Recently I ran into a strange issue with out-of-the-box SharePoint workflow. Once the workflow is started, the SharePoint automatically cancels the workflow and the workflow outcomes becomes as "access denied", the description you see is "The workflow could not update the item, possibly because one or more columns for the item require a different type of information".
While the root cause of this issue is not yet known, a simple work around would be to re-publish the workflow using SharePoint designer...
The impact of this solution that new version of the workflow will be published to your site and all new workflow instances should work normally. However, this will not fix the status of existing workflow instances that ran into error status.
To fix these instances (Possibly on a production environment) follow these steps...
Complete KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2496152
Data capture Forms in SharePoint 2010 lists can be created and customized using InfoPath forms in two ways; List based Forms and Document based forms, we will cover those two types of InfoPath forms in this post with step by step sample for creating a collect feedback form then we will compare those types of implementations, this post is related to the main post of InfoPath Forms Options in SharePoint 2010
Now we will start by creating document based form to submit feedback:
1- Open Microsoft Office Info path 2010 Designer (all programs> Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Info path 2010 Designer)
2- At home page Click new > blank form > design form
3- Click on insert and choose the form layout (in this case lets choose “two column” form)
4- Click on click to add title and add the title of the form (Feedback in our case)
5- Click on add label to add the field name(title in our case)
6- Click on add control > Home (in the menu tab) > text box (in controls section)
7- Right click in text box to edit its properties
8- Type the title in field name, choose the field data type text string, check cannot be blank.
9- Click on the second click to add title and type the name of the second field ( feedback in our case)
10- Click on Add control > Home (in the menu tab) > Rich text box (in controls section)
11- Right click in rich text box to edit its properties
12- Enter Rich text properties
13- Click on add control > Home (in the menu tab) > Button (in controls section)
It is advisable to resize the form and delete unused rows before proceeding.
14- Double click on the button to edit its properties (the menu to edit the button properties get displayed on the top menu).
15- Type send at the label field
16- Click on Action dropdown list and choose Rules and custom Code
17- Click on Add rule > When this Button is Clicked > Submit Data
18- Click on Add... then Next
19- Enter the document library URL
20- Click on icon at the end of Field name.
21- Click on insert Function…
22- In this sample I will use the current date time as name of the submitted form :Choose Now > OK
Now means the form name will have the date time value for the form once submitted to give the form unique name
23- Click Next
24- - Click on Finish
21 Additional rules can be added in order to clear title and feedback field after submission, Double click on the button control Add Rule > When this button is clicked > Set Field’s value
- Choose tittle after clicking on icon and set the value to blank and click OK
22 Double click on the button control Add Rule > When this button is clicked > Set Field’s value
- Choose feedback after clicking on icon and set the value to blank and click OK
Now we will publish the form to SharePoint forms library .
23 Click on File > Publish > SharePoint Server
24 Enter portal URL
25 Choose Form library > Next
-
26 - Click Next
25- Choose Create a new Library to create library that host the forms document
26- Enter library name and click Next
26 Click Add, and add the columns to display (in our case: title and feedback) and click Next. Then Publish > close
27- Now navigate to the portal web part page that you need to display the form in; then click Site action > Edit page to insert the web part that will display the form.
28- Click on Add web part
29- In Forms folder at web parts gallery > Info Path form Web part > Add
30- click on “click here to open the tool pan” in inserted web part ,or open web part properties
31- Choose the name of library form the List or library dropdown List and click ok
32- Below the result screenshot
33- Try to save three values using the form created then browse to the form library to see saved items.
If you have noticed the library columns are automatically populated using metadata promotion feature in SharePoint which will get the data from the form and display them directly to library columns.
In Next part we will cover list based form and we will compare the two types Part2
In the previous post we have covered the document based forms; now we will use InfoPath to create the second type of list based forms to customize SharePoint 2010 List forms; this post is related to the main post of InfoPath Forms Options in SharePoint 2010 :
What we will do in this post is to create SharePoint list and to customize the list input form using InfoPath then we will have quick comparison between the two type of list form.
1- Navigate to SharePoint portal and From home page Site action > View all site content
2- Click on Create
3- Click on List > Custom List > enter the list name(in our case feedback list) > Create
4
4- Click on Create Column
5- Enter the name of the column (Title and Feedback) and choose Multiple lines of text then click ok
6- Now go to Microsoft Info path designer 2010 and create a new file as follow
7- Click on new > SharePoint List > Design Form
8- Enter portal URL, click Next
9- Choose Customize an existing SharePoint List , choose (Feedback List) then click Next. Wait while connecting to the data source then click Finish
10 – The feedback Form will be automatically generated
12- Since we don’t need the attachment field, right click on the attachment row Delete > Delete row
13 – Click on File > Publish > SharePoint List
14 –After the Publish is done Click on open SharePoint List in browser to view the form in browser
15 – Browse to list (Feedback list Library) then click on to open the form; our customized form is getting displayed.
16 –After you save your feedback,browse to the library (Feedback list in our case)
The saved data is getting displayed on the list.
Now after we have finished creating sample form using the two types ,which form type should I use in my application?
Before deciding which one is better for you, let’s discuss some differences between the two types:
The first difference is that the schema structure for a list based form is flat; it is not possible to build hierarchical information sets with grouped and nested items. And you can’t apply repeating, optional, or choice behavior to individual elements or groups; the second difference is the set of controls available in a list form . Figures below shows the available form controls that can be used in each type.
Figure: List based form controls
Figure: Document based form controls
Other difference is that List form populates the columns in the host list only in other side document based form generates an XML document containing the information entered and gathered in the form based on the schema, so if your data needs to be archived in files you can use document based forms then download the captured data in the documents themselves, in other hand you can use SharePoint workspace to have offline copy of list data in case you have used list based forms.
List based forms cannot contain managed code or repeating/nested data. so If the your solution requires managed code or complex data structures in forms it’s better to use a form based forms. Form designers can add managed code to document based forms by using VSTA Visual Studio Tools for Applications . VSTA is an optional installation component available in InfoPath 2010 Setup. finally if Digital signatures is a requirement then document based form wines.
To summarize ; I think the following table from this article is useful to decide which type to use in your solution:
Question
Document based Form
List based form
What is the structure of the form data?
Hierarchical
Flat
How is form data stored?
XML files
List items
Is there support for custom code?
Yes
No
What offline client is available?
InfoPath filler
SharePoint Workspace
Is there support for digital signatures?
InfoPath is a powerful tool for creating data entry and information gathering forms; it can apply business logic to the collected data; with complex information structure.
And the beauty comes when this forms technology integrates with SharePoint by providing the ability to create forms for SharePoint lists and workflows; InfoPath form templates could be published to a SharePoint environment and the form could be rendered in a browser using wizards without writing code.
In this post and related posts am trying to list the most common options for using InfoPath in SharePoint 2010 with sample creation in step by step related posts to better understand each option.
Here I will list the options for InfoPath usage in SharePoint 2010:
Developers have two design choices available when creating applications that will incorporate InfoPath forms for SharePoint lists.
1) List form: which stores the information captured in the form directly in a SharePoint list, 2) Document-based InfoPath form: that stores the information captured in the form as a structured XML file. These document-based forms are hosted in SharePoint form libraries. And you can benefit from Property Promotion and Demotion features for promoting and demoting document data to and from columns in a SharePoint library.
1) List form: which stores the information captured in the form directly in a SharePoint list,
2) Document-based InfoPath form: that stores the information captured in the form as a structured XML file. These document-based forms are hosted in SharePoint form libraries. And you can benefit from Property Promotion and Demotion features for promoting and demoting document data to and from columns in a SharePoint library.
InfoPath forms in SharePoint 2010 (Document based and list based forms) Step by Step samples and comparison
InfoPath forms can be used to associate forms into content types also you can map fields in library content types into associated InfoPath forms fields, not forgetting utilizing InfoPath form with business connectivity service to work with line business data.
InfoPath and content types Step by step post coming soon …
You can use InfoPath forms in SharePoint 2010 related workflow like Initiation, association or task forms for workflows; this can be used in SharePoint Designer 2010 or in custom visual studio workflows.
InfoPath with workflows
Figure 1 : Sample information panel in MS word
InfoPath and MS Office document information panels
Figure 2 : InfoPath Form web part
Embedding InfoPath form in SharePoint pages Step by step post coming soon …
Conversion services and InfoPath Step by step post coming soon …
Figure 3 :conversion services for InfoPath Forms
I recommend following each related step by step posts to better understand each option, they are really simple but it clarifies the usage for InfoPath in SharePoint 2010.
Installed SharePoint Server 2010 on my Windows 7 local machine. Once the installation completed, the configuration wizard launched, reached step 3 (creating the configuration database), and halted with the following error message.
Failed to create the configuration database. “An exception of type System.ArgumentException was thrown. Additional exception information: Specified value is not supported for the {0} parameter.”
I browsed the log file and spotted the related error lines.
Exception: System.ArgumentException: Specified value is not supported for the {0} parameter. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUserUtility.GetDomainControllerToSearch(SPWebApplication webApp, String domainName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.GetDomainAndPropColl(SPWebApplication webApplicaiton, String loginName, String[]& resolveUserAdProperties, SPActiveDirectoryDomain& gcPath, ResultPropertyCollection& propcol) …………………………………………..
…………………………………………..
From the error stack above I could tell that the configuration wizard was trying to connect to the domain controller – I used a domain account for the setup. And as I wasn’t connected to the domain, I thought that this might be the cause of the problem. Reconnected to the network, deleted the configuration database (partially created), and re-ran the wizard, and it completed successfully.
When using Exchange Anti-spam Recipient filtering agent with Recipient validation I have noticed that it stops the mail flow with NDRs for any messages sent to any recipient under any organization.
By default when having Exchange Anti-spam agents installed recipient filtering agent does not enable the Recipient validation feature however it gets enabled when forefront is being installed on your Hub servers and managing the exchange ant-spam agents.
To have your incoming mail flow working properly you have to disable this feature either from forefront console as per the below screenshot “Uncheck the only accept messages to valid recipients from the Global Address list check box”:
Or through Exchange PowerShell by using the following command.
Set-recipientfilterconfig –RecipientValidationEnabled $false
SharePoint has a built in functionality to display the user information for any user that has a user profile imported using the user profiles service application. This page can be reached on the following URL: /_layouts/userdisp.aspx">/_layouts/userdisp.aspx">http://<SITE_URL>/_layouts/userdisp.aspx this page is shown below.
Note that this page is only displayed when the personal site of the user has not been created or if the mysite functionality is not enabled.
Now more than often you would want to simply hide some fields from this page. I have found many blogs talking about customization of this page but they all are talking about development customization were you will need to open VS to do something. I wanted to find a solution without opening VS
There was no direct solution for this so the solution I found was related to editing the rendering template of this page. To do this I opened the file DefaultTemplates.ascx from the location “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES”. In this file I searched for the rendering template called “UserListForm” which is the one used to render this page. Their you will find a line like this:
<SharePoint:ListFieldIterator runat="server"/>
This is the iterator to display the fields defined in the user profile. So at first I tried to exclude functionality of this iterator like this:
<SharePoint:ListFieldIterator ExcludeFields="Notes" runat="server"/>
But unfortunately I found that their is an issue with the exclude field functionality with the user profile page and that this field is being emptied by code and so it had no effect on the page.
The working solution I found is actually to comment this line and then add only the fields you wan to include on the page like so.
<tr><SharePoint:CompositeField FieldName="Name" ControlMode="Display" runat="server"/></tr>
<tr><SharePoint:CompositeField FieldName="Notes" ControlMode="Display" runat="server"/></tr>
<%--<SharePoint:ListFieldIterator ExcludeFields="Notes;#ntext2" runat="server"/>--%>
Now this made the page only display the following.
So it only displayed the required fields.
As you can see I am referencing the field “About me” by its name “Notes” to make it easier for you here is a list of field names along with display names in the user information page.
<FieldRef ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}" Name="Title" Required="TRUE" DisplayName="$Resources:,userinfo_schema_name;" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{bfc6f32c-668c-43c4-a903-847cca2f9b3c}" Name="Name"/>
<FieldRef ID="{fce16b4c-fe53-4793-aaab-b4892e736d15}" Name="EMail" DisplayName="Work e-mail" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{bf03d3ca-aa6e-4845-809a-b4378b37ce08}" Name="MobilePhone" DisplayName="Mobile phone" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{e241f186-9b94-415c-9f66-255ce7f86235}" Name="Notes" DisplayName="About me" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{9ba260b2-85a1-4a32-ad7a-63eaceffe6b4}" Name="IsSiteAdmin"/>
<FieldRef ID="{4ed6dfdf-86a8-4894-bd1b-4fa28042be53}" Name="Deleted"/>
<FieldRef ID="{d9339777-b964-489a-bf09-2ac3c3fe5f0d}" Name="Picture" DisplayName="$Resources:,Picture;" ReadOnly="TRUE" Format="Image" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{05fdf852-4b64-4096-9b2b-d2a62a86bc59}" Name="Department" DisplayName="$Resources:,Department;" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{c4e0f350-52cc-4ede-904c-dd71a3d11f7d}" Name="JobTitle" DisplayName="Title" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{829c275d-8744-4d9b-a42f-53f53eb60559}" Name="SipAddress" DisplayName="$Resources:,SipAddress;" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{af5036db-36f4-46c8-bde7-a677bd0ef280}" Name="IsActive"/>
<FieldRef ID="{0914a1df-bcb5-49b0-a73f-3c89995129ce}" Name="FirstName" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="First name" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{bad01fe7-f4bf-4060-b91e-3c40a634fb02}" Name="LastName" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="Last name" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{38864bd9-ad27-4265-8077-eb033c29c5c4}" Name="WorkPhone" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="Work phone" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{43508f20-6dd6-482c-b22b-b6f3ff35a259}" Name="UserName" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="User name" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{80edb220-2508-4b3d-8fa0-c70c66a873ca}" Name="WebSite" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="Web site" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{d3330c84-35f7-49a0-bf35-7ad28abe7349}" Name="SPSResponsibility" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="Ask Me About" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
<FieldRef ID="{2f112e66-9724-445e-b15b-efecb1a83d6c}" Name="Office" Required="FALSE" DisplayName="Office" ReadOnly="TRUE" ShowInDisplayForm="TRUE"/>
The side effect of this is that since this is an application page it will affect all sites and web applications running on this server, which is usually the required behaviour in this case
Please also note that in some cases I found a problem in editing the default rendering template so what I did was I created a new rendering template as a copy of the original with a new name and referred to the new template from the ASPX page itself.
Normally when you import a management pack of a product in SCOM, SCOM automatically starts monitoring that product. I was deploying and configuring SCOM to monitor several Microsoft products, when I imported SharePoint 2010 management, nothing appear under SharePoint 2010 management pack in monitoring, then I started studying SharePoint 2010 management pack configuration guide.
So in this blog post I will discuss about configuring management pack for Microsoft SharePoint 2010, most of the part of this document is based on the SharePoint 2010 Management Pack installation and configuration document. I added more visualization and clarify some of the steps that you might miss as I did when configuring this MP.
Following are some requirement that you need to fulfill before importing and configuring management pack.
- You must install the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack before installing this Management Pack.
- Read the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack guide before deploying this management pack.
- Download the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Management Pack from the System Center Pack Catalog at (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/cc462790.aspx.
In this section step for setting up the environment, importing management packs, and configuring the system for monitoring using System Center Operation Manager 2007 SP1 will be discussed.
You can skip this step if the agent is already installed on agent computers.
Note: If the server where the Management Pack Windows Installation file is installed runs 64 bit Windows, the Management Pack will be installed in the %Program Files(x86)% folder by default.
1) On the Operations Manager 2007 management server, open the Operation Console.
2) On the Administration Tab, expand the Administration node.
3) Right-click Management Packs and select Import Management Packs.
4) Navigate to “%ProgramFiles%\System Center Management Packs” and select both the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack and the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Management Pack.
Note: The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Management Pack depends upon the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack. You cannot import it before the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack. If you have already imported the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack before this step, you can just select the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Management Pack.
5) Click Import
1) In the Operations Manager 2007 management server, open the Operations Console.
2) On the Administration tab, expand Administration , then Security , and then Run As Accounts.
3) Right-click Run As Accounts, and then select Create Run As Account.
4) Follow the wizard to create the Run As account, and record the account display name which is going to be used in the SharePointMP.config file as described in next step. You may choose to name your Run As Account “SharePoint Discovery/Monitoring Account” to avoid updating SharePointMP.config in next step.
Note: the Run As account must have sufficient privilege to allow discovery and monitoring to run. We recommend using the account which is a member of the Farm Administrator SharePoint group and is a member of the Administrators group on the database server hosting the SharePoint farm databases and access to all SharePoint databases. Usually the account used to run SharePoint 2010 Product Configuration Wizard has the required privileges.
Note: You can skip this step if you have already done this for the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack.
a) Update the SharePointMP.config file with right information.
1) Open the SharePointMP.config file under “%ProgramFiles%\System Center Management Packs”.
2) Find the section described below and update the account with the one you created in last step. Also add all of the servers in the farm for monitoring. For detailed information, follow the instructions in the SharePointMP.config file.
<Association Account="DisplayName of Run As account" Type="Agent">
<Computer Name="agentComputerFilter1" />
<Computer Name="agentComputerFilter2" />
…
</Association>
b) Run Admin task to configure the discovery and monitoring.
2) In the Monitoring tab, navigate to the SharePoint 2010 Products folder.
3) Select the Administration node under the SharePoint 2010 Products folder.
4) In the Actions menu in the toolbar, click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Farm Group Tasks, and then click Configure SharePoint Management Pack.
5) Make sure that the SharePointMP.config file is at the right location. Click Run.
Note: The task will take a few minutes to complete.
6) If there are no errors, close the dialog box.
If the task finishes with no errors, then proceed to next step. Otherwise, fix the problem and rerun the task until it finishes with no errors.
Note: If you have already completed this task for the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Management Pack, then after you import the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Management Pack, you have two choices. Either rerun the admin task, or wait for next cycle for discovery and monitoring for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to start.
4) Expand the diagram view and review with your SharePoint administrator to ensure that all the services that have been provisioned are discovered, if not, rerun discovery.
Monitor the SharePoint environment for alerts. Some alerts will need you to reset the monitor health status manually and close the alerts after its status changed to critical. Otherwise, the monitor will remain in critical states without sending out new alerts.
The following files are included in this Management Package.
To schedule SharePoint 2010 Products discoveries along with SharePoint Foundation 2010 discoveries, add the following nodes to the WorkflowCycle node in SharePointMP.config:
<Workflow Id="MOSSInstallation.Discovery;WACInstallation.Discovery;SearchExpressInstallation.Discovery;SearchStandardInstallation.Discovery" management pack="Microsoft.SharePoint.Server.2010" Type="Discovery" Times="1" />
<Workflow Id="SPService.Discovery" management pack="Microsoft.SharePoint.Server.2010" Type="Discovery" Times="4" />
<Workflow Id="SPSharedService.Discovery" management pack="Microsoft.SharePoint.Server.2010" Type="Discovery" Times="4" />
<Workflow Id="SPSharedService.Discovery.WAC" management pack="Microsoft.SharePoint.Server.2010" Type="Discovery" Times="4" />
As a result, the WorkflowCycle node may look like this:
<WorkflowCycle BaseStartTime="+300" Length="28800" Spacing="60">
<Workflow Id="WSSInstallation.Discovery" Type="Discovery" Times="1" />
<Workflow Id="SPFarm.Discovery" Type="Discovery" Times="1" />
<Workflow Id="SPService.Discovery" Type="Discovery" Times="4" />
<Workflow Id="SPSharedService.Discovery" Type="Discovery" Times="4" />
<Workflow Id="SPHARule.Discovery" Type="Discovery" Times="1" />
<Workflow Id="SPHARuleMonitor.Availability;SPHARuleMonitor.Security;SPHARuleMonitor.Performance;SPHARuleMonitor.Configuration;SPHARuleMonitor.Custom" Type="Monitor" Times="8" />
<Workflow Id="SPHARuleMonitor.SPServer.Availability;SPHARuleMonitor.SPServer.Security;SPHARuleMonitor.SPServer.Performance;SPHARuleMonitor.SPServer.Configuration;SPHARuleMonitor.SPServer.Custom" Type="Monitor" Times="8" />
</WorkflowCycle>
The SharePoint 2010 Products Management Pack discovers following service applications and features in addition to discoveries:
Related posts:
Deleted SCOM Default Management Pack (http://blogs.technet.com/b/meamcs/archive/2011/08/21/deleted-scom-default-management-pack.aspx)
Removing SCOM Management Pack Dependencies (http://blogs.technet.com/b/meamcs/archive/2011/08/21/removing-scom-management-pack-dependencies.aspx)
For an IT Operations team in any large organization, the powerful set of tools provided by Forefront Identity Manager 2010 for managing groups really come in handy when it comes to organizing and streamlining the process of managing distribution groups. The administrators only need to define a criteria for the membership of those groups and FIM takes over from that point onwards.
Things are pretty straight forward when it comes to defining the filter criteria for any existing attribute out of FIM’s schema. Let’s consider a scenario when you get a request for defining new distribution groups based on the employee’s ‘Rank Number’ that is being pushed into FIM from the HR database. Fair enough. You already have FIM 2010 up and running, doing the provisioning job without a hassle so defining an extra attribute mapping and a new distribution group is all you need. You decide to customize the metaverse and FIM schema, update the Management Agents and run the synchronization process. The next thing you notice is a bunch of funky errors.
The Management Policy Rules are the heart and soul of FIM 2010. These rules provide a highly granular level control over the access to the various objects inside the system. In order to allow the synchronization of the newly defined schema attribute you’d need to update your synchronization related MPR (as shown in the screenshot below) so the synchronization account can export the information from the metaverse to FIM.
On the Target Resources tab add the newly created attribute.
Run the synchronization process and ensure that the newly created attribute is synchronized successfully with FIM. You can verify the results from Synchronization Manager’s run log or simply by opening the information of any existing user. The custom defined attributes will be visible in the ‘Advanced View’ on the ‘Extended Attributes’ tab.
Ok. Now is the time to create our distribution group that uses a criteria-based member selection method. In my case the requirement is that all the people with ‘Rank Number = 7’ are some sort of acting ‘Line Managers’ and will be part of a single distribution group.
Let’s hit the ‘View Members’ button and voila! We see the list of users. So it’s all good to go. Let’s proceed to the summary tab and press ‘Submit’. The next we see is another access denied error.
Click on the [Details] hyperlink right next to the status error and notice the error message ‘Filter definition is not permitted.’
Filter permissions are different from the MPRs and only allow any attributes to be used in filters. In order to allow the administrators to use the newly created attribute you need to follow these steps.
1. Log on to the FIM Portal as the administrator.
2. In the navigation pane, click Administration.
3. On the Administration page, click Filter Permission.
4. On the Filter Permission page, click Administrator Filter Permission.
5. Click on Permitted Filter Attributes and add the newly created attribute to the ‘Allowed Attributes’ list.
Let’s redo the exercise of creating the criteria-based distribution group. This time, it works perfect so let’s run the synchronization cycle.
Finally, let’s take a look at the distribution group in AD itself and ensure that the same users are part of the distribution group provisioned by FIM.
Writing a custom ListDefinition is something all SharePoint developers phase more than once in a development lifecycle. With the new enhancements to the development tools for SharePoint 2010 it became actually easier to do so. But the tricky part is how to write a custom display, new and edit forms for the new list definition. Usually this task can be done easily by registering a new content type and associating this content type with a custom ASPX page that is deployed in the layouts folder. Usually this approach is not recommended and in some situations cannot be performed.
The solution is to develop custom ASPX pages that gets installed within the feature that installs the list definition and then deployed once a list is created from this definition. To do so it is rather simple.
First you need to have created the custom fields along with the custom content type to be added to the custom list. Also as a best practice it would be better to create custom controls to display and edit this new content type and add all these items to the feature definition. Now although these things are not mandatory but it would be best this is the best practice in this situation.
Then create a new list definition either from the already created content type above or as a new custom list as below.
This would contain the following files:
Index
File name
File description
1
Elements.xml
This contains the list definition name, description, … etc..
2
Schema.xml
This contains the exact definition of the list definition and the content types and views.
Now you need to add to the list definition folder the required custom forms as:
In these custom ASPX pages you would add references to the created ASCX custom controls already created to handle the display addition and editing of this new content type.
Now what remains is to add reference to these files in the feature to deploy the list definition and then to edit the Schema.xml to add reference to the new forms. This is done easily by editing the forms section as below:
You just need to replace the [Feature_Name] with the exact feature name which in VS2010 would be the in the following format:
<project name>_<Feature name>
Also the [Listdefinition_Folder_Name] is usually the name of the list definition.
I hope this helps you creating new list definitions easily.
In this post series I went through step by step into System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 starting from “Pre-Build”, then I continued with “Installing Operations Manager Database”, followed by another post “Installing Root Management Server”, then “Configure GPO for SCOM”, then followed by “Configuring SQL Reporting Service”, then followed by “Installing Data Warehouse Database”, then followed by “Installing Audit Collection Service”, then followed by “Download and Import Management Pack”, then followed by “Discover Windows and Deploy SCOM Agents”, and lately followed by “Discover Linux/Unix and Deploy Agents”.
In this post I will go through basic configuration in System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, and the focus in this post will be on Configure Notification,
Steps are as the following:
Step
Description
Screenshot
User local administrator privileges to log on to the SCOM 2007 R2 Root Management Server (SCOM) [Member of "OpsMgrAdmins" Group]. This account must also have system administrator privileges on the instance of SQL Server that will host the Operations Manager 2007 R2 database
1.
Open the SCOM console and do the followings:
· Click on the Administration tab
· Expand Notifications
· Click Channels
· On the Action pane, Click New and Select E-Mail (SMTP) from the popup menu
2.
On the E-Mail Notification Channel page, Enter a Name and a Description and then Click Next
3.
On the SMTP Servers page, Click Add
4.
On the Add SMTP Server dialog box, enter the SMTP Server name (Exch07.contoso.com), the port (25) [This FQDN of Exchange Hub Transport], the Authentication method (Windows Integrated) and Click OK
5.
Provide the Return address (SCOMNotifi@Contoso.com) and Click Next
6.
On the Default e-mail notification format, leave Click Finish
7.
On the Saving notification channel page, Click Close
8.
· Click Subscribers
· On the Action pane, Click New
9.
On the Notification Subscriber Wizard page, provide the Subscriber Name (Contoso\SCOMRecipient1) and Click Next
10.
On the Schedule Notifications page, Click Always send notifications and Click Next
11.
On the Subscriber Address page, Click Add
12.
On the Describe the Subscriber Address, Enter the Address name and Click Next
13.
On the following page, do the followings:
· Select E-Mail (SMTP) as the Channel Type
· Provide the SCOMRecipient1@Contoso.com as the Delivery address for the selected channel
· Click Next
14.
On the Schedule Notifications page, Click Always send notifications and Click Finish
15.
On the following page, Click Finish
16.
On the following page, Click Close
17.
· Click Subscriptions
18.
On the Create Notification Subscription page, Provide the Subscription Name and Click Next
19.
On the Criteria page select the reasonable criteria that will be selected by Contoso IT team, and Click Next
20.
On the Subscribers page, Click Add
21.
On the Subscriber Search page, Click Search and Select the Recipients
22.
Select one of the available the Available subscribers and Click Add, then click Ok
23.
Click Next
24.
On the Channels page, Click Add
25.
On the following page, Select the SMTP Channel and Click OK
26.
On the following page, Click Send Notification without delay and Click Next
27.
On the Summary page, Check Enable this Notification Subscription and Click Finish
28.
On the Completion page, Click Close
In the coming post I will cover Configuring Audit Collection Service and import ACS reports.
Related Posts:
The Exchange Server administrators usually keep separate mailbox databases to organize the users and their quotas. In this particular scenario, the Exchange account provisioning on an appropriate database using FIM 2010 would require a mechanism for retrieving the list of databases and its properties before making a provisioning decision.
The solution that I opted for, involved defining a few additional rules in the Management Agent Extension. Particularly, in my case I already had a need a custom extension to meet some business requirements so this didn’t seem too much of an effort.
This solution relies on the Windows Remote Management and Remote Exchange Management Shell. Some reference material on these technologies can be found at Connect Remote Exchange Management Shell to an Exchange Server and Windows PowerShell SDK.
Exchange Management or any other PowerShell based management Cmdlets can be access through the PowerShell SDK. Below is the a sample that I used for creating a PowerShell session is as below:
private Collection<PSObject> RunScript(string command, string param, string paramValue)
{
Collection<PSObject> psResult = null;
using (Runspace runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace(this._connectionInfo))
using (PowerShell powershell = PowerShell.Create())
powershell.AddCommand(command);
powershell.AddParameter(param, paramValue);
try
runspace.Open();
powershell.Runspace = runspace;
psResult = powershell.Invoke();
}
catch (Exception ex)
WriteEventException(
new MetadirectoryServicesException(
"Exchange Remote Management Exception:" + ex.ToString())
);
return psResult;
The RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace method requires a valid set of credentials and a URL for the PowerShell virtual directory on the target server. This URL is typically http:// <servername>/PowerShell. Before calling the RunScript method I had the following snippet in my helper class to instantiate the PSCredential and WSManConnectionInfo objects.
PSCredential credential = new PSCredential(this._user, this._password); this._connectionInfo = new WSManConnectionInfo(new Uri(this._serverUrl), "http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/Microsoft.Exchange", credential); this._connectionInfo.AuthenticationMechanism = AuthenticationMechanism.Default;
Additionally I used a few wrapper methods for sending specific commands through the remote shell;
public Dictionary<string, int> GetMailboxDatabaseStatistics()
Dictionary<string, int> mailboxProperties = new Dictionary<string, int>();
List<string> mailboxDBList = this.GetMailboxDatabases();
int mailboxCount = 0;
foreach (string mailbox in mailboxDBList)
mailboxCount = this.GetMailboxCount(mailbox);
mailboxProperties.Add(mailbox, mailboxCount);
return mailboxProperties;
private List<string> GetMailboxDatabases()
string command = "Get-MailboxDatabase";
string param = "status";
string paramValue = null;
List<string> mailboxList = new List<string>();
Collection<PSObject> result = this.RunScript(command, param, paramValue);
foreach (PSObject obj in result)
mailboxList.Add(obj.Members["Name"].Value.ToString());
return mailboxList;
private int GetMailboxCount(string mailboxDatabase)
string command = "Get-MailboxStatistics";
string param = "Database";
string paramValue = mailboxDatabase;
return this.RunScript(command, param, paramValue).Count;
Fetching the right set of information using the above snippets and through Exchange Management Shell provides you every bit of information that you need on the current status of any given database. Once you have a simple sorting/filter method written to choose a desired database, the final step is to map the attributes flow to the Metaverse and then finally to the homeMDB attribute in the active directory.
In this post series I went through step by step into System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 starting from “Pre-Build”, then I continued with “Installing Operations Manager Database”, followed by another post “Installing Root Management Server”, then “Configure GPO for SCOM”, then followed by “Configuring SQL Reporting Service”, then followed by “Installing Data Warehouse Database”, then followed by “Installing Audit Collection Service”, then followed by “Download and Import Management Pack”, then followed by “Discover Windows and Deploy SCOM Agents”, then followed by “Discover Linux/Unix and Deploy Agents”, and lately followed by “Configure Notification”.
In this post I will go through basic configuration in System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, and the focus in this post will be on Configure Audit Collection Service,
1. Change the ACS Default Retention Period:
User local administrator privileges to log on to the SCOM 2007 R2 Root Management Server (SCOM) [Member of "OpsMgrAdmins" Group]. This account must also has right on ACS Database
Open the SQL Server Management Studio tool and connect to the database engine
Expand the Databases folder, and select the OperationsManagerAC database
Right-click to open the context menu and select New Query
In the Query pane, type the following:
USE OperationsManagerAC UPDATE dtConfig SET Value = <number of days to retain data + 1> WHERE Id = 6
Then click Execute on the toolbar. This runs the query and then opens the Messages pane, which should read “(1 row(s) affected).”
To view the new setting, delete the previous query text from the Query pane and type then execute SELECT * FROM dtConfig. This opens the Results pane below the Query pane, Look at the value in the sixth row; it should now equal the value you entered for <number of days to retain data + 1>.
Restart the Operations Manager Audit Collection Service for this to take effect
2. Configure Audit Collection Server & Import ACS Reports:
On the System Center Operations Manager console, Select Monitoring, Operations Manager, Agent, Agent Health State
Select all the servers in the Agent State panel (right side) that you plan to enable as Audit Forwarder, then from Menu Select Action, Health Service Tasks, Enable Audit Collection
Now it is time to import Audit Reports to Operations Manager (below steps will be run on ACS Database Server): Create a C:\ACS folder on the server that is hosting Audit Reporting. Refer to the server as %COMPUTERNAME%.
Copy uploadauditreports.cmd, the Models and Reports folders from the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 CD (located at ReportModels\ACS\) and copy the reportingconfig.exe from the SCOM 2007 R2 CD (under the Support Tools folder) to the same folder that you created above.
On the server, open a CMD prompt, change to the "c:\tools\audit reports\acs" directory and run the following command:
UploadAuditReports "%COMPUTERNAME%" “http://%COMPUTERNAME%/reportserver" “c:\acs”
(Where “%COMPUTERNAME%” is ACS SQL DB Server Name)
And Click OK on any dialog you receive. This creates a new data source called Db Audit, uploads the reporting models Audit.smdl and Audit5.smdl and uploads all reports in the ACS\REPORTS directory
When Command Complete, open Internet Explorer and enter the following address to view the SQL Reporting Services Home page. http://localhost/Reports
Click Audit Reports in the body of the page and then click Show Details in the upper right part of the page
Open Operations Manager Console, on Operations Manager Console, under Reporting, you should see Audit Reports
Audit logs will now start being collected; this can take a considerable period of time depending on the number of logs and the size of each log.
Now you can plan, deploy and configure System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, whish you good luck.
In this post we will go through the required steps to install highly available VMM 2012 Beta Management Server using Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering feature.
Before you begin the installation of a highly available VMM management server, ensure the following:
· You have installed and configured a failover cluster running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). For more information about installing and configuring a failover cluster, see Overview of Failover Clusters (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=213753).
· All computers on which you are installing the highly available VMM management server meet the minimum hardware requirements and that all prerequisite software is installed on all computers. For information about hardware and software requirements for VMM 2012, see System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 System Requirements and Supported Operating Systems (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=209608).
· You have created a domain account that will be used by the Virtual Machine Manager service. You must use a domain account for a highly available VMM management server. For more information about using a domain account, see Specifying a Service Account for VMM 2012 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=212847).
· You are prepared to use distributed key management to store encryption keys in Active Directory Directory Services (AD DS). You must use distributed key management for a highly available VMM management server. For more information about distributed key management, see Configuring Distributed Key Management in VMM 2012 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=209609).
· You have a computer with a supported version of Microsoft SQL Server installed and running before you start the installation of VMM 2012. Unlike VMM 2008 R2, VMM 2012 will not automatically install an Express edition of SQL Server during the installation. For information about supported versions of SQL Server for the VMM database, see System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 System Requirements and Supported Operating Systems (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=209608).
Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, on the computer that you are configuring is the minimum required to complete this procedure.
To install a highly available VMM management server on the first node of a cluster
1. On the first node of your cluster, start the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Setup Wizard. To start the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Setup Wizard, on your installation media, right-click setup.exe, and then click Run as administrator.
2. On the main setup page, click Install.
Note
Accept the Microsoft .Net 3.5 SP1 installation when prompted.
3. On the Please read this license agreement page, review the license agreement, select the I have read, understood, and agree with the terms of the license agreement check box, and then click Next.
4. On the Select features to install page, select the VMM Server check box.
Once VMM installation wizard detections that the server is part of Failover cluster it will prompt whether you want to make the VMM management server highly available, click Yes.
5. On the Select features to install page, click Next.
6. On the Product registration information page, provide the appropriate information, and then click Next.
7. On the Microsoft Update page, select whether or not you want to use Microsoft Update, and then click Next.
8. On the Installation location page, use the default path or type a different installation path for the VMM 2012 program files, and then click Next.
9. The computer on which you are installing the highly available VMM management server will be checked to ensure that the appropriate hardware and software requirements are met. If a prerequisite is not met, a page will appear with information about which prerequisite has not been met and how to resolve the issue. If all prerequisites have been met, the Database configuration page will appear.
For information about hardware and software requirements for VMM 2012, see System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 System Requirements and Supported Operating Systems (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=209608).
10. On the Database configuration page, do the following:
· Specify the name of the computer that is running Microsoft SQL Server. If you are installing the highly available VMM management server on the same computer that is running SQL Server (which is not recommended), in the Server name box, either type the name of the computer (for example, vmmserver01) or type localhost.
· Specify the port to use for communication with the computer that is running SQL Server, if all of the following conditions are true:
· SQL Server is running on a remote computer.
· The SQL Server Browser service is not started on that remote computer.
· SQL Server is not using the default port of 1433.
Otherwise, leave the Port box empty as in our Lab environment.
· Select or type the name of the instance of SQL Server to use.
· Specify whether to create a new database or to use an existing database. If the account with which you are installing the VMM management server does not have the appropriate permissions to create a new SQL Server database, select the Use the following credentials check box and provide the user name and password of an account that does have the appropriate permissions.
After you have configured the database to be used by the highly available VMM management server, click Next.
11. On the Cluster configuration page, do the following:
· In the Name box, type the name you want to give to this highly available VMM management server implementation. For example, type vmmmgmt01. Do not enter the name of the failover cluster or the name of the computer on which the highly available VMM management server is installed.
You will use this clustered service name “vmmmgmt01” when you connect to this highly available VMM management server implementation by using the VMM console. Because there will be multiple nodes on the failover cluster that have the VMM management server feature installed, you need a single name to use when you connect to your VMM 2012 environment by using the VMM console.
· If you are using static IPv4 addresses, you must specify the IP address to assign to the clustered service name. The clustered service name and its assigned IP address will be registered in DNS. If you are using IPv6 addresses or you are using DHCP, no additional configuration is needed.
After you have configured the cluster settings, click Next.
12. On the Account configuration page, do the following:
· Under Service Account, provide the name and password of the domain account that will be used by the Virtual Machine Manager service. You must use a domain account for a highly available VMM management server. For more information about using a domain account, see Specifying a Service Account for VMM 2012 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=212847).
· Under Distributed Key Management, specify the location in Active Directory to store encryption keys. For example, type CN=users,DC=server,DC=Local.
You must use distributed key management to store the encryption keys in Active Directory for a highly available VMM management server. For more information about distributed key management, see Configuring Distributed Key Management in VMM 2012 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=209609).
After you have specified the necessary information on the Account configuration page, click Next.
13. On the Port configuration page, provide unique port numbers for each feature and that are appropriate for your environment, and then click Next.
Important
The ports that you assign during the VMM management server installation cannot be changed without uninstalling and reinstalling the VMM management server.
14. On the Library configuration page, click Next.
You cannot configure a library share during the installation of a highly available VMM management server. After the highly available VMM management server is installed, you must configure library shares by using the VMM console or by using the VMM command shell. We recommend that you use a highly available file server for hosting your library shares.
15. On the Installation summary page, review your selections and do one of the following:
· Click Previous to change any selections.
· Click Install to install the highly available VMM management server.
16. After you click Install, the Installing features page appears and installation progress is displayed.
17. On the Setup completed successfully page, do one of the following:
· To open the VMM console when you close the setup wizard, ensure that the Open the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 console when this wizard closes check box is selected.
· Click Close.
For information about connecting to a highly available VMM management server by using the VMM console, see How to Connect to a Highly Available VMM Management Server by Using the VMM Console.
18. Verify the SCVMM cluster configured properly by opening the Failover Cluster console and Expand SCVMMMGTM01 group to check the created resources.
To install a highly available VMM management server on an additional node of a cluster
1. On an additional node of your cluster, start the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Setup Wizard. To start the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Setup Wizard, on your installation media, right-click setup.exe, and then click Run as administrator.
Before beginning the installation of VMM 2012, close any open programs and ensure that there are no pending restarts on the computer. For example, if you have installed a server role by using Server Manager or have applied a security update, you may need to restart the computer and then log on to the computer with the same user account to finish the installation of the server role or the security update.
4. On the Select features to install page, select the VMM Server check box. When you are prompted whether you want to add this VMM management server to the existing highly VMM management server installation, click Yes.
The VMM console is automatically installed when you install a VMM management server. You cannot clear the VMM Administrator Console check box because if you are installing a VMM management server, you must also install the VMM console on the computer.
For this Beta, do not select the VMM Self-Service Portal check box.
10. On the Database configuration page, click Next.
11. On the Account configuration page, provide the password of the domain account that will be used by the Virtual Machine Manager service.
12. On the Port configuration page, click Next.
13. On the Library configuration page, click Next.
14. On the Installation summary page, review your selections and do one of the following:
15. After you click Install, the Installing features page appears and installation progress is displayed.
16. On the Setup completed successfully page, do one of the following:
In many cases, when a user clicks on a document in a document library inside SharePoint 2010, the login dialog is displayed asking the user to authenticate. In most deployments this is not a required behaviour.
To modify this, go to SharePoint 2010 Central Administration->"Application Management"->"Manage Web Applications" then click on the web application you want, from the ribbon: select "General Settings" and go to the "Browser File Handling" property, change it to permissive.