Infomap

Understanding Sharepoint 2010 Topology Video

infomap — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:30:42 +0000

http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/sharepointserver.aspx?tab=Videos&seriesid=92&webcastid=15536

This technet video provides a good overview of major architecture changes in Sharepoint 2010. Some important information from this presentation:

Major changes include the following services:

Managed meta data service
Extensive social features
Multi-user Office editing
Search improvements
Large repositories
Digital assets support

2. Multi-user editing support varies for different Office applications

3. Logical Architecture Changes

Relevant individual services can be added to web application. In MOSS full SSP should be associated with web application.
User codes (sandbox solutions) support. Site collection admin can deploy to site collection. Server will not go down from defective web parts.
Better Line of Business application integration with read/write functions (via BCS)
Claims authentication support. Same web application can be configured with multiple authentication types.
Large lists support.

4. Physical Topology changes

Web Front End and SQL changes: mostly optimization related.
Restoring content from unattached database: content can be restored from a database which is not part of the farm.
Application Server changes related to service applications.
Can have configuration per content database.

5. Multi-tenancy hosting

Major challenges of multi-tenancy options with MOSS have been simplified.
Multiple site collections and related service applications can be segregated per tenant.

Sharepoint 2010 Products

infomap — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:32:02 +0000

Sharepoint has grown as an enterprise-scale business collaboration platform. But that does not mean individuals, teams and smaller organizations cannot use Sharepoint. Microsoft offers Sharepoint in many different flavors to suite all groups of people. Here is a summary of all products/solutions:

Feature comparison: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx

Office 365: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/online-software.aspx

Office Web Apps on SkyDrive: http://workspace.officelive.com/en-us/

Navigating within a webpart page

infomap — Tue, 04 May 2010 10:00:49 +0000

We all know to navigate within a html page using anchor point. We need the same functionality within any sharepoint page where lots of web parts are displayed. One quick way of doing this is to add a content editor web part at the desired location of the page and hiding it. Have an anchor tag like This is an anchor location in this content editor web part. Now we can link to this hidden location from any other place of the page. You can refer the anchor location by linking to the web part page with anchor name (For example, http:///…/default.aspx#anchorlocation or Go to anchor location of the page .

Exposing Workflow Status URL (Nintex) within List View

infomap — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:29:40 +0000

Those who use Nintex workflow love the workflow status page GUI. This page gives graphical representation of the process flow with current status — all in colors. This is very useful for non-technical end users. Unfortunately reaching this workflow status page directly from list view is not straight forward. One has to visit ‘View Workflow History’ page and then the relevant workflow name. On the other hand default ‘In progress’ or ‘Completed’ links on the list view takes to another workflow status page maintained by WSS/MOSS. This confuses users. One can avoid this situation by providing a direct link to Nintex Workflow Status page as a column in list view. For this we need to get Nintex’s ‘Workflow Status Url’ value and update onto a text column or a hyper link column of the list.

Updating hyper link column is easy and quick. Within workflow get workflow status url and store in a workfow variable. Use build dynamic string action with comma separation of url and url description like http://infomap.wordpress.com, Infomap. Then update the hyper link column of the list with that variable.

The other option is to update onto a text column. As the length of this URL will not fit into single line text field it is suggested to have a multi-line text field with enhanced rich text enabled. Please note this option is available only with multi-line text column of a list not a library. To update the workflow status url onto this multi-line text column, first build a dynamic string of complete tag (View Status). Then update mult-line text column of the list with this dynamic string value.

Site Templates with Data Views

infomap — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:58:24 +0000

I use site templates a lot and many of them have data views. New sites based on such site templates work well except data views. This is a known issue and everyone knows the answer. Many offered helping hand like Keith. Here are the steps given:

Open the web part definition in your editor of choice
Look for all occurances of ListID in the web part definition and right next to that you should see a GUID.
Replace ListID with ListName and the GUID with the list name you want to bind to.

This works perfect when you did not change the list name. In my case most of my list names are different from list URL name. Please make sure you replace GUID with your current list name and not list URL. Hope this helps.

Make Your Own List Rollup in Data Views

infomap — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:17:25 +0000

Recently I had a requirement for data rollup (announcements) from sub-sites on to top site. Everyone knows there are multiple options for this. Use of Content Query Web Part seems very easy and simple. But CQWP provides only one column output by default, of course we can display additional fields with some extra work. I find the tips provided by Laura Rogers are simple and quick to implement. Thanks Laura! After the routine steps to creating a data view in Sharepoint designer, we need to change the following two parameters:

DataSourceMode=”List” – change this to: DataSourceMode=“CrossList”
selectcommand=”lt;View> …” — change this to: selectcommand=”<View> …”

Of course there are many third party tools like Bamboo’s List Rollup web part and Lightning Tools’s Conductor web part.

STSADM custom extensions and PowerShell Cmdlets

infomap — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:57:38 +0000

We know that STSADM is an indispensable tool for every sharepoint administrator. I am more impressed with custom extensions made available by Gary Lapointe http://stsadm.blogspot.com/ I think his blog is a must for every sharepoint administrator.

Related resources:

Workflow options for MOSS

infomap — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:38:05 +0000

One of the very popular features of MOSS is the support for workflow which was missing in SPS 2003. Workflows can be activated and used in all kinds of lists and libraries and content types. Workflows can be as simple as approving a document or more complex like a detailed business process. When combined with electronic forms using InfoPath, workflows offer the best possible solution for business process management. MOSS supports both simple and complex workflows. Workflow support for MOSS can be viewed at different levels. At level one, MOSS provides some default workflows out-of-the-box like approval, collect feedback, three state workflows. At Level two, one can use Sharepoint Designer to design workflows with more complex actions — all without code. At level three, developers can develop workflows using Windows Workflow Foundation with Visual Studio. If all the above options do not meet your requirements, you can look for many third party workflow solutions like K2, Nintex.

Setup alert delivery to a distribution list (SPS 2003)

infomap — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:38:55 +0000

Setting up of alerts for other users has improved in MOSS. But have you done this in SPS 2003 without any third party solution? Here is what i have done:

Have an independent user account (user_a) to setup alerts for others
Login with this account and and setup alerts in lists and libraries
Change the e-mail address of the logged-in user to the distribution list.

Uniform global navigation across multiple site collections

infomap — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:49:09 +0000

Information architecture for MOSS implementation is both simple and complex, in my view. It is simple if you opt for a single site collection. It will be easier to manage. But single site collection may not suite for every situation. Then the alternative is to opt for multiple site collections. Each site collection will have its own navigation. If you want to have a uniform navigation across all site collections, it seems there is no out of the box solution. Following resource pointed me at the right direction by using SiteMapProvider: http://blah.winsmarts.com/2008-1-Implementing_Consistent_Navigation_across_Site_Collections.aspx