70-667 TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010, Configuring

Today, I have cleared Exam 70-667, TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010, Configuring, Another Fete achieved.

Next is Exam 70-668 PRO: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Administrator

SharePoint 2010 : How to Enable anonymous access to List and Libraries - Part 2

In part 1(SharePoint 2010: How to enable anonymous access), I discussed about enabling Anonymous access to the web application after it was created, and in this blog, will discuss about enabling Anonymous access to a document library.

I have created a test team site with a document library name "My doc lib" and a test user who does not have access to the team site, as shown below
Here are the steps to configure the Anonymous access to the Lists and Libraries(ex., My doc Lib) and before proceding to the steps, lets login with the new user and try to access the document library

Ok, test Passed :) , Document Library Access is denied for the test user and here are the steps.

Step 1: Go to the library settings of the document library

Step 2: Click Permission for this document library

Step 3: Now the permission Tools page will be displayed, but this page(Ribbon) will not display the anonymous access option, because this libary is inheriting the permission from its parent, and in this scenario it inherits permission from the Team site.

Step 4 -Stop Inheriting Permissions from the parent

Step 5: Now the anonymous access option is enabled in the ribbon

Step 6: Click on the Anonymous access button on the Ribbon, and click on View item.

Note: Anonymous users cannot Add, Edit, Delete items in the document library, they can have only view permission.


Step 7: Login with the test user to verify whether the anonymous access is enabled

Done!, now the anonymous user is able to access the document library, see top right corner.

SharePoint 2010: How to enable anonymous access - Part 1

For some reason if you want to enable anonymous access, after creating your Web Applications, then here are the steps to enable it to your site.
Step 1 : Goto Central Administration ->Application Management ->Manage Web Applications


Step 2 : Select the web application for which you need to enable anonymous access

Step 3 : Select Default (Authentication Providers)
(Note:I created my web application with Claims authentication)

Step 4 : Select Enable anonymous access

Step 5 : Save

Step 6 : GoTo the site for which you need to enable anonymous access

Step 7 : Click on Site actions -> Site Permissions

Step 8: Click on Anonymous Access

And for Step 9, we have three options to select

1. Entire Web Site - Select this option to enable Anonymous access to the entire web site
2. Lists and Libraries - Select this option to enable Anonymous access only to your lists and libraries, This way you can provide access only to a particular list or a library for your anonymous users.
3. Nothing

Step 9: Select List and Libraries ( I am not enabling anonymous access to the entire site)

Step 10: Done, anonymous access is enabled for your site's Lists and Libraries.

Ok, Mission accomplished, and we have enabled anonymous access to our site lists and libraries, but the big question is for which list and library of our site.

Let see how to enable anonymous access to our document library in Part 2 - How to Enable anonymous access to List and Libraries.

SharePoint 2010 Migration

SharePoint 2010 is the new business collaboration platform from Microsoft, which greatly improves features that were offered in MOSS 2007. After every release of new software in the market, the hottest debate is whether to migrate or to live with the existing implementation of the previous version of the Software.

Many of our clients have shown interest to migrate from MOSS 2007 to SharePont 2010 and wants to know the advantages of the New SharePoint 2010 over MOSS 2007 Platform and Roadmap for up gradation. Yes, SharePoint 2010 does offer better business collaboration platform, but the first big question comes to mind is, Do you really want to migrate? And what are the pros and cons of the new platform.

SharePoint has come a long way, its no more a single server product and it integrates multiple technologies, as the technology grows and it paves way for more innovation and SharePoint is not an execption. There are tons of features which makes the New Platform as a single choice for all our business requirements,However final decision should be made only based on the pros and cons of the current implementation of MOSS 2007 and migration of SharePoint 2010.

In these series of blogs we will see different ways that we can use to migrate from MOSS2007 to SharePoint 2010.

Software and Hardware requirements

Firstly SharePoint 2010 is no more 32 Bit platform, is now only 64 Bit Platform, this means we need 64 Bit Hardwires for all Web, App and Database servers, and 64 Bit windows servers that are capable of running SharePoint 2010.

Here are the brief requirements for SharePoint 2010

• SharePoint 2010 is now only 64 Bit
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 64 Bit Edition or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 64 Bit Edition

See SharePoint 2010 Hardware and Software Requirements for more detailed information

SharePoint Architecture has changed, No more SSP's we have Service application for each application like we have now Managed Metadata Service, Excel Service, Word Services, et al. These architecture changes involve lots of planning before migrating existing MOSS implementation.

Let us see the migration approaches that are available with SharePoint 2010

Before determining the migration approached its better to evaluate the current MOSS implementation, and document all the artifacts of the portal.

Typical documentation would include the following

• Farm Topology
• List of Servers
• Accounts
• Site Collections
• Features
• Custom Code
• Databases
• Service Pack Updates
• AAM(Alternate Access Mapping)
• Customization (Master pages etc)

SharePoint supports the following upgrade approaches

• In-Place upgrade
• Database Attach upgrade to a new farm
• Read-Only database
• Detach Database

We will see all step by step upgradation using the above options in my future blogs and other tools that are available in the market which can ease our migration process.

Sharepoint 2010 Master Pages

Master pages are the starting point for branding sharePoint sites, There has been quite a changes in the new SharePoint foundation Master Pages.

Firstly it no more HTML Table based layouts, Now the Layouts are based on Div, we could see that by opening the v4.Master page from the following location - %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL

And the second advantage is content placeholders are the same for both Application and Content Pages, which results in consistent Look and Feel across content pages and Application pages.

SharePoint has a default minimal master page for branding. Minimal.Master page can be found at the following location of your SharePoint installation - %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL

Here are some links on Master pages
Default Master Pages in Sharepoint foundation
Upgrading an Existing Master Page to the SharePoint Foundation Master Page
Randy Drisgill's Starter master page
BrandingSharePoint.com
Erik Swenson SharePoint 2010 Base CSS Classes

Free Ebook on SharePoint ECM

A free eBook on Sharepoint ECM features and Integration/Competition with other ECM Solutions, is available for download from AIIM's 8 Things eBook Series website

SharePoint 2010 as an ECM platform - Part 1

MOSS 2007 had strong ECM features and provided Out of Box support for Document Management, Web Content Management, and Records Management, And the new SharePoint 2010 has improved those features by improving overall Document Management and Content Management.

These series of blogs will discuss SharePoint 2010 ECM features and how to use / implement them.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is how you categorize and organize your organization contents. Metadata are everywhere, however most of the organization does not have any strategy in organizing their data. Organizing and Managing Contents are vital part of ECM, as part of the organization’s content management it is imperative to have an organization wide strategy to define and structure the contents.

Though we can implement Taxonomy using MOSS 2007, but it does have its own limitation, such as content types are available only to the site collection under which they are created, which means we cannot use them in another site collection. Site collection scoped Content types always limit reusability and the scope of using them across multiple site collections and across farms. However the new release of SharePoint has overcome these limitations and has better ECM features than its predecessor MOSS 2007.

Managed Metadata Services

Managed metadata service is part of the services that is part of new SharePoint Services based architecture. Management metadata service is nothing but the term store and enables management of enterprise level content types.

The Advantages of MMS:

1. Centralized Term store

2. Can create more than one Services

3. Available across the Enterprise i.e. across Farms , Site Collections

4. Managed Terms

5. Location based Terms

6. Can Import Terms

7. Reusability of terms

8. Copy Terms

9. Merge Terms

10. Deprecate Terms

11. Move Terms

Sharepoint 2010 Beta Download

Sharepoint 2010 Beta is available for public download, Check this URL http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee390819.aspx.
You should also check the SharePoint Server 2010 system requirements http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485(office.14).aspx before you proceed on installation.

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A : how useful WSS 3.0 as a content management system?

Q) I Just want to understand how useful WSS 3.0 as a content management system? is it worth using wss 3.0 ?
A) There is an open source WCM available for WSS 3.0, more information here http://www.completesharepoint.net/ and http://www.codeplex.com/completesharepoint and A free Sharepoint Framework which can be used for publishing Layouts! details here http://www.spworks.co.uk/arf/default.aspx

This blog entry is kind of WSS VS MOSS and may be useful to you http://blogs.msdn.com/nijain/archive/2008/06/30/wss-as-platform-for-internet-web.aspx

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A : what is custom content type?

Q) what is custom content type? and what for is it good?

A) Assume you know about the Content Type basically a content type is a reusable collection of settings that are applied to a certain category of content. Content types enable the management of the metadata and behaviors of a document or item type in a centralized, reusable way. Also used for content classification (Taxonomy).Above text taken from the following links and it also discuss about creating Custom Content Typehttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161067.aspx
Check the below PDF for more information about the Custom Content Typeshttp://download.microsoft.com/documents/uk/technet/downloads/technetmagazine/may_08/26_36_Stnd%20D%20ContentTypes_des5.pdf
Creating and Using Content Types in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by ted pattsion http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5519358
This blog discussion about creating Content Type and association with a workflowContent Types: Part 2 - Creation and Association of Workflows and Document Templates (Republish)and a very good discussion about Content Type can be found herehttp://blogs.msdn.com/jamesway/archive/2008/01/22/content-types-the-little-engine-that-could.aspx

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A : Upload Document to Intranet site from a remote location in sharepoint

Q) I have a requirement to upload a document from the internet to intranet site.
how it is possible, how can i implement the uploading of any documents form the any where in the world.
A) If your intranet site is Hosted with AAM - Alternate Access Mapping (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/06/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-1.aspx), you can allow the user to upload the document to the internet site, which inturn will be your intranet site.Eventually your intranet site is the one which will be hosted in Internet also, so if your users upload any file to specific file in the internet actually the user is uploading to your intranet site. And even you can decide access restriction and about what content should be visible in the internet, this need bit of planning, also remember you need Internet connector license if you need to host your site in internet(check this forum http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointgeneral/thread/f5329aa7-4dce-4638-940f-42fe32bcb74a)your scenario would be creating Alternate access Mapping to your intranet site to internet site. Say http://yourmachine:33333/ (intranet) will be like http://www.yourcompany.com/, create like this using AAM, this should solve your problem. or you can use SSL VPN for connecting to your intranet through internet, this way its secure and you can also control who can access your intranet and upload files

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A : internet MOSS SIte

Q)we have a requirement to develope internet MOSS site,what is the process to develope the internet moss site?

A) I would suggest you to look at MSDN SharePoint Team Blogs How we did it Series , to learn more about creating and branding MOSS / WSS Internet facing websites
1. How we did it: Mission critical HawaiianAir.com website powered by MOSS 2007 http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/04/16/how-we-did-it-mission-critical-hawaiianair-com-website-powered-by-moss-2007.aspx
2.How we did it: PFGC.com -- design, development, and go live in 10 weeks!http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/05/25/how-we-did-it-pfgc-com-design-development-and-go-live-in-10-weeks.aspx
3.MOSS Has Got Game – Glu Mobile’s Website (www.glu.com) – How We Did It – Part 1 of 3
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/06/14/moss-has-got-game-glu-mobile-s-website-www-glu-com-how-we-did-it-part-1-of-3.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/06/27/moss-has-got-game-glu-mobile-s-website-www-glu-com-how-we-did-it-part-2-of-3.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/07/19/moss-has-got-game-glu-mobile-s-website-www-glu-com-how-we-did-it-part-3-of-3.aspx
4. Building tylerbutler.com, Six part Series of building TylerButler.Com.http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/tags/tylerbutler.com/default.aspx
5. Moving from design to reality - building HedKandi.com in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/2006/09/30/moving-from-design-to-reality-building-hedkandi-com-in-microsoft-office-sharepoint-server-2007.aspx
6. MOSS branding at MS SharePoint ECM Team blogs http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/tags/branding/default.aspx
7. Internet facing MOSS sites without content deployment http://blogs.msdn.com/vesku/archive/2009/01/29/internet-facing-moss-sites-without-content-deployment.aspx

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A : How to design a sharepoint designer site?

Q) how to design a site with SharePoint designer that later on has to be converted to be a SharePoint site
A) Sharpoint sites uses Master pages, CSS and JS.You can develop your website by either using existing Master Pages from WSS / MOSS and start branding it, or start with minimal Master Pages to start with.Minimal master's gives you more freedom and you can start producing sites based on your design layout and theme.
Check these links
How to: Create a Minimal Master Page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa660698.aspx
Building Simple Master Pages for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb684920.aspx
Modify the default master page http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA101009061033.aspx
Best place to start is heathersolomon's Blog Posts, She discuss indetail about sharepoint customization and check Minimal or Base Master Pages http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/BaseMasterPages.aspx
Best practice for Style Sheets are not to modify Core.css and use your own CSS file and attached that to your site.
Apply a custom style sheet to a SharePoint site http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA101691741033.aspx
Customizing SharePoint Themes with SharePoint Designer 2007 and IE8 http://blogs.msdn.com/kaevans/archive/2009/03/08/customizing-sharepoint-themes-with-sharepoint-designer-2007-and-ie8.aspx
Demos: A six-part series on getting the most out of SharePoint Designer 2007 http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102199841033.aspx

You can use navigation menus available with WSS / MOSS or you can write your own Navigation menus for your site.

MOSS Navigation Deep Dive series http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/2007/02/10/moss-navigation-deep-dive-part-1.aspx
How to create custom navigation menu in SharePoint with XML data sourcehttp://blogs.msdn.com/matjazperpar/archive/2008/12/17/how-to-create-custom-navigation-menu-in-sharepoint-with-xml-data-source.aspxand importantly
How to Optimize a SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Site for Performance http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727371.aspx
Also check MSDN SharePoint Team Blogs

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: Designs and flair and what to give on a intranet

Q) I have a requirement to design and give flair for a sharepoint site, Does anyone know of sites which give good examples and can give you master pages and good left hand navigations ?... on a intranet for a company what would you consider in designs and features for a company e.g social site, personal ads

A) How to: Customize the Display of Quick Launch http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms466994.aspxCustomizing the Quick Launch menu: Adding fly-out menus to SharePoint navigation http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/04/26/customizing-the-quick-launch-menu-adding-fly-out-menus-to-sharepoint-navigation.aspx
Customizing Quick Launch and the Top Link Bar Through the User Interface http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms427791.aspx
A blog which discuss about intranet site, and about the custom navigational menus both horizontal and left Navigational http://faraz-khan.blogspot.com/2007/11/branding-intranets-with-sharepoint-moss.html
Planning your SharePoint site http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=5the following links are taken from the above link
Determine the information architecture of your site http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262873.aspx
Some points are discussed here are for MS Publisher but usefull http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HP051380711033.aspx?pid=CH063575481033
Heather Solomon's Branding series - Branding SharePoint - Part 1: Designing your SharePoint Site http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/brandsppart1.aspx

Normally these are the features which are considered most.
1. Intranet Branding, very good design layout and easy to use
2. Wiki's, Discussion Boards
3. Personalization
4. Calendars
5. Search
6. News, Polls
7. Employee Self Service Portal

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: MOSS 2007 Mixed Authentication (AD and Anonymous)

Q) Is it possible to create one web application with AD authentication and extend the same web application to another IIS website just with anonymous access?

A) Use Alternate Access Mappings for configuring multiple authenication providers for your site, Each Zone can have its own Authentication settings. For more details check this Article
Plan alternate access mappings (Office SharePoint Server) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261814.aspx and Authentication Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735938.aspx, for Authentication planning & Deployment

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A : Permissions "approach" needed for multi-department sites.

Q) We are in a wss3 learnring mode. We want to setup a main page ("portal") of interest to several departments. At the top of that page would be a series of tabs, one for each department. Now, DepartmentA may need to access some items in DepartmentB's and DepartmentC's, etc. sites (subsite, web page?) but not all items. (Some of the items in DepartmentB, DepartmentC are sensitive to each department).There is no reason why someone in DepartmentA would know exactly where the information of interest to them resides in Department B's site. That means they would end up be "poking" around a lot in DepartmentB looking for it. So DepartmentB better be locked down really tight from a security perspective. But creating, testing, documenting, and upgrading such a security setup seems to quite involved. I needs some ideas how to implement such a setup or perhaps you have an entirely different idea how to accomplish the task.

A) Access permission for your site requires lots of planning, and You can create windows security groups and permission group in sharepoint and define permission levels for each department website and then add users to the group, this will ensure that your users access only their respective department site.
For more information check these linksPermission levels and permissions http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101001491033.aspx
Managing security and permissions http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/CH101248581033.aspx
Understand groups and permissions on a SharePoint site http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102371171033.aspx, This link will discuss about creating groupd and permission for your site.

About managing SharePoint groups and users http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA100215791033.aspx, this link will discuss about Assigning users and GroupsRoadmap for giving users access to SharePoint Server 2007 sites and site content http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102486891033.aspx, this link discuss about how to Import users into Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configure permission inheritance,Add users to default SharePoint groups, Manage unique permissions for site content

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: how to support user authentication from SQL Server

Q) Currently I store all user names and passwords in a SQL Server table, not in Active Directory. My question is, does SharePoint support users from non-Active Directory to grant permission? If yes, how to implement (appreciate if there are some reference samples)?

A) You can very well do that in Sharepoint using FBA and SQL Server as your Membership provider. You can store all your users and Roles in your ASP.NET Membership database and use them in SharepointCheck this link for step by step instruction ,
Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (Part 1): Introduction http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb975136.aspx , this Article discuss all the details you are looking for.
Companion tool for Form Based Authentication http://www.codeplex.com/CKS/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=7450
Configuring Multiple Authentication Providers for SharePoint 2007http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/08/16/702010.aspx

Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (Part 2): Membership and Role Provider Sampleshttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb975135.aspx

Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (Part 3): Forms Authentication vs. Windows Authenticationhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977430.aspx , Discusses about the Difference between Forms and Windows Authentication

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: Move discussion topics from one discussion board in MOSS to another in WSS 3,0

Q) am running MOSS 2007 on one server and WSS 3.0 on another one. Is there a way for me to move discussion topics (contained in a discussion board) on a site within MOSS to a discussion board on site within WSS ?

A) You can save your Discussion board as template and restore the list tempate to your site. While creating the discussion board you can use the new saved Discussion Board template, which should show with the content.Goto Discussion board settings under Permission and Management-> Save Discussion board as template , check Include Content, this should save your discussion board with data.Then upload the template to your wss list templates and create the discussion board from this template.

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: Duplicate entire site

Q) Assuming there is a site that has several nodes(jobs, pages, ...).
Is there a way to duplicate entire site into new site in the same server? (Not backup/restore)

Someone built a site, and it works fine. What I need to do is to duplicate that site to several different names. That's all.
Using template, I can duplicate one node, but not entire site.

A) You can use Web Package feature of Sharepoint Designer, Only Caveat in this approach is, you cannot save list data, subsites and permissions. Check this link "Export or import a Web package" - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA100819231033.aspx

or by using Content Deployment and migration API - http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2007/08/30/deep-dive-into-the-sharepoint-content-deployment-and-migration-api-part-2.aspx

BTW, Try this SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard http://www.codeplex.com/SPDeploymentWizard , Check the source code for Reference Implementation

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: Sharepoint Network shares - how do they work?

Q) I notice that as well as accessing documents stored in SP document libraries via the web site we can also access documents via an explorer network share - ie \\sharepointsite\site\.... My question is are these documents real and being maintained in addition to the data already to be found in the db or is it some clever virtualisation trick? Does any one have any insight that they can share with me? The reason I need to know is that our SP server is beginning to run out of disk space (not the DB server) and I want to check that it's not down to SP files being stored locally.

A) In SharePoint, Documents (Document Library) are actually Stored in your SQL Server. And We need to know how WEBDAV UNC's work in sharepoint, Check this Whitepaper -
Understanding and Troubleshooting the SharePoint Explorer View http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C523AC7A-5724-48BE-B973-641E805588F4&displaylang=en. This WhitePaper discuss in detail about windows WEBDAV and FPRPC protocol , windows WEBDAV Client and Explorer View, should be good starting point to understand WEBDAV and Explorer View

Sharepoint Forum Q & A: MOSS 2007 implementation - what should I be careful about?

Q: My company wants us to implement sharepoint 2007 MOSS server, What should be Careful about?
A: Plan your Sharepoint Performance, Check this Link & check all the links in that page http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261834.aspx.

Check these Sharepoint Implementation reference Articles -
"This article describes a practical implementation of logical architecture components to achieve a workable design"
Logical architecture model: Corporate deployment http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261995.aspx

Example Solution Architecture: Twynham School Learning Gateway http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262582.aspx

"This article describes a practical implementation of logical architecture components to achieve a workable design"
Logical architecture sample design: collaboration sites http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc835621.aspx

Sharepoint Forum - Q & A

I am reproducing some of my Answers which I have answered in the Microsoft Sharepoint Forum.

These Blogs are in the Q & A Format and I have edited some of the Questions and Answers for the sake of clarity. However, I Acknowledge & give Due credit to the Respective Questions Posters and Answerer.

Q) we have many site with 3-4 Document Libraries Is it possible to create a view that show contents from all these Document Libraries?

A) You can use Dataview Webpart in case you have only WSS 3.0 but not MOSS & Content Query web-part (is available only in MOSS).
How To CQWP -http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA101741341033.aspx
DVWP http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2007/07/27/sharepoint-data-view-part-magic-and-search.aspx

Sharepoint 2010 Sneak peek

Paul Andrew announced Sharepoint 2010 Sneak Peek , and check the sharepoint 2010 Sneak Peek Website here : http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/sneak_peek/pages/default.aspx

SharePoint Designer 2007, is Free Now!!!

Yes, Belive it or Not!! Sharepoint Designer 2007 is now available as a free download. Surprising isnt, check this link Download SharePoint Designer 2007 for free

IE 8 Problem in displaying MOSS 2007 pages

SharePoint Tips: IE 8 Problem in displaying MOSS 2007 Pages, Menus

Internet facing websites targeted for IE 7 may have problem in displaying pages correctly in IE 8. To fix the issue use the following fragement

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" /> to your master page

Refer the KB article from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/956197 and Randy Drisgill's Blog http://blog.drisgill.com/2009/03/problems-with-ie8-standards-mode.html

and http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/06/10/introducing-ie-emulateie7.aspx

Microsoft SharePoint Developer Forum Challenge - March, April and May 2009

This contest is for people, those who answer questions on the MSDN SharePoint Developer.
For more details visit Paul Andrew's Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/archive/2009/02/27/microsoft-sharepoint-developer-forum-challenge-march-april-and-may-2009.aspx#comments

Only open to Legal Residens of US and Canada, But Why?

To Open Word in the same IE Browser window

Sharepoint Tips : How To Open Word in the same IE browser windows(and other office files)
• Launch Windows Explorer.
• Tools > Folder Options and click on the File Types tab.
• goto “Registered File types“ and find “DOC - Microsoft Word Document 97-2003“ extenstion and select it.
• Click “Advanced...“ button at the bottom of the dialog.
• Check the “Browse in same window“ checkbox.
  IE will prompt for whether you want to open or save the file, if you choose to open then the document is opened in IE and not in Word. To avoid this dialog box you should uncheck "Confirm open after download". Now the file will be automatically downloaded in your browser and will display in the same browser window.

Passed Exam 70-630: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring

Ok, Just an update. Yesterday I passed my exam Exam 70-630: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Configuring and Now I am a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), MOSS 2007 – Configuration. So what is next, may be Exam 70-542: TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development

Two new .NET Killer Samples To Learn ASP.NET Ajax Extensions, Linq, Windows Communication , Windows Workflow Windows Presentation

May be I am bit late about these samples, but they are real killer .Net samples dev's cannot miss. These samples explain indetail about using ASP.NET Ajax Extensions, Linq, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, .NET Enterprise Application Server Technologies in your applications. Go get them from the following links

.NET StockTrader Sample Application

DinnerNow.net Sample

Passed Exam 70-536 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation

Yesterday I passed my Exam 70-536 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation, Finally now I am a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), .NET Framework 2.0 Web Applications.

Passsed 70-528 TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-Based Client Development Exam

My fancy with Certification started in early 1998(I started my carrier in IT early 90's, was a student in Brilliants computer Centre now FirstComputer at chennai,India and later joined them as a trainer in Clipper, C, C++), when couple of my friends got their MCSD certification and suggested me to take it. I was hesitant to pursue any certification at that time but someday I wanted to give it a try. When my friend who was working in US, came to visit Chennai informed me that certified professional were preferred in US, that is what really fancied me ;-). Then I started preparing and planning for the exams every month but invariably that has became a distant dream.

After Ten years, this time my company pursued me to take PMP certification, so I attended the preparation course for PMP. For three months I slogged like any thing for preparing for the exam but this time I was moved to MOSS 2007(SharePoint) Projects. Due to this I was travelling a lot for the implementation of MOSS 2007 for various clients in India. So my PMP certification still remains as a dream.

Finally late 2006, I decided to take the exam but again years of experience I added to my profile was a spoil sport, really I don’t know whether the certification will help in long run but I determined to became certified professional. In June 1,2006, I took my MCP Exam Exam 70–229: Designing and Implementing Databases with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition and passed it. This really helped me to analyze my strengths and weakness in SQLServer(I strongly believe Only technical interviews, Exams like this will help IT professional to analyze their strength and weakness). Latter started preparing for other exams due to my busy schedule the initiative took back seat (felt like ending this statement with word dream but could not help it ;-)
)

This year again I am contemplating to be a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) before end of september, so I took my Exam 70–528: TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-Based Client Development, on September 8th 2007 and passed the exam. Although my real time experience helped me a lot to take the exam but still my 10 days effort on preparation was the other reason. The exam is quite easy to pass, so if you are interested in this exam simply go ahead and take it.

To prepare for the exam you can start here http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-528.mspx

Some time later I will try to provide resources and links at this space.

OpenDocument vs Microsoft OpenXML

what was my view on the War of Formats,check it out here http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/quotes.aspx search for Ramakrishna ;-)

The site is too large to save as a template. The size of a template cannot exceed 10485760 bytes.

One of the easiest way to transfer your data from one site/server to another site / server would be saving the site to template. But the catch here is by default the maximum size of the template should not exceed 10 MB(10485760 Bytes).
If you try to save any of your large Site as Template, you might get the following error
"The site is too large to save as a template. The size of a template cannot exceed 10485760 bytes. "






This can be solved by just increasing the maximum size of the Template
stsadm -o setproperty -propertyname max-template-document-size -propertyvalue 20971520
Note: 20971520 bytes = 20 MB, Maximum Size you can set is 500 MB

New Sharepoint Server 2007 SDK with Business Data Catalog Definition Editor Tool & SAP Sample

Microsoft released updated Sharepoint Server 2007 SDK, available from the following link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6d94e307-67d9-41ac-b2d6-0074d6286fa9&displaylang=en

This SDK includes some very usefull tools and samples like

• Microsoft Business Data Catalog Definition Editor
• Excel Services User Defined Function Sample
• SAP Sample
• Custom Content Source

The Web site wants to run the following add-on: 'Name ActiveX Control'

Some of the Internet facing Sharepoint websites welcomes the users with the following message:
The Web site wants to run the following add-on: 'Name ActiveX Control' from 'Microsoft Corporation'. If you trust the Web site and the add-on and want to allow it to run, click here
To avoid the above message, the master page and Init.js files of your site need to be modified and more details can be found @ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931509.
This link discuss on client side and server side solutions but I belive it is more pratical to fix the problem in the serverside.

LINQ & Links

Today, I started a new weekly news letter for my team at office to share some of my thoughts on LINQ and I am planning series of blogs on LINQ coming weeks.

here are the links to know more about LINQ

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/06/CSharp30/default.aspx

LINQ 101 Samples

C# 3.0 LINQ in Action

Anders Hejlsberg on LINQ and Functional Programming

The LINQ Project

How to customize Quick Launch Menu

Check out this link for Customizing the Quick Launch menu: Adding fly-out menus to SharePoint navigation

ASP.NET AJAX eLearning Resource

Microsoft released training clinic for ASP.NET AJAX, Learn how to develop highly responsive web applications and upgrade your existing asp.net application with ASP.NET AJAX, check it out here

MOSS AJAX enabled Webparts

During one of our MOSS 2007 POC for our client , we implemented AJAX enabled weparts based on Daniel Larson's ASP.NET AJAX Extensions Toolkit for SharePoint and his blog is a good starting point for Implementing Ajax Based Webparts for Sharepoint(MOSS 2007).

A Single Sign-on error has occurred. Please contact an administrator. Details: Could not find domain controller for this domain(MOSS 2007)

During SSO configuration we have faced this problem and Here is how we solved it

1.The server should be part of a domain or a domain controller

2. The Login account must be the sharepoint server administer

3. The account should have DB creator and DBO permissions on the sql server

MOSS 2007 Customer Proof of Concepts Tricks, Tips and Links

(The links are not complete, will be updating soon)

We have been doing Lots of MOSS 2007 POC's for our clients and Most of the our client requirements fall in line with MOSS Search - Customer Proof of Concept Scoping and Typical Tasks. Check out the links for MOSS 2007 HOW TO's and Free webparts for your MOSS 2007 POC's and use this link as the starting point to understand features of MOSS 2007

Installing MOSS in a Single Server

Installing MOSS in a Server Farm and Setting up SSP, Web application and Site Collections

Configure Mysite, Blogs, Wiki, discussion board

Importing User Profiles into MOSS for index/searching

User Profile Replicator for MOSS 2007

Have BDC and People Search configured and working
BDC ASP.NET Webpart step by step
after full user profile import from Active directory(AD) some time search will not work,check whether you have added sps://yoursite:port (sitename with port) to crawl

Records Management using MOSS 2007 & Records Management Virtual Lab & MS Records management Team Blog Read from April 2006

Configure Enterprise search- TechNet Webcast: Installing and Configuring Search in SharePoint Server 2007

Building Site Collections and sites and assigning users to these

Setting up the Search site to return results

Configuring Search web parts and other search related areas

Setting up and creating BDC definitions for external content to be searched such as SAP or Siebel - For SAP R/3 you need VS.NET 2003(will not work in VS.Net 2005) and sap.net connector and SAP netweaver use SAP webservices

How to add custom tab page for Search

Build MOSS master pages, content types and page layouts

Create styles, import images and build the look and feel of MOSS

Setup Keywords for the content

Setup up Best Bets

Write other web parts as needed

Configure Single Sign on

Excel Services

Configure Form Services

Browser Enabled Infopath Forms

MOSS 2007 Form based Authentication & Forms Authentication post by Nick Swan

Cool Free Web Parts / Utilities

1. Tabbed Web Part
2. Active Directory Change Password Webpart or from here (use google to translate from german to English)
3. Smart Part now with "AJAX Connections"
4. Sharepoint Migration Utility
5. SharePoint Import Export tools and other utilities
6. Bluedog limited RSS Syndication Generator
7. 40 Fabulous Templates from microsoft
8. Whats New webpart
9. MOSS BDC Meta Manger
10. Image upload webpart
11. Sharepoint.Ajax Tool Kit

Knowledge Network (KN) for MOSS 2007 now open

The knowledge Network(KN) for MOSS 2007 is now open, now you can download KN with out any invitation https://connect.microsoft.com/knbeta

Knowledge Network release candidate is available for download

Knowledge Network release candidate is available for download,
but download is available only for KN connect members. send mail to knfeedbk@microsoft.com
requesting access to connect.microsoft.com

http://blogs.msdn.com/kn/archive/2007/02/28/knowledge-network-first-release-candidate-rc0-is-now-available-for-download.aspx

MOSS 2007 : Customizing Menu Items in Document Library and Customizing sharepoint context menus

These blogs explains how to customize context and Document Library Menus
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/helloitsliam/archive/2007/01/28/18676.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/bowerm/articles/175691.aspx

How Sharepoint custom SiteColumn and Database Fields are mapped

In sharepoint you can create a site column which can be used across sites and these articles shows you how they are mapped internally in the sharepoint database

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa543680.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/andrew_may/archive/2006/06/14/SharePointTermsColumnsFieldsProperties.aspx

Return of the Smartpart

Great webpart to convert your usercontrol into SharePoint 2007 web part, To learn more on deploying and using SmartPart http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2006/12/02/deploying-the-return-of-the-smartpart.aspx

How to Host MySite and Top Level Sites on Same Port in Sharepoint 2007(MOSS 2007)

I have been trying to host Mysite and our Intranet Top Level Site on the same Port of MOSS 2007, after googling found an excellent articale on how to do the same. check Chris Johnson blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/cjohnson/archive/2006/09/15/754902.aspx

PerformancePoint Server Data Sheets available for download

PerformancePoint Server Data sheets are available for download

To know more refer Blogs :

https://blogs.msdn.com/btamblyn/archive/2007/01/03/performancepoint-server-data-sheets.aspx

http://performancepointinsider.com/blogs/bsm/archive/2006/12/18/microsoft-office-performancepoint-server-2007-data-sheets.aspx

PerformancePointServer 2007 Overview - [download]
PerformancePointServer 2007 Analytics - [download]
PerformancePointServer 2007 Monitoring - [download]
PerformancePointServer 2007 Planning - [download]
PerformancePointServer 2007 Reporting - [download]

How to Avoid Login Prompt - MOSS 2007

Most of the time users will be prompted to enter user name and password while logging into MOSS 2007 server, to avoid just un-install Enhanced IE security from to avoid the Login prompt

Free VHDs from Microsoft

Microsoft is giving free Fully Configured VHD images for developing and testing your applications, check this url http://www.microsoft.com/technet/try/vhd/default.mspx

Sharepoint Tips

Sharepoint Tips
These are the Sharepoint Services 3.0 and MOSS 2007 Tips and Tricks, I have used or I found from Blogs or by googling during my WSS & MOSS 2007 Projects implementation. Eventaully this list will grow and I may not be updating frequently

How to Configure Sharepoint Server Search Service

There is an excellent document available at Technet on configuring Sharepoint Server Search Service
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/601874ea-86c9-4611-bdaf-abe17bbb68161033.mspx?mfr=true

Installing Office SharePoint Server 2007(MOSS 2007)

Check out this link for step by step instruction of installing MOSS2007 on a standalone computer.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/bd99c3a9-0333-4c1c-9793-a145769e48e61033.mspx?mfr=true

C# Generics

A must read three part interesting blog on C# Generics by Charlie Calvert's Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 and a great video on Generics from Anders Hejlsberg(he and his team developed C#)

Comparison of Visual Studio 2005 and Dreamweaver 8

I am an avid fan of DreamWeaver and I have being using it from the very first version. It is a great tool with Intuitive IDE and rich feature sets. Follow the link to compare both products features http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/compare/vs05_dw/

Xtreme Programming - C# Test Driven Devlopement using Visual Studio Team Suite

Most Developers often thinks that their job is develop code and deliver it to the testing team for testing. The problem with this approach is more bugs and cost of quality is very high.

XP strongly advocates for Test Driven Devlopment, Practicing TTD (Test Driven Development) helps team to deliver high quality and mostly bug free product to the customer. In short it helps us to reduce rework and produce well documented test cases. Even team members can test the code without breaking it. The developers can refactor the code without affecting the core functionality later .

So how to Test
Basic steps are

• Write a test to fail
• Write a test to pass
• Start over again.

Let us look at it how to TDD using Visual Studio Team Suite

More on this future

Other Testing Tools of Interest:

NUnit is open source unit testing framework devloped in C# based on JUnit/xUnits testing frameworks for .Net Languages. Nunit is Attribute based testing framework. which can be downloaded from http://www.nunit.org

AJAX, Much Hyped Technology in Recent Times

We were in a discussion with our client, who wanted us to implement AJAX in their project. We had a brainstorming session with our team members to find out what features can be implemented. Sadly enough we found most of the members are carried away by the term AJAX and talking too much about AJAX as a whole new technoloy. They are all ignorant about the fact that AJAX is a new NAME given to the decade old technology by Jesse James Garrett of Adaptivepath.

AJAX is nothing but acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It basically groups the following technologies :
JavaScript
XML
CSS
XHTML (HTML)
XMLHttpRequest

The main part of this technology is XMLHttpRequest used for manipulating or to consume xml data from the webserver using HTTP protocal.This was developed by Microsoft and supported in IE and also adopted by Safari and mozilla webbrowsers. The XMLHttpRequest(W3C site) object is being standardized by W3C.

AJAX was popularized by Google.com in a big way. Check out thier applications like Google Maps, Google Suggestion etc.,

XQuery in .net 2.0

Microsoft decided not to ship Client Side XQuery in .Net 2.0 to know about the current status . check this URL http://msdn.microsoft.com/XML/XQueryStatus/default.aspx

ASP.NET ATLAS (AJAX)

Atlas is a new technology from Microsoft which integrates Client Scripts with ASP.NET 2.0 Server Based Development Framework. You can take advantange of AJAX techniques on the web and create awesome rich client side behaviours. AJAX details can be found on the following link

http://atlas.asp.net/

Webservices without IIS / Run ASMX without IIS

During one of our project development, our client wanted to run webservices with out IIS. There is an excellent article published by Aaron in MSDN which details how to run webservices with out IIS.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/12/ServiceStation/

Microsoft People Ready Event Photos

I am sharing some of the photos taken on the People Ready Event.

Deploying VSTO applications

while creating a VSTO deployment solution, there are lots of issues you might over come and there is a excellent two part msdn aritical about creating deployment. Its an indepth coverage of deployment technics and solutions

Check the following link to find out more
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_vsto2005_ta/html/OfficeVSTOWindowsInstallerOverview.asp

Press coverage about the Microsoft People Ready Event

If you want to know about the event follow the links

http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=72607&cat_id=911

http://www.efytimes.com/fullnews.asp?edid=11365

http://www.channeltimes.com/channeltimes/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=72605&cat_id=819

http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/18ms.htm

Microsoft People Ready Program

I was at HYAT Residency , New Delhi,last week (17th april-18th april) to give a demo of our product "Office for Retail" developed for Microsoft on Office 2003 platform. It was a great experience to talk to other techie's and giving presentation to people. Needlessly to say that this was an successfull event for me.

(to know more about People Ready Program follow the link
http://www.microsoft.com/business/peopleready/default.mspx
)

Mr.Jeff Raikas, President , microsoft Business Division unvieled Microsofts future plan for india and office 2007 (code named 012)

more about O12 (office 2007) in my future blogs.

During this Event 18 ISV's Showcased their products. we developed retail application for the unorganized retail sector. The highlight of the product is easy interface, using the features of Excel, Word, PowerPoint, XML and Webservices.

I shall share some of the problems we faced while developing the application in future blogs.