Technical Weblog of Eric Charran : SharePoint and MOSS 2007

HOWTO: Bulk Load Data Into SharePoint Lists via Access 2007

echarran — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:22:22 GMT

Hi all,

Before writing something that would take some time to do in terms of loading data, I was able to successfully conduct a bulk load of data into SharePoint with MSAccess. Here is my mock up test that I did.

I created a SharePoint list in a sample site with the following schema:

Sample List

Title Single Line of Text

Sample Column Single Line of Text

Sample Lookup Column Lookup to a Contacts List

I chose these columns because they represent some non-standard column types of mapping in order to do bulk loads with. I then created a new Access 2007 database and linked to the [Sample List] in SharePoint.

I then created a mirror data load table in the access database with the following schema

Sample List Local Source

ID AutoNumber

Title Text

SampleColumn Text

SampleLookupValue Number

Note that the source data for inserting into a SharePoint list lookup column via Access is a number (the actual ID of the specified target value of the Lookup list).

I then populated the local list with 100 rows of sample data.

I then created a Append Query that would take the rows from the [Sample List Local Source] and put it into the linked table to the target SharePoint list. The query for the [Sample List Load] is below:

Upon running the query, and refreshing in the browser, you can see all 100 rows in the list. The query took about 10 seconds to run. I would suggest you bulk load in batches to avoid a really long running operation.

Here are the results:

I would also suggest that we make a default view on the list that limits the data to rendering a max of 2000 items so you don’t’ incur big perf hits when viewing the data.

This list will help in creating the source table and its data types to map to the target SharePoint list.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access/HP010477131033.aspx

INFO: Recent Technical Articles

echarran — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:33:14 GMT

Here are some of my most recent technical articles that I wrote (and helped write) as part of the VSTS Ranger program as well as the SharePoint Ranger program. As you may know, the ranger programs are essentially field extensions of the product team that provide customers with expert guidance and prescriptive guidance while sending valuable feedback that improves our products to the product groups. In this instance, we worked with Bijan Javidi, Paul Andrew, Chris Keyser and the PnP team to crystallize our ALM guidance for SharePoint custom application development. In many instances, we consumed the PnP SharePoint guidance and attempted to model “good development behavior :)”

Here are the resources:

Solution and Authored Artifact Development Models for SharePoint
Learn to reconcile differences between artifact development and assembly development by combining components into a single version control repository, such as Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server.

Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications
Use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server to support SharePoint application development, and provide an integrated development environment and single source code repository for process activities, integrated progress reporting, and team roles.

SharePoint Server Custom Application Development: Document Workflow Management Project
Read about the real-world design, construction, and deployment of a custom SharePoint Server 2007 application to a mid-market enterprise customer using Team Foundation Server as an ALM platform.

This is from the VSTS Ranger section of the SharePoint ALM Page found here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cc990283.aspx

INFO: SharePoint 2007 VM’s NLTM Authentication Failure

echarran — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:05:47 GMT

I usually build a Virtual Machine that consists of the following for SharePoint development:

Windows Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 SP1
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 with Team Explorer (and VSeWSS 1.3)
Office 2007 SP2
Domain Controller and DNS Services

I use host headers to allow the web applications I create on the VM to run on port 80. However, recently, the ability for me to visit a web application suddenly stopped inexplicably. What happened was that any web application seemed to prompt me for NTLM credentials three consecutive times, but then deny me each time with a blank page. SharePoint’s access denied page was not even rendered. Furthermore, any HTML files (images, txt, html) could not be served from the virtual directory of the web application. I found that I could visit http://localhost:portnumber sites, but no sites that used host headers.

It turns out that a recent security patch delivered through Windows Update caused the issue. There is a security update that causes any “excessive” traffic on the loopback adapter to be shut down. This means that unless you either turn off the loopback adapter security check, or place all DNS names you want to use for web application host headers under a specific registry key, host headers won’t work and you will be denied access. See the KB here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861

And the recommended steps below:

Method 1: Specify host names

Note We recommend that you use this method.
To specify the host names that are mapped to the loopback address and can connect to Web sites on your computer, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.
Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.
Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type the host name or the host names for the sites that are on the local computer, and then click OK.
Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service.

Method 2: Disable the loopback check

Follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

Migrate SharePoint Workflows and Content Types

echarran — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:25:03 GMT

Here is a great utility to migrate SPD workflows and content types across site collections.

http://spwflmigrator.codeplex.com/

Never used it myself, but it appears quite useful.

List Lookup Columns in Content Types

echarran — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:23:06 GMT

This codeplex project allows developers to package list lookup columns as a feature and as part of a content type. This gets us around a challenge where developers try to deploy a content type that has a list lookup column which is dependent on a list instance.

http://fieldlookupbuilder.codeplex.com/

It extends the work done by Chris O’Brien that made list lookup columns as a feature.

SharePoint 2007 - create lookup fields as a feature

What’s your Social Networking IQ?

echarran — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:51:55 GMT

What is the best way to judge social networking IQ? In my mind its not necessarily your knowledge of social networking from an academic perspective, nor is it your knowledge of the technical implementation and networks of social networking that are out there. However, I define social networking IQ has a person’s ability to effectively participate, benefit from and manage their social networking footprint amongst a variety of social networking networks and implementations. Whether it be technical networks like such as Facebook, Live Spaces, My Space, etc. or simply an email distribution list within your organization, an individual’s membership should be symbiotic. This means that members should give to the network like a community as well as receive. Today, most social networks are facilitated by software, so we’ll focus on those. Also, the term IQ isn’t entirely accurate as it is a measure of your social networking footprint rather than some numerical scheme that judges your worthiness in terms of your memberships. Thus, to get things started, here is my social networking footprint at work and at home:

Work
- SharePoint My Site
  - Actively use the colleague tracker and monitor as well as presence to see who relates to who and what changes are happening to people on my team or close to me.
  - I also post various documents and presentations to share and other types of information that are valuable to others (like a corporate Live Sky Drive)
- Internal Microsoft Blog
  - I maintain an internal Microsoft blog as a result of selecting to create one from my My Site
  - I also post to the internal SharePoint Rangers blog and some other regional knowledge sharing blogs
- MSDN Blog
  - I also maintain an external facing MSDN blog on blogs.msdn.com which serves as a knowledge and “gotcha” repository for challenges I face in the field and in the office.
- Email Distribution Lists
  - I am a member of over 30 (and that’s trimmed down) internal email distribution lists
    - These lists provide a place for individuals to post general or esoteric technical questions and receive answers right in Outlook
    - These lists are tracked by the colleague tracker and published to others when they look at my profile in SharePoint
- Office Communicator
  - The SharePoint colleague tracker also mines my IM conversations and contact lists to see who I relate to most frequently as well as my email.
  - The colleague tracker forms recommendations based on these and other elements (like AD reporting relationships)
Non-Work
- Facebook
  - I have a Facebook account which I am quite active on and have integrated with other social networking and IM tools
    - Messenger, Twitter, etc.
- Twitter
  - I also have a twitter account and use a utility (Witty Twitter) to both create my tweets and have the tweet set automatically as my Facebook status
- Windows Live Profile
  - I have an active Windows Live profile and have it linked to my Facebook status.
  - This means that when I update Witty Twitter, my tweet is sent to Twitter, and it also is reflected in Facebook and in Windows Live.
- Windows Live Space
  - I also maintain a Windows Live Space that was and still is my personal interest blog.
- Flickr
  - Flickr houses my family’s entire photo library (I am a paying member so I have no upload limits). I tag photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery and use them to upload to Flickr.
  - This means that my photo stream is tagged with the same metadata as my local photos and I can browse the tag cloud using Flickr.

There are some essential tools that I use to make my life a little easier. These tools are mostly thick client tools that don’t force me to open a browser every time I want to do something.

Groove
- I use Groove to sync my My Site at work so I have offline access on multiple computers to the content on my My Site.
- I also use it to sync files between firewalls so clients and customers can easily get large binaries without worrying about ftp, etc.
Windows Live Photo Gallery
- With the latest beta, I upload to Flickr and Facebook right after tagging.
- I apply tags as well as facial tags which nicely integrates into Facebook.
- This allows me to go from camera to Windows Home Server for storage, to Facebook in a few seconds.
Witty Twitter

A smart client WPF utility that allows me to create, monitor and update Tweets from myself and others
I also configured Facebook to monitor my tweets and make them my status updates on Facebook and Windows Live.

Windows Live Writer

A great utility for thick-client publishing, editing and re-publishing of blog posts.
Allows posting and cross posting between SharePoint, Community Server, Windows Live Spaces and a ton of other blog-ware.

HOWTO: Enable Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugging

echarran — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:33:22 GMT

See this link for methods to enable Remote Debugging:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bt727f1t.aspx

HOWTO: How Document Collaboration Works at Microsoft

echarran — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:11:31 GMT

While the title of this post might indicate that there is a sweeping document collaboration strategy that all teams and people use, that’s not the case necessarily. We are big at dogfooding which is a made up verb indicating that we love to try out our own software and tools in our everyday jobs just the way our customers do.

To that end, this post will describe a successful multi-national document collaboration effort surrounding the recent publication of the Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Team Foundation Server 2008 guidance that was recently published on MSDN.

The guidance for this heavily anticipated documentation will be released in phases over the next few weeks and appear in a developer center located under the SharePoint developer center.

Here is the portal link which describes the focus of the guidance as well as links/placeholders to all the content as it gets published:

Team Foundation Server Resource Center

And here is the link to the first published article:

Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications

Based on the guidance, and the descriptions in the above resource center, we have a total of five white paper documents that were collaborated on by over 50 people in several countries, including India, Germany, Ireland, Turkey and the Netherlands. This also included domestic resources such as product group folks and rangers around the country and in Redmond, WA. Here are some stats about the effort:

Collaboration Platform: Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Groove 2007 with Word 2007, Visio 2007 and OneNote 2007 (all latest Service Packs and hotfixes)

Team Size: Over 50 contributors and tester/reviewers actively marking up and editing the same set of documents over a 4 month period including Microsoft Services Consultants, Product Group team members (SharePoint and Visual Studio Team System) and external MVP’s

Deliverables: 5 white papers consisting of procedural and contextual guidance including screen shots, artwork, Visio diagrams for developers writing custom MOSS applications and using Team Foundation Server

How we did it:

I was fortunate enough to be at the hub of this activity and led the effort to work with all the talented authors, contributors and reviewers. What we did is to establish a SharePoint team site in on a our internally hosted Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Server collaboration farm. Using the Shared Documents library, I then created a Groove 2007 workspace and added the SharePoint Files tool.

SharePoint and Groove in Sync Together:

The SharePoint Files tool will connect to a designated SharePoint site at a level in its folder hierarchy specified by the user. In my case, I linked the tool to the Shared Documents folder. I then in Groove, created a folder hierarchy which the rest of the team would use to store documents and resource files related to those documents. The folder hierarchy synchronized back to SharePoint, thereby mirroring the workspace and the files therein.

From a collaboration standpoint, this was critical as a most of our authors and reviewers were at one point or another not connected to our internal-only corporate SharePoint collaboration environment. Thus, by making Groove the primary collaboration point, Groove workspace members could interact with the virtual team and the shared documents while at an airport, on the train, or anywhere with internet access.

How We Managed Changes to Documents:

Whenever anyone updated a document, the changes came streaming back from their workspace to everyone else’s copy. For me, I was the designated SharePoint synchronizer. My workspace was the first workspace that I invited everyone to, so it was the only workspace that synchronized back to the SharePoint team site. When my workspace received updates and reported unsynchronized changes in the tool, I simply synchronized back to the SharePoint site and all the changes went into the SharePoint “cloud”. This gave me, and everyone else a comfort level that our documents were preserved not only in each other’s workspace, but versioned in SharePoint as well which was backed up by Microsoft’s enterprise backup.

Collaboration Stipulations:

While the this arrangement gave us the flexibility to support collaborators accessing a document both in Groove and in SharePoint, I did not want to get into a situation where a single document had conflicting changes coming from both environments. Thus each paper’s collaboration team was required to choose their collaboration environment (SharePoint or Groove). Because of the benefits of Groove (only an internet connection required to collaborate) all of our team chose this approach. This left it to me to manually (if I chose) check out and in documents before synchronizing.

In addition, to avoid collisions of people editing documents at the same time in the workspace, what we did was to copy our standard MSDN template Word 2007 xml file for each contributor. This assured that they would be able to contribute freely without worrying about who else was in the document when they were. Once completed, I was responsible for editing and merging the documents back into a master composite copy (using Word 2007’s merge document feature).

For editing and commenting from our tech reviewers, we did the same thing. We made copies of the composite document which they could freely edit and mark up which I merged in and applied their edits to the master copy. All the while, I was synchronizing with the SharePoint site. We also had .one files in the folders for each white paper so we could share hand drawn or text notes on the topic.

Great Collaboration Experience:

It was really one of those great collaboration experiences where the technology worked like it was supposed to. Quietly, reliably and without issue. No document collisions, or burned documents or uh-oh moments. One great benefit is that I saved the workspace invitation within the workspace itself. Thus, any member of the the workspace or visitor to the SharePoint site could join the workspace themselves or forward it on to others. The popularity of this project inside Microsoft reached fever pitch when at one point we had over 75 active workspace members.

HOWTO: Complete a WF Workflow if a Task Replicator Activity’s Tasks Haven’t Been Completed Yet

echarran — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:09:48 GMT

Scenario:

A Visual Studio Workflow Foundation Workflow needs to terminate with approval given the following circumstances:

1. At least one task has been completed out of the many tasks that were assigned via the workflow to approvers

2. A field on the current item the workflow is executing on has been edited/updated/changed

Thus the behavior would be that the users could modify the workflow by adding approvers, completing tasks, etc. and if the monitored field on the current list item hadn’t been updated, the workflow would remain open. As soon as the workflow received notification that the current item’s field had been updated and that it matched an internal comparison value, the workflow would evaluate if at least one task had been approved and conclude the workflow (including closing/completing all outstanding tasks).

Implementation:

Instead of using a Parallel Activity, a Condition Activity Group (CAG) was used. It included the 2 event handling scopes. The first contained the an activity that handled the update to the current item. The second contained a task replicator. The task replicator was responsible for creating the tasks as/per the add approver workflow modification data. The CAG was then given a declarative rule condition to monitor 2 Booleans (isAtleastOneTaskComplete and isItemUpdated) which are public Booleans set by each activity when a task completes or the item was updated. If those evaluate to true, the CAG terminates the task replicator and closes the workflow successfully.

Adding Approvers:

Once the CAG was implemented, the ability to modify the task replicator and add approvers was lost. This is because the replicator in the workflow (this.taskReplicator1) is not actually executing. The CAG creates a child instance of the task replicator and runs that one. Thus, when the first child is created, we capture that activities parent from its event args which resolves to the active (cloned) task replicator (not its template). When adding approvers, we add to that replicator’s children and not the template (non-executing one).

Clean Up:

However, while the CAG terminated the replicator, it still leaves the tasks. Using the MOSS API with a code activity, we got the task list from the workflow properties and found all tasks relating to the workflow instance running and closed them using the MOSS API. This allowed the tasks to be complete and the workflow to finish.

HOWTO: Get the field text from a SPFieldChoice

echarran — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:29:16 GMT

The SPFieldChoice usually holds the Int32 part of a choice field that is comprised of 2 values (the ID of the choice and the text of the field that is displayed). Take the example of a workflow status column. The ID 2 corresponds to the field value “In Progress”. Programmatically, this will yield the value of “2”.

sharePointList[“Workflow Status Field”].ToString();

However, if you wanted to do a comparison against the text “In Progress” (for example to take action in your code against the value of a workflow status) you would have to do this:

string workflowProgressStatus = ((SPFieldChoice)sharePointList.Fields[“Workflow Status Field”]).GetFieldValueAsText(sharePointList[“Workflow Status Field”]);

This would yield the string “In Progress” to the workflowProgressStatus variable.

Great Visio Stencils for SharePoint

echarran — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:18:51 GMT

Just so I don’t forget, here is a link to some great MOSS Stencils for use in Visio. This comes in great handy since most of what I do nowadays is to provide architectural diagrams for customers and to sketch out information architecture for SharePoint.

http://blogs.msdn.com/maximeb/archive/2007/10/27/updated-visio-stencils-for-sharepoint-2007-site-structures-documentation-version-0-2.aspx

Additionally, here are some great downloads for MOSS including project plans and diagrams for deployment:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263199(TechNet.10).aspx

SharePoint Implementation Guidance

echarran — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:21:39 GMT

Here is a great post on how to conduct a large scale service-based SharePoint implementation.

QUESTION - I am Program Manager Charged with Implementing SharePoint - Now What-

The great thing about this post is that it goes over different stages of the project and characterizes the reaction and expectations for all involved.

WSS and MOSS Service Pack Locations

echarran — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:56:09 GMT

So I don't forget where the links to the Service Packs are:

Here are the links to the WSSS & MOSS hotfixes, and the rollups. Thanks, Phil!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941422

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948945

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941274

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948945

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949402/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949955/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950280/en-us

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950487/en-us

RELEASED: Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit

echarran — Thu, 01 May 2008 06:12:37 GMT

The new SharePoint Administration Toolkit was recently released as reported here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/04/30/announcing-the-first-release-of-the-microsoft-sharepoint-administration-toolkit.aspx

Two great areas of additional functionality include a batch site manager. You can now move site collections around including between content databases. There are also added features for accommodating for alerts, etc. when there are web application changes to the addressable URL.

Download links below:

x64: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F8EEA8F0-FA30-4C10-ABC9-217EEACEC9CE&displaylang=en

x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=263CD480-F6EB-4FA3-9F2E-2D47618505F2&displaylang=en

HOWTO: Change Content Types After Deployment

echarran — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:07:35 GMT

There are two methods to updating content types following deployment. Everyone familiar with content types may know that after they are originally created and deployed and are being used, that changes to those content types can be challenging. When adding or (or more importantly) deleting fields, if the content type is in use you can experience data vacancy (existing artifacts that use the content type won't have the values filled in potentially) or data loss. In many instances, MOSS will prevent the deletion of content type fields if the content type is in use.

Thus, when faced with a refactoring of content types, what is the best way to change the type without disruption to the artifacts that are using it. The article below outlines two methods:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa543504.aspx

1. Change the content type and propagate changes to the instances where the content type is used. This content type "push down" is built into MOSS and works very well for additions or updates to columns

2. If there is a fundamental change in content type composition, replacing a content type with a new one may be warranted. Thus, a trick is to add the existing content type (to be replaced) to the _hidden group and add the new content type in its place. This preserves any artifacts (documents, etc.) that are using the retired one and allows immediate use of the replacement.