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SharePoint 2013 & SkyDrive(Pro)

2013-02-10T17:27:00.001+05:30

SkyDive Pro in SharePoint 2013 has nothing to do with SkyDrive.com. Do not worry, nothing will go to Microsoft's server or users personal SkyDrive accounts.

SkyDrive Pro, while being your MySite Documents library, is also the name of the technology that syncs SharePoint 2013 to your desktop.

The desktop sync works like original SkyDrive with an entry in favorites of windows explorer. You can have multiple libraries synced to your desktop (now drag and drop documents).

References

Todd Klindt

Cross-site publishing in SharePoint 2013

2013-02-09T21:01:00.000+05:30

The great site barrier for content in SharePoint has been the pivot for development projects for long. Ranging from custom event handlers, custom timer jobs, even custom windows services etc. to harvest data from cross sites have been common talk.

And then SharePoint 2013 walks in like a boss and turns off the switch on all of above. The question is how this fits with your needs and where/how can you avoid custom code?

A simple example can be when you want to publish the content secured behind your intranet to extranet or to the internet site. With this feature you can pull news/blog entries from the company’s intranet and publish them on your public website. This will act like a passive hot link to the item on your secured site with the refresh rate dependent on the search crawl.

Basics

There are a few logical components to consider

An authoring site is where content is created and hosted
A catalog is an attribute that you can add to a list or a library in the authoring site. Marking a list or a library as a catalog makes the content easily accessible to other site collections.
Search is the engine/glue that connects your catalog to a publishing site.
The term store holds metadata terms that are used to organize content for publishing on target sites.
A publishing site is where visitors go to see and read content.

Limitation

The content which can be indexed is the requirement for cross site publishing. The files (images, documents) still need to be handled traditionally.

Benefits of Using Cross Site Publishing

Site architectures will have a broader canvas (Do remember to plan the assets).
Allows content to be shared anonymously from intranets/extranets
Can be used across site collections and even across farms.
Separates content authoring from branding and rendering , avoids content duplication.

References

Official SharePoint team blog

MSDN

SharePoint 2013 Top 10 New Features

2012-07-17T11:26:00.002+05:30

From Joel Oleson's Blog, SharePoint 2013 looks very promising!

Fake CVs : it's a big problem

2012-05-03T17:25:00.000+05:30

A fast growing technology/development platform like SharePoint will always face the talent crunch. The simple principle of demand and supply in recent times have made the SharePoint developer a hot commodity, this puts pressure on companies which doles out extra dough as compared to a similar experienced developer.

All this has been attracting low lives who will fake their CVs and their salary information to secure that lucrative job. Landing a job is easier, trouble starts afterwards when expectations are higher than their calibre, no amount of text mugging or tech talk will help them in getting the task done. Two attributes will clearly suffer i.e. time and quality. There is cost involved too but by the time the hole is identified, the damage of time and quality would be irreparable.

Switching the resource immediately is the best solution otherwise the technology has to take all the blame later.

From my experience, following checklist should ensure a credible technical screening:

Pseudo code for a variety of scenarios should be discussed on paper to get the candidate's grasp on technology. In SharePoint it means the API.
Just talking topics and basics of terms is not at all sufficient. Better ask them about a recent challenge that you have faced, the response will tell about their depth of knowledge and experience. Talking about topics is once thing a fraudster will prepare best.
Ignore Microsoft certification like MCP, MCTS etc. Anybody or everybody can get one easily.
It goes mainly for HR, instead of asking for salary slips ask for last few years income tax return. It's so easy to forge a computer generated slip than it is to forge a tax return.
The professional background checking company are the most lazy of lot. A couple of calls to landline of previous company should be enough. In a few instances in India, I have seen people staging these too with their previous managers, so don't always trust the number given by them!

Hope it helps somebody somewhere. It's far easier to train a technical guy in a technology than hiring a poser with high expectations.

Saving Site as a Template Results in an Error in SharePoint 2010

2011-12-03T22:04:00.001+05:30

When you try to save a template in SharePoint 2010, you may receive an error at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSolutionExporter.ExportWebToGallery where the system fails to upload the created solution in solution gallery.

If you receive the Runtime error, first disable custom errors in application web.config. More info here..

To find the cause of problem, try running the command from Powershell by which you can trace ULS log.
$Web=Get-SPWeb http://site
$Web.SaveAsTemplate("Name","Title","Description",1)

The most common error is the duplicate feature folder in farm's 14 hive. If you have saved a site with same name anywhere in the site, try retracting the solution first. As soon as the feature folder is available again, the template will be saved/copied successfully.

How to override Core Results Web Part's limit of 50 results per page?

2011-09-07T21:22:00.001+05:30

By default "Core Results Web Part" can result a maximum of 50 results. But grouping results require as many items as per requirement. To achieve this, we need to create our own CoreResults Web Part. The following code snippet help to achieve that.

public class cvsearch : CoreResultsWebPart
    {
        protected override XPathNavigator GetXPathNavigator(string viewPath)
        {
            QueryManager queryManager = SharedQueryManager.GetInstance(Page).QueryManager;
            queryManager[0].ItemsPerPage = 100;
            XmlDocument xmlDocument = queryManager.GetResults(queryManager[0]);
            return xmlDocument.CreateNavigator();
        }
    }

How to get the folder of SPListItem?

2011-08-30T16:29:00.000+05:30

Need to get the item's parent folder in an event/feature receiver? The code snippet below seems to be the most practical way to do that.

foreach(SPListItem item in Items)
{
    SPFile fItem= item.Web.GetFile(item.Url);
    SPFolder folder = fItem.ParentFolder;
}

How to get recurrence events? For Today and for this Month?

2011-07-24T23:17:00.001+05:30

SharePoint provides powerful calendar object model support for developers to leverage on. As it suffers from the lack of kickass documentation, one gets used to it with practice.

Recurring events are such. The major task with such events is to query them correctly so as to avoid in code checks which can burden the web part's performance.So use SpQuery properties correctly.

For example, to get all the recurrence events for this month:

//Get the first day of the Month
                DateTime caldate = new DateTime(DateTime.Now.Year, DateTime.Now.Month, 1);
                SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
                //Check the  tag, that's important to retrive a month of events including the recurrence one
                query.Query = "";
                query.ExpandRecurrence = true;
                //feed the month's first day to query
                query.CalendarDate = caldate;
                //fire the query to get list of items
                SPListItemCollection items = lst.GetItems(qry);

As a second example, to get all the recurrence events for today

//Get the date for today
                DateTime caldate = new DateTime(DateTime.Now.Year, DateTime.Now.Month, DateTime.Now.Day);
                SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
                //Check the  tag, that's important to retrive all events including the recurrence one for today
                query.Query = "";
                query.ExpandRecurrence = true;
                //feed the month's first day to query
                query.CalendarDate = caldate;
                //fire the query to get list of items
                SPListItemCollection items = lst.GetItems(qry);

So if the dates are correct and CAML are well formed, we get our results correctly.

SharePoint on Cloud

2011-06-28T21:50:00.002+05:30

SharePoint 365 is here! Now that's an edge.

From the SharePoint Blog

Whether you’re a small business or large enterprise the best way to learn about a new product offering like Office 365 is to experience it for yourself. From there it’s easy to build a plan that fits your business needs and make it your own.

· Try it out - If you didn’t sign up for the beta back in April I would check out the Office 365 site and try it out today.

· Develop a migration strategy and plan - There’s an immediate cost benefit to be gained by moving all your My Sites, Team Sites and Intranet Sites to SharePoint Online and the SharePoint Online planning guide for Office 365 will help you get started.

· Customize and Extend with business solutions - Simplifying routine tasks using online forms and workflows is a great place to begin and for developers theSharePoint Online Developers Guide will help you quickly build simple applications and extensions tailored to your business.

How long a particular piece of code took to execute?

2011-06-12T22:20:00.000+05:30

The Stopwatch class under the System.Diagnostics namespace is the key. The Stopwatch class makes it easy to use the high resolution timer in your code.

        // Create new stopwatch
 Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
 // Begin timing
 stopwatch.Start();
 // Do something
        // Code Here
 // Stop timing
 stopwatch.Stop();
 // Write result
 Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0}",stopwatch.Elapsed);

The Taxonomy feature (Feature ID “73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C”) has not been activated

2011-06-09T16:15:00.000+05:30

Use the following command to activate the farm level "Taxanomy Feature" on your SharePoint 2010 farm before you try to add a custom column of the Managed Metadata type.

STSADM -o activatefeature -id 73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C -url http://<ServerName>

<ServerName> is the name of the server hosting SharePoint.

SharePoint, Query & Large Result Set

2011-06-09T14:07:00.000+05:30

SharePoint Server 2010 provides a class titled "ContentIterator", We can use it to query on lists with large number of rows.
We should consider using this class if our query returns more than 5000 items. The ContentIterator divides the list into batches and runs the query against one batch of list data at a time. For example

protected void OnContentIterator(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
SPQuery listQuery = new SPQuery();
listQuery.Query = "< Query >";
SPList list = SPContext.Current.Web.Lists["List"];
ContentIterator iterator = new ContentIterator();
iterator.ProcessListItems(list,listQuery,ProcessItem,ProcessError);
}
public bool ProcessError(SPListItem item, Exception e)
{
// Process the error
return true;
}
public void ProcessItem(SPListItem item)
{
// Process the item
}

Visio Stencils for SharePoint 2010

2011-05-31T11:09:00.000+05:30

On John Chapman's blog, he has compiled the graphics of SharePoint 2010 for using in Visio!

Download

Please note: The stencils may not have all SharePoint icons and graphics, but they have the majority of them. Also, some stencil graphics have been named while others have not been.

Royal Mail turns to Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Help

2011-03-22T11:50:00.001+05:30

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 has been installed by the Royal Mail to help it reduce outgoings and improve its IT infrastructure.

The move is part of a "rapid modernisation" of postal services to help fend off increased competition and the threat of privatisation.

Furthermore, the company now has a scalable solution to help it pay for what it uses, while having Microsoft SharePoint 2010 hosted off-site. Source...

SPDisposeCheck : SharePoint Dispose Checker Tool

2011-01-26T01:17:00.000+05:30

SPDisposeCheck is a tool that helps developers and administrators check custom SharePoint solutions that use the SharePoint Object Model helping measure against known Microsoft dispose best practices. This tool may not show all memory leaks in your code and may produce false positives which need further review by subject matter experts.

SPDisposeCheck tool can be downloaded here

SharePoint Twitter WebParts

2010-11-26T14:53:00.001+05:30

Are you looking to show the twitter updates of your organization on your sharepoint portal ? If yes, then we are providing two webparts for SharePoint 2007 & SharePoint 2010, one that can be used to show the tweets of any user on the SharePoint portal. Second webpart can be used to post tweet to twitter directly from your sharepoint portal. Just download and install, and you are all set.

All you need is to configure the twitter settings after installation.

These web parts use out of the box SharePoint CSS elements that match automatically with your current site theme.

http://code.google.com/p/sharepoint-twitter/

Update Choice field through Web Service

2010-11-02T16:21:00.000+05:30

Updating the choices in a choice column is easy through SharePoint web services.

//Get the service ready
listsWS.Lists wsList = new listsWS.Lists();
wsList.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("username", "password","domain");
wsList.Url = strWebSiteURL;

//Prepare the node for updating SharePoint Choice Column/field

XmlDocument xmlDocField = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
System.Xml.XmlElement xFields = xmlDocField.CreateElement("Fields");
xFields.SetAttribute("OnError", "Continue");

StringBuilder strChoice = new StringBuilder();
//Define the attributes for fields and in case of any errors, try defining all fields
strChoice.Append("");

//Notice the capital name of nodes
strChoice.Append("Option 1");
strChoice.Append("Option 2");
strChoice.Append("Option 3");

strChoice.Append("");
xFields.InnerXml = strChoice.ToString();

//Call the UpdateList Method
XmlNode xResultUpdateField = wsList.UpdateList("List Name", null, null, xFields, null, null);

SharePoint Facebook WebParts

2010-11-02T15:52:00.001+05:30

Have you ever needed to show the facebook updates of your organization on your sharepoint portal ? If yes, this project is for you.

What we provide is two webparts for SharePoint , one that can be used to show the facebook wall of any user on the SharePoint portal. Second webpart can be used to post updates to facebook directly from your sharepoint portal. Just download and install, and you are all set

http://code.google.com/p/sharepoint-facebook-wall/

Sharepoint Multiple Lookup Field : SPFieldLookupValueCollection

2010-10-25T22:09:00.000+05:30

Field Class: SPFieldLookup
Field Value Class: SPFieldLookupValueCollection

How to use the lookup column values (through a method)?

itemValues.ForEach(Operate) //Operate is the method name

void Operate(SPFieldLookupValue iValue) //All LookUp values are passed to function one by one

How to use the lookup column values?
SPFieldLookupValueCollection itemValues = (SPFieldLookupValueCollection) item["FieldName"];
   foreach (SPFieldLookupValue iValue in itemValues)
   {
   int nID = iValue .LookupId;
   string strValue = iValue .LookupValue;
   }

SharePoint 2010 Site templates : how to deliver with custom assemblies

2010-08-19T17:11:00.002+05:30

The site templates are no longer .stp file in 2010, but they are improved upon as solution files (.wsp). That changes the delivery equation a lot, as earlier we could deliver site templates as a part of solution. But never-than less, in Visual studio 2010 we have the option to import the solution and operate it upon.

Follow these steps to deliver a site template customized with a custom assemblies (web part, event handler etc)

Save the site as template to generate the .wsp file
Import the solution in Visual Studio 2010 to create a new project
Next, right click on the package to open Solution Designer
In the advanced tab, you can specify new assemblies (ensure that they are included in the project)
The default features can also be modified in the edit options of the features. The properties specified here will overwrite the existing feature properties
All set, simply create the package of the project and deliver the wsp file.

Custom DLLs in Bin folder

2010-06-09T12:10:00.000+05:30

Untrusted solutions
Deploying custom code in bin folders can cause slow server performance. Every time a page containing untrusted code is requested, SharePoint Server 2010 must perform security checks before the page can be loaded.Unless there is a specific reason to deploy untrusted code, you should install custom assemblies in the GAC to avoid unnecessary security checking.

10 Steps to optimize Sharepoint Performance

2010-05-25T16:44:00.000+05:30

An article by Eric Shupps, Network World shed light on the 10 steps to improve the performance of our SharePoint servers.

Separate user and database traffic
A common misconception is that servers connected to a high-speed network segment will have plenty of bandwidth to perform all required operations. But SharePoint places a tremendous amount of demand on SQL - each request for a page can result in numerous calls to the database, not to mention service jobs, search indexing and other operations. In order to mitigate the conflict between user and database traffic, connectivity between front-end servers and SQL should be isolated, either via separate physical networks or virtual LANs. Typically this requires at least two separate network interface cards in each front-end Web server with static routes configured to ensure traffic is routed to the correct interface. The same configuration may also be applied to application and index server.
Isolate search indexing
A typical medium server farm consists of one or more Web front-end servers, a dedicated index or application server and a separate SQL database server. Search traffic initiated by the index server must be processed by the same servers responsible for delivering user content. In order to prevent search and user traffic from conflicting, an additional server may be added to the farm, which is dedicated solely to servicing search queries (in smaller environments, the index server may also serve this function). The farm administrator would then configure the search service to perform crawls only against this dedicated server. This configuration may reduce traffic to the Web front-end servers by as much as 70% during index operations.
Adjust SQL parameters
One quick way to avoid future headaches is to provision the major SharePoint databases on separate physical disks (or LUNs if a storage-area network is involved). This means one set of disks for search databases, one for temporary databases and still another for content databases. Additional consideration should be given to isolating the log files (*.ldf). Although these do not incur the same level of I/O as other files, they do play a primary role in backup and recovery and they can grow to several times the size of the master database files.Another technique is to proactively manage the size and growth of individual databases. By default, SQL grows database files in small increments, either 1MB at a time or as a fixed percentage of database size (usually 10%). These settings can cause SQL to waste cycles constantly expanding databases, and prevents further data from being written while the databases are expanding. An alternative approach is to pre-size the databases up to the maximum recommended size (100G) if space is available and set auto growth to a fixed size (e.g. 10MB or 20MB).
De-fragment database indexes
SQL Server maintains its own set of indexes for data stored in various databases in order to improve query efficiency and read operations. Just as with files stored on disk, these indexes can become fragmented. It is important to plan for regular maintenance operations, which includes index defragmentation. Special care should be taken to schedule these types of operations as they are resource-intensive and, in many cases, can prevent data from being written to or read from the indexes.
Distribute user data across multiple content databases
Most SharePoint data is stored in lists: tasks, announcements, document libraries, issues, picture libraries, and so forth. A great deal of this data is actually stored in a single table in the content database associated with the site collection. Regardless of how many sites and subsites are created within the SharePoint hierarchy, each site collection has only one associated content database. This means that a site collection with thousands of subsites is storing the bulk of the user data from every list in every site in a single table in SQL. This can lead to delays as SQL must recursively execute queries over one potentially very large dataset. One way to reduce the workload is to manage the mapping of site collections to content databases. Administrators can use the central administration interface to pre-stage content databases to ensure that site collections are associated with a single database or grouped logically based on size or priority. By adjusting the 'maximum number of sites' setting or changing database status to "offline", administrators can also control which content database is used when new site collections are created.
Minimize page size
For SharePoint users connected to the portal via a LAN it is easy to manage content and find resources, but for users on the far end of a slower WAN link the heavyweight nature of a typical SharePoint page can be a real performance-killer. If you have many remote users, start with a minimal master page, which, as the name implies, removes unnecessary elements and allows designers to start with a clean slate that only contains the base functionality required for the page to render correctly. Second, most SharePoint pages contain links to supporting files, including JavaScript and style sheets, which require additional time to retrieve and execute. Designers can alter how SharePoint pages retrieve these files using a technique called "delayed loading", which essentially loads the linked files in the background while the rest of the page is rendering.
Configure IIS compression
SharePoint content consists of two primary sources -- static files resident in the SharePoint root directories (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\12 for 2007 and \14 for 2010) and dynamic data stored in the content. At runtime, SharePoint merges the page contents from both sources then transmits them inside an HTTP response to the requesting user. Internet Information Server (IIS) versions 6 and 7 both contain various mechanisms for reducing the payload of HTTP responses prior to transmitting them across the network. Adjusting these settings can reduce the size of the data transmitted to the client, resulting in shorter load times and faster page rendering.
Take advantage of caching
Much of the content requested by users can be cached in memory, including list items, documents, query results and Web parts. Site administrators can configure their own cache profiles to meet different user needs. Anonymous users, for example, can be assigned one set of cache policies while authenticated users are assigned another, allowing content editors to get a more recent view of content changes than general readers. Cache profiles can also be configured by page type, so publishing pages and layout pages behave differently, and administrators have the option to specify caching on the server, the client, or both. In addition, the SharePoint Object Cache can significantly improve the execution time for resource-intensive components, such as the Content Query Web Part. For example, large objects that are requested frequently, such as images and files, can also be cached on disk for each Web application to improve page delivery times.
Manage page customizations
SharePoint Designer is a useful tool for administrators and power users but page customization can be harmful to overall performance. When customization occurs, the entire page content, including the markup and inline code, is stored in the database and must be retrieved each time the page is requested. This introduces relatively little additional overhead on a page-by-page basis, but in larger environments with hundreds or even thousands of pages, all that back-and-forth to the database can add up to significant performance degradation. To prevent this problem, administrators should implement a policy that restricts page customizations to only those situations where it is absolutely necessary. Site collection and farm administrators also have the option to disable the use of Designer or, when necessary, use the 'reset to site definition' option to undo changes and revert back to the original content.
Limit navigation depth
One of the most significant design elements on any portal site is the global, drop-down, fly-out menu at the top of each page. It seems like a handy way to navigate through all the various sites and pages -- until it becomes so deep and cluttered that all ability to navigate beyond the first few levels is lost completely. Even worse, fetching all the data to populate the navigation menus can be resource-intensive on sites with deep hierarchies. SharePoint designers have the ability to customize the depth and level of each navigation menu by modifying the parameters for the various navigation controls within the master page. Administrators should limit that depth to a manageable level that does not impact performance.

SharePoint 2010 Themes : DIY

2010-05-25T16:26:00.000+05:30

Activating the publishing feature on the SharePoint 2010 site gives you an option to customize the pre-installed theme and save it as "Custom Theme". There can only be one custom theme per site and if somebody else tries to play designer and customize any other theme, then it overwrites your changes. So at a time there is only one custom theme allowed.

An article by Todd Bagsinki details the method of creating .thmx files and using them as SharePoint designer. Though the idea is simple but the output isn't always sweet. Mapping all the classes and images etc. isn't easy at all.

Raymund Macaalay visual guide on SharePoint 2010 has take a clever approach and here is what you have to do to get it done.

Goto theme gallery <site>/_catalogs/theme/Forms/AllItems.aspx
Download a pre-installed theme as sample.thmx file
Get the theme builder free from Microsoft's connect portal and edit the theme so easily
All done, simply save the .thmx file and upload back to site's theme gallery to use it.

SharePoint 2010 Technology Stack

2010-05-14T15:06:00.003+05:30

SharePoint 2010 is launching today!!!
Here is 3 minute video for the developers explaining the basics.

Another very good video showing SharePoint 2010 bird eyes view

CAML query for searching users with their ID and not name

2010-04-07T12:39:00.000+05:30

When building a CAML query using U2U CAML Query builder, if you need to search for a user then the only option is to provide user's login name. That's not neat and you can beat it by providing an extra parameter called "LookupId" with the field. For example

MyQuery.Query = "<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='Employee' LookupId='TRUE' /><Value Type='User'>UserID</Value></Eq></Where>";

After specifying the attribute, you can select a user by his/her ID.