The Plan

So here’s the plan. I’ll run and tweet and post. If you are on Endomondo or Strava, I’ll keep them updated too. (Well, my phone and Microsoft Band will.) I’ll also use a running planner I created in Excel to keep track and this post will automatically update.

Join Me!

If you are interested in joining me just ask! Here is the schedule (all other dates are travel days or Austin):

• October 4-6: Tampa, FL (West Shore Area)
• October 12-16: Amsterdam
• October 17-19: Bruges, Belgium
• October 25-30: Tampa, FL

Share and Enjoy

I am so excited to be speaking at Unity Connect Amsterdam 2015! BTW, you get a discount if you register with “McDer10”. I am getting my content together for my session Managing Office 365 with PowerShell and thought I’d share a tip that saves me TONS of times when working with a new demo tenant. With a little tweak I know this can be used in production too, more about that at the end.

Change All Your Demo Users Passwords

I use Microsoft Office Demos for my Office 365 demo sites because I get a fully fleshed out demo for 90 days. When that expires I set up a new one. When the provisioning completes I get an email with the “default password”, but if anyone in the audience knows this process (and they are evil and mean spirited) they can do terrible things to me and my demo. When I login for the first time as the Administrator I change the password, but I needed a quick way to change the passwords for the 25 accounts that get created. Here is my script. You should only have to edit the $adminuser and $newpassword variables. Then run the script in the Windows PowerShell or Windows Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell.

#Get the administrator user account

$adminuser = “admin@myo365site.onmicrosoft.com”

#Get the NEW password for your users

$newpasswd = “foo@12345”

# This will pop-up a dialog and request your password

$cred = Get-Credential -Credential $adminuser

#——– Import the Local Microsoft Online PowerShell Module Cmdlets and Connect to O365 Online ———–

Import-Module MSOnline

Connect-MsolService -Credential $cred

#Enumerate all users except Administrator

Get-MsolUser | Where-Object {$_.UserPrincipalName -ine $adminuser} | foreach{

#Set their Password to something known

Write-Host “Setting:” $_.UserPrincipalName

Set-MsolUserPassword –UserPrincipalName $_.UserPrincipalName –NewPassword $newpasswd -ForceChangePassword $false | Out-Null

}

What About Production

I suppose there could come a day when you actually need to change all the user passwords. Like, if you are running the Office 365 site for Ashley Madison. In that case just change “-ForceChangePassword $false” to $true. When your users login with new the $newpasswd they will be prompted to change their password.

I’d love to see you in Amsterdam! Remember the discount code!

Share and Enjoy

The Challenge with Apps

Usually I depend on using my HOSTS file to work around all manner of network and DNS issues, by changing the HOSTS file you can:

• Test SharePoint on URLs that are currently in use on other machines, for example before an upgrade. The production DNS points to the old version of the site, so I use HOSTS entries to direct my machine to the same URL on a new IP Address
• Determine if the network (or an appliance like a load balancer) is the problem. Use a HOSTS entry to route around the appliance virtual IP Address and go straight to a single SharePoint server
• Target a Single Server, similar to the above, use the HOSTS entry to pick a server for testing

The trouble with SharePoint Apps is that the configuration calls for a wildcard address. You cannot configure wildcards in a HOSTS file. Sure, once you have provisioned the App you could copy the address into your HOSTS file, but where’s the fun in that?

Apps Configuration in Review

There are many really good articles available for configuring the necessary services and DNS, but even with these resources, when I actually sat down to do it in a multi-server environment, it gave me pause. So, for those of you who have not gone down this road, here are my abbreviated steps for provisioning Apps in a SharePoint 2013 Farm.

1. Configure DNS for your Apps domain
   • In my case I wanted app-[AppID].app.doghousetoys.com
   • I followed Mirjam’s post http://sharepointchick.com/archive/0001/01/01/setting-up-your-app-domain-for-sharepoint-2013.aspx
2. Configure the Service Applications – I started these on the web servers, they are lightweight.
   • Start and Provision the Subscription Settings Service Application
   • Start and Provision the App Management Service Application
3. Configure the App Management Service to use the URL for your App domain. Mine now looks like this:

   

4. Create a Web Application with NO Host Header – This is where I got tripped up conceptually and found no documentation for multi-server farms. You have to enter a Public URL, but it actually does not matter what URL you use. In my head I saw the machine name and knew that was “wrong”. It turns out it does not matter. Based on feedback from Gary and Spence, I just used the app domain as my Public Address, it doesn’t matter, but this made the most sense. Also, ensure that the application pool is shared with the web applications that will be using the Apps service.

   

5. Create an App Catalog for the web apps that need one.
6. Upload your App and test the configuration.
   • Test user deployed app
   • Test Tenant deployed app
7. Optional: Configure and deploy Access Services
   • This is the most detailed article for the whole process: http://blogs.technet.com/b/anneste/archive/2014/10/31/configure-an-environment-for-apps-for-sharepoint-sharepoint-2013.aspx
   • This is the go to article for deploying and troubleshooting Access Services: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kaevans/archive/2013/07/14/access-services-2013-setup-for-an-on-premises-installation.aspx If that doesn’t help, call Kirk, don’t call me. J

Testing Fails

So, here we are, every “i” dotted and “t” crossed and your tests fail miserably. Maybe the DNS team has not had the time to make the changes you requested, or they did and you click the link for your app and you see:

Cue the trombone. What do you do? Well, you could force that URL into your hosts file, but where is the fun in that? You won’t be testing the wildcard.

Another Tool in the Toolbox

Cue the whip crack and the theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Acrylic DNS Proxy is a very small DNS proxy that, like Fiddler and other amazing tools, can be used for so much more than this! Once installed you will see a host of menu options (this is Windows 8.1, on Windows 7 you will see similar results)

Apps Troubleshooting

1. Click Edit Acrylic Hosts File.
2. Add a wildcard entry for your apps configuration. In my case I added *.app.doghousetoys.com and the virtual IP address for the farm. If you are troubleshooting the IP address routing related to the VIP, try using the IP address of one of the web servers.

   

3. Save and close the file.
4. Change your network settings so that Acrylic gets first shot at the routing.

   

5. Click Start Acrylic Service.

   

6. Test the routing with a ping request like ping foo.app.doghousetoys.com.

   

7. You should now be able to run your app because Acrylic is doing the DNS work for you.

   

Wrap It Up

I have to admit, the notion of troubleshooting wildcard DNS had me stumped until I discovered Acrylic. Give this a shot even if you don’t need it right now. It may come in handy in the future.

Share and Enjoy

You can find all the articles I’ve written by viewing my author profile page on the ITUnity site: http://www.itunity.com/users/gary-lapointe. Here’s the list of articles that are a part of the SharePoint Online series that I’m currently working on:

1. Introduction to the SharePoint Online Management Shell
2. Exploring the SharePoint Online Cmdlets
3. Working with the SharePoint Online Site Collection Cmdlets
4. Connecting to SharePoint Online Using the SharePoint CSOM API with Windows PowerShell
5. Using the SharePoint CSOM API with SharePoint Online and Windows PowerShell
6. Loading Specific Values Using Lambda Expressions and the SharePoint CSOM API with Windows PowerShell
7. Completing Basic Operations Using the SharePoint CSOM API and Windows PowerShell
8. Using the SharePoint REST Service with Windows PowerShell
9. Using a Custom Windows PowerShell Function to Make SharePoint REST Service Calls
10. Working with Lists and List Items Using the SharePoint REST Service and Windows PowerShell

Astute readers of my blog may notice that some of the topics listed above are similar to posts I’ve previously had here – We wanted to make sure that any background information about topics such as the SharePoint Online Management Shell or working with the REST API existed on the ITUnity site rather than being dependent on articles on my blog so I took the opportunity to rework my articles from scratch so that there would be better continuity between the articles within the series.

I’ll continue to post some stuff on my blog but my focus for the near future will be to continue building the ITUnity site up with as much PowerShell content as I can – if you’re interested in contributing to the effort please let me know as I’m definitely eager to get more authors involved so that we can have some diversity of content, topics, and opinions.

-Gary

You can find all of my repositories by going to my profile page: https://github.com/glapointe?tab=repositories.

As of right now I just have three repositories:

• PowerShell-MamlGenerator: https://github.com/glapointe/PowerShell-MamlGenerator
  • This is what I use to dynamically generate the help files for my SharePoint cmdlet projects. I took some time to pull this out into its own solution so that the other projects simply have a dependency on the compiled assembly and don’t require you to pull down the source to the project.
• PowerShell-SPCmdlets: https://github.com/glapointe/PowerShell-SPCmdlets
  • This repository contains the source code for the SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 cmdlets. On the releases page you can find the downloads for the various Foundation and Server WSPs.
• PowerShell-SPOCmdlets: https://github.com/glapointe/PowerShell-SPOCmdlets
  • This repository contains the source code for my SharePoint Online cmdlets. The releases page contains the download for the installer.

If you have direct links to any of the old downloads then those links will no longer work as I’ve removed the files to make sure folks are getting the latest version.

I welcome any feedback regarding how I can better use github with my projects – as I noted, I’m kind of new to this and I’m eager to learn/improve.

Before I start gushing (or venting) about what I like and don’t like, I think it’s important to understand what kind of user I am. I am a technology guy with a Windows Phone who travels. I run when I travel and have begun doing interval training in between runs (or when the weather outside is frightful). I don’t do CrossFit, I don’t swim, cycle or drag myself through the mud. (Not that I won’t someday, just not today, or tomorrow…) I am currently tracking my activity with Endomondo and really like the features, the sharing (Facebook and Twitter), and the tracking. (If you use RunKeeper, or some other App, great! It does not matter, as you will see…)

So that’s me, please keep that in mind as I roll forward on this train of thought. Many of the reviews I have read range from folks who are making valid comparisons to existing tech and like or love it to total idiots who admit to never having used The Band and are just reiterating what other (bad) reviews have said.

Features and Coolness

There is a LOT to like about The Band. It fires right up, has the same friendly, casual tone of voice (textually speaking) that I have grown accustomed to on my Windows Phone. Once you download the Microsoft Health App, you connect the two and you are on your way to configuring your Band and making it your own. It is very easy, dare I say … addicting, to fiddle with. For example, I found I was swiping past the Text tile at first. So use the App to reorganize the tiles. Problem solved. I’ll go into details about the tiles in part 2, but initial impression is this is a solid device.

App versus the Device

I feel that you have to separate the review of the device from a review of the Microsoft Health App. The device is “a little” big, but not Google Watch big. I have not worn a watch for 5 years. It did not take me long to be comfortable with the Band (no, I don’t feel like I am under house arrest). The Microsoft Health App needs a LOT of improvement if I am going to replace Endomondo (or RunKeeper) with Microsoft Health. But that is where I think I get where Microsoft is going. It is trivial to update the App once you have a great device. I think the device is great, as batteries get smaller, so too will the Band. They crammed a lot of sensors and features into a very small package. The App, as I will detail shortly, needs work for me to rave about it. I am currently running version 1.3.1023.1 of the app. So with all that in mind here we go.

On a Run

When I run, either with Ruby or not, I carry:

• My Phone (for music and Endomondo)
• LG Bluetooth headset
• Room Key
• Starbucks card (particularly in Vegas, where they don’t have in-room coffee makers…don’t get me started.)

Starting a run is simple, tap the Run icon and wait for the GPS to pick up. This usually takes 3 minutes or so. The Band buzzes you (haptic notification) when the GPS locks, tap to start and away you go. I use that time to finish stretching, pet Ruby, etc. (I liken this to tapping the 30 second start clock on Endomondo and then put my phone away.)

While on the run your get a constant display of your time, distance, and pace. (…about that pace…I had to slow down for the shot. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.)

Heart rate is displayed in a pull down screen. Every mile is marked with an alert and your split.

When you finish tap the band and confirm you are done to see two screens of run info.

The band automatically syncs with your phone following the run. I should point out that you do not need to carry your phone for all the tracking to work. Once you launch the app it pings the band for the latest data and shows the results of the run with Summary info, plus details on Splits, Heart rate and Elevation.

What do I Miss?

I miss my data! With Endomondo I can export my GPS data and do stuff with it. I can see the map of my run on the Endomondo web site! With the Microsoft Health App I don’t have access (yet) to my run data. Even the “Connect to RunKeeper” is very limited, only sharing the summary data, no GPS info.

I blame this on the App, which simply HAS TO GET BETTER! Take for example the Share feature. It basically just displays text. BORING!

This is who it looks from Endomondo. The map is clickable, too.

Running with a Phone

OK, I said I run with my phone. I do so I can listen to music. But that also means I can reply to incoming texts, take the occasional important phone call, or drop a voice note when, in the sweaty embrace of runners high I find inspiration through perspiration and know I’ll forget this great idea. All of that is possible with a Windows Phone and Bluetooth headset. What the Band does for me is provide a UI so when I get a call, I know who it is and can decide to take the call or Text a reply like “I am out running, I’ll call you back.” If I get a text, I can read the text on my wrist and send a canned reply (or ignore it). These same features apply when your phone is muted and you are sitting in a meeting (or at a soccer game in the rain). Peek at the text like you are checking your watch and reply without busting out your phone.

Cortana

I think the One Big Feature that non Windows Phone users will miss is the Cortana integration. I LOVE this feature. Now, you have to have your Windows Phone in range, but it is so easy to set Reminders for People, Places, and Times that it’s the first feature I show folks. This is the Dick Tracy watch demo. If you haven’t met Cortana, you need to check her out. For example:

• Location: “Cortana, remind me next time I am at Home Depot to pick up light bulbs.” The next time I am driving past or actually arrive at Home Depot, I get a reminder on my phone (and my Band) to get light bulbs.
• Person: “Cortana, remind me the next time I talk to Andrew Connell to tease him about the SharePoint App Model.” The next time I call AC or he calls me, the reminder will be present on his call screen.
• Time: “Cortana, remind me at 10am to write a blog post about the Band.” This will prompt me at 10am to write this post.”

You can teach Cortana where “Home” is and other favorite places. All in all a very cool technology, now available on your wrist.

Starbucks

OK, I mentioned that I run and carry a Starbucks card. This is so I don’t have to carry cash, and then apologize for handing over a soggy ten dollar bill and deal with the change. With the Band I don’t even carry the card anymore because I can pay from the Band through the Starbucks tile. You register your Starbucks card with the App and the Band generates the proper barcode. Funny, the Starbucks tile is the only one in color.

You didn’t think I was going to show you MY card number did you?

What about all the other stuff

I think I am going to call this “Part One”. I hit the most important features for me as a runner. I’ll start on Part 2 after lunch and go into detail on Interval Training and the rest of the features like:

• Weather
• Sleep
• Calendar
• Interval Training
• Alarms
• UV Meter

End of Part One

I have to draw the line here. This post ended up much longer that I expected. I’ll get Part Two up before the end of the week. For my fellow #SPRunners, I can only explain my splits by saying Blogging while Running is a pain.

Share and Enjoy

I am writing this post because I just read about Windows 10 and right there in the comments was “I can’t imagine teaching my Mom how to use it!” Well, I just taught my mom Windows 8, here’s what I did.

Windows 8 is “different”

I remember when I first started using Windows 8 (now Windows 8.1 and for the rest of this article will remain Windows 8.1 even though I write Windows 8) I thought to myself, “I get where this is going.” I mean it was FAR from perfect, but I found it fairly easy to adjust to the new UI. I was working with it on a peppy laptop that I needed to run Virtual Machines, Windows 8 offered that without having to run VMware, so there you are. It worked for me. The thing I missed was how all those cool gestures worked. I do a little photography from time to time and use a Wacom Intuos tablet (that I adore). The tablet supplies the touch interface to my laptop that I was missing, but it’s still not…a Surface.

At the last SharePoint Conference I sat down with a great friend of mine who works the way I work. He develops, he presents and speaks publicly and he is a geek (OK I know that doesn’t narrow it down that much as I just described most of my male friends.) We sat on the floor and I asked him to walk me through the Surface Pro 2. I was blown away. The demo he gave me related to me in the many different roles I play. I was hooked and picked one up when I returned to Austin. (There is a funny story there too, but ask me over beers sometime.) Within a few hours of getting setup, I was hooked. Within a few days I was using the Surface for 85% of my communications including writing, blogging, reviews, Email, Skype and forum responses. The other 15% was the work I do on servers that cannot be done on a Surface. What I discovered in the process is the 5 key productivity gestures you need to teach ANYONE new to Windows 8. (BTW, that’s what I was going to call this post, but I hate those titles and refuse to click on them.)

Background

My niece, Renee, rocks. Recently we had a family gathering in her honor here in Texas and a couple family members expressed an interest in my opinion of getting a new laptop. My brother, whose wife has an old Mac and he has XP, and my Mom who has a 4 year old Windows 7 laptop. Two totally different use cases. When I suggested that any “upgrade” would mean moving to Windows 8 my brother remarked (paraphrasing):

Brother: “I heard from my (tech industry) friend that Windows 8 is terrible”

Me: “There is a learning curve.”

Brother: “He said he uninstalled it and reverted to Windows 7.”

Me: “Have you ever seen it and touched it.”

Brother: “No”

Me: “Let me show you what I think.” So, I gave him my 5 gestures and multitasking demo, one that I’ll share with you shortly.

Later in the day I spoke with my mother about a similar topic. Her laptop is slow, under-powered and heavy. When she asked if she “needed” a new laptop I had a different answer (different use case) I said, “Yes…as long as we get it soon so you have 4 days to get comfortable with it.” My mom was planning on staying with us for a week, so I had time to teach her the differences. She asked me about what my brother had said and I responded: “Life is about change.” She is a family therapist, so she just smiled. I continued:

“People really don’t like change, but they want new features and new hardware. You cannot have it both ways. Windows 8 is the way it is because of Touch. I’ll teach you the differences, which are not that big, and show you the similarities so you know how to use it the way you do now with Windows 7.”

Life is about change, Suck it up!

So there it is. It’s not about teaching Windows 8, it’s about teaching touch and gestures and how to be productive on a new piece of hardware. It’s about turning “How do I do what I used to do?” into “What do you want to do?” and then teaching that. We picked up a Lenovo Yoga 2-13 from Best Buy. Best Buy has an i5, 8GB, 128GBSSD configuration that is not available from Lenovo that I really like for students and moms. I have now influenced the purchase on 3 of these and everyone really likes them. (Before getting my mother’s device I checked in with my neighbor and she’s still in love with it.)

What I talked about with my mom is she had to actually use the device for a while so that she could freely encounter questions, evaluate the solutions and learn. Then I followed up with:

• There is no wrong way, but there are several “right” ways, so we need to find the one (or two) that works best for her.
• The only difference between learning, young or not so young, is practice.
• We will only work for an hour a day.
  • Day 1 – Understanding Touch
  • Day 2 – Email
  • Day 3 – Charms, Start Menu and Desktop
  • Day 4 – OneNote, OneDrive and Cloud

Lesson One

If you RTFM none of what you read here is new. This is the sequence and patter that I use when I demo Windows 8. I compare it to how an iPad works so that folks have a frame of reference. You can use any comparison you like. This is written in geeky shorthand, if you don’t know what I am talking about there are tons of guides on these actions. Here goes:

Toggle Start to Desktop and Back

You can use the hardware Windows Button or the new one on the taskbar (I don’t). This action provides a frame of reference to get the user “home” or “back to the desktop”.

Launch an App

From Start just touch the tile, if you don’t see the app don’t freak out. What’s it called? Facebook? OK, type F-A-C and notice that the search kicks in and you can find your apps quickly. (Later, I show how to use the Find on Start feature.) Launch a couple of apps like Mail, Calendar, Weather and Internet Explorer.

The 5 Gestures

OK, there are 5 gestures that I use all the time. Here is how I present them. I have several apps launched. And I say:

1. “If you want to switch between apps just swipe left, as if all your apps are stretched out in a line from left to right”.
2. “When you are in an app and you would like to see a menu (or when you would normally right click on something) swipe up from the bottom.” You can swipe from the top too, but I start from the bottom because of #4.
3. “If you want to do more with the app, like share it to email, check settings, etc. Swipe from the right to see the charms.” Here I demo settings and sharing, but don’t go deep. There is time for that later in hour 3.
4. “If you really feel the need to close an app, swipe from the top and throw it away. But you really don’t need to close apps.”
5. “Finally, if you want to see your running apps to pick from, swipe back and forth from the left.” I still run into longtime Windows 8 users who don’t know this gesture!

   

There, see how easy it is? At this point I let my mom work her way through the apps, configure Weather and asked her questions like, “What’s the weather like in Las Vegas?” “Can you look up a restaurant in Las Vegas?” Let her discover how to use the gestures and apps to answer questions.

Multitasking

The last thing I teach is multitasking or more correctly, split screen. Personally, this feature is what changed my opinion of the tablet (iPad) as a “consumption device” into a (Surface) “productivity device” since I can work on an email and bring up a browser at the same time.

I open an email with a hyperlink and show how Windows 8 opens a split screen window. Then I point out how easy it is to change the split and make it go away when you are done. Lastly, I show how you can force the split and launch apps in split screen intentionally. Then how Windows 8 “asks” you where to show new apps.

Challenges

That’s it. That’s an hour with most of the time spent with my mom practicing the gestures. It wasn’t all roses though, there were moments where mom got frustrated and confused. When I saw this happening, usually accompanied by random gestures, I would ask: “What are you trying to do?” The answer was usually some form of “I want to do that thing you did a little while ago.” or “You know…um…”. Once she could articulate, “I want to go to the internet” or “I want to read my mail” once she had a clear task in her mind, the steps to get there were Start | Mail or Start | Internet and became much easier. I think this is that old fear of doing it right, getting in the way of just “getting it done”. So my process was stop, breath, tell yourself what you want to do, then do it.

One Last Tip

The Yoga is a “2 in 1” device. It switches between laptop Mode and Tablet Mode. One challenge I had was the responsiveness of the touchpad. If you do a left swipe gesture on the trackpad it will task switch. Which if you know what’s happening is fine, but it got in the way for my mom. The lesson here is, change the default system settings when they present a barrier to learning or productivity. I turned off touch pad swipe gestures for her and will revisit them at Thanksgiving.

In closing, a request

I’ll post a follow-up at Thanksgiving to let you know how she’s doing. If you liked this post, let me know. I am considering posting about Lesson #4 because I do these demos all the time including the OneNote, OneDrive, Cloud demo and still folks are stunned at what you can do. For me, this is everyday stuff, but I think the Cloud message is garbled and confusing when it finally gets to the consumer. So, if you’d like that, let me know.

Share and Enjoy

Before I walk through the key points of the script let me first share it with you:

The first thing you have to know about working with SharePoint Online REST endpoints is that you have to get connected to the service. This is done by passing your credentials (username and password) to a new instance of the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials object. This object handles the conversion of our simple username and password to the appropriate authorization token and cookies necessary to establish the connection (and it is these additional complexities which makes it not possible for us to utilize the Invoke-RestMethod PowerShell V3 native cmdlet). Because I don’t want to have to deal with providing the username and password every time I run a command or otherwise remembering what variable I stored the credentials in I chose to utilize a global variable ($global:spoCred) which I check in the Begin block of the function and if it’s not set then I prompt for the credentials and then set the variable. I also chose to create another set of functions, Set-SPORestCredential and Clear-SPORestCredential, to make it easier to work with this variable (so you can explicitly set the variable using the Set-SPORestCredential function or clear the variable using the Clear-SPORestCredential function). Using this approach I can set my credentials just the once and then run my REST calls over and over without having to worry about reauthorizing.

In order to utilize the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials object you have to either load the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll assemblies or you can take the approach I did which was to assume that the Microsoft SharePoint Online Cmdlets are installed and simply load the Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell module which results in the types I need being loaded into memory. So if you don’t have the module installed then my function will throw an error stating as such.

From there the rest is pretty straightforward as I just use a System.Net.WebRequest object and set the appropriate variables and header values to make the request. Once I get a result back I check the expected verbosity result (a new JSON Lite feature) and use the ConvertFrom-Json cmdlet to output the results as a PSObject. Note that this is a pretty simple implementation in that I’m assuming the results that come back are a JSON object and not something like a binary stream as the result of retrieving a file or something. For a solution that is more complex and handles binary objects in the return use my cmdlet by the same name (Invoke-SPORestMethod) included with my SharePoint Online custom cmdlets download. Also, the –Metadata parameter is another simplistic approach which and doesn’t take into account some of the more complex scenarios – my custom cmdlet replaces the –Metadata parameter with a –Body parameter (though it’s aliased as Metadata) and handles a wider range of possibilities for posting data to the REST endpoint.

Because the SharePoint Online REST API is able to grow quickly without the need for Microsoft to post updated installs, such is the case with the CSOM library, the need to utilize this API for automating tasks using PowerShell will grow just as quickly if not more so. Because of this it is extremely valuable to have a quick and easy way to make RESTful calls without having to recreate all this plumbing every time. It is because of this that I created this script and, more specifically, why I added the equivalent yet more robust version of the script as a custom cmdlet. So in summary, I strongly recommend you get used to using the REST API and this script and equivalent cmdlet will make it that much easier for you to do so.

-Gary

[Forced due to logging gap, Original Level: <TraceLevel>] <Some message> {0}

I was recently working with a client who noticed an message like this in the ULS logs and was baffled by the fact that the {0} was not being replaced with the relevant data referred to in the message text. I ‘d noticed this in the past but never bothered looking into it to figure out what was up with it so I decided to crack open Reflector and poke around a bit.

What I found was that there was a method, SendTraceData(), which is part of the Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.ULS class and it is within this method that the [Forced due to logging gap…] message is appended to the string that is to be written to the ULS logs (this happens when the time between log writes exceeds the default 50ms). Within the routine that is adding this string there is a test to see if the ExpandForcedLoggingMessages property is false, and if it is then set whatever data was provided to null, thereby clearing the relevant information that would be used in any subsequent string.Format() call to add the data to the message. Here’s a screenshot showing that code so you can see what I mean:

So the trick to figuring out why the {0} is not being replaced with the appropriate value is to understand how that ExpandForcedLoggingMessages property is set. I did some more digging with the Reflector analyze tool and found that in the CompleteInit() method of the same Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.ULS class there is code which sets the property based on the value of the _ULS_EXPAND_FORCED_LOGGING_MESSAGES_ environment variable:

This variable, by default, is not set (and I can’t find one lick of documentation about it) but if we create the variable and set it to a value of true and reboot the server we will find that suddenly the values are being populated (or expanded) on that server (for this to take affect farm wide you need to do this on each server in the farm).

To set the variable you can either do it manually via the computer properties or you can use this simple PowerShell command:

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("_ULS_EXPAND_FORCED_LOGGING_MESSAGES_", "true", "Machine")

Don’t forget to reboot the machine after you set the variable.

Because I didn’t want to wait for a particular event to occur to validate that this actually worked I decided to create a simple test script which called the SendTraceData() method. Because the containing class is internal I had to use some reflection to make this work but you shouldn’t need to run this code – I only include it here for completeness to show how I validated that the change worked as expected:

$bindings = @("InvokeMethod", "NonPublic", "Instance", "Static", "Public", "GetField", "GetProperty")
$asm = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")
$type = $asm.GetType("Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.ULS")
$ulscatType = $asm.GetType("Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.ULSCat")
$ulscat = $ulscatType.GetProperty("msoulscatUnknown").GetValue($null, $null)
$method = $type.GetMethod("SendTraceData", $bindings)
$method.Invoke($null, @($true, [System.UInt32]0, $ulscat, 20, "This is test data: '{0}'.", @("hello world")))

If we look at the ULS logs using ULSViewer we can see our test event got created and the data was preserved:

And now you know how to get that {0} populated with data which may or may not be useful but I personally would rather have more data available when troubleshooting an issue and hate the idea of having possibly key information nullified.

Oh, and while you’re looking at the CompleteInit() method you may have noticed that there’s also a _ULS_MAX_LOGGING_GAP_IN_MILLISECONDS_ environment variable and a _ULS_EXPAND_FORCED_LOGGING_CACHED_MESSAGES_ environment variable. The later is similar to the one I’ve been talking about and is related to messages you see that look like this:

[Forced due to logging gap, cached @ <Date>, Original Level: <TraceLevel>] <Some message> {0}

So if you’re going to enable the one you should probably enable the other as well.

The _ULS_MAX_LOGGING_GAP_IN_MILLISECONDS_ environment variable controls how big, in milliseconds, the maximum logging gap should be. By default the value is 50 milliseconds. I would recommend not changing this value but if you want events written more frequently to the ULS logs then you can lower the value or likewise if you want the events written less frequently you can bump up the value (note that you won’t lose events, it just affects how often SharePoint is writing to the file).

I hope this information helps you with your troubleshooting adventures!

-Gary

The script that I want to share today I created a couple of years ago to help me troubleshoot an issue I was having with a custom delegate control registration. The problem ended up being resolved easily enough as it was simply an issue of scope – the control was registered at one scope but expected at another. Of course, at the time this didn’t really make sense as the scope that should have been expected was what I was providing, turns out that there’s what I would characterize as some bad design decisions within the SharePoint product so what I expected wasn’t what SharePoint wanted. Anyways, I digress – to help me isolate the issue I threw together a quick little script which would dump out the control registrations so that I could validate that my control was in fact being registered and being registered at the scope I expected. I could also use the script to see what was the “top” registration, or specifically which control would actually win and get its code called and rendered on the page, and finally, I could use this to see what other controls I was boxing out for the win (or loss). The script below is a much cleaned up version of my quick and dirty hack but it does the same thing, just with comments and a little more flexibility with the use of the SPWebPipeBind type. Note that to do the job you have to use an internal method of the Microsoft.SharePoint.SPElementProvider class but as it’s just a simple query I’m personally not concerned about the use of the reflection to make it work.

So with that, here’s my little Get-SPControlElement function:

<#

.Synopsis

   Retrieves the control elements registered for a given delegate control ID.

.DESCRIPTION

   Retrieves the control elements registered for a given delegate control ID.

.EXAMPLE

   Get-SPControlElement -Web "http://demo" -ControlId "QuickLaunchDataSource" -TopOnly

.EXAMPLE

   Get-SPControlElement -Web "http://demo" -ControlId "QuickLaunchDataSource" -Scope "Web"

#>

function Get-SPControlElement {

    [CmdletBinding()]

    Param (

        # Specify the URL of an existing Site or an existing SPWeb object.

        [Parameter(Mandatory = $true,

                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true,

                   ValueFromPipeline = $true,

                   Position = 0)]

        [Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPWebPipeBind]

        $Web,

        # The ID of the delegate control to return instances of.

        [Parameter(Mandatory = $true,

                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true,

                   ValueFromPipeline = $false,

                   Position = 1)]

        [string]

        $ControlId,

        # If specified, query for the top element only. If not specified, show all controls registered for the control ID.

        [Parameter(Mandatory = $false,

                   Position = 2)]

        [Switch]

        $TopOnly,

        # The scope to search for. Valid values are "Farm", "WebApplication", "Site", and "Web". To show controls registered at all scopes omit the parameter or pass in a $null value.

        [Parameter(Mandatory = $false,

                   Position = 3)]

        [string]

        $Scope

    )

    Begin {

        $bindings = @("InvokeMethod", "NonPublic", "Instance", "CreateInstance", "Public")

        $asm = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")

        $type = $asm.GetType("Microsoft.SharePoint.SPElementProvider")

        $constructor = $type.GetConstructor($bindings, $null, @(), $null)

        $provider = $constructor.Invoke(@())

    }

    Process {

        $spWeb = $Web.Read()

        if ($TopOnly) {

            $method = $type.GetMethod("QueryForTopControlElement", $bindings)

        } else {

            $method = $type.GetMethod("QueryForControlElements", $bindings)

        }

        $method.Invoke($provider, @([Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb]$spWeb, $Scope, $ControlId))

        $spWeb.Dispose()

    }

    End {

    }

}

And here’s a simple example demonstrating how to call the function (note that I put the code in a file named Get-SPControlElement.ps1 and then I dot source the file to load the function into memory – you could scope the function globally to avoid the need to dot source if you want):

This should work on both SharePoint 2010 and 2013 and I believe with some minor modifications you could make it work with 2007.

-Gary