Share Point Developer Blog

Remove / Hide the "Approval" and "Collect Feedback" workflow in the "Start a New Workflow" page.

2010-04-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

Solution : Go to : Shared Service Administrator > Site Setting > Site Content Type Gallery > Site Content Type,

Select 'Document' or that content type where you want to remove 'Approval' or 'Collect Feedback' OOB Workflows.

Click 'WorkFlow Settings' > remove the 'Approval' and 'Collect Feedback'

It is recommended to create your own site content type to do this otherwise all those document libraries will be affected which have that content type.

Deploying a User Control in MOSS 2007 with Feature

2010-02-05T02:01:00.000-08:00

To deploy our user control, Follow below given steps,
 Copy the user controls ascx and cs into directory
~\12\template\controltemplates
Need to create two file Feature.xml and Control.xml

Feature.xml
—————–
#?xml version="1.0″ encoding="utf-8″ ?#
#Feature Id="Generate New GUID"
Title="UserControlTest"
Scope="Farm"
Description="UserControlTest"
Version="1.0.0.0"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"
Hidden="FALSE"#
#ElementManifests#
#ElementManifest Location="control.xml" /#
#/ElementManifests#
#/Feature#

You can define you feature scope in xml attribute 'Scope'.Here we are using farm level for this feature.

control.xml
—————–
#?xml version="1.0″ encoding="utf-8″ ?#
#Elements xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"#
#Control Id="UserControlTest"
Controlsrc="~/_controltemplates/ UserControlTest.ascx" Sequence="90″#
#/Control#
#/Elements#

Create a folder to keep these xml files
~\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\#Folder Name#

Copy the both files feature and control in the above location
~\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\#Folder Name#\Feature.xml
~\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\#Folder Name#\control.xml

Now use stsadm to register feature
stsadm -o installfeature -filename CustomQuickLaunch\Feature.xml

Now Open the aspx page on which you want to deploy the control in SharePoint designer add this where you want to deploy the control

#SharePoint:DelegateControl ControlId="UserControlTest" runat="server"##/SharePoint:DelegateControl#

Custom Workflow in SharePoint (Sharepoint Designer Vs Visual Studio)

2010-02-05T01:57:00.000-08:00

Using SharePoint Designer	Using Visual Studio

Can write only sequential workflows.	Can write both sequential and state machine workflows.
Automatic deployment against the specific list or library against which workflow is being designed.	Can be deployed as a feature.
Logic is defined declaratively using Steps which comprises of Conditions and Actions	Logic could be defined through custom code written using C# or VB.NET.
Workflows could be associated to a specific list or library.	Workflow can be authored as Template which once deployed could be associated with any list or library.
Workflow modifications not possible.	Workflow modifications are possible using Modification forms built using ASP.NET or InfoPath form.
Workflow markup, rules all are stored as a document library on the site.	Workflows are compiled as an .NET assembly.
Can’t be debugged.	Debugging is possible using Visual Studio.

View a detailed error in sharepoint

2009-12-30T21:50:00.000-08:00

To View a detailed error in sharepoint, you need to follow below steps in your site’s web.config file .

Step 1: Change 'CallStack' value from false to true in SafeMode attribute as shown below.
[SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="false" .../]
To
[SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="true" .../]

Step2: Change 'customErrors' tag mode from ‘On’ to ‘Off’.
[customErrors mode="On" /]
To
[customErrors mode="Off" /]

Step3: Change 'Debug' from 'false' to 'true' in 'Compilation' attribute.
[compilation batch="false" debug="false"]
To
[compilation batch="false" debug="true"]

Step 4: Restart the IIS.

An error has occurred after workflow completed MOSS 2007

2009-09-29T03:48:00.000-07:00

If you have a "built in" or custom approval workflow setup for your document library. The workflow runs correctly, however sometimes you look at the workflow status, you may receive an error after the task has been approved and completed such as,
Event Type: Error User ID: System Account Description: An error has occurred in [your workflow name].
Resolution: There is a section "Post-completion Workflow Activities", where you can check "Update the approval status (use this workflow to control content approval)". If you check this option, and you do NOT have content approval enabled on the library level, you get the system account error message. If you do not check it, everything works fine.

Most common problems in SharePoint naming: spaces

2009-09-03T03:58:00.000-07:00

When I did create a workflow action, Using SharePoint Designer 2007, which emails the URL of the current item in a list. I did use below lookup items in my workflow mail
1-[%LISTNAME: Encoded Absolute URL %]
2-[%LISTNAME: Server Relative URL%]
3-[%LISTNAME: URL Path %]
4-[%LISTNAME: Path %]

There is one problem which will always occur and another which may occur, depending upon the naming convention you use for your lists.

Problem 1: ID number pulled from URL actions are appended with "_.000" in case 1, 2 and 3.
Problem 2: In case 4, Spaces within list names are sometimes ignored, sometimes not. i.e. "My Test List" could be translated into "My Test %20List" - causing a 404 error during the URL lookup.

Solution: Here I am solving problem 2. It works for me. According this,

You need to rename your lists to contain no spaces. Now this would seem easy to do - enter your list settings, go to Title, description and navigation, and change the name. This will not work as it seems to only change a pointer for SharePoint references, but not anything that has to do with URL paths.

You need to rename the list itself within SharePoint Designer to have one single list name. Right-click on the selected list, select "rename" and rename the list to something without spaces. SharePoint Designer will save this information to your SharePoint site and references in all attached workflows will reflect these changes.

Basically this changes internal name of list. Now you can rename list name again from SharePoint list setting, go to Title, description and navigation, and change the name, if you need to display list title with space to all.

Error "401 Unauthorized" For MOSS FBA

2009-09-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

When you have SharePoint Server 2007 implementation with Form Based Authentication (FBA) and anonymous access turned on you may experience 401 Unauthorized when you visit the site like http://xxxxxx/sites123/pages123/default.aspx

Look into your web.config file for Web Application that you extended to use FBA for *compilation* tag and edit it to make it look like below. Save the web.config and give it a run.

*compilation batch="false" debug="false" /*
Note: Please replace * (Blogger not support HTML tagging)

And also when you visit the URL could you please check which Zone does the site belong to in the IE status bar?
I suppose the URL belongs to the Local Intranet Zone or Trusted Sites which automatically log on with your current Windows credential. If your windows credential does not have the permission to access the site, you would get 401 Unauthorized error. If so, please remove the sites from the Local Intranet Zone or Trusted Sites and try again.

Hope it will help !! :-)

Change SharePoint 'Document library/List' Column width

2009-08-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we need to change default column width of document library/list.To change sharepoint document library/list column we need to add a content editor webpart on that perticular page and need to write below code as javascript script. (use below code within javascript tag)

_spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push("ModifiyCommentWidth");
function ModifiyCommentWidth() {
for (var i = 0, l = document.getElementsByTagName("TH").length; i < l; i++) { var thisTH = document.getElementsByTagName("TH")[i]; if (thisTH.className == 'ms-vh2-nograd') { if (thisTH.innerText == 'Comments') {
thisTH.style.width = "300px";
}
}

Please ensure tag name before use this line of code because this is not same for all. This is working in my case but you need to update tag names accordingly.

ListTemplateId for Event List

2009-08-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

GenericList 100
DocumentLibrary 101
Survey 102
Links 103
Announcements 104
Contacts 105
Events 106
Tasks 107
DiscussionBoard 108
PictureLibrary 109

Events = Calendar = 106

Workflow Status Fields Named/Value Pairs

2009-08-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

Not Started 0
Failed on Start 1
In Progress 2
Error Occurred 3
Canceled 4
Completed 5
Failed on Start (retrying) 6
Error Occurred (retrying) 7
Canceled 15
Approved 16
Rejected 17

Programmatically Upload a file from Local path to sharepoint document library [c#]

2009-06-10T02:39:00.001-07:00

Here code is using FileUpload control to get a file from local system path.After getting this local file path ,below is code which helps to add this file to sharepoint document library.

/*Function ‘isFileExist’ use to get local file path as 'sourceFilePath' and document library path as 'targetDocumentLibraryPath' it calls function 'UploadFile' to upload sourceFile in targetDocumentLibrary.*/

public void isFileExist()
{
if(_fileUpload.HasFile)
{
string sourceFilePath = _fileUpload.PostedFile.FileName.ToString();
sourceFilePath = sourceFilePath.Replace("%20", " ");
sourceFilePath = sourceFilePath.Replace('\\', '/');
string targetDocumentLibraryPath = string.Empty;
using (SPSite osite = new SPSite(SiteURL))
{
targetDocumentLibraryPath = osite.Url + DocLibName + "/";
}
targetDocumentLibraryPath = targetDocumentLibraryPath.Replace("%20", " ");
targetDocumentLibraryPath = targetDocumentLibraryPath.Replace('\\', '/');
SPFile _File = UploadFile( _fileUpload.FileName, sourceFilePath, targetDocumentLibraryPath);
}
}

/*Function ‘UploadFile’ takes file from local system as a stream and add this stream to sharepoint document library.*/

public SPFile UploadFile(string fileName, string srcUrl, string destUrl)
{
if (!File.Exists(srcUrl))
{
throw new ArgumentException(String.Format("{0} does not exist", srcUrl), "srcUrl");
}
SPWeb site = new SPSite(destUrl).OpenWeb();
FileStream fStream = File.OpenRead(srcUrl);
byte[] contents = new byte[fStream.Length];
fStream.Read(contents, 0, (int)fStream.Length);
fStream.Close();
SPFile uploadedFile = site.Folders[destUrl].Files.Add(destUrl + fileName, contents);
return uploadedFile;
}

Difference between methods SPListItem.Update() and SPListItem.SystemUpdate()

2009-05-26T01:57:00.000-07:00

There are two methods provided by SharePoint object model to update a list item.
i) Update()
ii) SystemUpdate().
Both are working fine to update a list but there is some difference between both methods. Let’s see

SPListItem.Update () : Updates the database with changes made to the list item.

SPList list = web.Lists["myList"];
SPListItem item = list.Items[0];
item["myField"] = "my value";
item.Update();

This works fine and update particular list item. Basically this is creating new version of that list item. It update ‘Modified’ and ‘Modified by’ value as well.
But in some cases where no need to create new version of list item like during migration or some where there is no need to update modified date and modified by. For that situation function ‘SystemUpdate()’ works fine.

SPListItem.SystemUpdate () : Updates the database with changes made to the list item, without effecting changes in the Modified or Modified By fields.

SPList list = web.Lists["myList"];
SPListItem item = list.Items[0];
item["myField"] = "my value";
item.SystemUpdate();

SystemUpdate method ignore changing modified date and modifier fields.
item.SystemUpdate(false);
If Argument 'false' use with this method than it tells that no new versions are expected.

Sending mail in SharePoint [c# ]

2009-05-18T02:53:00.000-07:00

We can send mail to any where with the help of c# custom code. Below given code use setting from ‘Outgoing e-mail setting’. This is out of box functionality of SharePoint. Therefore before using this code, configure this from Central Administration.

Libraries which you have to add above the code.
using System.Net.Mail;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;

Below code shows functionality to send mail.

public void SendMail()
{
try
{
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPGlobalAdmin globAdmin = new Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPGlobalAdmin();
MailMessage objEmail = new MailMessage(FromMail, ToMail,Subject,Body);
objEmail.IsBodyHtml = true;
objEmail.Priority = MailPriority.Normal;
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient(globAdmin.OutboundSmtpServer);
smtp.Send(objEmail);
}
catch
{
throw;
}
}

Using browser enable Infopath form as a class [C#]

2009-04-10T05:04:00.000-07:00

I was facing a problem when I had needed a dot net utility to get data from browser enable InfoPath form and save this to another custom list. These steps and code will help to use an browser enable InfoPath form as a Dot Net class.
For using browser enable InfoPath as a class first you need to follow these steps,
 Create a browser enable InfoPath Form.
 Save it’s source file by selecting ‘Save As Source Files…’.

After click ‘Save As Source Files…’, you need to provide path to save this form schema on your location. You can check that ‘MySchema.xsd’ will also one of all files saved on your provided path.
Now Go to Start Menu -> All Programs ->Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 -> Visual Studio Tools ->Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt

It will display Visual Studio Command prompt. Now navigate to your folder where you have save you InfoPath form schema (MySchema.xsd).

Now you need to run command

Xsd.exe /c /l:CS myschema.xsd

Remember that source infopath form will be closed before executing this command.It will create “myschema.cs” in same folder. This class will look like this…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
using System.Xml.Serialization;

//
// This source code was auto-generated by xsd, Version=2.0.50727.42.
//

///
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true, Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/myXSD/2008-04-09T04:39:44")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/myXSD/2008-04-09T04:39:44", IsNullable=false)]
public partial class myFields {

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you can use all properties of class ‘myFields’.

Now as per requirement, Suppose there is a document library (Suppose _doclib) where all infopath forms has saved.Let take a item (Suppose ID = 1) of that library.

C# Code:

SPListItem item = _doclib.Items.GetItemById(1);
SPFile InfoPathFile = item.File;
if (InfoPathFile != null)
{
Stream inStream = InfoPathFile.OpenBinaryStream(SPOpenBinaryOptions.None);
XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(inStream);
myFields objForm = (myFields)DeserializeFile(InfoPathFile, typeof(myFields));
}
protected static object DeserializeFile(SPFile myFile, Type myType)
{
MemoryStream fileStream = new MemoryStream(myFile.OpenBinary());
XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(fileStream);
XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(myType);
return serializer.Deserialize(reader);
}

Now ‘objForm’ will have all values of that perticular infopath form.just use this objForm and enjoy…