSite("") in e.g. a Console Application you get a FileNotFoundException - "The Web application at http://sharepoint2010/sites/development could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application."

Then the first thing to check is that the Build Platform target is set to x64.

If that doesn't do it for you, thenn hopefully Google will find the anser for you.

SharePoint 2010 RC and Office 2010 RC are available on Microsoft Connect

2010-02-04T10:32:00.002+01:00

and I'm going to test it a lot during the next few weeks/months. Avenir is in the Office 2010 PEP program, and I'm fortunate to be involved in a customer project. There is an NDA at work here so I guess it not much we'll be allowed post to the public.

Extending or upgrading your SharePoint 2007 farm to use Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX 3.5

2010-02-04T07:14:00.002+01:00

Then check out Telerik's procedure (including a link to a complete solution/feature). http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/moss-install-aspnet-ajax-35.html

I've used both the solution and the step-by-step procedure with great success.

An old (or wrong) User Display Name is displayed in the Welcome message, Contact Box, etc in SharePoint 2007

2010-01-15T07:39:00.003+01:00

Many, including me, has encountered the issue where a persons display name is not correct on a site (even if it iss correct in the User Profile) page. The unerlying cause of the issues is that for some reason the job that updates the user object cached in the site collection is not running at all or does'n do what it is supposed to do.

Below is how to fix "the effect" of the problem (we've not identified - yet - why the display name doesn't get updated at all) - how to force an update.

Important: This solution (as it involves deleting a person from the site collection) will cause the user to loose all priviliges and accesses. These have to be added back after the following steps are produced

Make sure Display name in AD and SharePoint Central admin>Shared Services>user profile & properties> view user profile is same
If Display name is not same that Click on Start full import.This imports the display name from AD to sharepoint.
Got to top level site collection with admin priveledge
Open the page http://servername/_layouts/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0 (all users in the site collection)
Find your user, right click the name, and copy shortcut (url to the user's profile page)
Paste the shortcut into the browser address field and append to it (don't hit enter yet): &Force=True (http://servername/_layouts/userdisp.aspx?Force=True&ID=25)
Hit Enter
Click on "Delete User from site collection" button on the toolbar
Add the same user to (any group) in the Site Collection
This time it will sync New display name from SSP
Remove the user from the group (it's not needed anymore)
Now the correct Display Name should appear where it should (Welcome message, Contact web part, User Picker, etc.)

Then I/we have to find out WHY the users in the site collection don't get updated as the should! :-(

Firewall Configuration and DMZ setup for an Internet Facing SharePoint 2007 site

2010-01-15T07:30:00.002+01:00

I needed to identify and specify the firewall ports that needed to be opened for our internet facing SharePoint 2007 site. Simple configuration with a DMZ split in two subnets with a firewall inbetween.

Sources of information:

The "complete" list of Windows Server 2008 services and their port requirements: Service overview and network port requirements for the Windows Server system
SharePoint 2007 Extranet Planning document: Plan security hardening for extranet environments
Example from Michael Nemtsev: SharePoint 2007 Farm ports – configuring firewall
Colleagues!

E-mail: Subject

2010-01-03T15:22:00.002+01:00

E-mail: Body

Og det fungerer med e-post blogging :-)

SharePoint 2010 and first impressions

2009-10-23T02:58:00.003+02:00

It has been 4 great days here in Las Vegas. Many great breakout sessions (and a couple of not so good :-)), and SharePoint 2010 looks very good. It has matured and the "child illnesses";

accesibility - table tags everywhere
really bad editor usability experience (try inserting a new image in 2007 ...)
shared services scalability issues
not very good wikis and blogs
no tagging
limited or missing taxonomy
hard to reuse content types accross site collection, web applications and farms
BDC was difficult to use
missing wildcard search
++

are now completely cured.

SharePoint 2010 and Visio Services

2009-10-20T17:00:00.006+02:00

SharePoint 2010 includes one major new thing: Visio Services. With these services you will be able to create great visio diagrams, hook them up to live and static data, and then publish them to your SharePoint site. The diarams will be rendered in the brwoser, and therefore now need for a local Visio client viewer.

Several demos at the conference have shown some great capabilities of these Visio Services. They will be a part of the Enterprise license, and I think you all must upgrade soon to get the complete "package": Excel Services, Forms Services, Business Connectivity Services (the "old" BDC) and now also Visio Services.

The following picure illustrates what can be done (illustration copied from Visio blog on Msdn)

More will come.

Let's get ready to rumble! SharePoint Conference 2009 is about to begin!

2009-10-19T02:22:00.003+02:00

I've registered, ready for tomorrows sessions, and reading through the introduction to SharePoint 2010 - a 200 pages thick book. I think I'll skip most of the intro sessions and rather get to know more details - get "under the hood" of this "pice" of software. Next up is to take a look at the exhibitor stands, get some free drinks and meet other SharePoint enthusiasts.

Seems like in every new SharePoint 2007 installation there must be some problems, and now "Your search cannot be completed because of a service error"

2009-10-14T19:41:00.008+02:00

and the event log on the SharePoint server gave us this nice error message:

Event ID: 10036
Description: A database error occured.
Source: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQl Server
Code: 6610 occured 1 (times)
Description: Failed to load msxmlsql.dll

After "googling around", checking logs, reinstalling SharePoint, applying service pack 3 to the SQL 2005 Server (it installed the missing dll by the way) we gave up. Even if we provided the sql server with the missing dll it would not work. We were able to recreate the error on a different machine (and even fix it), but not to fix it on the production server.

Conclusion: Build a new SQL Server 2008 from scratch and move and upgrade the database.

1 1/2 day gone! :-(

SharePoint 2010 is comming to a server near you - soon!

2009-09-24T21:33:00.004+02:00

Me and my colleagues will definitly be working with SharePoint 2010. I just can't wait to get hold of and start wokring on the bits & pices. Participating in the Early Adapter Program for SharePoint 2007 was a great experience, and I hope I'll be able to start working with SharePoint 2010 at a very early stage as well. SharePoint 2007 has been a success, and will SharePoint 2010 bring the platform/product to a "higher level"? Time will show, but I do think so!

Customizing the SharePoint 2007 Search using a little bit of JQuery

2009-09-24T21:02:00.005+02:00

On a SharePoint site we got an issue where we had to let the user be able to search for the last five digits in the phone number. Why? Because the users will only se the last five digits on their phone when somone calls in. The complete number (8 digits) is registered in the profile (imported directly from Active Directory. It also complicated matters that we are running Ontollica Wildcard search (the free edition). Ontollica is a good tool, but it it's not simple to customize, and now I had to make Ontollica Search Web parts and standard SharePoint Search web parts work together.

I used the following JQuery script (in a Content Editor Web Part). It picks up the etnered five digit number add the possible prefixes to the entered number, build up the correct query including managed properties, and redirects the user back to the same page.

New release of the SharePoint 2007 Application Development Guidance

2009-09-08T07:45:00.004+02:00

A new release of "Developing SharePoint Applications, Guidance for building collaborative applications that extend your LOB systems" has been released. It provides a lot of very relevant information and examples on how to apply good development (best) practices and patterns when customizing SharePoint.

Some modules that you can yse right away (and maybe get rid of some old code):

Logging componenten. Logging events in your SharePoint solutions.
ServiceLocator. Implementation of the Inversion of Control and the Service Locator pattern. Making your SharePoint solutions more service oriented and decoupling interfaces from their actual implemtations are absolutly very usefull - especially when it comes to testing.

You can find it and download it here.

SharePoint 2007 User Import job fails when run by the scheduler - Bad Gateway error in the ULS

2009-08-26T17:52:00.004+02:00

After some security patches had been installed on the front end servers in the farm the user import jobs (in Shared Services) did not start/run. Starting them manually from the Shared Services admin page worked.

Checking the sharepoint logs (ULS) on both servers i found the following error : "Job for import of distribution lists failed. Reason: Cannot get the crawler status --> System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (502) Bad Gateway ..." So, there is a problem with the communication between the front end server, the crawler server, and the proxy inbetween.

After some "googling" I found a solution that solved my problem on Vince's SharePoint Blog.

What I did was:

Log on to the front end server with the same credentials as the Window SharePoint Service Timer Job
Open Internet Explorer (IE)
Go to internet Options Connections LAN settings
Check the box "Bypass proxy server for local addresses"
Close IE
Restart the Window SharePoint Services Timer job (sptimer3).

JQuery components for Count Down and Date/Time Picker

2009-08-24T07:19:00.003+02:00

Keith Wood has created som great JQuery plugins - including a Count Down counter and a date/time picker. Check it out here: http://keith-wood.name/

Bjørn Furuknap has "compiled" what we know about SharePoint 2010 so far

2009-07-28T16:40:00.004+02:00

in another great issue of the SharePoint Journal. This issue is free. Read it here: http://www.sharepoint2010beta.com/

I'll also recommend his book "Building the SharePoint User Experience". It has a lot of valuable information on how SharePoint works and how you can improve the user experience in your solutions (site templates, list temaplates, content types, views, CAML, custom field type, etc.).

Elevated Privliges, Kerberos, NTLM, Pool Account Identity, Impersonation, etc

2009-06-29T08:25:00.004+02:00

Here are some code snippets that I frequently use to run code with extra privliges, access resources using WebRequest, etc.:

// Accessing resource files using Pool Account credentials, for example,
// to avoid 401 Unatohorized Access messages in production
using (HostingEnvironment.Impersonate())
{
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create("url to my xsl file");
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream(),
System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);

...
}

// To run code with eleavted privligies:

403 Forbidden when trying to insert a document or link - hitting the Browser button (AssetPortalBrowser.aspx)

2009-06-16T08:37:00.002+02:00

You (or you or your users) will (sooner or later) encounter a "403 Forbidden" error when hitting the Browse button in the AssetPortalBrowser dialog. The reason for this is (most likely) that the previous url location addressed (i.e. browsed to) in the dialog is either moved or you (or your user) no longer has access to it.

Thanx to Steven that had identified the cause and how to fix it. Read more here ...

Therefore: Be aware of possible problems after you have restructured your site ....

Locking down SharePoint Designer in your SharePoint 2007 environment

2009-03-01T20:48:00.002+01:00

If, you haven't had the need to lock down your SharePoint 2007 farm from being uses/accessed by SharePoint designer to some degree you probably will have soon. People with access to a site/site collection/web app/farm have a "loaded gun" at their hands if they are allowed to use it => The mayl "kill" your site/app/farm.

Here is a blogg that explains your options: "Lock down SharePoint Designer"

Customizing list forms (edit/new/display) with SharePoint Designer and correct handling of attachements

2009-03-01T20:30:00.002+01:00

Of course, I had to run into the issue with correct handling of attachments when customizing list form with SharePoint Designer. The error you get is: "This form was customized not working with attachment."

The solution is well explained in the following KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953271

Custom SharePoint Designer Workflow Actions errors in SharePoint 2007

2009-01-12T21:21:00.007+01:00

When creating custom avtivities/actions to be used in SharePoint designer you may get an error stating that the workflow may be saved, but cannot be run. If this is the case it may be that there is "garbage" in either your web.config file, or there are *.actions files in your Workflow folder that references non-existing librarys. I got the error when retracting an old solutions containing custom actions that DID NOT clean up the file structure.

If you custom actions show up in the lists of available actions - and that is the onlyt thing that is displayed - check that uou have activated your feature (if deployed through one).

AND you have to make sure that every library/dll referenced in your actions/activities actually are installed on the server. Even if your code compile well it may not run ....

Of course the hardest one to find: TYPOS!

List template not working when used in at different farm - Lookup Columns will caus trouble

2008-12-22T14:32:00.002+01:00

Be aware that you re-create Lookup columns when creating a new list based on a list template created on a different server/farm. They will not work because the source list used in the look up column does not exist in the destination farm. It is obvious after you have done the mistake and found the cause of "the disaster". Quick and dirty may sometimes become very dirty ... :-(

" A parser error has occurred" (1319) error when hitting a page in SharePoint 2007

2008-12-22T14:28:00.002+01:00

I've had the error "A parser error has occurred" (with event ID 1319) a couple of times when working with SharePoint 2007 - especially when moving content between different farms (e.g. backup and restore). In my cases it has been missing solutions (dlls and libraries) in the destination farm that has been the cause. Last time Ajax runtime and what missing in the destination farm, and the parsing could not be done.

It is therefore very immportant that farms involved in a backup and restore scenario is 100 % in sync bfore restoring a site collection from one farm into another.

SharePoint 2007 Data View Web Part

2008-12-03T12:55:00.004+01:00

So it was time to use the Data View Web Part to display content from av custom web service in a nice way.

Examples and how to use the Data View Web part:

And writing custom sharepoint 2007 web services:

Writing Custom Web Service

Errors and solutions

And of course I (as so many other it seems) run into the error: "The server returned a non-specific error when trying to get data from the data source. Check the format and content of your query and try again. If the problem persists, contact the server administrator". I did not find a "proven" solution to the cause of the error, but in my case it looked like it was the number of parameters and the length of these that got me into trouble. Can it be that the soap-header somehow got corrupted?? I re-wrote my custom web service, reduced the number of parameters to it, and I got it working.

Tired of writing the same SharePoint 2007 c# code over and over again - create snippets

2008-12-03T11:32:00.005+01:00

then start creating snippets of your best and proven code. Need a tool to administer and write snippets more efficient? Check out http://www.codeplex.com/SnippetDesigner

SharePoint 2007 - What version are you really running?

2008-11-27T07:50:00.005+01:00

From Penny Coventry's blogg I got hold of the following information regarding how to identify which version av SharePoint / WSS (services packs, hot fixes, etc).

To find the version number you open SharePoint Central Administration Site Actions.

-
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Service Pack 2: 12.0.0.6421
-
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Cumulative update : 12.0.0.6327
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Update : 12.0.0.6318
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB948945): 12.0.0.6303
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB941274): 12.0.0.6301
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix (KB941422): 12.0.0.6300
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 SP1: 12.0.0.6219
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 October public update: 12.0.0.6039
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 24, 2007 hotfix: 12.0.0.6036
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 RTM: 12.0.0.4518
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2 TR: 12.0.0.4407
- MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2: 12.0.0.4017

SharePoint Mock Library for SharePoint released

2008-11-25T18:10:00.001+01:00

A new developer tool has been released:

Typemock are offering their new product for unit testing SharePoint called Isolator For SharePoint, for a special introduction price. it is the only tool that allows you to unit test SharePoint without a SharePoint server. To learn more click here.

The first 50 bloggers who blog this text in their blog and tell us about it, will get a Full Isolator license, Free. for rules and info click here.

I will be one of my tools-of-trade soon!

"Please wait while scripts are loaded", SharePoint 2007 Master Page design

2008-11-13T08:46:00.003+01:00

If you get the error "Please wait while scripts are loaded..." on your status when a sharepoint page is loaded you most likely have an error in your masterpage desigen; missing html-elements with certain IDs that sharepoint depends on. Examples are: onetIdTopNavBarContainer, onetidPageTitleAreaFrame, etc.

Links that helped me to trouble shoot this one:

In our solution some of the forms did not work properly, and the user had to refresh the page to get them working.

Open a document from a list and control in which document library Office/Word/Excel should default to on Save/Save As, SharePoint 2007

2008-10-29T22:01:00.005+01:00

Often our SharePoint customers have a set of document templates that is larger than it is possible/practical to define as Content Types with document templates (and then available on the New document meny/button on a document library).

I found the createNewDocumentWithProgID javascript function (SharePoint's own) when browsing the html source of a page displaying a document list including the list toobar and the New document command.

How to use it? The following pseudocode will help you to get some ideas on how to create a solution which will set the default save to location for the Office program to the 'http://myserver/asite/Documents' library in the site where the command/action is executed:

Collect and categorize all your document templates (Word, Excel, Visio, Powerpoint) in a document library
Create a Custom Admin Page, e.g. createdocumentfromtemplate.aspx, and place it in the /_layouts/
Display all your document templates (from the library created in 1)) in a page named createdocumentfromtemplate.aspx using some custom code, controls, or something, but make sure that the URL's href parameter contains the following (the correct paths you have to create on the fly) : javascript:createNewDocumentWithProgID('http://myserver/documenttemplates/thetemplate.docx', 'http://myserver/asite/Documents' , 'SharePoint.OpenDocuments', false);
Create a button, menu or an Action that calls /_layouts/createdocumentfromtemplate.aspx

Of course a lot of details are missing, but in it should give you some ideas.

In one case I used the Content by Query web part to list a set of document (templates) from a document library, and by using the following line in my Item Style.xsl I set the default save catalog for Office application to me [current site]/documents:

Happy coding!

SharePoint 2007 - setting up Kerberos correctly one and for all

2008-09-16T23:35:00.002+02:00

No this s not "breeze" :-) But thanx to the following article I think I'll make it work - finally.

Kerberos and Excel Services

SharePoint 2007 - Item level security performance issues

2008-09-16T23:31:00.004+02:00

I just got the following log entry:

List item query elapsed time: 39030 milliseconds, Additional data (if available): Query HRESULT: 80131530 List internal name, flags, and URL:
{6FB8EDE9-689F-45C1-B016-A4975B652F54}, flags=0x0000000024c01080, URL="xxxxx"...

And the SQL Server CPU was up to almost 100 % all the time.

The list has less than 600 elements, but each item has unique security settings. There are som severe performance issues here.

I turns out that our problem was not directly related to the list in question and item level security after all - it was a symptom on anothere severe problem; a custom SQL query against another database. BUT in the process of discovering the true cause of our performeance issue Microsoft Support could confirm that item level security WILL - sooner or later - cause troubles.

Eli Robbelard has written an article "SharePoint Security: Hard limits and recommended practices" that discusses the topic, and how to make workarounds.

SharePoint 2007 - correct disposal of SPSite og SPWeb objects - SPRequest objecst allocation

2008-09-11T08:07:00.005+02:00

There has been writtem several articles on how to correct create and dispose SPWeb and SPSite objects, but what to do if you still get errors like:

"An SPRequest object was not disposed before the end of this thread. To avoid wasting system resources, dispose of this object or its parent (such as an SPSite or SPWeb) as soon as you are done using it. This object will now be disposed. ... To determine where this object was allocated, create a registry key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\HeapSettings. Then create a new DWORD named SPRequestStackTrace with the value 1 under this key"

Do what the error tell you: "Create the registry key and add the DWORD". Then you will get at stack trace which help you determine which part of your (or som others) code that are not coded correctly, but it will not neccesarily get you the answer - just a clue on where to start checking.

Articles:

Stefan Gossner.

SharePoint 2007 Federated Search - Search Dashboards

2008-08-14T20:07:00.002+02:00

I've just installed and played around with the Infrastructure Update for WSS 3.0 og SharePoint 2007. Finally SharePoint has federated search capabilities and an improved Search admin dashboard - both where "user friendly" when it comes to setup and configuration. Federated search connectors are available for several search engines, and/or you can write your own for searching your internal business application sources.

The obvious next thing for me now is to create "the ultimate?" search dashboard combining: faceted search, ontollica wildcard search, federated search and custom search (against our business systems). I think it will be quit good ... at least I hope so :-)

SharePoint 2007 Facted Search 2.5 combined with Ontollica Wildcard Search possible?

2008-08-13T20:55:00.003+02:00

Combining Ontollica Wildcard Search (free component) with Microsoft Faceted Search 2.5 would have made decent couple, and in some scenarioes they seem to be. In a simple a simple test that I run today (with the out-of-the box) configuration of both components some of the facets worked well, but the following gave me trouble:

Filtering on Content Source: "Searching the property ContentSource is not supported in the Wildcard edition of Ontolica". Free components seldom give you everything you need ... they are usually "teasing" you - give me money ... and you will get it all :-)
Filtering on Language (theword DETECTEDLANGUAGE:"9"): No result with Ontollica, a lot of results in Search Center.
...

I'm not given up on them yet, but will see if it is possible to live with the limitations...

Silverlight picture slide Show in Sharepoint 2007 (and EPiServer CMS)

2008-08-06T20:59:00.002+02:00

For a customer I needed to find a slide show component in order to show groups of pictures in a nice graphical way. Tried out some web parts using javascript/Ajax, but couldn't really get them to look "right". Then I found a great Silverlight component. It is a Silverlight 1 component, but it works.

Download the component/solution Slide.Show on codeplex.
See the page Silverlight Slide Show in SharePoint page for description how this componente can easily be used on your SharePoint site
Information from the makers: Vertigo

PS! It should be equally simple to make the component available in EPiServer CMS

SharePoint 2007, EPiServer and Silverlight 2

2008-08-04T08:55:00.003+02:00

Yes, I've started to experiment with combining the technologies in different ways to create rich interface applications that bring together the best from each product - I hope :-). The Silverlight 2 application(s) wil communicate with both SharePoint and EPiServer CMS through web services. Using web services and WCF services is straightforward, but remember:

1) Common
- Make sure you are using a valid clientaccessolicy.xml file. Download correct file from How to Use Cross Domain Policy Files With Silverlight
- You may have to change your buffer sizes in your service bindings. This is done in the file ServiceReferences.ClientConfig in your Silverlight application project if you are binding to a simple web service.

2) EPiServer CMS
- The account that you are accessing the EPiServer web service with must be added to "Allow the user to act as a web service user". This is set under: Admin Config tab Security Permissions for Functions

3) SharePoint 2007 / WSS3.0
- Make sure that you copy the clientaccesspolicy.xml fil to the root of your sharepoint site using SharePoint Designer - it must be stored in the content database. Putting the file together with the web.config file under ../virtualdirectories/80/ will NOT work.

New functionality in EpiServer CMS 5 R2

2008-07-21T15:16:00.003+02:00

EPiServer has made available a CTP of CMS 5 R2. It contains components that have been missed by many EPiServer users and developers:

Convert pages from one page type to another.
Reuse dynamic content in many places (without X3 :-) or the web parts framework)
Page providers - hosting episerver content in other systems, but seen in EpiServer as regular pages (e.g. storing content in SharePoint 2007 / WSS 3.0)

More to come ...

Conditionally hidding/showing html/controls; SPSecurityTrimmedControl, Custom Wrappers, EditModePanel, SuppressWebPartChrome (SharePoint 2007)

2008-06-24T21:06:00.008+02:00

In a recent case I've investigated a bit on different ways of hiding or showing GUI elements (html, controls, etc) bases on different conditions. There are several ways, and here are an overview of some of these:

SPSecurityTrimmedControl. Trimming the UI base on the current user's permissions. Possible values for the different parameters; read a blog entry from Zac Smith, or this one.
- Showing different content for authenticated and anonymous users: read her.
- Hiding the sita actions menu: read her.
Enhanced SPSecurityTrimmedControl. Open all the possibilities you can think of... (winsmarts.com)
Creating your own custom wrappers. Do it all yourself! (Waldek Mastykarz)
EditModePanel. Display different controls and elements if the page is in Edit or Display mode (WCM). Can be used to hide navigation, adding inline CSS to override classes to use different formating... (Chris O'Brien)

Related to html filtering and cleansing:

SuppressWebPartChrome to remove all extra html-code and display ONLY the content. Web part property. Check out Waldek Mastykartz article.
Remove or clean non-compliant html - override the Render method; read here.

Hiding elements when printing:

Using javascript to hide parts of the dom-tree in Javascript and a printer friendly button is mots often used.
CSS 2 styling and different style sheets for different medias are another. Read here.

How to avoid 'Read-Only Mode' when opening documents in SharePoint 2007 (Word 2003, Word 2007, etc)

2008-06-05T15:14:00.003+02:00

This has to be done on the client side. SharePoint has not the control of the client.

Read Mart Muller's blogg entry on the issue, or the KB article, and how to fix the issue.

Liverpool made it to the semifinale in Champions League!

2008-04-08T23:13:00.002+02:00

beating Arsenal 4-2 in a great game. Yesss!!!

Sign in as different user command in SharePoint 2007 may get you into trouble

2008-04-08T22:53:00.003+02:00

Please be aware of the following issues when implementing a SharePoint 2007 portal and having the "Sign in as a different user" available (that is the standard).

In the examples below user A is physically logged in on the computer while B is not.:

Accessing My Site. If you have a setup where you have all the My Sites on a separat web application (e.g. on a different port) and your main portal standard port 80 the "Sign in as addiferent user will" NOT work accross those two web applications. Sign in as user B (from the SharePoint Sign in ... command) and then click on My Site. Who's My Site did you get to? A or B? I guess you where hoping for B, but that is wrong.
Editing documents will give you the same issues. Sign in as user B, find a document library where user B should not have Contribute rights to. Open a document, change it, and then do a Save As back to the same library. No errors! What!??!

Anybody else having issues with the "Sign in as different user" command?

Adobe iFilter for SharePoint 2007 on a Windows 2003 x64 server

2008-04-02T23:14:00.002+02:00

The regular iFilter package may be used even on a x64 computer, but it may also fail. I've seen it both. Adobe has relased a fix for x64 to make the 32-bit iFilter work even on x64 machines.

Click here for an article that will guide you right home and make your PDF documents searchable/crawlable. But make sure that you also have ALL the system requirements in place before installing it.

Exchange Public Folders vs SharePoint

2008-04-01T20:54:00.003+02:00

I've been in som discussions with the infrastructure guys on what to do with the Public Folders and if they should all be moved to SharePoint or not. I think ther has been som confusion here, and Microsoft has released some guidelins on what to do: Public Folders are NOT DEAD!

They will be around for a long time, and sometimes they should be used. NOT everything belongs in SharePoint. SharePoint will NOT be the silver bullet to all our troubles... but some :-)

Read the blog/article: Public Folder vs Sharepoint Guidance

Branding the Web Part Editor box and the Web Part Header in SharePoint 2007

2008-04-01T20:38:00.004+02:00

Then it was time to do some branding again - which is an very important task in any SharePoint project. It doesn't matter how great all the features in SharePoint 2007 are if the look-and-feel of the site doesn't make the users "happy" :-)

I found three very exciting article written by Kyle Schaeffer on his blog:
1) Floating (Movable) Web Part Task Pane
2) Web part headers with rounded corners
3) Different look and feel for the web parts when they are in different web par zones

All three articles are "must read"

Customizing the application.master file in SharePoint 2007 may result in some errors

2008-04-01T20:19:00.003+02:00

Be carefull when customizing or branding the application.master file. You may get som strange errors, for example:

"Application error when access /_layouts/mngfield.aspx, Error=Unable to validate data. at System.Web.Configuration.MachineKeySection.GetDecodedData(Byte[] buf, Byte[] modifier ..."

I got this one when I tried to make changes to a field on a list (mngfield.aspx).

The reason in my case whas that the master page included a statement. When I removed this one I was up and running again.

Others have discovered the same error: Read here

Setting up an import filter in a Custom User Profile import soruce in SharePoint 2007

2008-04-01T20:12:00.004+02:00

When you want to configure your user import you will most likely want to filter out certain type of account; those that are disabled, system accounts, etc.

The following two filter will let you do this:

1) Import all user accounts except those that are disabled

(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))

2) Import all users except thos belonging to a certain group:
(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(MemberOf=cn=SystemUsers,ou=TheDepartmen,dc=MyDomain,dc=no)))

Combining these to (after first included all system account into the SystemUsers group) should give you only those users that should have user profiles.

Power up your EPiServer CMS with DropIT Extensions X3 and EPiCode Web Parts Framework

2008-02-17T15:04:00.005+01:00

Togheter EPiServer CMS 5, DropIT Extension X3, the EPiCode EPiServer Web Parts and your custom integration code makes a great team; The Fab 4!

By combining those three (and not "tree" as one reader correctly pointed out :-)) you get everything the editor AND the web site user will need to create great sites including the ability to make per user customization.

To be able to combine the web parts framework and X3 on the same page you have to recompile the EPiCode Web Parts framework after you have made the following minor adjustment: Let the TemplatePageWebPartbase inherit from the ExtensionbaseTemplate (in the Extensions core library). The a web part page will be able to host both web parts and Extension function.

When and why you ant to combine them? I'll soon create a table with the possible combinations and reasons you would do it (some pros and cons) ... if time permits it ... :-)

SharePoint 2007, Kerberos, Web Parts and WCF Services

2008-01-09T20:32:00.000+01:00

Now it's time for security, kerberos, mulitple hops, wcf service, etc. Working in a secure environment where SharePoint services and web parts are consuming wcf service requuires some steps of work:

Background information on Authentication, Impersonation and Delagtion on MSDN;
Establishing Kerberos authentication for the SharePoint installation. How? Liam Cleary has a more or less complete article on what and how to do it. Read it here.
Consuming WCF services from a SharePoint Web part
...
SSO and BDC. Whitepaper
..

Issues:

Error message in Internet Explorer when you try to access a Web site that requires Kerberos authentication on a Windows XP-based computer: "HTTP Error 401 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials" ...

SharePoint Sertification Exams

2008-01-03T07:15:00.000+01:00

Yes, I've started the certifiaction run, and now I've only one exam left to complete the SharePoint 2007 certifiaction track.

70-630: MCTS - SharePoint 2007 Configuration. PASSED!
70-631: MCTS - Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Configuration. PASSED!
70-541: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Application Development. PASSED!
70-542: SharePoint 2007 Application Development. Approx March 1.

Changing the order of the Site Template Cataegories in the create Site Page (newsbweb.aspx)

2007-11-29T20:45:00.000+01:00

We needed to change which site template group in the Create Site page (newsbweb.aspx) should be default, and then set the default site template in this default group.

I found the article "Changing the Create Page" on dwinter's blog, and the rest should be easy:

\_layouts\newsbweb.aspx?DisplayCategory=ourgroupname
Add (or replace the existing) Create Site menu on the Site Action drop down menu.

Later I'll use reflector to see if I can find some more parameters to apply use :-)

Administration tools for SharePoint 2007

2007-11-13T18:40:00.001+01:00

SharePoint 2007 / Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 has its limatiations - especially when it comes to administration and soluions maintenance, Several vendors have made (or is in the process of making) usefull tools for the SharePoint Administrator.

Below is a list with some of these I've identified found (but not always have used :-)):

DeliverPoint from Barracuda Tools. Security settings, and users and groups.administration.
Controlpoint from Axceler. Yes (as Camper correctly commented) this is absolutly a tool worth checking out. I've been to a couple of demos myself, and it is rather impressiv actually.
Quest.

More to come!

TechEd 2007 Barcelona Next!

2007-11-01T17:38:00.000+01:00

Yes, I'm really looking forward to TechEd 2007, and a very promising session schedule. The "problem" is that there are only 20 session, and too many (what looks like) great sessions :-)

See you there!

Testing incoming e-mail in SharePoint 2007 with or WITHOUT Exchange

2007-10-22T20:53:00.000+02:00

I needed to extend my SharePoint Dev image to also include the incoming e-mail option, and without the need for an Exchange server. I'm not an e-mail/SMTP guru so this had to be done "the Google" way, and once a again: "success"!

What do you do? Read Getting email functionality with MOSS without Exchange on PlanetWilson Sharepoint. It also works on Domain Controller+MOSS 2007. Just make sure you get the domain names right both when setting up MailEnable and the local SMTP service (in IIS).

If the e-mail doesn't show up in the list after you have gone through all the steps make sure you also check your library's security settings. "I changed the E-mail security policy for my library to archive all e-mail regardless of sender and was able to receive the e-mail into my library. This made my gray cells to work! I was sending this email from my production domain account and though that account is made administrator in my MOSS2007 on dev it didn't recognize the sender beeing authenticated member. I changed the E-mail security back to Use document library security for e-mail and created new email with dev account and the email was created in my library. Conclusion is that this is working accordingly and you need to keep in mind the E-Mail Security settings for doucment libraries." Link here

If you would like to use Exchange then check out the whitepaper from Combined Knowledge for how to the configuration. Read "How to configure Incoming Email Enabled Libraries in MOSS2007 RTM using Exchange 2003 in an Active Directory Domain." It walks you through every step for a successful configuration .

When and why to use e-mail enabled document libraries or list? Read some comments from Joel Oleson.

Then it's time to create some SharePoint 2007 MailIn solutions!

Are you writing code to access your active directory?

2007-10-17T21:17:00.001+02:00

Then you should check out the following articles/links:

Databinding - doing it in the right event - not too late or too early

2007-10-17T21:12:00.000+02:00

Something you want things to happen, but your code is either executed to late or too early when you try a data bind. Read this article and you will get it right at once.

EPiServer CMS 5.0, SharePoint 2007 and Microsoft CRM 3.0 - THE match your for internet, extranet and intranet?

2007-09-19T22:21:00.000+02:00

1) Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0) on the inside - and for the chosen people you let "in". The advanced intranet/extranet!

Collaboration
Dashboards
Applications
BI
Workflow
Back end integration

2) Microsoft CRM

Take good care of your customers
Dashboards
Integrated with MOSS 2007 / WSS 3.0
Update! Soon to be integrated with EPiServer CMS 5.0 as well

3) EPiServer CMS 5.0 on the public outside (or for lightweight intranets - combined with WSS 3.0)

You get A LOT for a very good price
Easy to set up and brand
Easy to use

And they all use a lot of the same technologies - SharePoint and EPiServer is very similar and CRM proably will be in version 4.0.

What do you think? A good match?

Modifying the Asset Picker Dialog in SharePoint 2007 - AssetPortalBrowser

2007-09-17T22:42:00.000+02:00

We needed to make som minor changes to the Asset Picker Dialog for selecting images to be used in, for example, in an html editor field. The place to do this is in the file [12-hive]/template/layouts/AssetPortalBrowser.aspx. In this file you find a reference to the PublishingInt:SMObjectList web control. It has several parameters that my be changed:

SortExpression. On wich field you want the images sorted.
SortDirection. The ordering - must be either "ASC" or "DESC" - case sensitive!
ListViewName. Name of the default view, for example, "All documents". The default is the thumbnail view.
ThumbnailColumns. Number of columns in the thumbnail view.
ThumbnailRows. Numver of rows in the thunmbnail view.
PageSize. Number of documents/images to display on each page in the grid view
and some others ...

I would like to change the icons and texts in the toolbar as well, but I haven't figured out how to do this... yet ... Any suggestions?