My Two Bits : MOSS 2007

Tech Week and our Community Contributors

Kailash — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:24:41 GMT

This week @ Microsoft Egypt we’ve been delivering Tech Week. While it’s not a brand new idea, it’s the first time we’re delivering something of this sort in Egypt. The concept is pretty simple. We have rooms with 2 parallel tracks with sessions on SharePoint, SQL, Exchange, Security, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Win7. And once people are done with these sessions, we have a lab with all of these technologies available so everyone can get a hands-on experience with the products and see how they can benefit our customers’ organizations.

For the SharePoint track, we’ve had amazing speakers this far and this will continue through Thursday. Each speaker comes with a strong background in SharePoint and has extensive experience dealing with customer needs.

A key message we’ve been delivering through our sessions is the need for community engagement on part of our attendees. The Egyptian SharePoint community, founded by Marwan Tarek and other MVPs have been strong contributors to this event and are an amazing bunch to work with. Their website http://www.sharepointgroups.org/egysug is a great starting place and should serve as an excellent starting place for all SharePoint enthusiasts. The EGYSUG team has also contributed to http://www.sharepoint4arabs.com where you can find some great webcasts in ARABIC! And should you be interested in further topics please feel free to request more from the website. We expect to set up further events with the EGYSUG and would heartily recommend that everyone sign up for their newsletters and receive any event notifications. I’ll be working closely with the community to set these up!

So, all in all it’s been a very rewarding week! Looking forward to more community involvement and events!

Sharepoint Courses for Web Development

Kailash — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:53:24 GMT

Twice in two days I was asked the same question so here’s my answer:

I’m starting with the pre-requisite that your team has advanced knowledge of ASP.NET development.

Introduction to SharePoint Server 2007
For Developer who works with Office SharePoint Server 2007 to build Web portals and integrate business applications: MCTS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development, Exam 70-542
IT professional who configures and deploys Office SharePoint Server 2007. MCTS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Configuration. Exam 70-630
Implementing a standard content managed website using SharePoint 2007

SharePoint tools

Kailash — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:13:38 GMT

I found this amazing directory with tools for SharePoint. Some of these tools are quite useful and free!

Great list for an integrator or SharePoint customer. These tools should help you increase your ROI by delivering even more value to your people.

http://www.sharepointreviews.com/

Impressive Community Webparts for SharePoint

Kailash — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:03:22 GMT

I was looking for something around discussions on codeplex. Did not find that, but I was totally blown away by these two webparts – Kudos to the guys who made ‘em. They make life so easy!

So they are

ChartParts – build out a list, fill it up with data and hey presto, now you can have a chart based on it!

More here:

http://chartpart.codeplex.com/

And the second, which is even more exciting is really leveraging SharePoint as a “database” – yeah SharePoint is not a database and not a substitute for one, but this tool really made me glad. Finally something awesome!

http://slam.codeplex.com/

You guys rock!

K.I.S.S.

Kailash — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:26:09 GMT

Recently in a personal review I got from my colleagues, I got the feedback that I need to simplify, simplify and simplify!

So noting that here’s some really simple stuff you can do with SharePoint – hehe.. I think you’ll understand their feeling soon.

Using SharePoint instead of Email Attachments:

http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=109

How to manage workflow escalations using SharePoint:

http://sharepointsolutions.blogspot.com/2008/10/task-escalation-using-workflows.html

Mohamed Zaki’s SharpZip!

Kailash — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:32:48 GMT

Hey all, look what turned up on Codeplex!

http://www.codeplex.com/MZakiCustomActions

Download Zipped List Items Feature
Project Description
This Custom UI Actions for Sharepoint extends the lists action menu to allow users to zip document library items and download all of them either with or without version
Features

Download all document library items
Keep the folder hierarchy
Versions: if you are caring about document versions you can download them as well
Ability to download only the selected view items instead of all list items

The new menu added to the sharepoint document library actions menu

After clicking over the menu item

the compressed file downloaded

the compressed file downloaded with the files versions

Known Issues

Arabic file names: arabic file names are not downloaded correctly
The tool uses the system temporary directory to export the list items and compress it, so you need to watch this folder and manage a clean up mechanism

Thank you

The Compression library i've used to compress the list items is SharpZipLib
also used a code sample posted on Peter Bromberg blog to compress the entire folder, Thank you Peter :) the post and code sample where great.

Mohamed Zaki
MVP Sharepoint
http://mohamedzaki.net

SharePoint Readiness Resources for Customers

Kailash — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:48:38 GMT

Found this great site where you can search for readiness resources online. Includes courses, webcasts and more.

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/readiness/pages/search.aspx

Hardening SharePoint Installations

Kailash — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:48:15 GMT

I wonder how many people have seen this article on Technet?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262834.aspx

It's an excellent resource on hardening your SharePoint environment. Also shows you some commands to use when running PSConfig to set up the Databases.

Extranet hardening planning tool

The following planning tool is available for use with this article: Extranet hardening planning tool: back-to-back perimeter (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=85533&clcid=0x409). Based on the back-to-back perimeter topology, this tool articulates the port requirements for each of the computers running Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server and each of the routers or firewalls. This tool is an editable Microsoft Office Visio file that you can revise for your environment. For example, you can:

Role Change!

Kailash — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:36:38 GMT

Wow, my last post was on the 12^th of May! That's a reflection of year-end madness we get infected with at MS. So, now that that's done with, I can return to posting again.

Update. I've been reallocated as an SSP. So now I'm SSP Biz Productivity. Translation – I was a Techie and now I'm more into the Sales end of business, helping customers realize the benefits of Office & SharePoint. And that is sorely needed.

Since you're here to read about My Two Bits, I'll be glad to give them to you.

Last.FM rocks! I'm enjoying it and listening to dance music all day as I work. Michael Jackson's Thriller's playing for now.

Podcasts are wonderful! I've been plugged into BBC's Global News podcasts, WSJ Tech Briefings, Science Talk by SciAm and Guardian's Science Weekly.

So there. J

No? Well, since I'm such a great fan of Podcasts, the SharePoint team decided to help you create podcasts that I'd enjoy. Hence the launch of the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (PKS – for short… there we go with Acronyms again)

And how does this work for you? PKS is available as a free CodePlex project here. Combine that with Community Clips from OfficeLabs and you're ready to podcast. The community clips app will allow you to create screencasts with very little trouble and these you can upload to the Podcast site. At MS we have an public facing site for employees and while download speeds are annoyingly slow from Egypt, I do enjoy downloading some great podcasts from the site while in the office. Oh, and with Zune you can subscribe to the Podcasts on PKS (authenticated feeds work!) giving you a seamless solution. There go the days of driving without a podcast.

Oh, one favorite I have these days is Search Commands from OfficeLabs. With all the confusion some newbies (and some experts too) have with the fluent UI in Office 2007, Search Commands allows you to search for the command you're looking for. :D So where will we put search next?

SharePoint Customizations – SP1 and onwards

Kailash — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:38:58 GMT

SharePoint Products and Technologies Customization Best Practices

This section describes best practices for many common types of customizations and whether they are supported in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. Customization, as used in this section, means any addition to, change to, or removal of the settings, content, and templates provided by SharePoint Products and Technologies. Unless otherwise specified, the descriptions in this documentation apply to all SharePoint Products and Technologies, including Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

We've updated this section with the SP1 release. Kindly review it and ensure that your solutions adhere to these:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb861954.aspx

Specifically, kindly ensure that you technical teams are up-to-date with the following topics:

Pluggable Authentication
Modifying built-in SharePoint files
SharePoint designer editing

Also here's an excellent guide to customizing SharePoint:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261852.aspx

The goal of this guide is to provide prescriptive guidance that can help you and your team build custom enterprise sites by using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 — such as company-wide portal sites or Internet presence sites. Custom sites based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 combine coded elements, such as workflows, document converters, and Web Parts, along with content, such as master pages, layout pages, graphics files, and Web pages. Best practices for developing these sites include setting up multiple environments for developing, integrating, piloting, and deploying coded elements and content from one environment to another. Therefore, coordinating the development and deployment of an enterprise site based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a complex activity. This guide describes the ways you can set up the multiple environments used in the development process and the methods for deploying content and code from one environment to another.

3 Things

Kailash — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:36:03 GMT

Repost from the SharePoint team blog:

Three recent additions to the SharePoint Features project:
- Toolbar Manager: This Feature allows you to selectively show and hide menu items on the standard list/library toolbar. The feature adds a new web part to the gallery that you can place on any list/library view page. Once placed on the page, you can use the properties of the web part to show or hide menu items. This is the perfect solution for hiding a single menu item such as "Export to Spreadsheet" to prevent users from taking that action. Developed by Scot Hillier, a SharePoint MVP.
- Unique Column Policy: This Feature creates a new Information Policy that allows you to specify a column in a list or library that should have unique values. It is accessible from the Information Policy link on the list/library settings page. When you turn on the policy, you can then select the column where the unique constraint should be applied. Also developed by Scot Hillier.
- Reset Theme: This feature changes the theme and logo for every site in a collection. A link appears on the Site Settings page to access the feature. very useful for making wholesale changes to the branding of a site collection. Developed by Romelard Fabrice, a SQL Server MVP.

Knowledge Centers

Kailash — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:48:01 GMT

I met Mike Gannotti in Seattle in July last year. He presented at a small team gathering and told us of the work he'd done around Knowledge Centers. That idea stuck with me and here's the complete series he's posted on getting them up and running.

Have a look at the first: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/mikeg/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=258

Thanks Mike!

New SharePoint iFilters

Kailash — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 16:32:29 GMT

We released our Filter Pack for SharePoint this week. A must have for everyone!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=60c92a37-719c-4077-b5c6-cac34f4227cc&DisplayLang=en

Since many products are built on the underlying SharePoint Search platform this filter pack adds capabilities to a number of products (WDS, SharePoint, Exchange, SQL). The big thing in the pack is the addition of the OneNote and ZIP iFilters.

Developing Solutions with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Visual Studio 2005

Kailash — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:10:37 GMT

6071AE: Developing Solutions with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Visual Studio 2005

In this online collection composed of six courses, developers will learn how to develop customized Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 solutions. Topics covered within the collection include Enterprise Content Management, Single-Sign On, and InfoPath and Excel services. Additionally, the courses will cover the Business Data Catalog, and Search and Audience Targeting features. These courses will help prepare developers for the 70-542 TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 exam.

This fresh and engaging collection (created by Sify Limited) is now available and can be accessed from the following location:

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=135648

SharePoint content deployment issues

Kailash — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:01:03 GMT

One of my customers recently faced 2 issues with content deployment. We were both unaware of the hotfixes that were posted to resolve them. Here's a quick summary of the issues.

Issue #1: Some special characters show up in the Published site: Â and â€™. Here's the MSDN article for the hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938536

The jargon in the article is somewhat confusing, but the relevant portion covering the above issue states:

Language-specific special characters are displayed incorrectly on Web pages of the destination site collection after you run a content deployment job

You run a content deployment job to copy content from a source site collection to a destination site collection. Web pages in the source site collection have one or more columns that contain certain language-specific special characters such as ó or ê. After you run the content deployment job, you notice that the special characters are displayed incorrectly in Web pages of the destination site collection. You also experience this issue if you use the Stsadm.exe command-line tool to export content or to import content.

This problem occurs if the special characters are encoded incorrectly.

Issue #2:

Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK__#ExportObjects____22355A14'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.#ExportObjects'. The statement has been terminated.
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)
at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader ds, RunBehavior runBehavior, String resetOptionsString)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, Boolean async)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method, DbAsyncResult result)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.InternalExecuteNonQuery(DbAsyncResult result, String methodName, Boolean sendToPipe)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SqlSession.ExecuteNonQuery(SqlCommand command)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPExport.CalculateObjectDependencies(Boolean linksOnly)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPExport.FollowLinks()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPExport.CalculateObjectsToExport()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.SPExport.Run()

Here's the hotfix that fixes the issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936867

Generally the issue with searching for issues like these is to remove the specific info from your case. This is what bogged down my customer. To search for this one, I just queried on the portion here: "Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.#ExportObjects'. The statement has been terminated. at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)"