Monthly Archives: September 2012

2007, 2010, 2013, End User, Event Type, Mark Miller, EUSP, MOSS, Third Party Tools, WSS

Head-to-Head: SharePoint Migration Tool Cage Match

12 Comments

 

Update: Register to view the event live online!

To the migration tool vendors

Hey, SharePoint Migration Tool Vendor, do you have what it takes to do a killer 15 minute presentation and convince people you’ve got the best migration tool on the market? If so, leave me a note below, trash talk your competitors and let’s get this thing rolling.  EUSP Head-to-Head for SharePoint Migration Tools is October 10, 2012, 1:00pm EST.

History of the Head-to-Head EUSP Challenge

About two years ago, we ran one of the most popular web casts of our much spotted career: Head-to-Head Migration Tool Demos. I’ve had multiple requests to run an updated version, so it’s time to lay down the challenge: Who has the best migration tool on the market for your needs?

We’re laying down the challenge to the usual suspects:

The Rules

As with any cage match, there are no rules other than no eye gouging, no hitting in the throat and cover yourself at all times. I will be online to keep things on schedule, but other than that, the participants each have exactly 15 minutes to show their solutions. I will give a warning 3 minutes before the conclusion of each session.

We will be using one of the online meeting platforms such as Lync, Live Meeting, WebEx, etc, so the vendors can give live demos.

Viewing the Proceedings

This is a great chance for the SharePoint Community to get a look at all of the major migration tools within a short amount of time. We’ll have a registration form up next week for the first 250 people who would like to view the proceedings live, plus we’ll be recording the sessions for review afterwards.

Conclusion

It should be a great match up. Mark your calendar: October 10, 2012, 1:00pm EST.

See you at ringside.

Alex Choroshin, dev, Developer, InfoPath, MOSS, WSS

SharePoint Getting ‘The “BrowserFormWebPart” Web Part appears to be causing a problem’ error when opening InfoPath form

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Editor’s note: Contributor Alex Choroshin is a Sharepoint Team Leader at Bank Leumi. Follow him @choroshin

Recently we had a problem when our end users got ‘The "BrowserFormWebPart" Web Part appears to be causing a problem’ error when trying to open an InfoPath form. The problem seemed to be related to some permission issues but we haven’t found any solution.

After a couple of attempts we found a workaround to this problem.

All you need to do is to Publish the form again preferably in a new library.

This should fix the problem (at least it worked for us2012-09-26-BrowserFormWebPart-01.png)

It seems that there may be some bug involved and after publishing the form again it some how fixes the problem.

Hope you find this post helpful2012-09-26-BrowserFormWebPart-01.png

see u next time…

End User, Jasper Oosterveld, MOSS, Security, Site Manager/Power User, SPF 2013, WSS

SharePoint Online 2013 - Request Access Procedure

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Editor’s note: Contributor Jasper Oosterveld is a SharePoint Consultant at Wortell. Follow him @SharePTJasper

SharePoint users were always able to request access to a site or document. This procedure has really improved in SharePoint Online 2013. I really love it! Let’s start.

In a previous article I talked about the new sharing experience. I shared a document with my manager Theo but he has no permissions to the site. Theo get’s the following message when trying to access the site:

2012-09-25-SP2013RequestAccess-01.png

Theo is able to send a message with the request! Pretty cool? Well it gets even cooler!

After Theo sends his request, he is presented with a nice dialogue screen. He can send a new message and see the message history. I am the owner of the site so I will receive an e-mail message:

2012-09-25-SP2013RequestAccess-03.png

By clicking at the link I am forwarded to a new screen:

2012-09-25-SP2013RequestAccess-04.png

The root site provides an overview of all the pending requests. I can click on … to open the callout menu:

2012-09-25-SP2013RequestAccess-05.png

In this menu I can approve or decline the request but I am also able to send a message to Theo:

2012-09-25-SP2013RequestAccess-06.png

You have to admit this is pretty cool right? I really like how interactive this whole procedure has become.

0003bffd89ff0e8d@live.com, Document Management, End User, HTML5, MOSS, Site Manager/Power User, SPF 2013, WSS

SharePoint 2013 on iPad & iPhone

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Editor’s note: Contributor Mai Omar Desouki is a Software Consultant at Infusion. Follow her @MaiOmarDesouki

Does sharepoint 2013 support iPad? That was a question in the Forums http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevpreview/thread/8f595df1-b137-4bf0-87d0-6bb06356fc9d to which I replied that I would provide screen shots of what SharePoint 2013 looks like on an iPad in addition to iPhone and some other information as well.

SharePoint 2013 UI is written in HTML5, and in addition to the standard client support options, full support is also planned for the Safari browser on the Apple iPad. Users can browse, contribute and edit documents directly from iPads. There is also a new Channels capability which allows easy mapping of pages and web parts to devices, allowing the experience to be tailored for different devices. The vast majority of organizations have iPads in their ecosystem and are considering mobile experiences for web content. These capabilities are a huge benefit for mobile access, and in many cases they eliminate the need for complex development or the use (and additional cost) of third party applications.

I think that native iOS support will be a key driver for organizations considering moving quickly to upgrade from SharePoint 2010 to the new version.

2012-09-21-SP2013IPad-01.png

Below you will see I switched to PC view for better UI, used here Custom List, and created a new item. The best part is that I created a word document from Documents Library, and was able to create, edit and save the document all from my iPad which is really good.

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2010, Content Types, dev, Developer, Document Library, MOSS, Octavie van Haaften, WSS

SharePoint Content Type Hub: Inconvenient Updates

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Editor’s note: Contributor Octavie van Haaften is a SharePoint consultant for Mavention. Follow him @eivatco

Recently, I had to develop some kind of tool for a customer that would manage their content types from the content type hub. This tool included content migration as well. Think of renaming a content type or changing the parent of a content type. During development I noticed that updating a content type and republishing it from the content type hub, it did not update the content type all the way to the sub-sites and lists. In spite of what the option says in the Managed Metadata Service Connection properties dialog:

2012-09-24-ContentTypeHub-01.png

The Test

Let’s take a test drive. In my example I have the following content type set to a document library and I will rename the content type. Let’s see what the results are.

Before:

2012-09-24-ContentTypeHub-02.png

The My Content Type in the library is inherited from the site content type My Content Type. The latter one has been published from the content type hub. And by design, all published content types are readonly.

After:

I renamed the content type My Content Type to My Renamed Content Type in the hub, republished it, started all necessary timer jobs and went back to my document library.

2012-09-24-ContentTypeHub-03.png

So, the site content type is updated, but not the library one.

For us developers, this seems like a SPContentType.Update() and not a SPContentType.Update(true).

The quest

But let’s take a deep dive into the code. I use ILSpy, but Reflector will do too. The update is performed by the Content Type Subscriber timer job. After some searching and digging it all starts with the assembly Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy and the namespace Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.ContentTypeSync.Internal. Starting from SubscriberTimerJobDefinition jumping to SubscriberImport and you will see the SynchronizeSite method. Some interesting lines of code are:

In both methods you will see, at some point, the following lines of code:

No Update(true) at all.

This leaves us writing our own update mechanism to sub-sites and lists. But that’s for another blog post.

2007, 2010, Alexandru Dionisie, Calendar, End User, MOSS, Office 365, Site Manager/Power User, WSS

SharePoint: How to Add Events into a Calendar Using Microsoft Excel and Access

30 Comments
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Editor’s note: Contributor Alexandru Dionisie is an Internet Professional and Technical Writer. Follow him @tutorialeoffice

SharePoint doesn’t offer a command or a tool that allows users to bulk add events into a calendar; but by using Office apps (Excel and Access) we can do that very easily.

What are the steps ?

  • Create a real or a dummy event;

2012-09-21-AddEvents-01.png

  • We will export an Excel Web Query, because we don’t know what columns to add to our workbook, or how the values must be entered – click on the Export to Excel command;

  • Now we have to fill the desired fields – Start Time, End Time, Title and Location.

2012-09-21-AddEvents-03.png

  • After we create the events in Excel, we must open the calendar with Access.

Why ?

  • Because Microsoft Excel works in one way: it doesn’t sync the data back to SharePoint. It only retrieves it.

2012-09-21-AddEvents-04.png

  • Choose a location and a name for the database;

2012-09-21-AddEvents-05.png

  • Since we will use Copy-Paste, we must change the fields order in Microsoft Excel so that it matches the field order in Microsoft Access;
  • Just select a column and drag & drop it in the right location – in Excel;

2012-09-21-AddEvents-06.png

  • Select the first 4 columns and copy them;

2012-09-21-AddEvents-07.png

  • In Access select the same 4 columns and then hit Paste;

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  • Confirm the Paste operation;

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Now, we have the same data in Access.

2012-09-21-AddEvents-10.png

To sync the database with the calendar, hit the Save button.

In SharePoint, we have to refresh the page.

Now, when the calendar loads, the events are shown.

2012-09-21-AddEvents-12.png

Note:

  • if you don’t add a value to a field, the default one is added.

Example: 0 for no workspace, FALSE for no recurrences, etc.

0003400199946ae2@live.com, 2007, 2010, Content Types, End User, MOSS, Site Manager/Power User, WSS

SharePoint Error “The content type is in use” Explained

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Editor’s note: Contributor Octavie van Haaften is a SharePoint consultant for Mavention. Follow him @eivatco

Recently I developed a tool to manage content types from a content type hub. Think about renaming content types or changing the parent. Something that doesn’t work out of the box. At least not completely. (I will blog about this later, hold on)

While developing and testing, I encountered the error The content type is in use.

2012-09-18-ErrorContentType-01.png

There are several situations that will cause this error.

  1. Content exists in the Recycle Bin
    Marc D Anderson wrote a blog post about this recently. You’ll have to delete the content from the Recycle Bin somehow.
  2. Documents not checked in yet
    Try this: you have a Document Library with your content type as default and check-out/check-in is required. Then you upload multiple documents. After the upload the items are still checked out and you are the only one that can see them. As of this moment your content type cannot be deleted. Everything needs to be checked in and modify the content type for each item.
  3. Previous minor version exists
    Try this: you have a Document Library with Minor/Major versioning enabled. Upload a document and give it your content type. Publish your document to version 1.0. Then edit the properties and give it another content type. This will be 1.1. As of this moment your content type cannot be deleted. You’ll need to publish it first to the next major version.

So you have checked everything? No content using the content type, Recycle Bins are empty etc..? Sure? Well, I can tell you that you still might not be able to delete the content type. Trying so will get you this error message:

2012-09-18-ErrorContentType-02.png

Some lovely SharePoint solution (WSP) with a feature deployed the content type. And to protect the solution and it’s functionality the content type cannot be deleted.

Now you have it. When deleting a content type fails you now know why.

2010, Authentication, dev, Developer, MOSS, WSS, Yi Fan Tang

SharePoint: Using Dashboard Designer on FBA Sites

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Editor’s note: Contributor Yi Fan Tang is a developer at Gig Werks

If you enable both Widows Authentication and Forms Based Authentication on the same web application, you will get the following error when you use dashboard designer on the sites under that web application.

2012-09-18-DashboardDesigner-01.png

Dashboard designer seems having permission issues on the sites that have FBA enabled. A workaround of this is that you can extend the web application to a different zone with windows authentication enabled only, and use the dashboard designer on that zone.

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This article was originally posted on Gig Werks blog The SharePoint Blog.net.

End User, Jasper Oosterveld, MOSS, Office 365, Site Manager/Power User, SPF 2013, WSS

SharePoint Online 2013 - Share with Internal Users

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Editor’s note: Contributor Jasper Oosterveld is a SharePoint Consultant at Wortell. Follow him @SharePTJasper

The https://nothingbutsharepoint.com/wp-content/themes/o4o206sb2smakbz7yz377r74961/files/2012/current version of SharePoint Online supports sharing sites and content with external users. I wrote an article about sharing with external users. You can find it here. The new version of SharePoint Online also supports sharing with internal users. Let’s take a look how that works!

Share a site

I created a new project site and want to invite my manager Theo to collaborate with me. Every site has a Share button. You can find it at the top right corner. After clicking on Share the following screenshot appears:

2012-09-18-SP2013ShareInternal-01.png

You can give permissions by selecting a different user group. Theo will receive an e-mail with a hyperlink to the project site.

Share a document

Sharing a document with a colleague is pretty easy. Right click on the document and click Share, enter the name of your colleague and leave a message and click on Share. I shared the document with my manager Theo. He also receives an e-mail:

2012-09-18-SP2013ShareInternal-02.png

Theo can open the document in the browser and start editing. The one thing I am missing is an overview of documents that are shared with me. I looked in the My Site but could not find anything. I hope to get feedback from Microsoft.