RRFreeman SharePoint Architect

Projected Field in View Item Form

2013-05-13T14:10:00.001-07:00

Scenario

You are using Projected Fields (a.k.a. additional columns) from a lookup column in a list or library.

This may be a standard lookup column or a BCS External Data column.

You would like these fields to show up on the list/library display (View Item) form.

Issue

Normally you will only see projected fields in list views configured to display these columns. For some reason, MS did not include them by default on the display form.

Resolution

Add these fields below the standard item form.

The form will continue to be dynamic since the standard Data Form Web Part is still used for all other fields

Example: A new column added to the list will automatically show up on this customized display form.

Steps

Create a New Form in SharePoint Designer on the appropriate list/library.
Set the File Name to "DispFormWithAdditionalFields", Type to Display item form, and set as default
Temporarily Insert a Display Item Form in the div Below the existing content
This will populate the Data Source Details window. Open this window if not already visible. Data view Tools (ribbon) / Options / Data Source Details (Data section)
Right click on the Projected Field you wish to display, right click it, then select Copy Item XPath
Now delete the temporary Display Item Form. This was just used to populate the Data Source Details window.
Insert a SharePoint ListItemProperty control (Insert / Controls / SharePoint) at the same location
Right click the control and edit properties.
In the Tag Properties window Set the Property property. :)
- Paste the XPATH copied earlier and delete everything up to the @ sign
  - /dsQueryResponse/Rows/Row/@Exam_x0020_Number_x003a__x0020_Company_Name
  - Change to: Exam_x0020_Number_x003a__x0020_Company_Name
Add a column header above or to the left of the new field.
Save and Preview in Browser

(names removed in image)
Enjoy!

SharePoint RBS (Remote Blob Storage) Options

2013-05-10T15:54:00.002-07:00

Built-In:

Filestream

Third Party:

SharePoint Migration Tools (Incomplete Article)

2013-05-08T15:01:00.001-07:00

Feature List

Term Stores / Enterprise Keywords
Site Content Types and Site Columns (Taxonomy)
Site Comparison (Differences)
Version History
Maintain modified/created metadata
Metadata bulk editor
Utilize Web Services (No server installs)
Lists and Libraries
Permissions
Users and Groups
SharePoint Designer List and Library workflows
SharePoint Designer Reusable and Site workflows
Flatten folder hierarchy
Office properties to SharePoint properties

Data and file transfer to SharePoint from the following systems:

SharePoint: Prior Version, Online (Office 365), or Farm to Farm

Idera: SharePoint Migration Suite

2003 - present, SharePoint Online
Features: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?, 6, 7, 8, 9?, 10?, 11?, 12?, 13?, 14?

Metalogix
AvePoint
ShareGate: Migration & Classification

Features: 1, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14

*1 Features: 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Pricing (11/2012) - Unlimited data - Migration user license

$695 for 1 user, $1,295 for *1 Features
$4k for 25 users, $4,995 for *1 Features

OpenText Hummingbird DM (part of Enterprise)

EMC Documentum

File System

ShareGate: Migration & Classification

Features: 1, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14
Pricing (11/2012) - Unlimited data - Migration user license

$695 for 1 user
$4k for 25 users

Idera: SharePoint Migration Suite
Metalogix
AvePoint
DavCopy
Axceler
Tzunami
Quest
PCVita
CodePlex
PowerShell Script Migrator

Projected Lookup Field - Lookup Column Additional Fields Missing

2013-05-05T12:11:00.002-07:00

Scenario

You want to project a lookup column (add an additional field or related field).
Example:
- You have a Clients list and a Projects list
- The Projects list includes a Client lookup column
- You have a Timesheet list which includes a Project lookup column
- You would like to project the Client lookup column into the Timesheet view via the Project lookup field.

Issue

SharePoint 2010 does not support lookup field types as a projected/additional field
- Some other column types are also not supported
Example
- The Client column will not show up in the "add a column to show each of these additional fields:" checkbox area under the Project lookup column settings, under additional column settings

Resolution

One workaround is to synchronize the fields using SharePoint Designer Workflows with an extra Client Name column in the Projects list. This requires 2 workflows.
This will work with Office 365, SharePoint 2010, or 2013. Additionally this can be done on SharePoint 2007 except projected columns are not available, so you'd have to sync another column within the Timesheet list as well (meaning 2 more workflows)

Workaround

Add a Client Name field (Single line of text) to the projects list (do not display in view)

Create a workflow on the Clients list using SharePoint Designer 2013. This will copy the Client title to Client Name whenever it is added or changed

Add an Update List Item action

Change the Start Options

Publish the workflow

Remove the workflow status column from the Clients list

Hide the Client Name field by modifying the Projects list content type

Now create a workflow on the Projects list to update the field whenever a Project item is changed.
In this case the field was required, if it's not required, add in a condition to check for null values.

Use the Set Field in Current Item action

Remove the workflow status column from the views on this list as well.

Office 365 Registration "Partner Information"

2013-01-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

Scenario

You are signing up for an Office 365 account and would like to register me as your partner for solution architecture, custom development, integration, and support. :)

Resolution

Register "VoteMatrix,Inc" (3831100) under "Partner Information" from your Office 365 Portal Admin Interface (Left side / Subscriptions / Manage then Partner Information appears on the right side) https://portal.microsoftonline.com/Commerce/Manage.aspx
Once signed up, please click on my name (Robert Freeman) to send me an email with any questions or to request services.
In addition, in order to more easily administer your account, please follow this link:
Allow VoteMatrix to delegate your account

Office 365 Microsoft Partner ID:
3831100

Pandora on Xbox 360

2012-12-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

Scenario

You want to stream Pandora internet radio from your Xbox 360

Issue

Pandora has not yet released an Xbox 360 app

Resolution

Download the internet explorer app and browse to Pandora.com
I highly recommend using Xbox glass to navigate and fill out your Pandora account information

Microsoft Surface / Window RT missing Bluetooth DUN support

2012-12-03T17:28:00.001-08:00

No Bluetooth DUN (Dial Up Networking)

BthModem is not supported by the Microsoft Bluetooth Stack
This means standard Bluetooth Dial Up Networking is not available
If you have a mobile phone, you must use a USB or WiFi tether unless PDAnet, FoxFI, Tether.com, or similar partner develops a custom driver specifically for these devices

Cloud Hosted Dev, Test, Training, and Demo environments

2012-12-03T17:27:00.001-08:00

This article is in progress. The purpose is to identify and compare preconfigured cloud hosted virtualized development, testing, training, and demonstration hosting providers.

Features

Preconfigured Servers (ex: Preloaded SharePoint Server)

Licenses Included
BYOL (Bring your own licenses)

Automatic suspend and resume
Clone VMs
Snapshots
VM Sharing (transfer your VM to a team member's account)
Export VM (for use locally)
Public IP or URL
VPN Tunnel
Scalability

Pricing Considerations

Simultaneous users
Processing or Usage time
CPUs
Bandwidth
Per VM
Disk usage
RAM
Public IP or URL

Hosting Providers

CloudShare

ProPlus (8GB RAM, 300GB Disk for $60/month)

Features: 1.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6?, 7*

6?: More difficult to request this since the licenses are included
7*: Public URL redirector. Unreliable in my experience. May not work if the machine was auto-suspended.

Performance: Lackluster. Takes 5 to 10 seconds to load some standard pages. Can be time consuming to wait for servers to resume from suspend (3-4 times per day). Limited CPU allocation.

Skytap

Features: 1.2*, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
1.2*: These templates are not provisioned as well as CloudShare. Recommend bringing your own VM as well as licenses.
Performance: Untested.

SharePoint Folders and Document Set Best Practices

2012-11-29T13:17:00.002-08:00

The general consensus is to move away from folders and instead convert the taxonomy to metadata fields or convert to sites and libraries. This is typically hardest to do when migrating from a file system into SharePoint. If you do decide to do this, make sure to disable folder creation at the library level. This won't stop explorer view from creating folders, but does remove it in-browser.

Users typically want to use folders for navigation. This is usually due to a lack of proper site structure, navigation, views, search, and metadata. Grouping within a view can be used to simulate folder based navigation and help with user adoption.

There are plenty of articles on how folders are bad, so I'll just list the main justifications for using them and possible workarounds. If you must use folders, consider using document sets instead (see document set features below)

If you do want to use folders it should be for one of the following concrete reasons:

Different security but the files should appear in the same views

If they don't need to be viewed together, move them to new libraries
Even if they do, consider a third party library rollup / library collection web part instead

This would allow you to view multiple libraries in one view

Explorer view usage (if explorer view is the primary mechanism for working with files)

This is not recommended except in bulk document management scenarios
Note that explorer view works with doc sets and separate libraries as well and these should be preferred over folders

Document Set feature usage

Doc sets are library root level folders with advanced features
They cannot be nested - This is a good thing
Features:

Custom page for viewing/managing the grouped documents
Versioning multiple files in a group
Configure metadata for a group of documents simultaneously
Running a workflow against a group of documents
Preload several documents as a single group

Email enabled libraries

This is your only option for grouping the email and attachments into a single unit
I recommend converting the email folders to document sets as they come in

Refer to my SharePoint 2010 folder to document set conversion fix

Too many groupings to manage

Consider a keyword taxonomy field, lookup, choice with add item enabled, or single line of text metadata field instead

Windows 8 - Android Bluetooth Tether

2012-11-23T12:20:00.001-08:00

Scenario

You are tethering an Android phone using the free FoxFi or PDANet Bluetooth dial up modem
You have already installed the software on your computer and on your phone.

Issue

The simple Bluetooth connect button is not available from the Bluetooth device screen as it was in Windows 7

Resolution

You must connect as a Dial up connection and specify "*99#" as the phone number

First start the FoxFi or PDANet Bluetooth app from your phone
Go to your Networks settings (Mouse: Bottom right corner+up/settings/internet access/dial-up-connection)
Enter in *99# in the phone number, ensure your phone is selected as the device, and select connect

(Idea From: http://unlock4modem.blogspot.com/2012/08/access-internet-via-mobile-bluetooth-on_19.html)

MS SharePoint Conference 2012

2012-11-05T15:41:00.002-08:00

I'll be attending the SharePoint Conference 2012. Sunday the 11th through Thursday the 15th. If you plan to be there and would like to meet up, please reply here, on Facebook, or on LinkedIn. I'll be staying at the Vdara (City Center) Sunday night and the rest at the Aria (City Center).
Note: I used Priceline Express deal for Strip Vicinity: South. Buy Sunday separately since the other nights are much cheaper.

Itinerary (Will update with session notes)

Sunday Night
- 3:20 - Arrive
- 6:00 - Registration
Monday
- 8:00 - Breakfast
- 8:30 – Keynote (SharePoint 2013 New Features)
  - Social Features
    - @ and # tagging
    - inline video
  - ECM Features
    - Drag/Drop in browser
    - Preview pane
    - Integrated social conversations
  - Yammer
    - Button integrated into list/library Ribbon
    - Enterprise graph (Open Graph)
      - Conversations about the item
    - Mobile Device
    - Included with Office 365
    - Free version and a discounted paid version available
    - Nationwide case study (Spot)
    - ??? Not sure how this deviates from the standard SharePoint 2013 social
  - Search, Web Publishing, Web Content Management - Richard Riley
    - Search
      - Fast Included
      - Previous results intellisense in search box
      - Results block
        
        ??? – Is this different than Keywords/Synonyms???
    - Web Publishing
      - Dreamweaver (other editor) support
        
        Snippit editor in browser
        
        Copy the webpart code as a snippit directly into the HTML
      - Content search webpart (Amazon product like display using a SharePoint Query)
    - eDiscovery
      - In-Place holds
        
        Includes query features
    - Outlook integration
      - SharePoint Inbox, Documents, People, and Events folders in Outlook
  - Infrastructure/Foundation
    - Cloud (MS geo-redundant Datacenters are the Best)
    - 40% more efficient bandwith
    - 4x image compression
    - 50% reduction in server-side latency
    - Version history only stores changes now (used to store copies)
    - Upgrade path
      - Backward compatible UI mode (Visual Upgrade for 2013)
      - Health check (Upgrade validation)
  - Development
    - oAuth security to Office 365
    - Deployment into the cloud
      - Seamless deployment to Azure and Office 365
    - Cloud app model – reseller opportunities
- 11:00 – What’s new for developers in Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013 (Keenan Newton, Cyrielle Simeone)
  - Office HTML and JavaScript apps utilizing web services can be embedded in Excel (and other Office apps)
    - 1 app for Word, Excel, Access, etc.
  - Mail apps
    - Outlook/Exchange
    - Deployed via exchange rules
    - ??? - Does this work with Office 365 Exchange
  - MS Access 2013 apps in SharePoint
    - Can now use SQL server back-end within SharePoint
  - Office and SharePoint Store
  - “Napa” Office 365 Development Tools
    - Javascript and Asp.Net web based (Azure) coding interface
    - Option to open in Visual Studio
  - Visual Studio 2012
    - Remote SharePoint debugging and coding on Windows 7/8
- 12:15 – Lunch
- 2:00 – What’s new with Enterprise Content Management in SharePoint 2013 (Tejas Mehta, Jim Masson)
  - Hash tags – integrated with managed metadata
  - Profile – docs I’m following, suggested docs
  - Missing notes here
- 3:45 – Enterprise Social 101 (Jared Spataro, Adam Pisoni, Pavan Tapadia, James Patterson, Jessica Halper, Lauren Antonoff)
  - Yammer is going away. There will be 1 product (SharePoint). This explains why they demoed the 2013 social features, but only pieces of the Yammer offering during the keynote.
  - Use Yammer for 2010 now and there will be an upgrade path to 2013
  - My take: MS basically bought Yammer for the staff and customer base
- 6:00 – LoungeSPC - House of Blues
- 7:00 - Dinner
Tuesday
- 8:30 – Breakfast
- 9:00 – Overview of ECM for teams with Site Mailboxes (Adam Harmetz, Alfons Staerk)
  - Can drop personal emails into this mailbox for team
  - Site Mailbox Document Library folders
    - Can forward a link of the document from the team mailbox
      - Doesn’t use Document ID feature. Uses a static link
    - Inbound email only.
    - Doesn’t display columns within Outlook
    - Same functionality as WebDav, browser drag/drop
    - Uses the default content type
    - OWA interface will not include (you must go to the SharePoint site)
    - SharePoint search will not include the emails, Outlook search will not include the documents
    - Exchange stores site mailbox content – no duplicate data storage
    - SharePoint manages lifecycle policy for the site mailbox
  - eDiscovery support
  - Site Closure and Deletion
    - Policies to close and delete sites automatically based on site created date
  - Add the mailbox via a SharePoint App
  - Exchange 2013 must be configured to support SharePoint 2013
    - If upgrading, you will need to migrate user mailboxes to Exchange 2013
    - Users would need Outlook 2013 to view the site mailboxes in the client
    - No hybrid Exchange support
- 10:30 – Developing apps for SharePoint 2013 with Visual Studio 2012 (Mike Morton, Sean Laberee)
  - New Options
    - Full Page
    - App Parts (hosted web parts)
    - UI command extensions (UI custom actions)
  - Remote Development
  - Build a dev site using the dev site template or else use http://dev.office.com
  - Office enabled app for SharePoint
    - Office app embedded in a SharePoint document library default template
  - “Appetize” an existing web app
    - Demoed taking a standard MVC 4 web application,
  - oAuth via ACS (STS)
  - High-Trust apps (In-house hosted apps)
    - Use OAuth via Certificates
    - Each web app has to have a certificate
    - Internal use apps (no app store integration)
    - Open SOAP endpoints for app event and remote event receiver via your firewall
      - Utilize service bus (white-paper coming)
    - Remote event receivers with real-time debugging within Visual Studio
    - Intelli-trace (step back during debugging)
- 11:45 – Lunch
- 1:45 – People Search and Extensibility in SharePoint 2013 (Mikael Svenson, Sana Khan)
  - User Profiles
    - Now can relate an external source (via BCS) to a user’s profile to import related propertie
    - External Content Types now configured in Visual Studio instead of SharePoint designer
  - User context for customizing enterprise search
    - Prioritized by
      - Organizational structure distance
      - Who y0u follow
      - Sites you follow
    - Search Content Enrichment
- 3:15 - Claims Based Authentication – Migrating to the new SharePoint 2013 Identity Model (Israel Vega, Nathan Miller)
  - Pushing claims (Classic is depreciated but supported)
  - Flow
    - Migrate web applications
      - Update to use Claims
      - Update web application policy
  - Classic to Classic (Depreciated)
    - Use PowerShell
    - Warning in health rule
    - No Office Web Apps (preview) in classic mode
  - Classic to Windows Claims (OOTB Content and user migration)
    - Clean up: "Last Modified By” is not populated by default
    - Custom code utilizing “WindowsPrinciple” in code will no longer work when switching to claims. Change to “UserPrinciple”
    - See slides for PowerShell code to migrate users
    - Create the Portal SuperUser and SuperReader accounts (PowerShell code provided in slide deck)
    - Impersonation and other information on IWF and C2WTS
  - Custom Claims migration
  - Windows Claims to SAML (Federated)
  - SAML to SAML (Federated)
    - Inventory the claims the encodings
    - Sync the claims encodings
    - Migrate the trusted provider
    - Migrate/update the provider realms if needed
    - Migrate content DB’s
    - Add web policies
    - Test, test, test
- 7:00 - Attendee Party –(Bon Jovi)
Wednesday
- 8:30 – Breakfast
- 9:00 – SharePoint 2013 Upgrade Deep Dive (Sean Livingston)
  - Upgrade site collections via PowerShell commands or individually per site collection (with or without an evaluation site)
    - Can queue up multiple site collections for synchronous processing
  - Self-service site collection upgrade option
  - Evaluation site collections
    - Size quota option
    - Expiration: Default is 30 days
      - No expiration extensions in the UI, requires PowerShell
    - Entered in the Site Map
    - Linked to from original site
      - Only 1 eval site per original
    - Eval site creation is scheduled as a timer job
  - Solutions
    - Install-SpSolution CompatibilityLevel
      - blank – Will install based on codebase tags (likely 14 only)
      - 14, 15 – Both as same codebase
      - 14 – 2010 only
      - 15 – 2013 only
    - Does not support partially trusted code solutions
      - Bin directory requires full trust install
  - Claims
    - Existing 2010 claims providers should work fine
      - Make sure provider names match
    - Claims Auth is now recommended
  - Farm Services
    - 2010 content farm can consume 2013 farm services
- 10:30 - Advanded Dashboard Creation using Excel, Excel Services, PerformancPoint and Apps for Office (Kevin Donovan)
  - Stack
    - SQl Server – SSRS, SSAS
    - Excel – PowerView, PowerPivot, Excel Services
    - SharePoint – PerformancePoint
  - Office 365
    - No PerformancePoint services
    - No data refresh
    - MS is working on implementing
  - Excel
    - Pivot Table
    - Recommended Charts
      - Data slicing (timeline)
    - Apps for Office
  - Excel Services
    - Field List/ Field Well
    - EffectiveUsername
      - Allows delegated credentials via a username property Analysis Services queries using this user instead of process identity
      - Less need to use Unattended Service Account
    - Automatic Target App Creation
    - BI Server
      - Excel services must be configured to use SSAS server(s) for processing
    - NOV2
    - Named object view
  - SQL
    - Import to SSAS from PowerPivot using SSDT (SQL Server Data Tools / New BIDS)
  - PerformancePoint
    - Themes
    - BICenter (Dashboard Designer in the ribbon)
    - Filter Enhancements
    - Filter Search
    - EffectiveUsername
    - CustomTargetApplications
      - Share target applications between Excel Services and PerformancePoint
    - Server-side Migration
    - Dashboard Designer Authentication
- 11:45 - Lunch
- 1:45 - Client Side Rendering in SharePoint Server 2013 (Kirk Evans)
  - No notes
- 3:15 – Security Trimming for Search in SharePoint 2013 (Morgan Larsson – Senior PM, Sveinar Rasmussen – Principal SDE)
  - No notes
- 7:00 - Cirque: Ka at MGM Grand (Category D)
Thursday
- 8:30 – Breakfast
- 10:30 – Deep Dive on Managing Enterprise Content Types At Scale (Chris Bortlik, Scott Jamison)
  - General Content Type overview
  - General Column overview
  - Column Usage Report (2010 and 2013)
    - Will distribute after the conference
  - Content Type Syndication Hub
    - Pros
      - OOB
      - End User management
      - Single source for content types
    - Cons
      - Lack of change mgmt
      - Coordination via dedicated site collection
      - Does not work for hybrids
  - Left at this point since nothing new was covered
- 12:00 – Surfacing LOB Data in SharePoint 2013 using BCS and Search (Shannon Bray)
  - Same as 2010
- 1:30 - Lunch
- 3:25 – Flight Home

Willingness to get dirty must be genetic.

2012-10-11T16:16:00.002-07:00

My kids:

MS Access SharePoint Read Only Linked Library

2012-10-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

Scenario

You are getting external data from a SharePoint library with Microsoft Access and wish to edit, insert, update, or delete the records
The library requires approval of submitted documents

Issue

You receive any of the following errors due to the list/library being read-only

"Cannot update. Database or object is read-only."
"This Recordset is not updateable."
etc.

You may also receive the "The setting you entered isn't valid for this property."

You can ignore this one as it is irrelevant to this issue and will not prevent updating the list/library.

Resolution

Disable the approval requirement in the document library versioning settings. Re-enable when done.

This seems to auto-approve any that are in progress.
In addition, the Approval Status column may disappear from configured views.

Side note: For records with a populated person/group column, MS Access may hang during an update (via query or linked list manual update). Removing and re-adding the users cleared this up for me. And yes, this was strange.
The following scenario also does not affect the read-only status:

The list or library you are accessing included a managed metadata field at some point in time

You can verify this by viewing the linked library in Design View in MSAccess and looking for a column named "Taxonomy Catch All Column". If it exists, then this list had a Term Store (Managed Metadata) column associated with it. Ex: Enterprise Keywords

SSRS Regex Expression for SharePoint Lookup Column

2012-09-27T15:34:00.001-07:00

Scenario

You have a multi-select (multivalue) lookup field in your SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 report

Issue

The field also displays the Field IDs and you want to format it correctly

Ex: Value1;#5;#Value5;#6;#Value6

Resolution

Use the following expression

=System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(Fields!MyLookupColumn.Value, ";#\d+;#", ", ")

SharePoint Integrated SSRS: BIDS Deployment: Multiple Login Prompts

2012-09-25T19:04:00.002-07:00

Scenario

You are using SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio to deploy a report project to a SQL Server Reporting Server in SharePoint Integrated Mode
You are attempting to use the SharePoint Server address with "/reportserver/" or the Report Library address.

Note: BIDS asks for this format which may not work: "http://<servername>/reportserver"

Issue

You repeatedly receive "Reporting Services Login" authentication prompts when attempting to deploy and eventually fail to deploy

Resolution

Use "http://servername/" or "/_layouts/ReportServer" in the TargetServerURL path in the project properties

Ex: "http://intranet.company.com/" or "http://intranet.company.com/_layouts/ReportServer"
If you use the server name, make sure to include the trailing forward slash

Use the Report Library/Folder location in the Target*****Folder settings

Note: You can use folder paths if your library contains folders.

Ex: ".../Reports/Folder1/Folder2"

Here's an example of the settings (Right Click the project and select properties)

Active Directory Password Expiration Notification Email

2012-07-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

Scenario

Users log into your site using an AD user store
Password expiry is enabled via Active Directory Group Policy

Issue

User's passwords may expire without their knowledge, especially if they don't have regular access to a domain attached PC

Resolution

Implement the following script to email users before their passwords expire

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Email-Active-Directory-452a5640

AAM Default Zone Configuration Issues

2012-07-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

Scenario

You have configured Alternate Access Mappings (AAMs) for a SharePoint web application
You may be using ISA or UAG to terminate a FQDN and redirect to an internal URL

Issue

SharePoint Designer Workflow email alerts with document or item links may display the internal URL or other URL from the AAMs, rather than the public URL
Search results will not display any results (no results) on the search page when searching using a site scope

Ex: From a subsite, you enter a search criteria which is scoped to "This site" and receive no results even though the content has been indexed. "All Sites" scope works correctly regardless

Resolution

When configuring AAMs, the Default Zone public URL will be used in workflow Open Item alert links (Current Item URL)

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010customization/thread/2bb44216-a930-4786-ad0a-3505f0f7f1d4
Most non-workflow generated alert links will use whatever URL was accessed when creating the alert, rather than the Default Zone public URL

When configuring AAMs, the Default Zone public URL must match the URLs specified in the SharePoint Search Administration index content source used to crawl the content

Office 365 for educators just released!

2012-06-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

For all teachers, educators, and school or district IT administrators.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/education/school-services.aspx

MS just released Office 365 for educators. I would highly recommend this to any school. These are cloud services with extremely reduced costs (or FREE), saving your district money to put more of it into the classrooms. Class/staff web sites, public web site, online file storage, email (outlook), MS Office (w/ web apps), Instant Messaging, phones/voicemail (VOIP), calendaring, task mgmt, web search (of all curriculum/documents you have access to), and real-time collaboration (x people work on 1 document at once). This includes SharePoint, which is the platform of choice for collaboration and content management solutions. I would recommend engaging a competent solution integrator to migrate and deploy to Office 365.

InfoWise handy SharePoint plug-ins

2012-05-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Enterprise Capacity Solution - Multiple site collection navigation management
Smart List Pro - Tab based forms with field hiding - For lists/libraries with lots of metadata

Not true permissions since datasheet view and web services gets around it
User group or other field based default values and hide rules
Regex column validation

Smart Print Pro - Print list views

Solution Architecture - To SharePoint or Not to SharePoint

2012-05-10T18:06:00.003-07:00

You are architecting a web based software solution and are considering custom development (Asp.Net and SQL) or SharePoint list and library based architecture. You can decide based on the following list of SharePoint pros and cons. If you can pick 3 or 4 items (or 1 very important item) from the Pro list and are aware of the items in the cons list, it is likely beneficial to use SharePoint.

Pros

Authentication, authorization, and membership - Claims, forms, AD, LDAP, and custom

Security trimming throughout the product - Very important

Document and content management

If you plan to upload files, plan to use SharePoint - Very important

Item Data

Site, library, and list columns
Managed metadata
Customizable ad-hoc list and library views

Search and Indexing

Security trimmed - Very important

Publishing, approval, versioning, and check outs

Versioning - Very important
Remember to turn these on where appropriate

Navigation

Security trimmed
Dynamically populated

Web content management - Sites, pages, wikis, blogs, and web parts.
Recycle Bin - The big undo
Email Alerts, RSS
Integrated workflow and task engine - Pre-built Approval and Review workflows
Retention policies, legal holds, and record management
Email enabled libraries
Unified user interface (Master pages, layouts, themes, and styles)
Reporting integration

Excel services

Better with PowerPivot (SQL Enterprise or BI)

SSRS
PerformancePoint services

External lists and external chart web part

Using business connectivity services

MySites (personal web sites) and user profiles
MS Office integration

Including Office Web Apps (with MS Office volume license)
SharePoint Workspace for offline caching and synchronization

Plethora of third party products and solutions
Standardized skill-sets - by SharePoint focus

Ex: Architect, developer, analyst, admin, designer, end-user, bi analyst, librarian, etc.

Web Part Framework integration

This is also available in ASP.Net, but does not have audience integration and requires some master page work and is not as flexible for reuse and customization by end-users.

APIs: web services, client object model, sever object model, and PowerShell
MS Support
Load balanced, scalable architecture
COTS - little to no coding required for many solutions

Cons

Relational support limited

SharePoint supports lookups with referential integrity and reflected columns but does not support hierarchical/tree view and complex entity relationships without custom development
SSRS does not allow you to query with a join or union

System integration complexity

Integrating and maintaining SharePoint and related applications in your environment can be complex and requires a professional to do correctly. This can be mitigated by using a hosted SharePoint provider. This admin level complexity is greatly outweighed by SharePoint's inherent functionality.

Performance

You can't optimize the performance as well as with a SQL database. If your system is highly transactional, consider moving these pieces to SQL and front-ending in SharePoint

New skill set to utilize fully

SharePoint is still in the early stages of user adoption and training. Many users will need to be trained to understand how best to use SharePoint.

Storage hungry

SharePoint solutions with document libraries can eat up disk space faster than a file share. Make sure to plan SQL capacity and possibly Remote Blob Storage

Wildfire effect

If proper governance plans, quotas, IT professionals, and permissions aren't in-place, SharePoint training and support needs may surpass the IT department's ability to provide

Initial cost

Initial costs (server licenses and CALs) should be surpassed by reduced development costs and increased productivity.
Search Server 2010 Express (SharePoint Foundation 2010 w/ advanced search) is available for low cost solutions. This will not have all the features listed above.

Not easy to synchronize functionality and content across distributed farms, sites, and lists

If you plan to utilize site or list templates, you must have a plan to integrate new features into sites after they have been created. Data migrations, schema changes, and feature additions must be addressed in a solution package or powershell script.

Troubleshooting bugs and limitations

The more you use SharePoint, the more you will run into its limitations and bugs. Troubleshooting issues is usually not straightforward and requires SharePoint knowledgable IT staff and/or many hours on the support line. Fortunately, limitations are very often overcome by community and third party products and are a google search away. See the rest of my blog for many of these bugs, limitations, and workarounds.

Easy to poorly architect a solution

With great ease of implementation, comes incredibly horrible solutions

Generally, do not:

Use folders

unless they are doc sets, email enabled folders, or OneNote sections
folder level security and explorer view needs are a possible exception

Copy/move documents unless you have a good reason

Utilize in-place publishing, versioning, security, and filtered views whenever possible

Overwrite the standard list/library CRUD forms

you can add to the pages, just don't remove the dynamically generated form web part
Try to use custom fields, third party products, or views to implement custom functionality within a column

Use too many site collections

Site collections isolate functionality. Only split if you are sure there will be little crossover in SharePoint functionality. Search will work across site collections.

Use too many sites

Sites should map to your main navigation, you don't want too many at each level
The exception would be for dynamically generated templated sites, but you would need to implement code for instantiation, navigation, and disposal.

Ex: Project sites and my sites.

Use too many lists/libraries

Items with similar metadata and security should be in the same library and separated by content type or metadata values.

Develop a custom solution that can be addressed using native SharePoint functionality

Generally, do:

Have a seasoned SharePoint specialist gather requirements and architect a solution

This person should know all the dos and don'ts

Use site content types and site columns

Define site columns and content types at the lowest level site needed to encompass all sub-sites where they will be used

When custom development is needed

Use javascript, ajax, and jquery

but not for security

Use PowerShell for administrative functions
Build SharePoint Designer workflows
Build Visual Studio workflow actions
Build Visual Web Parts
Build EventHandlers
Package and deploy visual studio solutions as a .wsp
Be careful with performance on the above

Dispose items properly
Cache any collection references, don't use the index

Ex: Don't use splist.items[x], instead use getitembyid or equivalent

Perform user testing
Use lookup lists and columns
Performance testing
Disaster recovery testing

Backup plans are useless without successfully tested recovery plans

SharePoint Report Builder disconnected bug

2012-05-01T16:58:00.003-07:00

Scenario

You have configured SQL Reporting Services 2008 R2 (SSRS) in integrated mode against SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Foundation 2010
The SharePoint site collection containing your report library has anonymous access enabled for the authentication zone you are using.

Ex: You are building a report for a public website hosted on SharePoint and accessing it via the default zone where both Windows Auth and Anonymous are enabled

You try to add a new report to the library (after correctly configuring the report content types) or open an existing report using Report Builder 3.0

Issue

The report does not correctly connect to the integrated report server.
New document / report builder report symptoms:

"No current report server. Connect" appears at bottom left
Saving the report prompts for a location on your computer

Opening an existing report in report builder will open a blank report instead

Resolution

This occurs because Report Builder does not use your existing windows authentication token from Internet Explorer and instead tries to initiate new credentials. By default, anonymous access is provided, which does not have permissions to create or edit a report on the server. You can workaround this by performing one of the following actions:
Disable anonymous access on the zone you are using to build reports

Create another zone where anonymous access is disabled and use that url/ip/port when designing reports

Build reports locally and manually upload/download them to/from the report document library

The zones are configured via central admin / manage web applications / authentication providers You may need to set alternate access mappings and/or extend a web application to configure additional zones

#SharePoint Lookup Column DefaultValue Datasheet View Bug

2012-03-21T19:44:00.003-07:00

Scenario

You have set a Lookup Column's default value property via code

There is no way to set this via the SharePoint UI with the exception of the workaround to default the first item in the lookup by making the column required

You receive the following errors

"The text entered for ColumnName isn't an item from the list." dialog box
The spreadsheet will not save the row and an invalid entry window will pop up

Side Note
I have developed a SharePoint solution that will allow a user to specify column defaults from a root site list for all instances of a Site Column within a specified site. For example, a company has several offices that each have a category that may change. Each office has it's own team site. Every document and list item in the company must also have the office category populated for filtering and searching. The user would set the office category from an office list at the root site which includes the office team site url, at that time, my tool updates the default value in each list/library where that site column is used within that team site. If you would like more info, please comment to this post or contact Kiefer Consulting.

Issue

Datasheet view does not work properly

You will run into errors if any of the following are the case

The client is running Office 2010 64bit with the 2007 Office System Driver: Data Connectivity Components workaround

The name and id are swapped in this case. If you set the defaultvalue to the backwards combo the default will work for this client configuration but will not work with the standard new item form or other client configurations.

Ex: "Name1;#1"

The client is running an older version of Office
A defaulted lookup is multi-select

You may run into errors if the following is the case

A defaulted lookup is not visible within the Datasheet view

Resolution

There is only one unique circumstance where Datasheet view will work with standard formatted defaults

Office 2010 32bit is installed on the client
The lookup columns are single-select
All defaulted columns are visible within the Datasheet view

To code for maximum datasheet support, you must use a repeated id format workaround

Ex: spfieldlookup.defaultvalue = "1;#1;#2;#2"
This will solve the "The text entered for ColumnName" issue for multi-selects and non-visible fields in Office 2010 32bit

This will also work for Office 2007 for single-select columns, and non-visible multi-select fields. You will still get the error for visible multi-select fields

The side effect to this format is that the id value will be visible, instead of the display value, until the user moves off the row.

SharePoint 2007 to 2010 Help Desk Upgrade

2012-02-27T18:28:00.000-08:00

Scenario

You have installed the HelpDesk Fab 40 Template
You are performing a database attach upgrade from SharePoint 2007 or WSS 3.0 to SharePoint Server or Foundation 2010 and have run test-spcontentdatabase

Issue

The test-spcontentdatabase report contains the following errors (the cooresponding feature names have been added):

Category : MissingFeature - HelpDeskModules Error : True UpgradeBlocking : False Message : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu re: Id = [75a0fea7-02cb-4f87-bb11-1ffde748a953]. Remedy : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-02cb-4f87-bb11-1ffde748a953 is r eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea ture and restart upgrade if necessary.


Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskListInstances, HelpDeskServiceRequestsList

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-fe9d-4119-9615-2c2ef22d6fdb].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-fe9d-4119-9615-2c2ef22d6fdb is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary.
Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskListInstances, KnowledgeBaseKeywordsList

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-12fe-4cad-a1b2-525fa776c07e].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-12fe-4cad-a1b2-525fa776c07e is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary.
Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskListInstances, HelpDeskTasks

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-3b2a-4838-8a0c-57ba864feed3].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-3b2a-4838-8a0c-57ba864feed3 is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary.
Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskListInstances

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-97c5-4487-88e4-70fde8f79b25].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-97c5-4487-88e4-70fde8f79b25 is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary.
Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskListInstances, HelpDeskSupportFaqList

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-70e3-40b1-b395-c06f85d0d158].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-70e3-40b1-b395-c06f85d0d158 is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary.
Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskExpertsList, HelpDeskListInstances

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-e63b-4059-8f5a-ce9cbbadad2a].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-e63b-4059-8f5a-ce9cbbadad2a is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary.
Category        : MissingFeature - HelpDeskListInstances

Error           : True

UpgradeBlocking : False

Message         : Database [MOSS_ContentDB] has reference(s) to a missing featu

                  re: Id = [75a0fea7-d31d-491a-9177-f0e461a81e3f].

Remedy          : The feature with Id 75a0fea7-d31d-491a-9177-f0e461a81e3f is r

                  eferenced in the database [MOSS_ContentDB], but is not instal

                  led on the current farm. The missing feature may cause upgrad

                  e to fail. Please install any solution which contains the fea

                  ture and restart upgrade if necessary

There will also be some MissingSetupFile - Need to install messages as well.

Resolution

The following solution is to get existing sites working. To create new sites using the fab 40 templates, you may download and install the 2010 upgraded versions

I would recommend starting from a blank site template to build a tailored solution instead of using these templates due to the issues we've had modifying and upgrading them

See my earlier post on sealed columns

The solution is to copy and then install the missing features

Copy the erroring feature folders from the 12 hive on the 2007 server to the 14 hive on the 2010 server

...\12\template\features
...\14\template\features
The ones we copied were: HelpDeskExpertsList, HelpDeskInIssuesList, HelpDeskListInstances, HelpDeskModules, HelpDeskServiceRequestsList, HelpDeskSupportFaqList, HelpDeskTasks, HelpLibrary

Install the features on the 2010 server from PowerShell (SharePoint 2010 Management Shell)

Ex: install-spfeature -path "helpdeskservicerequestslist"

Do this for each of the folders copied earlier

Android: Upload documents, images, list items, or metadata to SharePoint

2012-02-15T17:41:00.000-08:00

Scenario

You are developing an Android OS application on an Android tablet or Android phone and need to upload a document or photo to a SharePoint list or library.

Issues

NTLM authentication is not natively supported
SOAP protocal is difficult to implement
REST interface is limited
Need to batch upload multiple documents and set metadata while reducing bandwidth
Need to thread multiple uploads

Resolution

Kiefer Consulting, Inc. has experienced SharePoint and Mobile development teams that can help address these issues.

User Profile properties from a User or Group Column

2012-02-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

Scenario

You have user profile properties (Company, Role, Contact Info, etc.) in a user's SharePoint profile. You have a People Picker (User or Group) Field in a list and select that user. You would also like the selected user's profile properties to be automatically saved to columns in the list.

Issue

You cannot do this out of the box.

Resolution

Kiefer Consulting, Inc. has developed a custom workflow that will allow you to do this.
Contact me if you need this.