Blog

Poor man's sharepoint workspace

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A client needed a quick way to download the contents of 2 document libraries to USB sticks. The libraries contained some regularly updated promotional material that their sales people would give out to prospective clients on company-branded USB sticks. I remembered adding a utility to do just that to this site and so decided to give it a spin.

The tool - CruiseCradle is available on Codeplex and is described as "a great handy tool to automatically download SharePoint Documents into your USB Stick. You insert your USB Stick into your PC and Done!!!!"

Installation and configuration:
Very straightforward and will only take a few minutes

1) Copy the downloaded files into USB Stick
- You can copy them to a dedicated folder - however, if you want to use the auto-run feature the files will need to be placed in the root of the device.

2) Set configuration settings There are 2 files that need to be edited:

a) CruiseCradle.exe.config - The file needs the the location of SharePoint Web Services of your farm and the location of the other configuration file.

b) CruiseCardleConfig.csv - The file lists the document libraries to be downloaded

Example - step by step configuration:

1. I copied the files to my USB stick (drive R:)

2. Open the CruiseCradle.exe.config and add

a) the URL of the web serivces on my Sharepoint Farm
By default the our sharepoint webservices URL is built by appending /_vti_bin/lists.asmx to your base portal URL (or site URL)The URL of my portal is http://intranet.contoso.com/ so the web services URL I added is http://intranet.contoso.com/_vti_bin/lists.asmx
http://intranet.contoso.com/_vti_bin/lists.asmx

http://intranet.contoso.com/_vti_bin/lists.asmx

b) the location of your configuration file (CruiseCradleConfig.csv)
- The configuration file can be stored either in a network drive, local computer or the USB stick itself. In my case the files are at the root of the USB stick (drive R:)

3) Open the CruiseCardleConfig.csv and add the names of the document libraries to be downloaded
- In my case 2 lines were added:
Shared Documents
Intranet Documents

That's it. When you insert your USB stick again you will see a command line prompt open and display the progress of the download process:

Once the download has finished you will noticed a new "DownloadedFiles" folder on your USB stick. The actual documents are in subfolders named after the document libraries you chose to download.

Notes:

The tool doesn't seem to handle folders - only documents at the root of the libraries where downloaded. In my scenario we simply removed folders and replaced them with metadata and groupings to work around this issue.
The tool will overwrite any existing files in the DownloadedFiles folder without a prompt - something to remember about if you plan on using the tool in scenarios where the downloaded files are to be edited.
USB autoplay has been disabled by default in Windows 7 so you'll have to google for a work-around if you want the application to run without you having to click on anything.
The tool initially threw some "The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized" errors . This is was due to the fact I ran it on a PC that's not part of the domain. However, once I've added the Sharepoint URL in the Trusted Site zone in IE and used the "remember my password" option the tool run successfully and dutifully downloaded files from both
You can only download content from libraries in one Sharepoint site. To work around it you can install a few instances of the tool with different configuration settings.

Download and install CruiseCradle here.

http://sharepointresourcecenter.com/poor-mans-sharepoint-workspace.htmlUSB autoplay has been disabled by default in Windows 7 so you'll have to google for a work-around if you want the application to run without you having to click on anything.

Tools, tools, tools...

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tools, tools, tools... who doesn't like to find a utility that saves some time and make his work a little bit more efficient? After all a life of a Sharepoint administrator is not always easy. There are quite a few links to free sharepoint tools on this site. I've decided to combine all the tools categorized under different tags and present them on a single page. If you're in a need for a tool have a look at the Free Sharepoint Tools page .

Today's links - sharepoint personality types, database naming scheme, orphaned users tool and more

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

User adoption:

The 5 SharePoint Personality Types
"In his presentation, Lee will discuss the 5 SharePoint Personality Types frequently found within an organization and will outline a battle plan to overcome the most common challenges they represent."

Tools:

Application Pool Recycle Utility for SharePoint Developers
"This freeware application is a System Tray utility for providing quick access to common IIS tasks which are useful on a SharePoint development box. It may also be useful to others working with IIS."

SharePoint Orphaned Users Cleanup
"The SharePoint Orphaned Users Cleanup is a command line application that can check for, and delete orphaned users in SharePoint sites, lists, libraries, and folders. It compares the users against the profile database to see if the user is orphaned"

URLs:

SharePoint URL Basics
A great reference page listing all the different and sometimes confusing sharepoint URLs"In this post, I’ll quickly go over some basics of a SharePoint URL structure, geared toward SharePoint newcomers who want to become power users, or who want to have a bit more advanced knowledge of it."
Long URL’s in SharePoint 2010
A nice write-up on the anatomy of long Sharepoint URLs when Office Web Apps are used. Shows how to shorten the URL if needed.

Workflows:

Creating a Retention Solution
A really well-written scenario for creating a retention solution using content types, SPD workflows and information management policies"

Email-enabled lists:

Sharepoint Workflow does not trigger on e-mail created List Items
"I was testing a while ago the workflow and list incoming e-mail combo and found out that by default it seems that workflows does not automatically start on e-mail-enabled lists." To enable the functionality you need to enable a setting using STSADM

Misc tips:

Tip for naming columns and lists in SharePoint
Good practice tip - when creating columns, lists or libraries don't include spaces in their name to avoid the ugly '_x0020_' in URLs.

Databases:

SharePoint 2010 Database Naming Standards
A good article on establishing a common Sharepoint database naming convention for your farm(s). " I wanted an approach that would accommodate multiple farms (2007 or 2010), multiple organizations, and enable you to easily identify what belongs to what. It was also important to me that the databases sorted nicely. After several iterations, here is the naming standard I arrived at"

Today's interesting tag - workflow scenarios

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It's always easier to learn by example. I've added links to different articles I've come across when learning workflows and creating my own projects. They've now been grouped under the Workflows > Scenarios tag.

Here it is: over 25 SPD workflow scenarios to study and get inspired (and in some cases learn on others's mistakes).

I'm sure there are plenty more interesting study cases. If you have written one or know of any interesting ones please let me know and I will update the list.

Today's reading - central administration tool and tip, intermittent database connectivity and 2 ...

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Central administration:

Search AutoComplete for SharePoint 2010 Central Administration
It's little tools like these that will save hours of your time.
SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration URL on Multiple Web Front-end Servers
Want to configure multiple "independent" instances of Central Administration in your farm? You will need this registry hack

Video: The New World of SharePoint Administration
Good webcast by Joel Oleson "Join Joel Oleson [..] as he explores a day in the life of a SharePoint 2010 administrator. He will describe the 'new world' of SharePoint operations and administration, including the redesigned central admin, health rules and throttles, and quick recovery. In addition, he’ll provide insights and tips for how to take advantage of the newest management features that will be included in SharePoint 2010."

Governance / Administration

Importance of Building a SharePoint Team
Quick EUS article on the various roles within a Sharepoint project team.

Check-in/out / Publishing > Tools

Manage Checked Out Publishing Pages
A useful custom STSADM extention that allows you to scan for any checked out publishing pages and discard the check out or check the pages in.

Grouping, Views > Tools

SPOExpandAndCollapseAll
"SPOExpandAndCollapseAll is a jQuery feature that adds a + and - to the menu bar of the document/list libraries to Expand/Collapse all grouped by's with one click. "

Title columns, lookups

How to Require a Unique Title in a SharePoint List
"Goal - Require a unique title in a SharePoint listThis is helpful when you are using this list as a lookup value in another list or are using some other relational design."