Microsoft Technologies Tips and Tricks

Set SharePoint Form Field Using Query String Values

2011-03-29T17:51:00.003+05:30

Here I was trying to figure out how to set some fields in my new item form in SharePoint from query string. My only problem was not do any coding. I was allowed to use SharePoint designer and all its functionality. Below is my scenario:
Our organization is using BPOS and its features. We have our SharePoint company portal on BPOS. I was asked to make a "Incident Management" feature on SharePoint. I created two lists namely Incident Details and Call Details. Incident Details list is created using issue tracking list template, Call Details list was created using the using Custom List Template. My look up in call details list should be ID of incident reported. As I did not wanted my users to do any mistakes and select any other Incident ID, I was looking for a solution which would populate my Incident ID field automatically.

After searching for long time i was able to find some answers which helped me solve my problem. Below is step by step guide for action I took:
1.     In SharePoint designer I opened my DispForm.aspx page for Incident List.
2.     Added a new Link For adding call details for selected incident. Add this link after </WebPartPages:WebPartZone>
   Below is what is added as code:
                   <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" >
                     function RedirectToAddCallDetails()
                     {
                             hu = window.location.search.substring(1);
                             gy = hu.split("&");
                             for (i=0;i<gy.length;i++) {
                                      ft = gy[i].split('=');
                                      if (ft[0] == 'ID') {
                                                window.location = "http://mds-devp:8025/Lists/CallDetails/NewAutoFillUpForm.aspx?IncidentId=" + ft[1];
                                      }
                             }
                     }
                   </script>
                   <a href="#" onclick="javascript: RedirectToAddCallDetails();" >Click Here to Add Call Details</a>

   This Redirected me to my call details page directly with IncidentId in query string.
3.     Go to CallDetails list in SPD, right click on new form and select “New From Existing Page”. This should create a new page for you from the existing form page. If this does not works copy paste the NewForm.aspx in same location this create a duplicate copy of page and rename it to NewAutoFillUpForm.aspx
4.     Open the NewAutoFillUpForm.aspx of call list and delete the default ListFormWebPart from page. For doing this select the web part in design mode switch to code and delete the selected web part code lines. After deleting make sure you save the page.

Default New Form Page Design View

Default New Form Page Code View

5.     In ZoneTemplate add new form
Insert Menu --> SharePoint Controls--> Custom List Form.

Menu choice

Select Call Details in list drop down and New Item Form from the options below it.

Add new DataFormWebpart

6.     Go to design view of Page, select DataFormWebPart and click Parameters.
7.     Data View Parameters popup will appear.
a.      In this add new parameter by any name say IncidentId.
b.      In parameter source on right side select Query String
c.       In Query String Variable give your query string variable name in my case IncidentID. Click OK.

Design view of new data form webpart

parameters popup

New parameter added by name IncidentId

8.     Select the IncidentID SharePoint Form Field and bring up its Common FormFields Task pane. Select “Data Field” as IncidentID and in “Format as” select TextBox. This will change the field to an ASP text box type field.

Default Incidentid data field

IncidentData field after changing to textbox

9.     Now go to code view and change the text property of textbox from
text="{@IncidentId}" to text="{$IncidentId}". $IncidentId is the parameter that we added earlier in step 7. If you wish you can make this text box read only by making readonly attribute of text box true.

Viola this did my code. Run once and test it.

Activate Search service in WSS 3.0

2011-03-05T20:42:00.000+05:30

After spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to enable Windows SharePoint Search service in my WSS 3.0 SharePoint Portal I finally figured out how to do the same. Here is step by step guide for the same:

Check whether SQL Full Text Search is installed or not if not install it and configure it.
If SQL Full Text is installed the check whether your WSS search services is installed and working..
To verify go to "Central Administration --> Operations --> Services on Server" of your SharePoint portal.
You should find Windows SharePoint Services Search listed under services. If not then follow the following steps to enable it:
a. Open a command prompt with admin privileges.
b. Change folder location to: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN
   Here you will find the an .exe file named "psconfig.exe"
c. Run this exe file through cmd with following parameters
   psconfig.exe -cmd services -install
   This command will install Search Services on your SharePoint Server.

To configure your Search Services from the same location as above run following command:
stsadm -o spsearch -action -farmserviceaccount [WSS service account] -farmservicepassword [Account Password]
This command will set service account for your WSS Search Services.

To add an existing WSS 3.0 site to Search Service run command given below:
Stsadm -o spsearch -action attachcontentdatabase -databasename <content database name> [-databaseserver <server\instance>] [-searchserver <search server name>]

Here databasename is your spsite content database name. databaseserver and searchserver are optional. When left out the search service takes default search server and and default database server names.

Below are mdsn links for more information about both utilities:
For psconfig
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288944(v=office.12).aspx

For stsadm spsearch command
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288507(office.12).aspx

For full list of stsadm commands
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288507(office.12).aspx

Mimicing for loop in SQL

2010-12-31T19:47:00.045+05:30

Many a times I've came across situations when I really hated SQL server for not providing "for loops". But once I thought did it stop me from implementing one? The answer that I got is stated below.
As we all know that if we want to loop through a result set we have to use Cursors, which many a times take the juice out of your Query performance.
Then how do we loop through the result set? For this we will make while loop to mimic like for loop.
For achieving this we will need three extra variables: 2 integer variables and one temporary table and follow the below steps
1. Store the result set into temporary variable in following manner
     Select Column1, Column2,
     Row_Number() over (order by Column1) as RowNo
   into #temp
   from table1
2. Declare a int variable and store the number of rows retrieved in this variable

Declare @TotalRowCount as int

Set @TotalRowCount = @@RowNumber
3. Declare a int variable for counting number of rows looped.

Declare @Counter as int

Set @Counter = 1
4. Use while loop to traverse through the temporary table we created above

While @Counter <= @TotalRowCount

Begin

Select *

from #temp

where RowNo = @Counter

-- Perform the required operation

Set @Counter = @Counter + 1

End

5. Complete the remaining operations.
6. Drop temporary table created for at end of your query

Drop table #temp

Well, it worked for me hope works for others.