SharePoint Kings

CAML Designer for SharePoint 2013

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 04:36:00 +0000

If you've been using U2U CAML query builder for SharePoint 2003, MOSS 2010 and SharePoint 2010, you must be looking for the same builder also for SharePoint 2013.

Here is a great new CAML builder with lot of new features as well as some ready snippets for server side object model, client side object model and JavaScript object model as well.

Check the below link.

CAML Designer 2013

I hope this will help.

ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded not executing

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 04:59:00 +0000

If at any point of time you are using ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded in a page or specifically in a publishing page and finding it not working, there is a strong chance that you need to replace this function with other function called SP.SOD.executeFunc.

In SharePoint 2013, the correct way to execute function after script is loaded is to use SP.SOD class and not ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded.

If its ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded({functionname}, "sp.js");

then replace it with

SP.SOD.executeFunc('sp.js', 'SP.ClientContext', {functionname});

This will also come handy specially when a user who has read / view only access the site where sp.js refuses to load when ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded is used.

Enable Sign in as Different User Option in SharePoint 2013

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 07:23:00 +0000

Hello,

In this post we are going to see how to enable the sign in as different user option in SharePoint 2013. Till SharePoint 2010 this option was by default available but in SharePoint 2013 for some reason this has been not visible by default.

so if you want this option to be available then you need to add following line of code to the welcome.ascx which is located at :\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web ServerExtensions\15\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES.

Add this to the welcome.ascx file. But a note to consider, please take the backup of the welcome.ascx file before you attempt this step.

<SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" ID="ID_LoginAsDifferentUser" Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuser%>" Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuserdescription%>" MenuGroupId="100" Sequence="100" UseShortId="true" />

And then you should have the sign in as different user option available.

Promoted Links in SharePoint 2013

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 13:57:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see one of the new features in SP 2013 which is promoted links. Promoted links are new concept through which you can promote your links on various pages. The classic example would be the one that you see default on the page like below.

When you hover over a image it shows you a nice animation and description about that image - link. When you click on that link it takes you to the page where URL is defined where to navigate.

You do not need to anything special here to have that mouse hover effect. SP 2013 now comes with a brand new template called promoted links as a list template.

So let us create one list with the template promoted links and see what all fields are available which makes promoted links one of the cool features.

Click on add an app from gear icon. Remember now every list and library is called app in SP 2013 love it or not.

You will find promoted links template. Click on the template to create one.

Give name.

You will find two views created default. One where you can see a list with fields and values and other as a actual tile interface which looks like the first image which we have in this post.

As you can see you have various options to set. You can also set the launch behaviour while creating list item. I have it for Bing, Google and for Yahoo. After adding values into the list items and going to the tiles page give us a look like what we wanted.

As you can see you do not have to do any other settings. All the effect like displaying text in animated format when you hover the mouse is taken care by SharePoint itself.

I hope this helps.

Get Installed languages in SharePoint

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 04:22:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can get all the installed languages for the site in SharePoint. This is especially useful when you have various language packs installed in the site.

I am going to create a simple console application. The code will also runs the same in SharePoint WSP solutions as well.

Here is a simple code in console application and the result when you run that.

If in your language settings you only have English selected, you would get only one language. so Its not about how many languages are available, it's about how many languages you have selected and allowed to be selected by user from the menu option.

I also would like to show you how you can get the same using PowerShell.

Open up SharePoint management shell and write down these steps. You are good to go.

I hope this helps.

Managed Metadata for localization

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:27:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how managed metadata term store can be useful while considering localization in the form of values shown in the list and library item if the field type is of managed metadata.

To see this first we are going to create a managed term store data in English and then we are going to create the same term values in Spanish values.

open up your site and go to site settings and locate term store management under site administration.

Best way to test this is import the sample file that comes default.

Click on managed metadata and then click on new group. and give name CountryTS

Keep English as the selected language from language option in menu Now click on the CountryTS group and click on add term set give name Countries. Click on countries and click on add new term and add these three countries.

Now Change the language to Spanish

To test we will just change the text and add Spanish at the end. So after changing it would look something like this.

Now in any of the list go to the list settings. Click on create column and add the field with the name countries. Type should be managed metadata and then select countries from the term store list.

Add couple of entires.

Now it should be like this

Now change the language from English to Spanish

and see the result

As you can see that it automatically changes the text based on the language selected from menu and it automatically pick up corresponding values from term store.

I hope this helps.

InfoPath forms for list views

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 15:26:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can design different InfoPath forms for different views for SharePoint list.

We will consider one list and we will customize the list in InfoPath form. Many times we may have a requirement of showing different InfoPath form when you are viewing an item than when you are inserting or editing an item. Usually on view form you do not need any validation controls to be a prt of form when the form is customized in InfoPath.

When you are inserting an item or editing an existing item, you need a rules that may be applied to a textbox which shows and hides some error or validation messages.

We will take very simple scenario of one single line of text and one choice column in the list. We will customize that form in InfoPath. What we essentially want is we will give some instruction below the control on InfoPath form to indicate what is expected from user from that control input.

This will be a plain text that we will write because we do not have a label control as such in InfoPath. We also do not want to have textbox control inserted as we are not working with any rules validation.

This example will clearly highlight how we can define different InfoPath form for various view.

I have a list with two columns. Default title and country with choice column.

Now I am going to click on customize this list in InfoPath from ribbon.

When it opens up, write down some instruction below title and country.

and then publish the form. Once published, open up the list and create couple of items in it.

Now observe that as we have written some instruction below the controls, it appears when we insert or edit the item.

Now let's view an item.

As you can see that this experience is not what we require. Why would user be shown the same instruction when user is just viewing an item.

What we have to do first is create a replica of the entire edit form first and create a new view for the list in InfoPath.

So click on new view and give view a name.

Copy everything from edit item view of InfoPath and paste it on the new view that we just created. Remove the instruction this time.

Publish the form.

Now click on the form web parts option from ribbon

Now click on Item Display form option

Once you click on it, you will get this on the page

Now edit the web part and select the view to view item.

Click apply, ok and then stop editing.

Now click on any of the item in the list to view it.

and see the difference.

I hope this helps.

Get selected list / document items from SharePoint Ribbon

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 11:00:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can get selected list / document items from our customized ribbon control.

We may have a requirement to process multiple selected items and then take user to another page for further processing or process the items on another page and then show some messages to the user based on the processing statuses.

If you have not gone through the series of customizing Ribbon from SharePoint Kings, I would recommend you reading the entire series first and then continue reading from here on.

We are going to take an example of document library.

First open up the project and add the empty element file to the project.

Pay proper attention to what we are doing in this element file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Elements > <CustomAction Id="NewItemCustomization" Location="CommandUI.Ribbon" RegistrationId="101" RegistrationType="List" Title="New Item Customization"> <CommandUIExtension> <CommandUIDefinitions> <CommandUIDefinition Location="Ribbon.Documents.Manage.Controls._children"> <Button Id="ListItemButton" Image16by16="/_layouts/images/CustomImages/Select16.png" Image32by32="/_layouts/images/CustomImages/Select32.png" Command="ListItemCommand" Description="Process Selected List Items" LabelText="Process List Items" TemplateAlias="o2" Sequence="81"/> </CommandUIDefinition> </CommandUIDefinitions> <CommandUIHandlers> <CommandUIHandler Command="ListItemCommand" CommandAction="[removed]avascript: function dialogCallback(dialogResult, returnValue){ SP.UI.Notify.addNotification(returnValue); SP.UI.ModalDialog.RefreshPage(SP.UI.DialogResult.OK); } var selectedItems = SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedItems(); var selectedItemIds = ''; var selectedItemIndex; for (selectedItemIndex in selectedItems){ selectedItemIds += '|' + selectedItems[selectedItemIndex].id; } var dialogOptions = { url: '/sites/SharePointSite/_layouts/MetadataSiteColumn/ProcessSelectedDocuments.aspx?selectedItems=' +selectedItemIds +'&ListId=' +SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedList(), title: 'Set Document Prefix', allowMaximize: false, showClose: false, width:500, height:400, dialogReturnValueCallback: dialogCallback }; SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog(dialogOptions);" /> </CommandUIHandlers> </CommandUIExtension> </CustomAction> </Elements>

First we are targeting our customization to the manage group in the document selection under documents tab. Hence we have taken up Ribbon.Documents.Manage.Controls._children as location.

Next we have defined the button with 16 by 16 image and the image is placed under the layouts folder. We have chosen the default alias for template and a sequence number.

This will give us a result like this.

The important action here is what happens when the button is clicked.

We have define the entire JavaScript inside the element file itself.

In that first we have defined one function.

function dialogCallback(dialogResult, returnValue){

SP.UI.Notify.addNotification(returnValue);

SP.UI.ModalDialog.RefreshPage(SP.UI.DialogResult.OK);

}

This will make sure that when we get a result back from the application page which we will built shortly we display a message as a part of notification as well as we refresh the parent page.

then we take the selected documents. The procedure is same also for the list items. We need to use SP.ListOperations.Selection and then call getSelectedItems() to get all the selected items.

Once we get the items we need to separate them by some separator. So in this example, we have taken pipeline character. We will then process this items and split them in application page code.

var selectedItems = SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedItems();

var selectedItemIds = '';

var selectedItemIndex;

for (selectedItemIndex in selectedItems){

selectedItemIds += '|' + selectedItems[selectedItemIndex].id;

}

Then we are actually opening up an application page and pass on the selecteditems string that we built in prior function. we are also registering the dialogue call back function which is the first function in our code which will refresh the parent page and shows a message as a part of notification.

another point to observe we also get the list name from another method called getSelectedList.

var dialogOptions = {

url: '/sites/SharePointSite/_layouts/MetadataSiteColumn/ProcessSelectedDocuments.aspx?selectedItems='

+selectedItemIds +'&ListId=' +SP.ListOperation.Selection.getSelectedList(),

title: 'Set Document Prefix',

allowMaximize: false,

showClose: false,

width:500,

height:400,

dialogReturnValueCallback: dialogCallback

};

So far so good. Time to create one application page. Right click your project and then add application page as new item.

So in application page code behind, we will first take a List object of type list items and then we will add to this object our list items that we get from query string. We will bind them to a classic datalist control of asp.net. But we will make sure that we do it in inputformsection.

In another Input form section we then have one textbox on the application page. What we are planning to do is we will ask user to enter document prefix and then we will process our documents and add a prefix to them.

We will have button section and a button which will does this processing of adding prefix to the documents.

Finally we will have a method which will do a magic trick of adding a method called ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded to the additional page head of master page and register the method which will close the application page with commonModalDialogClose method.

Here is the class code

public partial class ProcessSelectedDocuments : LayoutsPageBase { List<SPListItem> _selectedListItems = new List<SPListItem>(); protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e) { // Get all the selected documents. string ListGUID = Request.QueryString["ListId"]; SPList selectedDocumentLibrary = SPContext.Current.Web.Lists[new Guid( ListGUID )]; string[] selectedItems = Request.QueryString["selectedItems"].ToString().Split('|'); for (int index = 1; index < selectedItems.Length; index++) { _selectedListItems.Add( selectedDocumentLibrary.GetItemById( int.Parse(selectedItems[index])) ); } // Bind to the repeater. SelectedDocumentsDataList.DataSource = _selectedListItems; SelectedDocumentsDataList.DataBind(); } protected void OnClickSetPrefixButton(object sender, EventArgs e) { foreach (SPListItem listItem in _selectedListItems) { listItem["Name"] = DocumentPrefixTextBox.Text + " " + listItem.File.Name; listItem.Update(); } CloseDialogOnSuccess(); } private void CloseDialogOnSuccess() { ContentPlaceHolder pageHead = this.Master.FindControl("PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead") as ContentPlaceHolder; if (pageHead != null) pageHead.Controls.Add( new LiteralControl("[removed]ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(closeDialog,'sp.js');function closeDialog(){ SP.UI.ModalDialog.commonModalDialogClose(SP.UI.DialogResult.OK, 'Prefix assigned to selected documents.');}[removed]")); } }

and here is the application page aspx

<%@ Assembly Name="$SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$" %> <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages" %> <%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> <%@ Register Tagprefix="Utilities" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> <%@ Register Tagprefix="asp" Namespace="System.Web.UI" Assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" %> <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %> <%@ Assembly Name="Microsoft.Web.CommandUI, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="ProcessSelectedDocuments.aspx.cs" Inherits="MetadataSiteColumn.Layouts.MetadataSiteColumn.ProcessSelectedDocuments" DynamicMasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master" %> <%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="InputFormSection" Src="~/_controltemplates/InputFormSection.ascx" %> <%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="InputFormControl" src="~/_controltemplates/InputFormControl.ascx" %> <%@ Register TagPrefix="wssuc" TagName="ButtonSection" Src="~/_controltemplates/ButtonSection.ascx" %> <asp:Content ID="PageHead" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderAdditionalPageHead" runat="server"> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="Main" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderMain" runat="server"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td> <wssuc:InputFormSection runat="server" Title="Selected Documents" Description="The following documents have been selected to have the specified prefix added to their titles."> <Template_InputFormControls> <tr> <td> <asp:DataList ID="SelectedDocumentsDataList" runat="server" RepeatColumns="2" CellPadding="2" CellSpacing="5"> <ItemTemplate><li><%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "File.Name").ToString()%></li></ItemTemplate> </asp:DataList> </td> </tr> </Template_InputFormControls> </wssuc:InputFormSection> <wssuc:InputFormSection runat="server" Title="Document Prefix" Description="Prefix to add to the selected document titles."> <Template_InputFormControls> <wssuc:InputFormControl LabelText="Prefix to add to the selected documents:" runat="server"> <Template_control> <asp:TextBox ID="DocumentPrefixTextBox" runat="server" /> </Template_control> </wssuc:InputFormControl> </Template_InputFormControls> </wssuc:InputFormSection> <wssuc:ButtonSection runat="server" ShowStandardCancelButton="FALSE" TopButtons="TRUE"> <Template_Buttons> <asp:Button ID="SetPrefixButton" class="ms-ButtonHeightWidth" runat="server" Text="Set Prefix"> <asp:Button ID="CancelButton" class="ms-ButtonHeightWidth" runat="server" Text="Cancel"> </Template_Buttons> </wssuc:ButtonSection> </td> </tr> </table> </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="PageTitle" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server"> Application Page </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="PageTitleInTitleArea" ContentPlaceHolderID="PlaceHolderPageTitleInTitleArea" runat="server" > My Application Page </asp:Content>

Time to deploy the application and test it.

Once the solution is deployed, open up a document library. Select couple of documents as shown in image below.

Click on process list items button.

It will show up the selected documents name and a textbox to enter the text that will be appended as a prefix.

I entered test and click on ok on model dialog application page. The model application page closes and a notification is shown on parent page and finally prefix gets applied.

I hope this helps.

Localize site columns, features and web parts

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 05:34:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can localize site columns as well as features.

First let us focus on the site columns.

Create empty SharePoint project.

Now right click on project and click on add mapped folder and add resource folder.

Now again click on add new item by right clicking on resource folder and select resource file.

Add these two values

Now add one more resource file for Spanish language. add es-es to the file name as shown in the image below and add below entries.

Now it's time to create empty element where we would be adding the site columns.

Right click on project and add empty element.

Add this to the empty element.

Build and deploy the solution

One thing to consider here is that you need to have language packs installed on the server.

Go to the site settings and site columns. Right now we are with English language.

Change the language to Spanish

As you can see that column title gets converted to the Spanish language.

We already have a feature with us which has site columns element file. Our sole purpose is just to show how features can also be localized. Now right click the feature and click on add feature resource.

Select Spanish from long list of languages.

And add these texts

and then add this to the web part properties

When you have set the language to English, this is what you get

Switch language to Spanish.

Let us add one web part. After that open the same LocalizedSiteColumn.resx under resource folder and add this.

now open the Spanish resource file and add this

Now open the web part file and change the title and description to point it to resource file.

This will also localize the web parts. I hope this helps.

SharePointKings.com is SharePointKings.blogspot.in

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 17:21:00 +0000

Dear SharePointKings Readers,

Due to some technical problems with www.SharePointKings.com, we are shifted to http://sharepointkings.blogspot.in/

Keep reading and visiting http://sharepointkings.blogspot.in/

We apologize for inconvenience caused.

Thank you,
SharePointKings team

Search From Recycle bin

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 03:58:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can search from recycle bin. Now out of the box there is no way to search an item from recycle bin and restore it.

The problem is when we have a lot of items in the recycle bin we need to page through and then find that item and then restore it.

Well there is a PowerShell that can come to rescue.

Here are simple steps to perform in PowerShell to find and restore the item.

$spSite= Get-SPSite $site

$web = $spSite.OpenWeb()

$files = $web.RecycleBin | ?{$_.Title -match “tst”}

foreach ($file in $files)

{

Write-Host “Found $($file.Title)”

$web.RecycleBin.Restore($file.ID)

Write-Host “Restored $($file.Title)”

}

The script is pretty self explanatory. Get the site and then web object. Then take the recycle bin. It is first stage recycle bin. You can also take the second stage recycle bin from site object as well.

Then just search for item from recycle bin with title property. The above code returns all the items from recycle bin which has a tst as a match and then calls restore method to restore it to their respective locations.

If you know the exact name of an item, you can write that and that specific item will be restored. See the advantage, you do not need to search from pages by paging through them if you have huge amount of items residing in recycle bin.

I hope this helps.

Customize Access Denied Page

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 04:00:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can customize the access denied page in SharePoint. Many times we wish we could display some other friendly message than the one displayed by default.

First we need to understand that this is a page under layouts folder.

So we also need to create an application page. Open a project and add an item. Select application page as an item to add.

Now go to the layouts folder under template in 14 hive.

Locate accessdenied.aspx

Open the file in notepad.

Copy the HTML from the accessdenied to our customaccessdenied page.

As of not to test that we are in a right path, build the project and deploy the solution to the SharePoint site.

Once deployed, check that it is deployed to layouts folder and then open the site and in URL type _layouts/customaccessdeniedpage.aspx

Change two contents like this and then we will deploy again to see that changes are reflected.

Deploy the solution and check the page again.

As you can see changes are reflected.

But now the question is how we can actually bind this page to Web Application so that on access denied error is taken to this page and not to the default access denied page.

Here is a powershell command for this. Execute this and check the access denied. You should be good to go.

$site = get-spsite "site url"
	$webApp = $site.WebApplication

	$webapp.UpdateMappedPage(1, "/_layouts/CustomAccessDeniedPage.aspx")

	$webapp.Update()

1 refers to the access denied page as per the enumeration defined in SPCustomPage. Same way there are enumerations also for the logout, sing in page etc.

If you want to roll back changes, then

	$webapp.UpdateMappedPage(1, $null)

$webapp.Update()

Just remember that this settings can only be done at web application level and not to the site collection level.

Creating a flyout menu in SharePoint 2010

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 14:37:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can create a fly out menu and add it to the site actions menu. Thing to note is I have shown this for site actions menu. It can simply be added to any other place like edit control block just by changing the appropriate text inside element file like location attribute.

First we need to create a class which inherits from control class -System.Web.UI.Controls.

Then we need to override the createchilecontrols method.

You can do this simply by adding class to the existing project and then inherit from control and then override the method. Here is a code that I have written.

What we are doing is first we are instantiating a class SubMenuTemplate. That means this will be added as the main menu item that will appear under Site Actions.

Then we define MenuItemTemplate that will be the sub menu to the parent which is SubMenuTemplate in our case.

public class FlyoutMenu : Control

{

protected override void CreateChildControls()

{

SPWeb site = SPContext.Current.Web;

SubMenuTemplate SubMenuTmplt = new SubMenuTemplate();

SubMenuTmplt.ID = "CustomSubMenu";

SubMenuTmplt.Text = "SPKings Menu Control";

SubMenuTmplt.Description = "Custom Flyout Menu";

SubMenuTmplt.MenuGroupId = 1;

SubMenuTmplt.Sequence = 1;

MenuItemTemplate MenuItemTmp1 = new MenuItemTemplate();

MenuItemTmp1.ID = "FlyoutMenu1";

MenuItemTmp1.Text = "SPKings Menu Item 1";

MenuItemTmp1.Description = "This is customized fly out menu item 1";

MenuItemTmp1.Sequence = 1;

MenuItemTmp1.ClientOnClickNavigateUrl = site.Url ;

// create fly out menu command 2

MenuItemTemplate MenuItemTmp2 = new MenuItemTemplate();

MenuItemTmp2.ID = "FlyoutMenu2";

MenuItemTmp2.Text = "SPKings Menu Item 2";

MenuItemTmp2.Description = "This is customized fly out menu item 1";

MenuItemTmp2.Sequence = 2;

MenuItemTmp2.ClientOnClickNavigateUrl = site.Url ;

// add menu commands to Controls collection of fly out menu

SubMenuTmplt.Controls.Add(MenuItemTmp1);

SubMenuTmplt.Controls.Add(MenuItemTmp2);

// add fly out menu to Controls collection of of menu control

this.Controls.Add(SubMenuTmplt);

}

Make a note that the ClientOnClickNavigateURL is only available to the MenuItemTemplates as they are the last node to be added and can be clicked to perform the actual action. As an example I have used site.URL. In real scenario you can have a web part page or application page set up where you would want user to go.

I have not set the images for the menu items. you can also set that as well by using ImgURL property of both SubMenuTemplate and MenuItemTemplate object.

Once we are done with writing this code, we need to make sure that we add this to the safe controls entry to the project.

Deploy after completing all above step and activate the feature. You should be good to go and should see the new menu available under the Site Action. If you want to change the position of menu being displayed, then just change the sequence property.

Generate word document from list data from SharePoint Designer workflow

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 16:22:00 +0000

In this post I am going to show you how to generate word document in document library from SharePoint list item.

Let's first see what all we will need.

We will first take list with metadata. We also need to have the same metadata with the same field type also in the document library. The number of fields do not matter but what matters is the type of field.

We will create a list item, we will have one workflow which will trigger and then create a document based on the metadata which we filled in list item. Document will have the content from the list item.

We also need to create a document template which has fields from the document library. so when the workflow will trigger, it will set the metadata and based on it document fields gets replaced inside document.

I have one list called orders and here are the fields.

We need to create same fields with same type as site columns so that we can add them to the document content type.

Here are the site columns.

Now we have created custom document content type called orderdocument.

Now we will add previously created site columns to this content type.

So now let's create document library called order documents and add the order document content type that we've created.

Before we move on to creating workflow we need to update our document template with the fields. so go to the library settings. Click on order document content type and you will see the content type screen.

Now click on advance settings.

Click on edit template.

It will open up the blank word template.

Add these text to the document.

Now click on the insert tab from ribbon and find insert document property.

All we have to do now is add respective property against respective label. In real business scenario you may have proper template and then we fill in values in that template.

Save the template.

We are now set writing a workflow on order list. Open up SharePoint designer and connect to the site.

Click on list workflow and click on orders.

Give name to the workflow.

From actions select create a list item.

Click on this list and then select order document.

You will get this window

But you will see that the default content type is selected as document. Select the content type and click on modify and select order document content type.

Now click on add. Select Order Description and then set it to the order description of the list item. Repeat the same for all remaining list items.

you should have something like this.

Now publish the workflow.

Go ahead and add a new item now in orders list. As our workflow is attached to the orders list, it should execute and complete.

See below list item with workflow status as completed.

Now go to the Order documents library.

Click on the document to open it.

and there you go. Sometimes template needs to be in .docx format instead of .dotx. Not sure what is the reason. So try that yourself.

Make Multi select list box required in InfoPath

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 16:25:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can make multi selection list box in InfoPath required field. Now you must be thinking what is the big deal here?

We are going to have one sample list with a look up field which is multi select.

Let's add one item and try without adding any city. Remember this is the list form and not the InfoPath.

Great, this has work perfect.

So let's customize this list in InfoPath. Click customize button from the ribbon.

So now InfoPath has converted the multi select lookup to the multi select list box where you will have checkboxes to select.

Publish the form and click on New now.

Seems okay so far. you can see red asterisk sign which indicates its required field. Let us not selected anything just the title and try to see if it saves the item.

so far so good. Let's select items from the city and save the list item. we should be good to go.

Well this is what I was mentioning. You simply cannot submit even though you have selected the items. Even though red asterisk sign goes away but still no luck.

So we are now going to solve this. First you need to remove the required field from the list to make this a required field. We will have to handle the required field from InfoPath and not from the list field. In InfoPath we have to handle multi select lookup like this.

So I have removed the required validation from city field and republish the form.

as you can see now because required field is removed, the asterisk sign is gone.

Go back to the design InfoPath page. add textbox below the list box control. We are going to add validation for the list box.

Click on manage rules by keeping the selection on text box.

Click on add validation.

Click on condition and then select field drop down, from there select field or group.

Now click on show advanced view. Select value inside the City group and then from drop down select number of occurrences.

UPDATE : USE CONDITION ALL OCCURRENCES ARE BLANK AND NOT NO OF OCCURRENCES <=1. THIS WILL RESOLVE THE ISSUE.

and then less than equal to 1

Right click the textbox and then select property. Set the default text.

Now publish the form. and click on new.

It indicates the required field by red dotted. You can check that by entering title and not selecting any value from the list and then click on save.

As you can see when you select value, the red dotted line goes away which indicates that the condition has been satisfied.

There you go. you now have a required field multi select list box in InfoPath.

UPDATE : The above method will help you when you want to make multi select list box required based on other values / other controls.

However if you want to make it just the required field, then make the following change.

Go to the list settings. go to city field and make it a required field.

Customize the form in InfoPath. Go to the file - form options.

then advanced - edit default values - expand the city node and uncheck the value checkbox.

Now publish the form and you should be good to go.

What happens here is when we add the multi-select list box, InfoPath adds one blank node always in the XML DOM.

so when the field is required, you ideally cannot submit blank value. because one node is blank, InfoPath cannot submit the form and hence we see the message despite of selecting value(s) from the list box.

Implement Cascading drop down in InfoPath

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 16:26:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can have a cascading drop down. Nothing can be simpler than taking an example of classic country, state and cities.

So let's first create these three list and values with lookup values.

First we will have countries list, then a state which will have country lookup and then city which will have a look up to the state list.

For simplicity I am going to take only two three values in country, two three values in state and two three values in the city list.

Here are how I have set up.

Country

State

City

Now we are going to use these into one more list and then customize the list in InfoPath.

I have order list with me and I have three columns each lookup to respective list title field.

Let's customize the list in InfoPath by clicking Customize form on the ribbon button.

So now we have this. Publish the form back to the SharePoint by clicking on quick publish.

Alright now to the point, we have country which has no dependency, then we have state which has dependency on country and finally city which has dependency on state.

So here we do not need to do anything for the country.

Out of the box we will not have this cascading drop downs. We would need to create two more data sources. One for state and one for city.

So let's go ahead and create those two data sources.

Click on manage data connections. you will see something like this.

Click on add. Select Receive data in next screen. Select SharePoint list and library in next screen.

Click on next and select State list. On next screen make sure that you select these three.

and on final screen give a name of the connection and select automatically get the data when the form is opened.

Now we will repeat the same steps for the city. Create a new connection by clicking on Add on manage data connection window.

Repeat the same steps as we did earlier and this time select city list. Give name and add the connection to the form.

So finally I have something like this.

Now it's time to configure the drop down.

Open the InfoPath page and select state drop down and click on property. Change the data source from state to GetStates and then in value tree, instead of Title select ID.

So it will be like this

Same way change it for the city and it should look like this.

So far so good. Let's just preview out form and see that we are doing good so far.

Alright we still have not configured the cascading look up. All the above steps which we performed where necessary and now is the time to set it.

Right click on State drop down and select property.

Select entry xPath.

Click on filter data.

Click add and then select this condition.

When you click select field or group, a window opens up.

Now change from GetStates (secondary) to main data source.

Now from main data source select country.

Click on ok three times and then apply and ok.

Repeat the same step for city but this time make sure that for filter condition you select State equals main data source state.

Alright, give it a go this time and see what happens.

Let's try to preview the form and select Australia as country.

There is one more setting we need to do here to make it 100 percent complete.

Select country drop down. click on manage rules. add new action.

Select set field's value.

Set State drop down to blank. Same way also set city field value to blank by adding one more action for country drop down.

Click on ok.

Repeat the same steps for the state drop down. Select state drop down. click on manage rule. Add action. Set field. Select City and set field value to blank.

We did these steps because when we change the country we need previously selected state and city to get cleared. When we change state drop down we need previously selected cities to get cleared.

You should now be good to go. Enjoy cascading drop down.

Your client does not support opening this list with Windows Explorer

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:12:00 +0000

If you're working on the server operating system and have SharePoint site open, there is a chance that you would like to upload multiple files.

so you think it would be nice if you can open the list in explorer mode and just copy paste the files from your computer.

But when you click on the open with explorer option from ribbon, you get the error message saying your client does not support opening this list with Windows explorer.

Here are steps that you can take.

Enable the desktop experience feature on server. To enable the desktop experience feature, you need to install the feature if not installed.

Open server manager by going into the administrative tools.

Click on add features.

Select desktop experience feature from the list and click on next. Let is install. It will ask you for restart the server. Do a restart to enable that feature. It will resume once you restart and configure itself.

After few minutes, it should be ready.

Now go to the services and then find webclient service. Start the service if it is not.

You will not find WebClient service in the services list if you do not have a desktop feature installed on the server.

Once started, you should be good to go.

Get unique values from SharePoint field

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:51:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can get the unique values from a specific field from SharePoint list.

Method is very simple. All you have to do is use this code and you can get the distinct values from list field.

SPList list = SPContext.Current.Web.Lists[lstGUID];

SPField field = list.Fields.GetField("OrderDate"); //OrderDate is date field. Replace with the field that you want to get unique value of.

object[,] values;
uint numberValues = list.GetDistinctFieldValues(field, out values);

for (int i = 0; i < numberValues; i++)
{
lblValues.Text += values.GetValue(0, i).ToString() + "
";
}

Variables and labels are used only for reference.

GetDistinctFieldValues is a method which gives us unique values that gets stored in the object array which you can iterate and can get the values.

However this method is obsolete. but just in case this can becomes a day saver some time.

Rich text field in document library

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:13:00 +0000

You are working with document library and requirement comes in to add one rich text field in the document library. So go to document library settings and click on add column. Good. Let's go ahead.

Try to add a multi line of text and see what you get when you scroll down and look for rich text. you do not get the option.

Now this is different. Isn't this? When you go ahead and add the same multi line field in list, you get rich text setting options but in document library you do not get this.

Alright let us try something else.

Let us create a site column with multiline text and enhanced rich text.

Go back to the document library and let's add from existing site column.

So now we have the rich text multi line field in our library. so when we upload the document, we should get the RoleDescription metadata property and we should be good to go to add some rich content.

So let us upload a document and see what happens.

No luck. SharePoint converted the rich text to the normal text with multi line.

Even if you create a custom document content type and add site column to that it will not work.

Well then now we need to find out one more route.

So code comes to the rescue here.

Let's add simple code to a web part or event handler or wherever applicable in your case.

The bottom line is to use this code.

and there you go. execute this code. go back to the library, upload document or edit property of existing document and see what happens.

I hope this helps.

Access User profile in Sandbox solution

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 15:18:00 +0000

This post is all about accessing user profile in SharePoint sandbox solution. First let me highlight that you cannot access user profile in sandbox solution because SPUserProfileManager is not allowed to be used inside the sandbox solution.

If you try to use it you will get the build error. So no luck in that front. So question is how do you access user profile? Well, there are people mentioning something about site user information list approach.

So what is this user information list. So it is said that the user information list is the replica of user profile. That means you can access the properties of user and its values using this list.

When the web gets created, the information gets copied from the user profile and then populated to the user information list.

Now the question comes in do you get all the properties and all the values properly for all users? Well to be honest, answer is NO. This is very disappointing.

I have no idea what is the problem with this list. It just does not work. You may find people telling that the user profile synchronization service keeps running and keeps this list updated all the time when the properties or values are updated in user profile. But this does not happen in real.

It's a big disappointing. Especially when you are dealing with developing solutions in cloud (Office 365) and when you are working tenant environment or even you have dedicated plan in office but you simple cannot run anything on the server like PowerShell.

So here is what I encountered. If you add property in user profile and then try to access this list.

You do not get this field at all in the user information list. Come back to central administration ( If you are trying this while in development - forget about this if you are working for Office 365 / SharePoint online solutions). Run all possible timer jobs possible for user profile and you will again run out of luck.

I just don't know how this things have been configured.

When on user profile property, it is clearly written that check the box which says replicable and do other settings. Doing that also does not help. I have tried this on five different environment and it has failed in all five environment. so it's completely not working at all.

It will work only when you forcefully apply two STSADM command. Yes, its STSADM.

When the timer job updates the site collections with the profile properties, it maintains the sync details in a table

Stsadm.exe –o sync –listolddatabases 0

and then

Stsadm.exe –o sync –deleteolddatabases 0

After executing these two commands, go ahead and again run the timer job. After this if you access the list and items, you get the new property as field with values for users.

What is the point of having a solution like this? This just does not work out. I think we all are out of luck accessing user profile in sandbox solution specially if you are dealing with SharePoint online or office 365.

Another option can be accessing the web service to access data of user profile. But you again cannot call web service in SandBox solution. So again we run out of luck.

Visual Web Part in SandBox solution

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Sun, 19 May 2013 10:57:00 +0000

Hi,

If you are creating a sandbox solution let's say for SharePoint online and if you wish you create a visual web part, then you have no choice for that directly.

However you can still download an extension to your Visual Studio 2010 which will allow you to create a visual web part in sandbox environment.

It is called the VS 2010 SharePoint power tool.

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/8e602a8c-6714-4549-9e95-f3700344b0d9

I hope this helps.

Save list as a template and create list from template using PowerShell

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 03:01:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how we can save list as a template that saves it to the list template gallery and then how we can create a new list / library from the template from the saved template earlier.

Here is a simple script that we can write in PowerShell to do that

Here we are saving shared documents library as a template and then creating a library from the saved template.

[xml]$xmlfile = Get-Content ConfigFile.xml

foreach( $sitecoll in $xmlfile.Configuration.SiteCollection)
{
$site = $sitecoll.name
}

$spSite= Get-SPSite $site

$web = $spSite.OpenWeb()

Write-Host -foregroundcolor yellow 'Saving list as a template.....'

$list = $web.GetList("/sites/SharePointSite/Shared Documents/")

$list.SaveAsTemplate("SDWITHDOCSET","SD with DOCSET","Shared Doc with Doc Set",1)

Write-Host -foregroundcolor Green 'Saving list as a template successfully'

Write-Host -foregroundcolor yellow 'Creating documents library from the template...'

$listTemplates = $spSite.GetCustomListTemplates($web)

$web.Lists.Add("SDFromTemplateUsingPS", "", $listTemplates["SD with DOCSET"])

Write-Host -foregroundcolor green 'Creating documents library from the template completed successfully.'

I hope this helps.

Document Set Save as a template problem

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:34:00 +0000

In this post, we are going to see one problem which is not been addressed properly. I think not even from Microsoft in the form of SP1 or even in the form of CU.

Problem is, you have one document library and you have document set in that library with many other documents inside each document set.

The problem is when you save a library as a template with content and when you create a document library based on the template, you can see that the document sets have come. You can even see the icon indicating that these are the document sets. However when you click on the document set, boom!! page not found.

I did not find answer anywhere. Even if you save a web as a template including content and then try to create a web based on the template, you see a strange thing. In the document library, you will find those document set icon as folders not as a icon of the document sets.

Well only thing that I observed is you go ahead and manually edit the properties of those document sets and change the content type to the document set, that will resolve the issue and when you click , you get the welcome page and documents that were there inside the document set while saving site or list as a template.

But this is not a solution. Imaging you have more than 100 libraries and each having more than 50 document sets with each almost 100 documents inside it. !!! Not sure what Microsoft is thinking on this.

If anyone has come across to this and have found proper solution, please do let us know.

Create document set programmatically

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:12:00 +0000

In this post we are going to see how to create a document set in SharePoint programmatically.

To start with we need to activate the feature called document set at the site collection level.

If you would like to know more about document set, then I would recommend you reading Understand Document Set to get a fair idea on what document set is and what it offers.

I have one document library with the name Shared Document. To add document set programmatically, we first need to enable the content types on this library. So go to the library settings, advance settings and enable the allow management of content types.

Now click on add from existing content types.

On the page look for document set content type and add it to the library.

So you should have something like this

Now I am showing this with an example of feature activated event. I have one feature and on activating the feature I am creating a document set programmatically.

Here is a code that you need to write.

Now if you see what we have done here is first we have taken document set content type in to a code from current web. This will not work if you have not activated document set feature at a site collection level.

Document set has properties, so we have set one property - document set description. This needs to be done with HashTable.

Then we are creating a document set by DocumentSet.Create method. To get this done you need to add reference to one DLL and for the HashTable you need to one DLL.

These are the DLLs you need to refer.

using System.Collections;

using Microsoft.Office.DocumentManagement.DocumentSets;

After creating Document Set, the important line of code to note is the ProgId of the item to be set to SharePoint.DocumentSet.

If you do not do this, then all you get is just a folder and not actual document set. You can see the difference in the icon as well as when you click on the folder.

Finally we update the item.

So let's deploy the WSP and activate the feature and see what happens.

See the icon. Icon indicates that this is the document set and not the plain folder. Click on the title.

See the description is also set. You can also set additional properties at the time of creating document set.

I hope this helps.

Checking for validation error programatically in InfoPath

noreply@blogger.com (SharePoint Kings) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:16:00 +0000

In case if you are writing a code in button click event of InfoPath page and you would like to validate the required fields input or any other validation, then here is a one liner code that you need to write.

this.errors.count

if the count is 0 that means there is no error, else there are errors.

Happy coding!!