This is a step by step guide on how to install Office Web Apps 2013 multi servers farm (using windows NLB and http) and how to configure it with SharePoint 2013.

In my next post I will talk about how to configure Office Web Apps 2013 using NLB and https in multi servers deployment.

Important: this post is assuming that all office web apps servers will run the same role which is the typical case with most of the deployments, however incase you require to route requests to a specific office web server in the farm based on http headers consider using hardware load balancer with layer 7 routing.

Office Web Apps 2013 Architecture Overview

Office Web Apps 2013 deployment architecture has been changed when moving to SharePoint 2013 , where Office Web Apps are no longer a service applications to be federated with SharePoint Server. Instead office web apps 2013 are now decoupled from SharePoint to allow better extensibility , manageability , maintenance and upgrade.

Where in the new office Web Apps 2013 Architecture one single farm of Office web apps servers can serve different SharePoint farms, exchange servers , lync servers . Or even 3rd party applications.

General Guidelines and Recommended Practices before you start office web apps 2013 Installation

• To minimize the complexity of the deployment install all office web apps roles on each server instead of distributing the roles on servers.

• Office web Apps 2013 does not require SQL database.

• PowerShell is used to define Office Web Apps topology, by using New-OfficeWebAppsFarm command with the master server (the first server in the farm) and by using New-OfficeWebAppsMachine command to join more machines to the farm.

• Also PowerShell commands are used to connect the SharePoint farm to Office Web Apps farm.

• Incase of installing updates and patches , the Office Web Apps server should be disconnected from the Office Web Apps farm then joined again after finish the patching.

• SharePoint system account cant render office web apps (by design for security)

• NLB Tips
  • Consider using NLB for high availability
  • Make sure to enable NLB server affinity

 

Office Web Apps Step by Step Installation and Configuration

 

Prerequisites

• Office web apps should be installed on a dedicated server (don’t install it on SharePoint servers, SQL Server , Domain Controller).
• The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or Windows 2012 Standard or Data Center.
• Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 KB2592525
• .Net framework 4.5 to be installed http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30653
• Windows Management Framework 3.0 - Powershell http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34595

 

 

Office Web Apps 2013 Installation Steps

Install IIS Role

Install Ink and Handwriting Services

On Office web apps servers (not SharePoint servers) , Run the Office Web Apps Setup

 

Prepare Office Web Apps 2013 for NLB

you need to create a host record for NLB and assign preserved IP

On DNS server , start menu -- administrative tools -- DNS - expand forward lookup zones

Right click you domain

Enter a name for you NLB Network name and any desired IP , note the NLB FQDN as we are going to use it later on

On each of the Office web Apps servers , start configuring the NLB by adding NLB from features:

As you can see the first office web App node name is OfficeWebApp01, enter the name then press connect

If you have more than one network card , select the one you wish to participate in the NLB , in my case there is only one

Note: as you can see the private IP of the current network interface in 192.168.1.22 , another IP will be added which is the NLB IP after completing the NLB configuration

Define the priority of this NLB Node and the dedicated IP address to participate then click next. ( I left the default in my case)

We need here to specify the NLB Cluster IP which should be in our case (192.168.1.25), press add

Click Ok , then Next

In this screen we will use the FQDN we created at the DNS in the first steps

You can specify many rule for restriction purposes , in my case I accepted the default which allow all ports communication with the NLB.

You can add as many nodes as you wish to the cluster in the same way by "add Host to Cluster"

To verify the NLB setup , ping the NLB name

 

Configure Office Web Apps Multi servers Farm

Now on Office Web Server (officeWebApp01) open windows PowerShell

Run the following command to add the first server node to the Office Web App Farm

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm –InternalUrl “http://OfficeApps” –AllowHttp –EditingEnabled

-InternalURL: the NLBName for the Office web Apps farm or it can be a single server name incase this is a single server installation.

–EditingEnabled (Optional) : used to allow SharePoint documents to be edited in browser (not needed in Lync or exchange cases)

-AllowHttp: incase to force http communication this parameter must be passed, since Office Web App uses https as default communication, so make sure to pass this parameter if you wish to use http not https.

After executing the command , you will get the configuration info as the following:

Now open IIS and notice the creation of the new web application

To make sure you installation is correct browse to the following URL:

http://NLBServerName/hosting/discovery/ which is in our case: http://officeApps/hosting/discovery

You will get a the following response:

 

Configure SharePoint 2013 to bind with Office Web Apps Farm

Configure SharePoint 2013 to have the WOPI binding with Office Web Apps Farm, in order to perform this all what you need to do is to run a couple of simple SharePoint Powershell commands on one of the SharePoint servers (not office web app servers):

New-SPWOPIBinding –ServerName “OfficeApps” -AllowHTTP

Where OfficeApps is the NLBName for office Web App servers farm, you can place a single server name incase you are not using NLB/Multi Server Deployment.

Note: the following ports should be open between SharePoint and Office Web Apps Servers 80, 443, or 809

 

Configure SharePoint to use http

After running the above command , let us check the binding and zone, By default SharePoint is using https , to identify which binding is used http or https run the following command in the PowerShell screen

Get-SPWOPIZone

In order to change it to http , run the following command:

Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-http”

 

Allow Oauth for http

One last thing using http requires to change the AllowOAuthOverHttp to True , to do so run the following PowerShell commands on one of the SharePoint servers

$config = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig)

$config.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true

$config.Update()

Congratulation we are done !!

upload a word document or PowerPoint and try to open it in browser (be carful !! don’t use system account to browse office web apps documents ,this would generate an error)

Click on the document to open it in browser, note at button how request is opened by the Office Web App servers farm.

 

Add more Office Web Apps servers to the farm

All what you have to do now for any additional office web server is to:

• Install Office Web Apps pre requisites
• Install office web apps
• Join the new server to the NLB Cluster (as described above)
• Run the following windows power shell command from a machine that is already part of the farm
• Firewall: If the machine joining the WAC farm cannot access the HTTP 809 channel the New-OfficeWebAppsMachine will throw a “The destination is unreachable error”.

New-OfficeWebAppsMachine –MachineToJoin ServerName

ServerName: is the name of the master machine (the first machine you added to the farm)

 

use the below command to make sure the new server is added to the farm

Get-officeWebAppsFarm

 

Remove Office Web Machine Server

On the server you want to remove run the below command:

Remove-OfficeWebAppsMachine

Tip: If, for any reason, you want to disconnect SharePoint 2013 from Office Web Apps Server, use the following command example:

Remove-SPWOPIBinding –All:$true

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219442.aspx

 

 

References

Plan Office Web Apps: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219435.aspx#certificate

Deploy Office Web Apps : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219455.aspx

Configure SharePoint 2013 to use Office Web Apps: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431687.aspx#tshoot

Troubleshoot office web apps : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431687.aspx#tshoot

During configuring one of SharePoint 2013 farms we faced an issue when trying to list the timer job definitions using central administration, this is caused after a power failure in data center which may interrupted some provisioning activities , anyways when we try to navigate to job definitions page we received the error object reference is not set to an instance of an object

 

Now first area to think of is to check the log file , it indicate that one of the job properties is null , to fix this issue we need to know which job definition is exactly causing the issue ! by opening SharePoint PowerShell then typing the following command which lists all job definitions in farm

Get-SPTimerJob >allJobs.txt | Format-Wide

The parameter AllJobs.txt is the name of the text file that you need to export the list to , it will be generated in the same folder which you executed the command at

after examining the file and checking the job definitions I've noticed that there is one job definition with no name and no description, only the GUID for that definition is showing!

 

Getting the GUID for that job definition eb0d56e8-713f-4f08-9f80-167bb4ea59e6

Then using SharePoint power shell to get that job definition object to delete it as follows 

$job = Get-SPTimerJob eb0d56e8-713f-4f08-9f80-167bb4ea59e6

$job.Delete()

Now Issue is fixed and timer job definitions page is getting displayed in central administration

 

Introduction

In this post I will try to show you how to implement a simple paging mechanism using InfoPath 2010. This approach is useful if you are considering a quick & fast solution to handle InfoPath Repeating Tables (or sections) that returns 100s of items without writing code behind and by following few simple steps.

 

 

How to do it:

In this scenario I already have an InfoPath Form that has a sample Repeating Table that returns more than 300 items. I would like to configure it to show a 100 item on each page, below are the steps:

1- Add a new field on you Main Data Source as following:

 

 

2- Add 2 new buttons on the form to handle Previous & Next Pages:

3-  In the InfoPath Repeating Table (or Section) add a new column and inset a new Calculated Value Control from the Controls Ribbon. This Calculated Value will hold the Row Number of the data that you retrieve:

4- Open the newly added Calculated Value Property and update your Data Source using the Position() XPath:

5- Create a Rule for the Previous Page Button on Click as following:

Rule Name: Previous Rule

Condition: PageNumber != 1

Action: Set Fields Value of PageNumber = PageNumber - 1

 

6- Create a Rule for the Next Page Button on Click as following:

 

Rule Name: Next Rule

Condition: PageNumber <= Count(ID) / 100

Action: Set Fields Value of PageNumber = PageNumber + 1

Note:

• Whenever you see the number 100 it represents the page size.
• you can select any fields with the Count() function, in this scenario I used ID field.

 

7- Now the Tricky Part ... you need to create 2 new Formatting Rules on the Repeating Table as following:

 

Rule Name: Hide Rule 1

Condition (Expression): position() >= 100 * xdXDocument:get-DOM()/my:myFields/my:PageNumber

Check on: Hide this Control

 

 

Rule Name: Hide Rule 2

Condition (Expression): position() < 100 * (xdXDocument:get-DOM()/my:myFields/my:PageNumber - 1)

Check on: Hide this Control

 

 

 

And that all folks ... Run your form and start Paging :)

 

 

After installing SharePoint 2013 farm with OWA server I’ve faced an issue when viewing excel files online, and the weird thing that it happens in excel files only! Power point and word were working 100%!

Going to the discovery page for OWA located on http://officewebappServer/hosting/discovery to get the URL viewer for excel, I had the same resource not found issue! While other office document related viewer URLs give some sort of icon which mean that there is something wrong in EXCEL host web site in OWA server

Going to IIS and checking the virtual Directory and comparing that with Other installation for OWA and checking the url for excel viewer, I found that there is a missing virtual folder called X! This X is the responsible for excel viewing.

Just create the x on IIS site and point it into C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Web Apps\ExcelServicesWfe

X is giving the same Icon now which leads that…..

Issue is fixed

In Part I we have answered the basic questions on how to have Arabic Office 365 tenant, in this article we will go through more advanced tasks in managing and administering Office 365.

Users Bulk Import

Creating bulk users on Office 365 can be done based on CSV file and through one of the following options:

• Portal: when using portal to bulk import we will face the limit of 251 row per file, which means the CSV file will have the header row and 250 users, which is easy and will work fine in Arabic for small number of users.
•  PowerShell: is the best solution when we need to create thousands of users, the biggest file that I’ve uploaded contained 100,000 users. However the challenge here is managing these users, if you will use Excel to get the list and then save as CSV (which is the typical way) then Excel limit is 65536 row (increased in Excel 2010).

I will not cover using the portal as it is straight forward process, check this article for more details: http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-enterprises/ff637601.aspx

Typically we will have users’ list on Excel sheet or on DB then export it to Excel or Access, at the end what we need to have is CSV file, in my experience I’ve found that CSV file with 50,000 users as one batch is good and easy to manage.

This CSV file must be saved as Unicode so Arabic characters can be displayed.

Before playing with the CSV file I have some best practices steps that were very useful on the Admin machine (which will be used to manage and upload users):

• Change the language for non-Unicode programs to Arabic.
• As per Part I of this series we will use ISE, so if you are using Windows 8 it’s already installed if not make sure that you have ISE installed.
• The CSV file must be save as Unicode format. When saving the CSV file from Excel the format of this file is ASCI by default, which is not supporting Unicode characters so the Arabic characters are not supported. However the trick when you have Arabic as default language for non-Unicode program you open the CSV file in Notepad you can read it even if it’s ASCI (because Arabic is the default), if you try to upload that file from ISE you will get the hieroglyphic characters, the solution here is to open the file in notepad and save as in Unicode format, as the following snapshot:

 

The CSV file format is simple, you can you the following template or create your own template:

USERNAME,FIRSTNAME,LASTNAME,DISPLAYNAME,TITLE,DEPARTMENT,CITY,COUNTRY,upn

mohamed.marzouk,محمد,مرزوق,محمد مرزوق,مدير مبيعات,مبيعات,القاهرة,EGYPT,mohamed.marzouk@meamcs.com

The next step is to use ISE to upload the CSV file to your tenant, follow the following steps:

1. Open ISE and connect to your tenant using the following cmdlet:

Connect-MsolService

2. Run the following cmdlet to import the CSV file:

Import-Csv D:\arab-users.csv | ForEach-Object -Process {New-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_.upn -FirstName $_.firstname -LastName $_.lastname -Department $_.department -Title $_.title -City $_.city -Country $_.country -DisplayName $_.displayname -LicenseAssignment meamcs:ENTERPRISEPACK -UsageLocation EG} | Export-Csv -Path d:\result.csv -Encoding unicode

Check the following snapshot:

Before checking the result file, let’s explain this cmdlet, this cmdlet contains 3 parts:

• Import-Csv: this part we are importing the CSV file to the PowerShell without creating any users yet.
• ForEach-Object: in this part we are instructing the PowerShell that for each line in the CSV file (object) we will create new user, this user will have UserPricipalName equal to the value of the “upn” column, FirstName value is equal to the “firstname” column, and so on, the name of the column is coming from $_.columnheader. It’s important also to assign license to that user by using –licenseAssignment switch (you can get this value in your tenant by running get-msolaccountsku), also we have to give value to –UsageLocation which is the location (country) of this user.
• Export-Csv: this is the last part where we instruct the PowerShell to export the result in Unicode format so we can read the Arabic characters.

Last step is to check the result file for two things:

• Any errors.
• And users’ passwords, this password by default must be changed in the first logon.

Check the following snapshot:

In this article we explained how to import Arabic users with PowerShell, next part we will discuss how to manage the Arabic users.

 

Other Parts:

Part I: Arabic Problems

Part II: Users Bulk Creation

Part III: Users Bulk Modification

Part IV: Dynamic Distribution Group