Michael Yeager's MSDN Blog : MOSS 2007

What the heck am I talking about?

mty — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:27:00 GMT

Hey, I'm talking about EUCCAs and Versatilities.

My last couple of blog posts are my personal crusade to get SharePoint architects and developers to focus on the most productive way (in my opinion) to use SharePoint as an application platform.

A EUCCA is a specific type of Composite Application - an End User Composable Composite Application.

A EUCCA is a Composite Application that specifically hands over the design of the Presentation and Productivity layers to the end users. Any composite application where the developers end up controlling the Presentation and Productivity layers is not a EUCCA.

Versatilities are the parts of a EUCCA that the end users compose. So each EUCCA contains a set of Versatilities.

A Versatility, regardless of it's functional requirements, must satisfy three critical non-functional requirements:

Movability
Assemblability
Composability

Any component, reusable or not, if it is not Movable, Assemblable and Composable, then it is not a Versatility.

That's what I'm talking about.

Talleyho :)

Requirements and Versatilities

mty — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 01:21:00 GMT

Reusable components. A lot of work and effort and thought has been put into reusable components...

OK, so let's talk about a specific type of reusable components... let's talk furniture design and Versatilities.

There is a certain Scandinavian furniture company, not sure if I am allowed to say their name, but they are incredibly successful at selling really nice, practical, well designed inexpensive stuff.. But their designs are significantly different from traditional furniture designs because their business model requires them to meet some very stringent non-functional requirements.

First off, a piece of their furniture has to fit in a box that weighs as little as possible, and be transportable home by the customer themselves. So Movability is a huge non-functional requirement. Second their designs have to be easily assembled with only simple graphic instructions, and a few included tools. So Assemblability is another very important non-functional requirement. Third, their designs are designed to look and work great together across completely different types of furniture and housewares and accoutrements. All of their stuff has to be nicely composable into different attractive interior designs and styles. So Composability is also a hugely important non-functional requirement.

Movability
Assemblability
Composability

These are the uber-requirements. These are requirements that have to be satisfied no matter what the end user's requirements. If what the end user's want can't be designed to be Movable, Assemblable, and Composable - forget it. This company isn't going to deliver it. The end user (customer) will have to go elsewhere.

SharePoint Versatilities are versatile components that have these same three non-functional uber-requirements: Movability, Assemblability, and Composability. Therefore you have to design from the get-go for Movability, Assemblability and Composability - otherwise you're not designing Versatilities.

OK, so you have a bunch of business users, and they want an application that does x, y and z. So what are you going to do? If you design them an application that does x, y and z, and exactly x, y and z, then you have a purpose built application. If you get the requirements for a reclining chair, and you then build a one-off reclining chair right in their own living room, as one solid monolithic reclining chair - then what you have is perhaps a great reclining chair, but it only works now, for that particular user with their current decor. If they want to "recompose" their living room into a different design, then they'll have to bring the furniture craftsmen back in and rebuild. Sound familiar?

If you want Versatility - if you want applications that the end user's can move around, assemble and reassemble, and compose and recompose, then you have to take their requirements, and do a whole different level of analysis on them. You have to look beyond the x, y and z, and treat x, y and z as a sub-set of a larger set of possibilities - and you have to explore how Versatilities can be designed to deliver that mix. In other words, like our Scandinavian design heros, you have to be really smart about the design.

So now let's say you've been super smart - and you've come up with a slick set of Versatilities that can do x, y and z and so much more - well now you have a more difficult problem. Now you have to convince your stakeholders that your set of Versatilities is a superior solution to their x, y and z requirements. SharePoint users in general have totally realized the value of Versatilities. They love lists and columns and views and content types and web parts, and everyday they realize tremendous value out of moving them around, reassembling and recomposing them into new solutions. But first off, most SharePoint users didn't arrive at their SharePoint site with a clear set of requirements. They arrived at their SharePoint site thinking - here's a whole set of tools, what can I do with them? And second off, what if your stakeholders aren't SharePoint users at all? Quite often you're dealing with CXOs that only have a vague conceptual understanding of what is going on in SharePoint - and they're used to the waterfall lifecycle - they expect you to gather requirements, and then deliver an application that exactly satisfies those requirements.

How do you convince your fickle and persnickity bunch of stakeholders that they should care about Movability and Assemblability and Composability - how do you convince them that their interests are best served by your set of brilliant Versatilities?

Convincing stakeholders to care about non-functional requirements is always hard. You have to plan, you have to prepare, you have to lay the ground, you have to do great drawings and presentations, you have to work at hitting the right notes from the very first conversation. You have to get them to understand that Versatilities will give them the agility and speed to continuously execute on their business objectives.

But you can't sugar coat the downside because it will bite you back. Applications composed using a set of Versatilities always require a little more work on the end-user's part - they require more clicks than a purpose built application. Just like the Scandinavian furniture, they have to be assembled, and they come with directions that the end-user's have to follow... So yes, their users will have to do more work and learn a few things, but in return they will be able to compose the application in their own SharePoint site in a matter of hours - and then be able to change it themselves whenever it requires changing.

Of course you have to show examples. Most stakeholders don't know what they want until they see it. So show them as many similar end user composed SharePoint applications as you can - and if you have a running version, show the stakeholders how the end user's themselves can change and evolve the application as their business changes and evolves - without the need to call in the developers for another 6 months of rebuilding in order to add an account code, or to deliver the same application to a new office in Timbuktu.

I'll walk through some real examples next time...

Using STSADM to set Form Services Properties

mty — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:23:00 GMT

Use the SetFormsServiceProperty operation as follows:

stsadm -o setformsserviceproperty

-pn <option name>

-pv <option value>

Option Names:

DefaultDataConnectionTimeout

MaxDataConnectionTimeout

MaxDataConnectionResponseSize

RequireSslForDataConnections

AllowEmbeddedSqlForDataConnections

AllowUdcAuthenticationForDataConnections

AllowUserFormCrossDomainDataConnections

AllowUserFormBrowserEnabling

AllowUserFormBrowserRendering

AllowViewState

ViewStateThreshold

ShowProgressRolesManager

AllowBranding

Example - to turn off the "Powered by Forms Services" logo on your form services forms:

stsadm -o setformsserviceproperty -pn AllowBranding -pv false

Note: You can use stsadm -o getformsserviceproperty -pn to see what the default values are for that particular property

For a full list of the stsadm commands go to: http://webservicecatalog.com/post/STSAdm-Command-line-Guide.aspx

eXtreme End-User Driven Architectures (XEUDAs)

mty — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:03:00 GMT

There is an emergent solution architecture which the most ingenious of our end users are piecing together without our help. It is an architecture without a name - so let's give it one:

the eXtreme End-User Driven Architecture or XEUDA (zoo-da)

A XEUDA is an Architecture - not an Application. It is an architecture of many applications that end-users compose to empower complex business processes. End users do this by themselves - no developer/IT intervention required.

XEUDA is an architecture that can be changed, rearranged, reconfigured, repurposed, redesigned, re-architected by the end users. Right now end users can only do this to a very limited degree, only with a small sub-set of applications, and only to drive particular activities of some business processes, but if the application architect and developer community, along with the IT governance powers that be, were to relax their grip and embrace this impulse, XEUDAs will push IT controlled architectures aside by producing productivity gains of 10X or more.

Anywhere there is an Enterprise MOSS infrastructure with even a handful of power users you will sense the yearning for XEUDA. MOSS power users and champions build fabulously flexible applications on their MOSS sites. MOSS is a wonderful end-user driven system. But it is not extreme enough - inevitably users drive up to the edge where pieces can no longer connect, where their InfoPath or Word or Excel docs, their content types and custom lists, and their SharePoint enabled LOB applications, are left hanging on a library ledge - their structured and unstructured data in danger of being backed-up into oblivion.

And when the developers and architects are brought in, and the problem is laid out and the requirements gathered, their next impulse, more often than not, is to move to a purpose built application - ripping control out of the hands of the users, and placing it in the hands of a Solution Lifecycle and project managers and development teams and a change management process which may take months or even years to hard boil what the end-users had loosely assembled in a matter of days...

We have all the tools and skills to give those magnificent MOSS and OBA applications the ability to turn into more powerful and more flexible XEUDAs -- what we don't see enough of are architects and developers that are advocating and building the end-user architectable elements that a XEUDA requires; and agile, apolitical, IT governance teams that are ready and willing to hand-off the architectural keys to their power users and domain experts...

Reference list for SharePoint internal field names

mty — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:19:00 GMT

Much used reprinting of list of fields with internal names for easy reference:

Document Library fields

Display Name	Internal Name	GUID	Type
ID	ID	{1d22ea11-1e32-424e-89ab-9fedbadb6ce1}	Counter
Content Type ID	ContentTypeId	{03e45e84-1992-4d42-9116-26f756012634}	ContentTypeId
Content Type	ContentType	{c042a256-787d-4a6f-8a8a-cf6ab767f12d}	Text
Created	Created	{8c06beca-0777-48f7-91c7-6da68bc07b69}	DateTime
Created By	Author	{1df5e554-ec7e-46a6-901d-d85a3881cb18}	User
Modified	Modified	{28cf69c5-fa48-462a-b5cd-27b6f9d2bd5f}	DateTime
Modified By	Editor	{d31655d1-1d5b-4511-95a1-7a09e9b75bf2}	User
Has Copy Destinations	_HasCopyDestinations	{26d0756c-986a-48a7-af35-bf18ab85ff4a}	Boolean
Copy Source	_CopySource	{6b4e226d-3d88-4a36-808d-a129bf52bccf}	Text
Approval Status	_ModerationStatus	{fdc3b2ed-5bf2-4835-a4bc-b885f3396a61}	ModStat
Approver Comments	_ModerationComments	{34ad21eb-75bd-4544-8c73-0e08330291fe}	Note
URL Path	FileRef	{94f89715-e097-4e8b-ba79-ea02aa8b7adb}	Lookup
Path	FileDirRef	{56605df6-8fa1-47e4-a04c-5b384d59609f}	Lookup
Modified	Last_x0020_Modified	{173f76c8-aebd-446a-9bc9-769a2bd2c18f}	Lookup
Created	Created_x0020_Date	{998b5cff-4a35-47a7-92f3-3914aa6aa4a2}	Lookup
File Size	File_x0020_Size	{8fca95c0-9b7d-456f-8dae-b41ee2728b85}	Lookup
Item Type	FSObjType	{30bb605f-5bae-48fe-b4e3-1f81d9772af9}	Lookup
Effective Permissions Mask	PermMask	{ba3c27ee-4791-4867-8821-ff99000bac98}	Computed
ID of the User who has the item Checked Out	CheckedOutUserId	{a7b731a3-1df1-4d74-a5c6-e2efba617ae2}	Lookup
Is Checked out to local	IsCheckedoutToLocal	{cfaabd0f-bdbd-4bc2-b375-1e779e2cad08}	Lookup
Checked Out To	CheckoutUser	{3881510a-4e4a-4ee8-b102-8ee8e2d0dd4b}	User
Name	FileLeafRef	{8553196d-ec8d-4564-9861-3dbe931050c8}	File
Unique Id	UniqueId	{4b7403de-8d94-43e8-9f0f-137a3e298126}	Lookup
ProgId	ProgId	{c5c4b81c-f1d9-4b43-a6a2-090df32ebb68}	Lookup
ScopeId	ScopeId	{dddd2420-b270-4735-93b5-92b713d0944d}	Lookup
Virus Status	VirusStatus	{4a389cb9-54dd-4287-a71a-90ff362028bc}	Lookup
Checked Out To	CheckedOutTitle	{9d4adc35-7cc8-498c-8424-ee5fd541e43a}	Lookup
Check In Comment	_CheckinComment	{58014f77-5463-437b-ab67-eec79532da67}	Lookup
Checked Out To	LinkCheckedOutTitle	{e2a15dfd-6ab8-4aec-91ab-02f6b64045b0}	Computed
Document Modified By	Modified_x0020_By	{822c78e3-1ea9-4943-b449-57863ad33ca9}	Text
Document Created By	Created_x0020_By	{4dd7e525-8d6b-4cb4-9d3e-44ee25f973eb}	Text
File Type	File_x0020_Type	{39360f11-34cf-4356-9945-25c44e68dade}	Text
HTML File Type	HTML_x0020_File_x0020_Type	{0c5e0085-eb30-494b-9cdd-ece1d3c649a2}	Text
Source Url	_SourceUrl	{c63a459d-54ba-4ab7-933a-dcf1c6fadec2}	Text
Shared File Index	_SharedFileIndex	{034998e9-bf1c-4288-bbbd-00eacfc64410}	Text
Edit Menu Table Start	_EditMenuTableStart	{3c6303be-e21f-4366-80d7-d6d0a3b22c7a}	Computed
Edit Menu Table End	_EditMenuTableEnd	{2ea78cef-1bf9-4019-960a-02c41636cb47}	Computed
Name	LinkFilenameNoMenu	{9d30f126-ba48-446b-b8f9-83745f322ebe}	Computed
Name	LinkFilename	{5cc6dc79-3710-4374-b433-61cb4a686c12}	Computed
Type	DocIcon	{081c6e4c-5c14-4f20-b23e-1a71ceb6a67c}	Computed
Server Relative URL	ServerUrl	{105f76ce-724a-4bba-aece-f81f2fce58f5}	Computed
Encoded Absolute URL	EncodedAbsUrl	{7177cfc7-f399-4d4d-905d-37dd51bc90bf}	Computed
Name	BaseName	{7615464b-559e-4302-b8e2-8f440b913101}	Computed
File Size	FileSizeDisplay	{78a07ba4-bda8-4357-9e0f-580d64487583}	Computed
Property Bag	MetaInfo	{687c7f94-686a-42d3-9b67-2782eac4b4f8}	Lookup
Level	_Level	{43bdd51b-3c5b-4e78-90a8-fb2087f71e70}	Integer
Is Current Version	_IsCurrentVersion	{c101c3e7-122d-4d4d-bc34-58e94a38c816}	Boolean
Select	SelectTitle	{b1f7969b-ea65-42e1-8b54-b588292635f2}	Computed
Select	SelectFilename	{5f47e085-2150-41dc-b661-442f3027f552}	Computed
Edit	Edit	{503f1caa-358e-4918-9094-4a2cdc4bc034}	Computed
owshiddenversion	owshiddenversion	{d4e44a66-ee3a-4d02-88c9-4ec5ff3f4cd5}	Integer
UI Version	_UIVersion	{7841bf41-43d0-4434-9f50-a673baef7631}	Integer
Version	_UIVersionString	{dce8262a-3ae9-45aa-aab4-83bd75fb738a}	Text
Instance ID	InstanceID	{50a54da4-1528-4e67-954a-e2d24f1e9efb}	Integer
Order	Order	{ca4addac-796f-4b23-b093-d2a3f65c0774}	Number
GUID	GUID	{ae069f25-3ac2-4256-b9c3-15dbc15da0e0}	Guid
Workflow Version	WorkflowVersion	{f1e020bc-ba26-443f-bf2f-b68715017bbc}	Integer
Workflow Instance ID	WorkflowInstanceID	{de8beacf-5505-47cd-80a6-aa44e7ffe2f4}	Guid
Source Version (Converted Document)	ParentVersionString	{bc1a8efb-0f4c-49f8-a38f-7fe22af3d3e0}	Lookup
Source Name (Converted Document)	ParentLeafName	{774eab3a-855f-4a34-99da-69dc21043bec}	Lookup
Title	Title	{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}	Text
Template Link	TemplateUrl	{4b1bf6c6-4f39-45ac-acd5-16fe7a214e5e}	Text
Html File Link	xd_ProgID	{cd1ecb9f-dd4e-4f29-ab9e-e9ff40048d64}	Text
Is Signed	xd_Signature	{fbf29b2d-cae5-49aa-8e0a-29955b540122}	Boolean
Merge	Combine	{e52012a0-51eb-4c0c-8dfb-9b8a0ebedcb6}	Computed
Relink	RepairDocument	{5d36727b-bcb2-47d2-a231-1f0bc63b7439}	Computed

Custom list fields

Display Name	Internal Name	GUID	Type
ID	ID	{1d22ea11-1e32-424e-89ab-9fedbadb6ce1}	Counter
Content Type ID	ContentTypeId	{03e45e84-1992-4d42-9116-26f756012634}	ContentTypeId
Content Type	ContentType	{c042a256-787d-4a6f-8a8a-cf6ab767f12d}	Text
Title	Title	{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}	Text
Modified	Modified	{28cf69c5-fa48-462a-b5cd-27b6f9d2bd5f}	DateTime
Created	Created	{8c06beca-0777-48f7-91c7-6da68bc07b69}	DateTime
Created By	Author	{1df5e554-ec7e-46a6-901d-d85a3881cb18}	User
Modified By	Editor	{d31655d1-1d5b-4511-95a1-7a09e9b75bf2}	User
Has Copy Destinations	_HasCopyDestinations	{26d0756c-986a-48a7-af35-bf18ab85ff4a}	Boolean
Copy Source	_CopySource	{6b4e226d-3d88-4a36-808d-a129bf52bccf}	Text
owshiddenversion	owshiddenversion	{d4e44a66-ee3a-4d02-88c9-4ec5ff3f4cd5}	Integer
Workflow Version	WorkflowVersion	{f1e020bc-ba26-443f-bf2f-b68715017bbc}	Integer
UI Version	_UIVersion	{7841bf41-43d0-4434-9f50-a673baef7631}	Integer
Version	_UIVersionString	{dce8262a-3ae9-45aa-aab4-83bd75fb738a}	Text
Attachments	Attachments	{67df98f4-9dec-48ff-a553-29bece9c5bf4}	Attachments
Approval Status	_ModerationStatus	{fdc3b2ed-5bf2-4835-a4bc-b885f3396a61}	ModStat
Approver Comments	_ModerationComments	{34ad21eb-75bd-4544-8c73-0e08330291fe}	Note
Edit	Edit	{503f1caa-358e-4918-9094-4a2cdc4bc034}	Computed
Title	LinkTitleNoMenu	{bc91a437-52e7-49e1-8c4e-4698904b2b6d}	Computed
	LinkFilenameNoMenu
Title	LinkTitle	{82642ec8-ef9b-478f-acf9-31f7d45fbc31}	Computed
Select	SelectTitle	{b1f7969b-ea65-42e1-8b54-b588292635f2}	Computed
Instance ID	InstanceID	{50a54da4-1528-4e67-954a-e2d24f1e9efb}	Integer
Order	Order	{ca4addac-796f-4b23-b093-d2a3f65c0774}	Number
GUID	GUID	{ae069f25-3ac2-4256-b9c3-15dbc15da0e0}	Guid
Workflow Instance ID	WorkflowInstanceID	{de8beacf-5505-47cd-80a6-aa44e7ffe2f4}	Guid
URL Path	FileRef	{94f89715-e097-4e8b-ba79-ea02aa8b7adb}	Lookup
Path	FileDirRef	{56605df6-8fa1-47e4-a04c-5b384d59609f}	Lookup
Modified	Last_x0020_Modified	{173f76c8-aebd-446a-9bc9-769a2bd2c18f}	Lookup
Created	Created_x0020_Date	{998b5cff-4a35-47a7-92f3-3914aa6aa4a2}	Lookup
Item Type	FSObjType	{30bb605f-5bae-48fe-b4e3-1f81d9772af9}	Lookup
Effective Permissions Mask	PermMask	{ba3c27ee-4791-4867-8821-ff99000bac98}	Computed
Name	FileLeafRef	{8553196d-ec8d-4564-9861-3dbe931050c8}	File
Unique Id	UniqueId	{4b7403de-8d94-43e8-9f0f-137a3e298126}	Lookup
ProgId	ProgId	{c5c4b81c-f1d9-4b43-a6a2-090df32ebb68}	Lookup
ScopeId	ScopeId	{dddd2420-b270-4735-93b5-92b713d0944d}	Lookup
File Type	File_x0020_Type	{39360f11-34cf-4356-9945-25c44e68dade}	Text
HTML File Type	HTML_x0020_File_x0020_Type	{4ef1b78f-fdba-48dc-b8ab-3fa06a0c9804}	Computed
Edit Menu Table Start	_EditMenuTableStart	{3c6303be-e21f-4366-80d7-d6d0a3b22c7a}	Computed
Edit Menu Table End	_EditMenuTableEnd	{2ea78cef-1bf9-4019-960a-02c41636cb47}	Computed
Name	LinkFilenameNoMenu	{9d30f126-ba48-446b-b8f9-83745f322ebe}	Computed
Name	LinkFilename	{5cc6dc79-3710-4374-b433-61cb4a686c12}	Computed
Type	DocIcon	{081c6e4c-5c14-4f20-b23e-1a71ceb6a67c}	Computed
Server Relative URL	ServerUrl	{105f76ce-724a-4bba-aece-f81f2fce58f5}	Computed
Encoded Absolute URL	EncodedAbsUrl	{7177cfc7-f399-4d4d-905d-37dd51bc90bf}	Computed
File Name	BaseName	{7615464b-559e-4302-b8e2-8f440b913101}	Computed
Property Bag	MetaInfo	{687c7f94-686a-42d3-9b67-2782eac4b4f8}	Lookup
Level	_Level	{43bdd51b-3c5b-4e78-90a8-fb2087f71e70}	Integer
Is Current Version	_IsCurrentVersion	{c101c3e7-122d-4d4d-bc34-58e94a38c816}	Boolean

Adding an InfoPath Preloader (ProgressBar) for long loading forms

mty — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:13:00 GMT

Working on a project with some very large InfoPath forms (700+ fields with hundreds of rules and conditions etc.) running out of a SharePoint Forms library using the InfoPath client (not Forms Server) and which take over a minute to load.

In addition to a number of changes made to reduce the load time discussed elsewhere, it was decided to improve the user experience by adding a Pre-Loader to give the user some feedback while the form is loading.

Here is how this was done in C# (feedback appreciated - particularly if you know of a better way to do this):

0. Add a reference to System.Drawing and then add the following using statements at the top of the FormCode.cs file (there may be others):

using System.Drawing;

using System.Diagnostics;

using System.Threading;

Add the following using statement at the top of the FormCode.Designer.cs (click on "Show All Files" if you don't see this file under the FormCode.cs file)

using System.Windows.Forms

Declare the preLoaderForm at the top of FormCode.Designer.cs* under the "internal Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Application Application;" and "internal Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.EventManager EventManager;" declarations:

internal Form preloaderForm = null;

Add inside the FormCode constructor in the FormCode.Designer.cs*

LaunchPreLoader();

Add two new methods to FormCode.cs

private void LaunchPreLoader()

{

try

{

System.Threading.Thread newThread = new System.Threading.Thread(new System.Threading.ThreadStart(this.Preloader));

newThread.Start();

}

catch

{

// do nothing

}

private void Preloader()

{

try

{

preloaderForm = new Form();

preloaderForm.Text = "Form Loading";

preloaderForm.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(250, 75);

preloaderForm.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(400, 200);

preloaderForm.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterScreen;

Label message = new Label();

message.Text = "Your form is loading";

message.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(20, 8);

message.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(200, 15);

Panel progBarPanel = new Panel();

progBarPanel.Width = 250;

progBarPanel.Height = 50;

progBarPanel.BackColor = Color.Gainsboro;

ProgressBar progBar = new ProgressBar();

progBar.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(20, 20);

progBar.Style = ProgressBarStyle.Marquee;

progBar.MarqueeAnimationSpeed = 250;

progBar.BackColor = Color.DodgerBlue;

progBar.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(200, 15);

progBarPanel.Controls.Add(message);

progBarPanel.Controls.Add(progBar);

preloaderForm.Controls.Add(progBarPanel);

preloaderForm.ShowDialog();

}

catch

{

// do nothing if preloader fails

}

To close the pre-loader, add the following code to the bottom of the FormEvents_Loading method in FormCode.cs. If you don't see a FormEvents_Loading method in your FormCode.cs file, then in InfoPath go to Tools > Programming > Loading Event - and it will be generated for you.

If( preloaderForm != null )

{

preloaderForm.DialogResult = DialogResult.Yes;

}

*Note that steps 1 and 2 are in the FormCode.Designer.cs file. It is not advisable to make changes to this file since it is autogenerated and your changes can be easily lost. But on the onther hand, the Pre-Loader is only useful if it opens early enough, and the FormCode constructor is the earliest point we can get to in the FormCode class. If you cannot deal with the maintenance issue when this code is autogenerated (re-adding the three lines of code in steps 1 and 2) then you can try locating this code in FormCode.cs and see if it runs early enough to be useful to you.

Clearing the InfoPath Cache

mty — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:56:00 GMT

When you load an InfoPath form, it is cached in the following location on your machine:

C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\InfoPath\FormCache2

When a new version of the form is detected, such as when a new version of the form is installed in a SharePoint Forms library, the cached form will be deleted and the new one installed in it's place.

You can also manually clear the Infopath cache by deleting the files.

Or you can do it via command line by:

Start > run > Infopath /cache clearall

Content Deployment Debugging Links

mty — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:43:00 GMT

There is more info on Content Deployment issues in earlier blog entries here.

The main thing is to first install SP1 and KBs 941422, 948945 and 950279, and 952698 and 952704 (these last two may rollup all the changes in the earlier KBs, I am trying to confirm that).

Beyond that, the best information on debugging Content Deployment jobs can be found on Maxime Bombardier's blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/maximeb/archive/2008/02/19/debugging-content-deployment-issues.aspx

(setting versioning to only Major Versions in the Style Library helped me out big time)

and in parts 5 and 6 of Stefan Goßner's series on content deployment:

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2007/10/12/deep-dive-into-the-sharepoint-content-deployment-and-migration-api-part-5.aspx

Also note that there are quite a few fixes included in SP1 plus the post SP1 rollups KBs 941422 and 948945 and 950279.

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

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

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950279

There are two KBs that are specific to Content Deployment with 60+ fixes. If you have having serious CD problems, you'll need to talk with Customer Support Services to obtain these:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952698

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952704/

In theory these two are a rollup of all the previous Content Deployment hogfixes. I am still trying to confirm that this is true.

SharePoint Designer Check-in and Check-out and Publishing

mty — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:58:00 GMT

Maybe I'm missing a hotfix or something, but SharePoint Designer seems to have a lot of problems with Check-ins and Check-outs. Often it shows a file as checked out when it is actually checked in and vice versa. Sometimes closing SD and opening the site again clears this up, but as a general practice, I do a lot of check-ins and check-outs in the browser and not in SD.

Mostly I'm talking about Master Pages and Layout Pages - which you can check-in and check-out in your browser by navigating to the Master Pages Gallery found under Site Settings > Galleries > Master pages and page layouts

Also, I typically use the Publish Selected Files functionality to promote new Master Pages and Page Layouts from Dev to Production, but note that you have to check out the files on both servers. The easiest and most effective way to do this again is in the browser by navigating to the respective Galleries on each farm and checking them out in the browser.

For instance, you go to the Master pages and layouts Gallery on production and check-out your custom master page, and you go to the Master pages and layouts Gallery on development and you check-out your custom master page, and then on Dev in SharePoint Designer you right click on your custom master page and select Publish Selected Files (and enter the url for your production site if you haven't already).

Note that after you Publish your new versions, they are only minor versions, and you can view them on production without endangering the site for other users. Once you confirm that they are working and doing what you want, then you can Check them in as a Full version on production. Remember also then to Undo Checkout on Dev. You only checked it out to publish it, so just Undo Checkout so that you don't have a new insignificant version.

To review - after Publishing, on Production after checking them as a Minro Version you check in and approve a Major Version, and then on Development you Undo Checkout.

A little complicated, but it works consistently.

Style Library shortcut

mty — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:56:00 GMT

Particularly when working on a MOSS Web Content Management site, you may find the need to go to the Style Library in the browser. But you'll find that there isn't a link in Site Settings.

This is a tough one - just navigate to: http://<yoursite>/Style Library

Non Obvious Details about Content Deployment

mty — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:44:00 GMT

When you have Quick Deployment job, and you edit a page and add it to Quick Deployment, the job appears in a list called:

Quick Deploy Items

Go to: http://<mysite>/Quick Deploy Items to view it.

If Quick Deploy is failing, you can go to this list and delete the problem items out.

Also note that your deployment jobs (like your backup jobs) end up in the Timer Job Definitions found in the Operations section of Central Admin. If your Full Deployments are failing, delete them out of the Timer Job Definitions before restarting (the same with failed backups).

Content Deployment Failure

mty — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:25:00 GMT

Was able to work through an interesting content deployment issue on a medium SharePoint farm with the help of the following kb:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947285

All Content Deployment Jobs were failing and the error in the event log indicated a 404 not found. Which doesn't make a lot of sense since the deployment was not to a separate farm, but to a web application on the same farm.

By setting up the trace log on the SharePoint Services Timer Service on the Central Administration server of the farm, I was able to see that the url for the publishing web request included the server name. It turned out that the team that set up the SharePoint farm created a dns name for the Central Administration server, and deleted the server:port entry from the Alternate Access Mappings.

Tried re-setting the Alternate Access Mapping for the Central Administration server back to servername:port, but this did not solve the issue. Used psconfig to unprovision then reprovision Central Administration with default settings (servername:port):

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263093.aspx

and that solved the problem - all of the Deployment Jobs now work perfectly. There was one Deployment Job between farms that was also not working, and the target farm was built the same way. Unprovisioning the Central Admin on the target farm and then reprovisioning it cured that cross farm deployment job.

Sounds like a big deal to blow away the Central Admin web and then recreate it, but the psconfig tool makes it quite simple and painless.

New Version of the SharePoint v3 Tools for Visual Studio 2005

mty — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:28:00 GMT

As of February 11, 2008, there is a version 1.1 of the SharePoint Visual Studio tools that can be downloaded here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3E1DCCCD-1CCA-433A-BB4D-97B96BF7AB63&displaylang=en

Note: Cannot be installed on 64bit versions of Windows, and you need to uninstall the older version before installing the new one.

SharePoint SDKs Updated to cover SP1

mty — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:16:00 GMT

Version 1.3 of the WSS v3 SDK can be downloaded here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05E0DD12-8394-402B-8936-A07FE8AFAFFD&displaylang=en

And the MOSS SDK can be downloaded here (covers and includes WSS v3, you don't need both):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D94E307-67D9-41AC-B2D6-0074D6286FA9&displaylang=en

Note: You'll need to uninstall the old version of the SDK before installing the new one.

Multilingual and other interesting MOSS07 Sites

mty — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:11:00 GMT

Been working on multilingual for a few clients, and recently did a quick survey of public MOSS07 sites that are using Variations for multilingual, including:

Swiss International Airlines

Migros

Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights

Some of these sites have nav so you can switch between the languages, others you’ll have to change the language setting in your browser.

A few of the other interesting public sites built on MOSS: