Ron Grzywacz's Blog

Reimagine SharePoint Development Event

2013-05-06T17:58:36Z

If you haven't heard, there's a new way to develop and integrate apps in SharePoint 2013. There's an event on May 20, 2013 that will go through this topic in depth. Feel free to sign up at the link below.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/office/apps/dn133840

Adventures with SharePoint People Picker, Domain Migrations and Groups

2013-04-18T19:02:00Z

I recently worked a customer issue, where the customer was going through a domain migration. The customer is running SharePoint 2010. (This works for both 2007 and 2013 as well) There are two forests, with users in both. Users from one of the domains were being moved to the domain in the other forest. As part of the process, accounts were being pre-created with SIDHistory and set in a disabled state. This created a bit of an issue for people picker. In order to have people picker play nice with this configuration, you need to do a couple things. The first is to make sure you're on the August 2012 Cumulative Update for SharePoint 2010. This introduces an STSADM command (stsadm -o setproperty -propertyname "HideInactiveProfiles" -propertyvalue "true") that let's us hide the inactive users. In addition to this, you also need to set your people picker "SearchADCustomFilter" property to exclude the disabled users. You can see how to Configure People Picker settings on TechNet. (There's an issue with SID to name resolution that requires you to use both the patch and the SearchADCustomFilter property. I'll spare you the details) There's a small issue with the TechNet article. It doesn't include groups in the syntax it provides for your SearchADCustomFilter property. In order to keep People Picker finding groups, you need to use the following syntax for your SearchADCustomFilter property.

(|(objectCategory=group)(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2)))

After making these changes, you should only see the accounts for the active user, in whichever domain the account is active in. Remember, you need to do this for each web application.

Here's some quick bonus info. You can also use PowerShell to access the people picker properties. The following info should get you started.

 $webapp = Get-SPWebApplication http://yourwebapp.com
 $webapp.PeoplePickerSettings //Displays your current values
 
 $webapp.PeoplePickerSettings.SearchADCustomFilter = "(|(objectCategory=group)(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!objectClass=inetOrgPerson)(!userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))) " //Sets the SearchADCustomFilter value
 $webapp.Update() //commits the change
 
 $webapp.PeoplePickerSettings //Displays the updated values

SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Windows Server 2012

2013-03-25T17:24:20Z

I frequently see the question asking if/when will Service Pack 2 for SharePoint 2010 will be released. I don't know when, but if we look at the following KB article, it appears there will be a Service Pack 2 for SP2010. It will add support for Windows Server 2012. As always, things can change. I'm reading the same KB article that you are. My crystal ball is in the shop this week.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2724471

Remove the Quick Launch in SharePoint 2013

2013-03-14T19:56:00Z

There are two ways to remove the Quick Launch in SharePoint 2013. The first is to open the site in Share Designer, and uncheck the option to "Display Quick Launch". While this works, it doesn't move the content to the left. You're left with an empty space that doesn't look great.

The second option is to alter the CSS using a Script Editor web part. Place a Script Editor webpart anywhere on the page, and add the following code. The first line removes the Quick Launch. The second line moves the code all the way to the left.

<style>
.ms-core-navigation { DISPLAY: none }
#contentBox { margin-left: 0px }
</style>

Moving a SharePoint 2013 site template from On Premise to the Cloud aka Office 365

2013-02-25T19:13:00Z

I've recently volunteered for a project to recreate a couple of site templates for SP2013. During this process, I was creating the items on a farm in my lab. (On Premise/Private Cloud) When I finished up my work, I needed to test that the template worked on O365. When I moved the template over, I was getting errors creating new sites with the template. The errors stated that I wasn't licensed for some enterprise features on the E3 trial I was using. (From my limited understanding of O365 licensing and features, I thought I should be licensed) Anyway, I needed to make this work, and in a hurry. The error message I was getting was something along the lines of "Not licensed for this feature" with the information about the feature listed. You can see the specific error message below. In order to move this over to the cloud, I needed to deactivate this feature. I checked the Site Features and Site Collection feature pages in the site administration section of the site, but I didn't see anything that matched the feature name. The feature must have been hidden. I looked in the 15 hive, and found in fact that it is hidden by default. (No changing files in the 15 hive!) You could use the PowerShell command let Disable-SPFeature to disable the feature. I used SharePoint Manager. After exporting the site again, and moving the template back to the cloud, the site created successfully.

SearchDrivenContent 592ccb4a-9304-49ab-aab1-66638198bb58 Site

Windows 8 and the Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000

2013-02-21T18:55:27Z

I have a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Bluetooth Mouse 5000 for my laptop, when I go mobile. I like this mouse, because it doesn’t have an extra dongle that eats up a USB port. When I just booted my laptop up, my mouse wasn’t connecting. It had been working fine the last time I used it, several months ago. I tried to break the pairing from the PC and reconnect it, but it seemed like the process wasn’t completing. Windows 8 showed the mouse as a registered device, but the Green/Red pairing sequence kept happening on the mouse. I had been doing the pairing from the “classic” interface. I switched over to using the Metro version of the “devices” app, that can be found via “Settings”. When I repaired the mouse, it worked successfully.

This is the Metro screen I used to do the pairing.

SharePoint 2013 Workflow-Collect Data from a user and other actions missing

2013-02-20T18:57:31Z

I got tapped to help with an internal project to upgrade a couple of custom site templates from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013. No big deal right? I'll just create a new site in SP2010 off of the original template, content DB attach it to 2013, and then export the template again. Well, it looks like I found a couple hiccups in the RTM upgrade process, that didn't let me do what I want with these templates. (The PG has them and is investigating) So, I'm stuck manually recreating them. One of the big pieces of the site is a workflow for tracking changes and states of items in a list. (Warning, I RARELY create SPD workflows.) I created a new workflow and starting clicking away. I got about 20 steps in, and couldn't get SharePoint Designer 2013 to create a "Collect Data" action. After doing some digging, it looks like there is a big list of workflow actions that were part of SharePoint 2010 that are no longer part of SharePoint 2013. The list is pasted below, along with a source link. Fear not though. SharePoint 2013 still allows users to create workflows on the SharePoint 2010 platform. If you need these legacy actions, make sure you select the "Platform Type" as SharePoint 2010 when you create the workflow. You cannot change the platform type once the workflow is created. I found this out the hard way.

Source Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj728659.aspx

The following features are available only on the SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform:

Actions:
- Stop Workflow
- Capture a Version of the Document Set
- Send Document Set to Repository
- Set Content Approval Status for the Document Set
- Start Document Set Approval Process
- Declare Record
- Set Content Approval Status
- Undeclare Record
- Add List Item
- Inherit List Item Parent Permissions
- Remove List Item Permissions
- Replace List Item Permissions
- Lookup Manager of a User
- Assign a Form to a Group
- Assign a To-Do Item
- Collect Data from a User
- Start Approval Process
- Start Custom Task Process
- Start Feedback Process
- Copy List Item (SharePoint Designer 2013 supports only the document-copying action.)
Conditions:
- If current item field equals value
- Check list item permission levels
- Check list item permissions
Steps:
- Impersonation Step:
Data sources:
- User Profile lookup
Other features:
- Visio integration
- Association Column
- Content Type Association for reusable workflow
- 'Require Manage List/Web Permission' feature for list/site workflow
- Globally reusable workflow type
- Workflow visualization option

Visio stencils for SharePoint 2013

2013-02-14T14:43:38Z

If you're about to diagram your upcoming SharePoint 2013 farm, or want to update the one you've already made, we just released some new Visio stencils for SharePoint 2013. Big thanks to Kirk Evans for making me aware of this.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/tothesharepoint/archive/2013/02/13/get-the-new-office-visio-stencil-with-the-cool-icons.aspx

Can I upgrade from SharePoint 2007 directly to SharePoint 2013?

2013-01-29T00:30:45Z

A lot of customers want to know if you can upgrade from SharePoint Server 2007/WSS 3.0 to SharePoint 2013. The answer to that question is not directly. You'll have to upgrade your content and service applications(if required) through the process to get to 2010 and then to 2013. If you don't want to do the double upgrade (I know I wouldn't), you can look to 3rd party vendor migration tools. A lot of them will take care of this for you, for an added cost of course. Don't get scared off by the idea that these tools cost money, because people and time cost money too.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee947141.aspx

SharePoint 2010 and PowerShell 3.0

2013-01-07T17:20:00Z

SharePoint 2010 does not support PowerShell 3.0 at this time. If you or your admin team install PS 3.0 on your SharePoint 2010 farm, you will have some compatibility issues with the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell. This happens, because the shortcut to start the management shell generically targets the most recent version of PS installed, not 2.0. If you believe you are having this issue you will likely see an error similar to the one below.

Error: "The local farm is not accessible. Cmdlets with FeatureDependencyId are not registered."
When trying to do any operation for example Get-SPWeb you will get this error message:"Microsoft SharePoint is not supported with version 4.0.30319.17929 of the Microsoft .Net Runtime."

As of today (1/7/2013) there is no public fix for this. There is a work around. You need to change the target for the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell shortcut to the following. This specifically targets the 2.0 version of PS, which the SP2010 commandlets are compatible with.

C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -Version 2.0 -NoExit " & ' C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\CONFIG\POWERSHELL\Registration\\sharepoint.ps1 ' "