Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

SharePoint Document Library Metadata in Microsoft Teams

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 02:52:00 +0000

If you've started to play around with Microsoft Teams and are familiar with storing documents in SharePoint, you may have been disappointed to learn you can't see document metadata on the Files tab of your team's channel. When I first heard this, I couldn't believe it! How could we overlook one of the most basic reasons to use SharePoint over file shares?!

Have no fear. After poking around a bit, it turns out Teams is almost as flexible as SharePoint.

In Teams, click on the Files tab for your channel.
Click 'Open in SharePoint'.
Edit the view, or create a new one, and add the desired metadata.
Copy the web address (something like, https://xxx.sharepoint.com/sites/ComeTogether/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx)
Back in Teams, add a new tab by clicking +.
Search for 'web' and add the Website type tab.
Fill out the Tab name and URL.
Golden!

**Bonus Content
Related, someone asked me, "Wouldn't it be cool if there were a place to drop files that all channels could see, like at the root of the Shared Documents library that already has folders for each of my channels?

Why, yes. Yes, it would.

Follow the steps above.
In the SharePoint view you create, set the Filter to Content Type is not equal to Folder.
Celebrate!

Upgrade SPFx from 1.3.4 to 1.4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 16:48:00 +0000

I just had to upgrade a SharePoint Framework client-side web part from v1.3.4 to v1.4.0. Here are the steps I did to complete this.

Run a command prompt as admin and upgrade the yoeman generator, npm install -g @microsoft/generator-sharepoint@latest
Create a new web part project using the updated scaffolding engine using the settings I used originally. For example, this project is based on the React template. I selected that option again.
In the project I was upgrading...

Delete the node_modules folder and the package-lock.json file
Compare and copy relevant packages/versions into your package.json file
Replace the tsconfig.json file with one from the newly generated project
npm install
gulp clean
gulp build
Address any build errors. For example, in my project I wasn't doing some Date casting correctly. Typescript did a better job of identifying this and I had to correct those errors.

Output Raw XML from New Content By Search Web Part

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Thu, 08 May 2014 16:33:00 +0000

Following this blog post in an attempt to reuse some custom XML developed for SharePoint 2010, I ran into a problem with this technique for outputting raw XML from search in SharePoint 2013. It seems other have had the same issue.

This is what I came up with to help. It's not pretty or perfect, but it'll do for now and gives a "decent" picture of what's going on in the XML.

<xsl:stylesheet version='1.0' xmlns:xsl='http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform'>
    <xsl:template match='/'>
        <xsl:apply-templates />
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="ResultTable">
        <h1>ResultTable</h1>
        <xsl:call-template name="out">
            <xsl:with-param name="in" select="ResultTable" />
        </xsl:call-template>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="Rows" />
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="Rows">
        <h1>Rows</h1>
        <xsl:call-template name="out">
            <xsl:with-param name="in" select="Rows" />
        </xsl:call-template>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="Row" />
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match='Row'>
        <h1>Row</h1>
        <xsl:call-template name="out">
            <xsl:with-param name="in" select="Row" />
        </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template name="out">
        <xsl:param name="in" />

        <table style="border: 1px solid #000;">
            <xsl:for-each select="*">
                <tr>
                    <td style="border: 1px solid #000;">
                        <xsl:value-of select="name()" />
                    </td>
                    <td style="border: 1px solid #000;">
                        <xsl:value-of select="." />
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </table>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

SharePoint 2010 Error Logging

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:07:00 +0000

New to SharePoint 2010 is the ability for developers to readily log to either the SharePoint Unified Logging Service (ULS) or to the Windows application event log. What a win-win-win situation for all involved, from the developer to the end user to the admin. The namespace to investigate if you're interested in performing either of these tasks is Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration. More specifically, the classes under the prefix SPDiagnostics (SPDiagnosticsArea, SPDiagnosticsCategory, ...). Even more specifically, the methods SPDiagnosticsService.WriteTrace (for ULS logging) and SPDiagnosticsService.WriteEvent (for Windows application event logging).

A great place to put this type of logging is in web parts. Always be sure to wrap your CreateChildControls or Render methods with a try/catch. There's nothing worse than the whole page blowing up just because one piece of the page has failed unexpectedly. On to the example....

catch (Exception ex)
{
     // Get the local instance of the diagnostics service
     SPDiagnosticsService diagService = SPDiagnosticsService.Local;
     // Log the event under the SharePoint Foundation, Web Part category
     SPDiagnosticsCategory diagCategory = diagService.Areas["SharePoint Foundation"].Categories["Web Parts"];
     // The exception message to write to the log
     string exceptionId = "Web Part Exception Unique ID: " + Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
     string exceptionMsg = exceptionId + " " + ex.Message + ex.StackTrace;

     // Log the event as unexpected
     diagService.WriteTrace(0, diagCategory, TraceSeverity.Unexpected, exceptionMsg);

     (...)
}

At this point, it'd be good to write something back to the user of your web part. Depending on the method you're overriding, you would replace the above ellipsis with code to either add some literal controls to the web part controls collection, or by writing directly to the HTMLTextWriter provided.

     // Provide the user some nice feedback with a follow-up for the admin
     writer.WriteLine("An unexpected error has occurred.");
     writer.WriteBreak();
     writer.WriteLine("If this problem persists, please contact your administrator.");
     writer.WriteBreak();
     writer.WriteBreak();
     writer.WriteLine("Events have been added to the ULS log.");
     writer.WriteBreak();
     writer.WriteLine(exceptionId);

Also new to SharePoint 2010 is a more useful error messaging system in general. If a page errors out, a dialog box containing a correlation ID is made available for admins to use in troubleshooting. You may be asking yourself, how do I include this correlation ID into my message back to the user.

I did a lot of digging and found this post by Tobias Zimmergren. In the section titled "Get the current Correlation ID by using code", he talks about just how to do this. However, in my opinion, this is overkill. I say this because...
1. The correlation ID is not unique to the error itself. It really reflects the page request as a whole. Therefore several lines, at least in the ULS log, will have this correlation ID stuck on the end of them.
and
2. You're already providing the system administrator a new GUID that uniquely identifies this error.

A Poor Man's Date Filter Web Part

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:03:00 +0000

Recently, I was asked to create a date filter to give users an easy mechanism to filter down some data in a list.

Normally, I'd create myself a view on the list then edit the page and add a date filter web part. At that point, all you have to do is wire up the date filter and the list view web parts and you're done (see this article for more information).

That's all fine and dandy if you've got the SharePoint Enterprise license. All of the filter web parts are in the Enterprise feature. What if you don't have Enterprise? Am I out of luck?

Absolutely not. Instead of the Date Filter Web Part, why not slap on a Form Web Part? This little guy lets you define your own HTML to filter with. Need a text box? Great. Need a check box, dropdown list, ...? Great. Need a calendar? Uhm...wait, there's no easy HTML control for a date picker.

Ah, but you're in SharePoint. SharePoint has date pickers all over the place. An easy way to toss one on a page is to add a Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.DateTimeControl server control to it. If we can figure out what that control adds to the page, we're golden.

Modify the Form Web Part and add the below HTML to the Source Editor. The text is red is what renders the date picker functionality onto the page.

<div onkeydown="javascript:if (event.keyCode == 13) _SFSUBMIT_">
<SCRIPT language='javascript' src='/_layouts/datepicker.js'></SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT language='javascript'>var g_strDateTimeControlIDs = new Array();</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT language='javascript'>g_strDateTimeControlIDs[""] = "ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_ctl00_Date";</SCRIPT>
<input name="ctl00$PlaceHolderMain$ctl00$Date" type="text" maxlength="45" id="ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_ctl00_Date" class="ms-input" AutoPostBack="0" />
<A href="#" onclick='clickDatePicker("ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_ctl00_Date", "\u002f_layouts\u002fiframe.aspx?&cal=1&lcid=1033&langid=1033&ww=0111110&fdow=0&fwoy=0&hj=0&swn=False&minjday=109207&maxjday=2666269&date=", ""); return false;' >
<IMG id=ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_ctl00_DateDatePickerImage src="/_layouts/images/calendar.gif" border="0" alt="Select a date from the calendar."></IMG>
</A>
<IFRAME id=ctl00_PlaceHolderMain_ctl00_DateDatePickerFrame SRC="/_layouts/images/blank.gif" FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no style="DISPLAY:none;POSITION:absolute; width:200px; Z-INDEX:101;" title="Select a date from the calendar."></IFRAME>
<input type="button" value="Go" onclick="javascript:_SFSUBMIT_"/>
<input type="button" value="Reset" onclick="javascript:_SFRESET_"/>
</div>

Awesome! Now we've got a date picker in our Form Web Part. All that's left is to wire it up to our list view web part the same way we always did.

Remove Default SharePoint Web Part CSS - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:42:00 +0000

A post is long over due. I wanted to revisit this topic for two reasons. It was my first post ever, and according to best practices, this is not (necessarily) what you should do to remove SharePoint CSS classes from your custom developed web part.

If you follow best practices, you should not be inheriting from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart. According to SDK, "this class exists primarily for the purpose of backward compatibility, and secondarily, to provide a small set of features that are not available in the ASP.NET web part class."

The UseDefaultStyles Property, unfortunately, is available only in the Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPart class and not in the System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart class (the class you should really be using 99% of the time).

So...how do I fix my cumbersome SharePoint default CSS for my System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart inherited class?! This is what I came up with.

public class NoCssWebPart : System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart

{
protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{

base.OnInit(e);

            // No default styles
            if (this.Zone != null && this.Zone.WebPartChrome != null)
            {
                  SPChromeSettings chromeSettings = ((SPChrome)this.Zone.WebPartChrome).GetSPChromeSettings(this);
                  chromeSettings.UseDefaultStyles = false;
            }
      }
}

Search Core Results Web Part Doesn't Display Managed Property

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:20:00 +0000

Everything is set up right. I've followed articles like this, or maybe this. I've full crawled a million times, but I still can't get my managed property to display in the search core results web part.

First, double check search is crawling your content properly. Go to Search administration -> Metadata properties and click the name of your metadata property. There's a section here labeled 'Content using this property'. 'Number of items found using this property' obviously should not be zero. If it is, take a look your managed property configurations. Also, confirm you've actually set the value somewhere in your site and, if in a publishing environment, make sure everything is published and approved.

Second, go to the search box in the site and search for MetadataField:AValueYouKnowExists. The results should be as expected. Items with your MetadataField = AValueYouKnowExists should appear in the results.

Lastly, double check the Search Core Results XSLT. Make sure you've got the proper <Column Name="MetadataField"/> tag. Also, make sure you're using the right metadata property name in the <xsl:value-of> tag. This tag is case sensitive. If you don't get the case right, it's not going to work. The easiest way to check the case is to edit the Search Core Results web part and put <xmp><xsl:copy-of select="*"/></xmp> into the section labeled <xsl:template match="Result">. This is going to display all the XML nodes and the values contained in the results. Refresh your MetadataField:AValueYouKnowExists search and look for your metadata property.

Absolute Left-hand Navigation in Page Layouts

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:29:00 +0000

I've chosen this topic because when I first received the requirement for this, I thought it'd be tough or at the very least, messy. It turned out to be extremely simple and clean.

Business owner, "When I'm navigating my particular sub-site, I always want the left-hand navigation to begin with the first node in my sub-site. This should always be the case no matter how deep I get in my sub-site."

Example Site Structure:
Root Site Collection
   Busines Owner's Sub-Site
   (Nav should begin here no matter which page we're actually on)
Pages
      A Lower Sub-Site
   Pages
         An Even Lower Sub-Site
            Pages

To fulfill this requirement, it's merely a matter of configuring your SiteMapDataSource (or PortalSiteMapDataSource) properly. We need to key on two properties, StartFromCurrentNode and StartingNodeOffset.

In this case, we'd want StartFromCurrentNode = false and StartingNodeOffset = 1. The tells our SiteMapDataSource to always start at the Root Site Collection node then offset one node down.

The only downfall I can see here is you're going to have to train the business owner to use the right page layouts, but they have probably already asked for special branding anyway.

References:
SiteMapDataSource.StartFromCurrentNode
SiteMapDataSource.StartingNodeOffset

OWSTIMER, Give Up Your Cache

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:34:00 +0000

Recently, we had some struggles surrounding SharePoint solution deployment. In our farm (2 WFEs, 1 App, 1 DB), one of the WFEs consistently kept throwing errors when deploying my solution.

Always...two deployed fine, one failed. Strangely, the failed server wasn't always the same. At times, it even exhibited a sort of round-robin behavior. First 4, next attempt 5, next attempt 3, then back to 4.

I was not able to replicate this in my dev environment until, instead of deploying the solution via the Central Admin Application, I deployed it using the stsadm -o deploysolution command.

The stsadm command clearly states "Timer job successfully created," but upon checking the Central Admin Application for status I found "Error". This pushed me to investigate the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service and led me to believe it was incorrectly caching something.

I followed the steps highlighted in the resource articles and magic, it's fixed.

For the record, I did delete the cache.ini file without problems. Also, depending on if you're using Server 2003 or 2008, the cache files are in different places. Just use the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% token in the address bar of Windows Explorer and you should be good to go after that (e.g. %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config).

References:
Clearing the Sharepoint configuration cache (Joris Poelmans)
Clearing the SharePoint Configuration Cache (Joe Rodgers)

Tired of Logging into Firefox?

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:46:00 +0000

Typing in my username and password all day long is tiresome. IE offers nice NTLM integrated authetication functionality using Local Internet and Trusted Sites settings. Wouldn't it be nice if you could do that with Firefox?

Open Firefox.
In the address bar, navigate to 'about:config'.
Filter the resulting list by 'network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris'.
Change the value of this variable to .company.com.

References:

NTLM Authentication in Firefox

Remove Default SharePoint Web Part CSS

noreply@blogger.com (Kenny Duenke) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 02:04:00 +0000

**UPDATE: See this revision.

It’s always been a struggle for me to style a web part in SharePoint because of the default Microsoft classes that get added (i.e. .ms-WPBody a:link, .ms-WPBody a:visited, blah, blah, blah). These stylings are annoying and difficult to override because they’re directly on the web part and sometimes replace general site CSS.

Well…just turn them off.

For the DataViewWebPart...

<SharePoint:DataFormWebPart runat=”server” NoDefaultStyle=”true” …>

</SharePoint:DataFormWebPart>

(This also works for the CoreResultsWebPart as it’s essentially just a DVWP).

If you're creating your own web part...

public class NoCssWebPart : WebPart

{

public NoCssWebPart()

{

this.UseDefaultStyles = false;

}

References:

DataViewWebPart.NoDefaultStyle Property

WebPart.UseDefaultStyles Property