Jojo Koshy

Object Reference exception on running Add-SPSiteSubscriptionProfileConfig

2012-04-23T09:13:00Z

In case you see an "Object reference" exception on running Add-SPSiteSubscriptionProfileConfig to configure UPA in a multi-tenant mode, there is a possibility that that the user context against which Add-SPSiteSubscriptionProfileConfig is run does not have access over UPA Service Application. Make sure you give the account access on Profile Service Application by clicking on "Permissions" in the ribbon and grant access to the current user account running the PS script.

Error while running New-SPSite in Multi-tenancy mode

2012-04-23T09:09:00Z

Ensure that the Subscription service is started on atleast one of the machines in the farm before you run New-SPSite in a multi-tenancy mode. In case its not started you might see the exception of Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEndpointAddressNotFoundException.

Exporting Variations

2011-09-10T01:41:40Z

MOSS 2007 had an OOB capability of exporting a publishing page to a .cmp file to enable offline translations scenarios. In case your translation team does an offline translation of the WCM site, the exported .cmp contained the required xmls for translation and you could import the translated xmls back to the destination variation. This was done through the “Export Variation” – “Import Variation” option under Site content and Structure.

From my initial analysis I did not find the same UI in SharePoint Server 2010 to export variations, however this can be achieved by using the following web service.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.publishing.webservices.publishingservice.exportobjects%28v=office.14%29.aspx

Code extract from MSDN.

     using System;

    using System.IO;

    using System.Collections.Generic;

    using System.Text;

    using System.Net;

    //Replace macro with "(your assembly name).(name of your Web reference)"

    using PublishingServiceClient = Microsoft.SDK.SharePoint.Server.Samples.PublishingServiceClient;

    namespace Microsoft.SDK.SharePoint.Server.Samples

    {

        class Program

        {

            static void Main(string[] args)

            {        

                // Create a Web reference (named "PublishingServiceClient" here)which generates a SOAP Client class of the same name.

                // URL to the Web service is given by "http://servername/site/_vti_bin/PublishingService.asmx" 

                // Access the Web service methods using objects of this class.

                PublishingServiceClient.PublishingService publishingServiceClient = new PublishingServiceClient.PublishingService();

                //Create credentials for the user accessing the Web service. The export requires site administrator privileges.

                //Use default credentials if the user running client has required rights at the server.

                //Otherwise, explicitly create Credentials using new System.Net.Credentials("username","passwd", "domain").

                publishingServiceClient.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                //Replace webUrl with the url of the site you want to export.

                string webUrl = "http://servername/Variation Home/Variation Site";

                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(webUrl))

                {

                    //Invoke the SOAP Client Method.

                    byte[] compressedFileContent = publishingServiceClient.ExportObjects(webUrl);

                    File.WriteAllBytes(Path.GetTempFileName(), compressedFileContent);

                    //Uncompress the file for translation.

                }            

            ...

SharePoint Server 2010 wsp deployment stuck on deploying

2011-04-14T02:03:34Z

Ever faced with a situation where the wsp job gets stuck on deploying. If yes, please check if all the servers in farm are on the same timezone. I faced a scenario where one of the servers was accidently changed by the developers to a different time zone and it cause the wsp deployment to be stuck on deploying for a long time. After checking various options including disabling Anti-virus, I found that the time zone on one of the machines was set to different zone, almost (5 hours behind ). After setting the time zone correctly and restarting the timer job the wsps got deployed without any issues.

Word 2010 error on opening

2011-03-11T10:58:00Z

If you encounter error while opening a word file from SharePoint 2010 Document library, you need to try and uncheck the Protected View setting under word option.

MySite Host Template on SharePoint 2010

2011-02-10T08:05:07Z

If you have encountered “Error in PortalCrawl Web Service” when the MySite url (e.g sps3://mysite:567/ ) is being crawled then the most likely cause of the error is due to

a) Permission error . Permission needs to be given to the crawl account to the UPA. The permission is “Retrieve People Data for Search Crawlers”

b) The other issue could be MySite Host template is not installed on Root URL. In my scenario it was working for SharePoint 2007 farm, but fails it is not installed on root url for SharePoint Server 2010.

Missing “I like it” and Tags on SharePoint 2010

2011-01-26T14:49:41Z

While working on Profiles and Metadata Service Federation between 2 farms I noticed that the “I like IT” button was missing in the child farm. After spending significant amount of time troubleshooting the Linking I found that I had missed to select the below checkboxes after creating the connection to “Service Application” in the destination farm.

The selection of checkboxes is necessary on the “Child Farm” proxy connection. This can be evoked by clicking on the “Properties” button with the focus enabled on the Proxy Connection.

Admin Approved InfoPath forms migrating from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint Server 2010

2011-01-24T04:48:37Z

Admin approved form from MOSS 2007 get deployed as features within the 12 features hive under folders named with GUIDs. These need special handling to be moved to SharePoint 2010. The following steps need to be performed.

a) Export the Admin approved IP templates using stsadm command.

using stsadm -o exportipfsadminobjects command export the IP forms to a CAB file.

b) Import this into the SharePoint 2010 environment using the Windows PowerShell 2.0 Import-SPInfoPathAdministrationFiles cmdlet.

c) Check if the files are imported correctly by browsing to the Central Admin –> Manage Infopath Form Templates.

SQL Server 2008 SSRS integration with SharePoint 2010 RTM

2010-05-04T14:20:00Z

For the integration of SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services with SharePoint 2010 you require the SQL Server 2008 R2 Addin for SharePoint 2010. However it only supported with CU8 update / patch of SQL 2008 SP1 planned for release in May 2010. Please refer to http://blogs.msdn.com/prash for further details

SharePoint 2010 silverlight media player webpart

2010-02-22T02:33:00Z

I was trying to get a silverlight media player webpart working and struggled to find the correct properties to get the video started. So I thought I would share the same with others who are facing same issue.

a) Add a silverlight webpart on your page.

b) Point the silverlight webpart to load mediaplayer.xap file from 14 hive under \layouts\ClientBin.

c) Set the custom initialization string property in the webpart to the the following in case you want the video to start automatically after loading. I placed the .wmv file in the same folder called ClientBIn. Hope it helps.

autoPlay=true,mediaSource=wildlife.wmv,mediaTitle=SharePoint

INSTALLING REPORTING SERVICES MOSS ADDIN ISSUES

2008-10-21T19:22:02Z

The reporting services addin to that needs to be installed on the webfront end servers gave me some grief last week during installation. My customers installation environment was a x64 bit MOSS box, with SQL Server 2008 Entterprise edition on a seperate box. After sucessfully configuring the SSRS in SharePoint Integration Mode on the SSRS server, MOSS bits also need to be installed on the database server. Remember to use the same bits of MOSS (including Service Packs and patches) as used on other servers on the farm. Please do not install IIS on SQL Server 2008 (SSRS) as SQL Server 2008 does not require IIS, you only need to install MOSS without IIS.

The real issue I faced during installation was that of the SSRS add-in for SQL Server 2008 x64 ( different from one for SQL Server 2005 SP2) , was that the msi used to fail repeatedly and the following steps (From SQL Server BOL)helped fix the issue.

Run SharePointRS.msi / rsSharePoint_x64.msi SKIPCA=1.

Find the rsCustomAction.exe file on the file system. This file is copied to your computer by the Setup program. The file will be located in the %Temp% directory.
To get the path information for this file, click Start, click Run, and then type %temp%. The file should be located in \Documents and Settings\<your name>\LOCALS~1\Temp.

Open a command prompt window. To do this, click Start, click Run, and type cmd.

Navigate to the folder that contains the rsCustomAction executable.

Enter the following command:

rsCustomAction.exe /i

This configuration step will take several minutes to complete. The W3SVC service will be restarted during this process.

After Setup is finished, go to Administrator Tools and click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

Click Application Management. You should see a new section named Reporting Services. This section has links to pages used to specify integration settings.

Activating a feature for all SiteCollections within a WebApplication - MySites

2008-10-06T07:16:03Z

Recently I had to get a feature activated over all 800 MySite of a Farm. The approach I choose was to generate an xml list of all the MySIte URL's in my farm and use a Windows application to read the XML file and generate the appropriate activation script.

a) The step to get all the site collections within the WebApplication hosting MySite is to run the command of stsadm -o enumsites -url http://moss:34078/ >C:\MySiteList.XML . This xml file would include the URL of all mysites in an XML Node.

b) Assuming all your mysites are under http://moss:portnumber/sites/personal/, the next thing you need to do is simply load the XML File in an XML domdocument and generate the appropriate activation script as stsadm -o activateFeature -url <<URLfromtheXMLNode Element>>. Remember to filter out the urls which do not begin with http://moss:portnumber/sites/personal/. And you are done. The script can be outputted to a .bat file which you could run later to activate the feature.

You also could do the same using API of SharePoint by looping through the site collection list of a particular webapp. My personal choice would be to go with the above for its simplicity.

How to add a .rsds file as datasource for Reporting Service integration in MOSS

2008-08-25T20:09:05Z

SQL Server 2005 SP2 contains Reporting Services -MOSS integration feature. Reporting Services can be configured to run in Sharepoint Integration Modew where in reports can be managed from MOSS and not from Report Manager.

After your Reporting Service Report is deployed to SharePoint Report Library you could configure the report to use the common datasource from Data Connection library. The Data Connection library is used to store the datasource files that stores connection info to connect to RS application database (SSAS db / Custom SQL DB etc..) in a central and common location.

By default the .Rsds file content type does not appear as a new item dropdown. You will need to configure the Data Connection library to include the Report Data Source Content type to have it appear in the New item dropdown.

Page Layout Publishing feature Page Attribute issue

2008-08-25T09:07:00Z

Page layouts can be published and deployed using features. Doing the same using features has advantage as compared to publishing the same using SharePoint Designer. Andrew has a very good post on the same. http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/archive/2006/12/20/5451.aspx .

Use the above link to understand steps involved in creating a Feature and Deploying the same using a feature.

Although you might still deploy the Page Layout using features and solution deployment you still need SPDesigner assistance to create the page.( without saving the same to Content DB). One thing to remember after creating the page using SPDesigner is to remove some additional Page attributes that the designer injects. These attributes cause the page to become unghosted. Before you deploy the page layout created using SPD and deployed using Features and Solution deployment ensure that your page attribute is as follows.

<%@ Page language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage,Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=12.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,

PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"%>

How to configure Cache Profile in Page Layout using Features

2008-08-25T08:47:31Z

Feature framework can be used to deploy Page Layouts. After you have deployed a page layout you could configure the Cache Profile that needs to be assigned to the Page Layout using UI. But what if your requirement was to pre-configure the same with deployment of page layout itself. To know the Cache Profile that needs to go with the Page Layout you need to know its Item ID and the title. Cache Profile is configured as a metadata column on the Master Page gallery. To enable the same I had to modify the elements.xml as shown below.

<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"> 
    <Module Name="PageLayouts" Url="_catalogs/masterpage" Path="PageLayouts" RootWebOnly="TRUE"> 
        <File Url="CareerLayoutsCTFeature.aspx" Type="GhostableInLibrary"> 
            <Property Name="Title" Value="HR Page Layout" /> 
            <Property Name="MasterPageDescription"

Value="Page with image on top contains an image field and richtext field." /> 
            <Property Name="ContentType" Value="Page Layout" />       
            <Property Name="PublishingAssociatedContentType"

Value=";#HRPublishingContent;#0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130

EC3DB064584E219954237AF3900413CF8A8360B40d08C45631829C1FB0B;#"/> 
<Property Name="AnonymousCacheProfile" Value="2;#Public Internet (Purely Anonymous)"/> 
            </File> 
</Module> 
</Elements>

Delegate control for Sharepoint Search

2008-04-17T04:19:49Z

Delegate controls are a very good mechanism to replace an existing control with another control through a SharePoint Feature. For example a delegate control is declared as

<SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server" ControlId="SmallSearchInputBox"/>

The key to have your custom search control appear in place of the above declaration is to ensure the following:

a) Create a feature with feature details file entries as below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"> <Control Id="SmallSearchInputBox" Sequence="100" Url="~/_controltemplates/mysearchcontrol.ascx"/> </Elements>.

The sequence number and ID is very important. Your sequence number should be the lowest if there are already multiple features registered for the same control Id of "SmallSearchInputBox" .

b) if you have MOSS installed you will notice that there are already 3 features for SmallSearchInputBox (a quick search on Features folder will reveal this ) and the lowest sequence number is 25. So to have your control appear in place of the standard search box , reduce your sequence number to less than 25.

c) Install and Activate the feature.

d) Restart IIS if necessary.

Refine People Search by Additional Managed Profile Properties

2008-04-13T05:06:43Z

The default people search in MOSS refines search results based on Department and JobTitle. When a profile property is created it gets automatically added into the Managed Properties collection. If you need to refine people search by additional profile properties then we need to ensure the following

a) A Profile property needs to be converted to a Managed property. If it is not already present you need to add a new managed property. In our example I have a new profile property called CreditCardType which has its own Managed Property under search setting with the same name CreditCardType.

b) Open the PeopleSearchResult.aspx in SharePoint Designer. This will appear under the master page gallery of your site. Look for <SearchWC:RefineSearchResults and you can add your own entry below the entries for Department and JobTitle <SEARCHWC:RefineSearchResults runat="server" Title="Refine by Card" SearchProperty="CreditCardType"/>

c) Next edit the people Search Core WebPart in peopleresult.aspx in Browser and add the following text in the Selected Columns Property ( under "Result Query Options" ).

The last step is important, without which the refine by link will not appear.