How to add sections to standard Sharepoint forms
By peter.stilgoe
jQuery to the Rescue: Labeled Sections on Default Forms
Have you ever wanted to break up the columns on a list item into sections without having to unghost or customize the page in SPD?
Error message when you try to attach a file in a custom form on the Web site in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: “This form was customized not working with attachment”
By peter.stilgoe
Error message when you try to attach a file in a custom form on the Web site in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: “This form was customized not working with attachment”
Excel Web Services Compatibility Checker – Automatically fix common errrors
By peter.stilgoe
Excel Web Services Compatibility Checker is a great tool for when you’re trying to publishing Excel dashboards to Sharepoint and you keep getting various web services errors. This tool will check your workbook for compatability errors & also will autofix most errors if you choose.
Typical error message:
“The workbook that you selected cannot be loaded because it contains the following features that are not supported by Excel Services:
External references (links to other workbooks)
Comments, ActiveX controls, Shapes, Text Boxes, Pictures, WordArt, Clip Art, Embedded OLE objects, Ink Annotations, Forms Toolbar controls, Control Toolbox controls, Charts that are part of a group, Signature Lines, or Camera objects
Contact the workbook author.”
MOSS 2007 features compared to Sharepoint 2010
By peter.stilgoe
Characteristics of different RAID configs
By peter.stilgoe
RAID 0 (Stripe set without parity)
•No Fault Tolerance
•Best read and write performance
•I/O per disk calculation: (reads + writes) / number of disks
RAID 1 (Mirrored Volume)
•Fault Tolerance: 1 Disk may fail
•Performance: Good read, Acceptable write
•I/O per disk calculation: [(Reads + (2 x Writes)] / 2
RAID 5 (Stripe set with parity)
•Fault Tolerance: One disk may fail
•Performance: Excellent read, fairly poor write
•I/O per disk calculation: [(Reads + (4 x Writes)] / Number of Disks
RAID 10 (Stripe of Mirrors)
•Fault Tolerance: Half of the disks may fail (but not both disks in any mirrored pair)
•Performance: Excellent read and write
•I/O per disk calculation: [(Reads + (2 x Writes)] / Number of Disks
Porting a SharePoint 2007 WSPBuilder solution to SharePoint 2010
By peter.stilgoe
When we decided to make our popular PDF Converter for SharePoint compatible with SharePoint 2010, we had no idea what we were in for. Will it be a nightmare, will it just work, will we need to throw everything away?…. we simply didn’t know. Fortunately SharePoint 2010 is much like SharePoint 2007 and as a result we released the SharePoint 2010 compatible version earlier today. Continued here….
Error occured Accessing Data Source Error ID 5566
By peter.stilgoe
If you are getting the error when opening an Infopath Form ‘Error occured Accessing Data Source Error ID 5566′ its normally an authentication issue with the datasource the form is trying to retrieve data from. This normally occurs in ‘cross domain’ environments. The fix for me was to disable the ‘Authentication Loopback’ check:
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Exit Registry Editor.
8. Restart the computer.
Making the Contact Selector mandatory in an InfoPath form
By peter.stilgoe
OOTB you cannot make the contact selector in a InfoPath form a mandatory field. However you can easily get round this by doing something like this.
- In my datasource I tend to create a hive called ‘Validation’ (This is where I hold or my extra fields I use to carry out my various validation routines)
- Create a field in here called something like ‘EmployeeName’ or whatever your preference but something logical / descriptive
- Now set this fields default value to equal the field you are actually using for your contact selector ie. EmployeeName = DisplayName
- Now as EmployeeName = DisplayName set a validation rule on ContactValidate so that it cannot be blank
Now your contact selector is a mandatory field.
List of properties that get returned by the MOSS 2007 userprofileservice
By peter.stilgoe
A list of the default profile properties that get returned by the MOSS 2007 userprofileservice.
UserProfile_GUID
AccountName
FirstName
LastName
PreferredName
WorkPhone
Office
Department
Title
Manager
AboutMe
PersonalSpace
PictureURL
UserName
QuickLinks
WebSite
PublicSiteRedirect
SPS-Dotted-line
SPS-Peers
SPS-Responsibility
SPS-Skills
SPS-PastProjects
SPS-Interests
SPS-School
SPS-SipAddress
SPS-Birthday
SPS-MySiteUpgrade
SPS-DontSuggestList
SPS-ProxyAddresses
SPS-HireDate
SPS-LastColleagueAdded
SPS-OWAUrl
SPS-ResourceAccountName
SPS-MasterAccountName
Assistant
WorkEmail
CellPhone
Fax
HomePhone
How to display most viewed documents from a Document Library
By peter.stilgoe
Came accross an interesting solution on Linkedin to display most viewed Documents from a Document Library in a webpart. I havnt tried it myself but sounds like it would work:
1) Install LogParser on Web App Server (Sharepoint Index Server)
2) Setup a batch file with the LogParse query of your choice.
For example:
“C:\Program Files\Log Parser 2.2\logparser” -i:IISW3C -o:XML “SELECT TOP 10 REPLACE_CHR(cs-uri-stem,’+',’ ‘) AS sUrl, EXTRACT_FILENAME(cs-uri-stem) AS sName, EXTRACT_EXTENSION(cs-uri-stem) AS sExt, COUNT(*) AS [Total Hits] INTO MYFILE.XML FROM \\WFE1\C$\Windows\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1\*.log, \\WFE2\C$\Windows\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1\*.log WHERE TO_UPPERCASE(sUrl) Like ‘/SITES/SPECIALSITE%%’ AND TO_UPPERCASE( sExt ) IN (‘DOCX’;'PPTX’;'PNG’;'GIF’;'JPG’;'BMP’) AND TO_UPPERCASE(sUrl) Not Like ‘%%/_T/%%’ AND TO_UPPERCASE(sUrl) Not Like ‘%%/_W/%%’ GROUP BY sUrl,sName,sExt ORDER BY [Total Hits] DESC
3) This query code search only for some documents (docx, pptx, etc.) on the site ‘/sites/specialsite’ on the default web application and site collection W3SVC1. The logs are located on WFE1 and WFE2. The log parser result file is an XML file named MYFILE.XML.
4) Daily Schedule the execute of the batch and the upload of the xml file to a sharepoint document library
5) Create an XSLT file for presentation and upload to the sharepoint document library.
6) Finally show the XML with the XML WebPart with the xml and xslt files as the parameters.
After restoring a site collection to a new location you get error The file /_catalogs/masterpage/blahblah.aspx does not exist.
By peter.stilgoe
How To Fix Publishing Pages Page Layout URL
The scenario when moving you want to move a publishing site collection that is your root site collection to a new location
ie http://rootsc —> http://sites/rootsc
You expect a simple backup & restore to the new location to do the job. However once your restore is complete you try to load your site collection in its new location & you get:
The resource cannot be found.
Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly.
You click ‘View Source’ in IE & you get:
The file /_catalogs/masterpage/blahblah.aspx does not exist.
at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModuleData.GetWebPartPageData(HttpContext context, String path, Boolean throwIfFileNotFound)
The problem is that your publishing pages are still looking at the old location for the master page files etc using the old URL. Fortunately Gary Lapointe MVP has written a script to parse through the whole site collection & update the paths accordingly.
The utility runs as an STSADM command & is called gl-fixpublishingpagespagelayouturl
STSADM restore errors with “No content databases are available for this operation”
By peter.stilgoe
The problem is probably that the GUID of the new site youre trying to restore is the same as an existing site in the content database. Either delete the existing site or I would imagine you could restore to a diffrent content database although I havnt verified this.
External User Not Recieving Sharepoint Alerts
By peter.stilgoe
I had a problem where external users, in this case hotmail addresses werent recieving Sharepoint Notifications. I was scratching my head but the solution was a simple one, as they normally are….
If you are going to let users outside of your domain receive outgoing email from SharePoint, you may need to enter their domains as valid in SMTP. To do this go to your SMTP server under IIS and right click on Domains. Choose New Domain, and Remote. Add the domain of your users’ email address. If it is going to be a mixed bag, you may need to add several remote domains such as *.com, *.net, *.org, *.co.uk etc etc
Deploying K2 process: Error occurred adding the feature to the farm Server was unable to process request. —> Access denied.
By peter.stilgoe
When deploying a K2 process you get the following error:
Task Error: System.Exception: Error occurred adding the feature to the farm. —> System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. —> Access denied.
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReadResponse(SoapClientMessage message, WebResponse response, Stream responseStream, Boolean asyncCall)
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)
This is normally a permission problem & you should check the following & make any changes that are required:
1) Check that the MOSS app pool account has Site Collection and Farm Admin Rights and is also a local administrator.
2)Check that the MOSS app pool account is given dbo permission on the SP Admin Config database.
3)Check that the MOSS app pool account is granted modify permissions: [Program Files]\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Template\Features\ and \12\ISAPI folders.
4) Make sure the MOSS app pool account is given K2 export rights.
5) Make sure the “K2 Workflow Integration Content Types” in Central Admin > K2 for SharePoint has been activated.
You may also need to to do an iisreset.
If all of the above are present you should be able to publish your workflow without experiencing the above error.
Converting a Sharepoint List into XML
By peter.stilgoe
This easiest way is to use the URL below & insert your list GUID
http://servername/site/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Cmd=Display&List=*YOURUNIQUELISTID*&XMLDATA=TRUE
To get the GUID of the list you need to go into the list & click ‘Settings’ -> ‘List Settings’. Now if you look at your URL you will see something like:
/_layouts/listedit.aspx?List=%7B7B476F98%2D1075%2D4A6D%2D8F63%2D4C754B3F41FC%7D
The URL is encoded so you will need to replace “%7B” with “{” and “%7D” with “}” and “%2D” with “-” so the end result would look something like: {7B476F98-1075-4A6D-8F63-4C754B3F41FC}
One of the better ways of implementing Jquery in your Sharepoint environment
By peter.stilgoe
1. Open up SharePoint Portal and click on Site Actions -> Site Settings -> All Site Settings option
2. Under “Site Administration“group option, Click on “Content and Structure” link
3. From top menu Click “New” List option to create a list of type “Document Library”.
4. Let’s Configure document library further…. Let’s name it as “JavaLib”
[ Note: The name of the document library could be any name you like, I like the name JavaLib as we will use this library to organize all JavaScript’s related resources]
5. (Best Practices) Now, We can configure the JavaLib with additional columns, Versioning and Security so that it can return us a favors like versioning and auto advancing to new versions (if needed).
5.1. Add a column “Script Version” as Single Line of Text to JavaLib
Having “Script version” column becomes very informative when one has lots of developers.
5.2. Configure versioning with 10 Major & 10 Minor Versions
Versioning will allow you to rollback to previous version if there is a bug/known defects without having all other pages needing a modification.
5.3. Set Library security as Read Only to Everyone and Contribute to DevGroup
Limiting who can upload new items (scripts) will help establish controlled processes and release changes using major versions.
6. Let’s download most current JQuery version 1.3.2 from http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js to the desktop
7. Now, Let’s upload jquery.1.3.2.min.js file from our desktop to our JavaLib library.
Note: After uploading the file, Please make sure you change the Name from Jquery-1.3.2.min.js to Jquery and Title as Jquery-1.3.2.min.js and Script version as 1.3.2. This will help us in future if other revisions are available then you do not have to update all webparts with new framework urls.
8. Now we have JQuery available in our environment, with correct control security & versioning in place.
Thanks to Hemendra Patel over @ http://hemsoft.blogspot.com/2009/06/first-look-at-jquery-sharepoint.html
Import data from CSV and SQL to a SharePoint list
By peter.stilgoe
This SharePoint feature allows you to quickly import data from a CSV file or a SQL stored procedure to any custom SharePoint list.
Once you have added the solution to your farm and activated it on your site collection an additional menu option will be available on the Action menu of each custom list that will take you to the import CSV or SQL page.
Simply select which option you want – either import from a CSV file or import from a SQL stored procedure. Next, browse to the CSV file or enter the SQL connection and name of the stored procedure and hit the Import button.
There is a check box option to delete all items from the list before doing the import which is not selected by default.
NHS Guidance: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Information Architecture
By peter.stilgoe
This guidance helps healthcare organisations apply a chosen information architecture or taxonomy within a 2007 Office system environment. Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 Information Architecture describes how to plan and design an information architecture and provides step-by-step instructions showing how to configure Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 with these settings.
This guidance is suitable for use by healthcare organisations that currently:
- Have content stored in local drives and file shares
- Archive records manually
- Have a basic Web server with Web master-controlled publishing
- Have not yet deployed Office SharePoint Server 2007, or have recently deployed Office SharePoint Server 2007 and wish to plan a portal structure and information architecture
Solution Accelerator – Scorecards
This solution accelerator acts as a template for configuring a management dashboard to track organisational metrics. It contains four example dashboards ranging from a primary care practice to a healthcare organisation’s CEO dashboard with metrics based on the healthcare targets for 2008. The solution accelerator also includes online guidance explaining how to customise a dashboard for a healthcare organisation’s needs.
This solution accelerator is suitable for use by healthcare organisations that currently use :
- Static paper-based documents to track performance with manually-entered performance metrics
- Static, decentralized, and highly-IT dependent reports
- Standalone spreadsheet-based analysis
Sharepoint Search – How features work part 1
By peter.stilgoe
Word breakers A word breaker is a component used by the query and index engines to break compound words and phrases into individual words or tokens. If there is no word breaker for a specific language, the neutral word breaker is used, in which case word breaking occurs where there are white spaces between the words and phrases. At indexing time, if there is any locale information associated with the document (for example, a Word document contains locale information for each text chunk), the index engine will try to use the word breaker for that locale. If the document does not contain any locale information, the user locale of the computer the indexer is installed on is used instead. At query time, the locale (HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE) of the browser from which the query was sent is used to perform word breaking on the query. Additional information about the language availability of the word breaker component is available in Appendix B: Search Language Considerations.
Stemming Stemming is a feature of the word breaker component used only by the query engine to determine where the word boundaries are in the stream of characters in the query. A stemmer extracts the root form of a given word. For example, ”running,” ”ran,” and ”runner“ are all variants of the verb ”to run.” In some languages, a stemmer expands the root form of a word to alternate forms. Stemming is turned off by default. Stemmers are available only for languages that have morphological expansion; this means that, for languages where stemmers are not available, turning on this feature in the Search Result Page (CoreResult Web Part) will not have any effect. Additional information about language availability for the Stemmer feature is available in Appendix B: Search Language Considerations.
Noise words dictionary Noise words are words that do not add value to a query, such as ”and,” ”the,” and ”a.” The indexing engine filters them to save index space and to increase performance. Noise word files are customizable, language-specific text files. These files are a simple list of words, one per line. If a noise word file is changed, you must perform a full update of the index to incorporate the changes. Additional information about the noise words dictionary and how to customize it is available at www.microsoft.com.
Custom dictionary The custom dictionary file contains values that the search server must include at index and query times. Custom dictionary lists are customizable, language-specific text files. These files are used by Search in both the index and query processes to identify exceptions to the noise word dictionaries. A word such as “AT&T,” for example, will never be indexed by default because the word breaker breaks it into single noise words. To avoid this, the user can add ”AT&T” to the custom dictionary file; as result, this word will be treated as an exception by the word breaker and will be indexed and queried. These files contain a simple list of words, one per line. If the custom dictionary file is changed, you must perform a full update of the index to incorporate the changes. By default, no custom dictionary file is installed during Office SharePoint Server 2007 Setup. Additional information about the custom dictionary file and how to customize it is available at www.microsoft.com.
Thesaurus There is a configurable thesaurus file for each language that Search supports. Using the thesaurus, you can specify synonyms for words and also automatically replace words in a query with other words that you specify. The thesaurus used will always be in the language of the query, not necessarily the server’s user locale. If a language-specific thesaurus is not available, a neutral thesaurus (tseneu.xml) is used. Additional information about the thesaurus file and how to customize it is available at www.microsoft.com.
Language Auto Detection The Language Auto Detection (LAD) feature generates a best guess about the language of a text chunk based on the Unicode range and other language patterns. Basically, it’s used for relevance calculation by the index engine and in queries sent from the Advanced Search Web Part, where the user is able to specify constraints on the language of the documents returned by a query.
Did You Mean? The Did You Mean? feature is used by the query engine to catch possible spelling errors and to provide suggestions for queries. The Did You Mean? feature builds suggestions by using three components:
· Query log Information tracked in the query log includes the query terms used, when the search results were returned for search queries, and the pages that were viewed from search results. This search usage data helps you understand how people are using search and what information they are seeking. You can use this data to help determine how to improve the search experience for users.
· Dictionary lexicon A dictionary of most-used lexicons provided at installation time.
· Custom lexicon A collection of the most frequently occurring words in the corpus, built at query time by the query engine from indexed information.
The Did You Mean? suggestions are available only for English, French, German, and Spanish.
Definition Extraction The Definition Extraction feature finds definitions for candidate terms and identifies acronyms and their expansions by examining the grammatical structure of sentences that have been indexed (for example, NASA, radar, modem, and so on). It is only available for English.
Suppress Microsoft Office Document Authentication Prompt In SharePoint
By peter.stilgoe
Havnt tried it but apparently works:



August 9th, 2010

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