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JSUG > Community Blog

7/3/2008

Recap of July JSUG Meeting: SharePoint Administration using DocAve

We had a pretty good turnout for yesterday's meeting. Around 50 people showed up. It was a pretty advance topic, so for the people who were new to SharePoint, I promise we'll have a session in the next month or so covering fundamentals of SharePoint Administration. Some of the topics we covered during the meeting include:

  • Backup & Recovery
  • High Availability and Disaster Recovery Plans
  • Farm Administration
  • Replication
  • Archiving
  • Migration from SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007

Anyway, I've uploaded my slide deck, you can download it by clicking on the links below.

If you'd like any other information on DocAve, feel free to send me an email and ask.

Posted at 12:46 PM by Muhanad Omar | Category: JSUG Meetings | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

6/27/2008

Information Architecture Worksheets for MOSS

To help me in site planning, I use the Information Architecture - Worksheets for SharePoint 2007 excel workbook created by Mark Miller

Mark Miller said he is currently planning to convert the entire workbook into linked lists in SharePoint since the workbook is getting a little dated.

however, it is very very useful and can still be used :)

The workbook is a self contained set of worksheets for defining Information Architecture such as:-

  • User Analysis Worksheet
  • Content Analysis worksheet
  • Site definitions worksheet
  • Site map worksheet
  • Library/List/Blog/Wiki Specifications worksheet

There are even predefined list values to choose from

IApic1 

and comments to help filling each column ;)

IApic2

It is very useful and I strongly recommend using it. you may want to customize it, add sheets or columns as necessary...etc.  

Happy Sharepointing Nerd

Posted at 12:26 PM by Areej Abukar | Category: Administration; General | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/15/2008

Wikis in WSS 3.0

To understand how Wikis work let’s consider the following scenario. A software development team at company ABC wants to have their programming standards, new findings and lessons learnt from new projects, documented and managed, to make them available for reference. In other words, the software development team wants to create a Software Development Knowledge Base.

The Team would need an online database of managed content that can instantly be edited and contributed to, and establish some sort of interlinking between the knowledge articles to facilitate finding relevant information.  What this team is looking for is a Wiki library! Wikis work perfectly as Brainstorming sites, FAQ pages, or most importantly as Knowledge Bases.

In MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0, Wikis can be created in one of the following three ways.

1.       As a Wiki Page Library within a site

2.       As a new site within a site collection

3.       As a standalone site collection dedicated for Wiki page provisioning.

Wiki Pages are managed in the form of a SharePoint library where you add delete manage and even benefit from the SharePoint Library features such as RSS notifications.

Once you have created a Wiki site, or library, you can edit the wiki page content using the edit tab. See Figure 1

Figure 1

Once you have clicked Edit, the Wiki page becomes fully editable using Microsoft Word- looking tool bar (figure 2) that makes wiki web page creation as easy as editing a word documented. Although limiting access to HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) of wikis limits user ability to alter the structure and formatting of wiki content, there are some benefits. Limited access to CSS promotes consistency in the look and feel and having JavaScript disabled prevents a user from implementing code, which may limit access for other users. Hence promoting the original purpose of Wikis, which an easy to share, easy to contribute to knowledge base.

Figure 2

For you to interconnect knowledge articles in SharePoint Wikis, examine the following example:

“The Privacy Policy of Company ABC contains all privacy regulations related to content reuse. “

Is written as:

“The [[privacy Policy]] of Company ABC contains all privacy regulations related to content reuse.”

In order to have different text to link to other wiki pages use the following syntax:

[[wiki page name | Link Text to display]]

Eventually, you will end up with numerous knowledge articles interlinked to each other using key words and hence enhancing relevant content acquisition.

On the bar in figure 1 you can also find a tab for incoming links, this tab provides a list of all wiki pages that link to the current wiki page. You can also view and restore the previous versions of the current page. Changes to the current page would be viewable yet strike-lined to show their obsoleteness.

In addition The site administrator can create a custom scope for searching the knowledgebase which is in fact the Wiki library, and hence making knowledge articles instantly available for continuous use.

Posted at 4:44 PM by Zaid Arafeh | Category: General | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/5/2008

Do Want to become a sharepoint developer and do not know from where to start? This is for you.

 

You are a .Net developer, you have heard about sharepoint or had to work on sharepoint ;) ... got excited ...prepared your development environment and then ... Ahhh ... you are living your worst nightmare ever!!

You can not find resources, got confused and simply do not know from where to start... 

I have heard that many times ... I have said that many times and so as a .Net developer I understand your pain ....

The good news is... the pain is over ..

check out  "The SharePoint Developer Introduction for .NET Developers" resource set at Tech Ed.

where you can:

1. view screen casts.

2. download samples.

3. view quickstart code.

4. work through online virtual labs.

for each topic in sharepoint development (web parts, branding, silverlight, workflow, custom content types and more).

It also provides you with links to related certifications, downloads, and white papers.

All this designed in a way that makes navigation very simple and more fun..

Hope you will enjoy it as much as I did..

Happy sharepointing :)   

Posted at 10:33 PM by Areej Abukar | Category: Development | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/22/2008

How to Crawl an External Source using MOSS 2007

Some organizations have a lot of information stored outside the MOSS database, such as file shares and external SharePoint sites. Using MOSS 2007 Enterprise Search, you can allow your users to search for this information without leaving your MOSS site. To make this information searchable, you have to define a content source that points to that location. This will enable SharePoint index engine to crawl that content.

The following example will show you how to search for an external WSS 3.0 site from MOSS 2007 site:

Define New Content Source:

  1. Open Central Administration
  2. Click on your default SSP from the Quick Launch
  3. In the Shared Services Administration page, click on Search Settings
  4. In the Configure Search Settings page, click on Content sources under the Crawl Settings section
  5. In the Manage Content Sources page, click on New Content Source
  6. In the Add Content Source page, enter a Name and choose the content type of the external source that want to be crawled. In our case, it is a SharePoint site.

Example

  • Name: Sales Site Content
  • Content Source Type: SharePoint Sites
  • Start Addresses: http://serverA:8181/Sales
  • Crawl Settings: Crawl everything under the hostname for each start address
  • Crawl Schedules: (select the desired schedule)
  • Check Start Full Crawl 
  • Click OK.

Define New Search Scope:

Now you have to add a scope for the new content source that you've just created. Define a new search scopes is a two-step process: first you create the search scope through the SSP Admin site, then you enable this search scope in a site collection. To do that, follow the following steps:

  1. Click on your default SSP from the Quick Launch
  2. Click on Search Settings
  3. In the Configure Search Settings page, click on View scopes in Scopes section
  4. In the View Scopes section, click on New Scope
  5. In the Create Scope page, enter the following values:
    • Title: Sales Sites
    • Description: Scope for Sales Sites
    • Accept the default settings and click OK
  6. The View Scopes page will be displayed. Click on Add Rules for the scope you just created.
  7. This will open Add Scope Rule page. Enter the following values:
    • Scope Rule Type section, select Content Source
    • In the Content Source section, select the content source that you created in the previous steps. In our example it is Sales Site Content
    • In the Behavior section, select Include - Any item that matches this rule will be included, unless the item is excluded by another rule
    • Click OK

Update Scope: 

  1. Go to your SSP Admin page and click on Search Settings
  2. In the Configure Search Settings page, click Start Update Now under the Scopes section

Grant Read permission for the Default Content Access account in the WSS 3.0 site:

From the Search Settings page in the SSP Admin site, please note the Default Content Access Account that you have. This account should have Read permission on the external WSS 3.0 site. This permission is necessary to allow SharePoint to crawl the site content and search inside it. Please follow the next steps to grant the read permission for the Default Content Access Account:

  1. Go to the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration of the WSS 3.0 site which you want to crawl
  2. Click on the Application Management tab
  3. Under Application Security, click on Policy for Web Application
  4. Add Users
  5. In Add Users page, select the web application that you want MOSS to be able to crawl
  6. In Select the Zone, select All Zones.
  7. Click Next
  8. In the Add Users page, in Choose Users enter the same user that you use as Default Content Access Account
  9. In Choose Permissions, check Full Read - Has full read access
  10. Click Finish

Add the Search Scope to the site Collection:

  1. Logon to your MOSS portal
  2. Go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings
  3. 3Under Site Collection Administration, click on Search Scopes
  4. From View Scopes page, click on Search Dropdown
  5. In Edit Scope Display Group, check the scope that you created and then click OK
  6. From View Scopes page, click on Advanced Search
  7. In Edit Scope Display Group, check the scope that you created and then click OK

Now you should be able to see select your new scope in the scopes drop-down list and start searching within your new content source.

Hope this helps :)

Posted at 5:43 PM by Rasha AlFawzan | Category: Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/10/2008

Step by Step: Get Ready to Develop MOSS Remotely

Theoretically, you can either use a development server with MOSS installed or install virtual machines on your development PCs.

One server per developer is not applicable in real life. So, we decided to go for the second choice; virtual machines. Unfortunately with only 1GB RAM, this approach is not applicable for us either. Our development PCs don't meet the minimum hardware requirements.

What this means basically, that to develop web parts and workflows for MOSS in our environment, we will have to find a workaround and there is one.

In this and the upcoming posts, I will describe in details the steps we performed to setup our machines to develop remotely for MOSS and WSS 3.0. 

Step 1: Installations

1. Install .NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5

2. Install Office 2007 System

3. Install Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation)

4. Install SharePoint Server 2007 SDK: Software Development Kit or Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 Software Development Kit

If you need to develop for MOSS and WSS 3.0 installing MOSS SDK is enough because it contains both. However, we do WSS development only and therefore I just installed WSS SDK.

Step 2: Copy and Install required DLLs

1. Copy the files under the folder [Drive$]:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\ web server extensions\12\   

From your MOSS server (a server with MOSS installed) to a relevant path on your development machine

Below a snapshot of the folder contents on my development machine.

pic1

2. Extract required dlls from the GAC_MSIL directory

Copying the assemblies under the ISAPI folder is not enough. There are other assemblies such as Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.dll that are found under the ... microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI folder.

These assemblies can be found under the GAC_MSIL directory. To get these assemblies create a folder on your MOSS server (lets call it tmpmsil) and then open the command prompt and write the following command line. Make sure to navigate to the windows/assembly directory.

C:\Windows\assembly\ xcopy GAC_MSIL c:\tmpmsil /E

Below is a snapshot of the contents of the tmpmsil after running this command.

pic3

Not all these assemblies are necessary. You have to copy the assemblies related to SharePoint to your development machine.

I installed the following assemblies to the GAC in my development machine

  1. Microsoft.office.DocumentManagement.DocSite
  2. Microsoft.office.Excel.Server
  3. Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.dll
  4. Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Proxy.dll
  5. Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.resources.dll
  6. Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI.dll
  7. Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.dll
  8. Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Administration.CommandLine.dll
  9. Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Intl.dll
  10. Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Intl.resources.dll
  11. Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Pages.dll
  12. Microsoft.Office.Policy.Barcode.Generator.dll
  13. Microsoft.Office.Policy.Intl.dll
  14. Microsoft.Office.Server.Conversions.dll
  15. Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics.dll
  16. Microsoft.Office.Server.intl.dll
  17. Microsoft.office.server.search.intl.dll
  18. Microsoft.office.server.search.intl.resources.dll
  19. Microsoft.Office.Server.UI.dll
  20. Microsoft.Office.SlideLibrary.dll
  21. Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Feature.dll
  22. Microsoft.office.workflow.routing.dll
  23. Microsoft.office.workflow.routing.intl.dll
  24. Microsoft.SharePoint.AdministrationOperation.dll
  25. Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.dll
  26. Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.dll
  27. Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.OleDb.dll
  28. Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.SoapPT.dll
  29. Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.Sts.dll
  30. Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.XmlUrl.dll
  31. Microsoft.SharePoint.intl.dll
  32. Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.dll
  33. Microsoft.sharepoint.portal.intl.dll
  34. Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Upgrade.dll
  35. Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Intl.dll
  36. Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Intl.Resources.dll
  37. Microsoft.sharepoint.search.intl.dll
  38. Microsoft.office.server.search.intl.resources.dll
  39. Microsoft.SharePoint.SetupConfiguration.Intl.dll
  40. Microsoft.sharepoint.WorkflowActions.intl.dll
  41. Microsoft.SharePoint.workflowactions.intl.resources.dll
  42. Microsoft.SharePoint.workflows.dll
  43. Microsoft.SharePoint.workflows.intl.dll
  44. Microsoft.SharePoint.workflows.intl.resources.dll
  45. Microsoft.Web.Design.Server.dll
  46. Microsoft.Web.Design.Server.intl.dll

Beside the assemblies in the ISAPI folder.

To install an assembly to the GAC, you need to do the following steps:-

1. Browse to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools and then open the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Configuration

2. Click the Add an Assembly to the assembly cache as shown below

pic4

3. Browse to the assembly and click open

pic5

 

Step 3: Display WSS Workflow Items in the Visual Studio 2005 toolbox

1. Create a new project of type SharePoint Sequential Workflow library (or state machine workflow library)

2. View the workflow in design mode

3. Right click the toolbox and click on Add Tab. Empty tab will appear, name it WSS Workflow or any other name you find it appropriate.

4. Right click on the newly added tab and select "choose items"

5. Browse to the path \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\ISAPI

6. Select the Microsoft.shaerpoint.workflowActions.dll assembly

7. Do not forget to check the Complete Task Activity which is highlighted after selecting the Microsoft.sharepoint.workflowActions.dll.

Below is a snapshot of my VS toolbox after adding the WSS workflow items.

pic6

Step 4: Insert WSS XML Code Snippets

1. In Visual Studio 2005, open the Code snippets manager (found under the tools menu, if you could not locate it use the Ctrl K+B shortcut to open it)

2. Make sure the language selected is XML. Click Add and browse to C:\ program files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\xml\1033\Snippets\Windows SharePoint Services Workflow\" as shown below.

pic7

  3. Click Open.

Step 5: Install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions, Version 1.1.

WSS extensions can not be installed on a machine that does not have WSS installed. Well, that is theoretically. Practically, you can add a registry key to be able to install the WSS extensions.

This is not a recommended practice, not supported at all. But if you still want to do so, open the registry and create the following key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0]

After creating the key add the following string value

“Sharepoint”=”Installed”.

Below is a snapshot of how my registry looks like after adding the SharePoint string key.

pic8

Next post we will walk through creating web part step by step including how to sign assemblies, create a GUID...etc.  

Happy SharePointing :)

Posted at 8:11 PM by Areej Abukar | Category: Development | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/5/2008

How to prepare an existing database server for MOSS Installation

It is recommended to install MOSS on clean servers. What if you want to use an existing database server as the MOSS backend (database) server? This can be achieved by following three steps.

1. Make sure that software requirements are met:

  • SQL Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 or later
  • SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services with Service pack 1.0 or later

2. Configure Surface area settings in SQL Server 2005:

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, point to Configuration Tools, and then click SQL Server Surface Area Configuration.
  2. In the SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration dialog box, click Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections.
  3. In the tree view, expand the node for your instance of SQL Server, expand the Database Engine node, and then click Remote Connections.
  4. Select Local and Remote Connections, select Using both TCP/IP and named pipes, and then click OK.

3. Configure SQL Server collation:

The SQL Server collation should be configured for case-insensitive, accent-sensitive, Kana-sensitive, and width-sensitive. Search about "selecting SQL Collation" Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS.

If SQL Server is not already installed at your backend server, you can configure the server collation while installing. However, if the SQL Server is already installed with different collation; you will have to rebuild the master database to change the collation. This can be done by doing the following steps:-

  1. Using SQL Server Management Studio, create a full database backup file for all your user databases.
  2. Save all the security logins (user name, password, server roles) and any other information that you need to recreate the users again.
  3. Drop all the user databases.
  4. Insert the SQL installation CD in your CD Drive.
  5. Run the command line prompt window
  6. Use the setup command to re-build the master database:- start /wait setup.exe / qb INSTANCENAME = MSSQLSERVER REINSTALL = SQL_Engine REBUILDDATABASE=1 SAPWD= P@ssw0rd SQLCOLLATION= Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS.
  7. From SQL Server Management Studio and by using Restore database, restore all the user databases.
  8. Recreate the security logins.

INSTANCENAME: the name of the database instance, if you didn't specify an instance name when you first installed SQL Server 2005, the default instance name is used.

To know the instance name currently defined, follow the steps below.

  1. Open the registry
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE ->SOFTWARE->MICROSOFT->MICROSOFT SQL SERVER-> Instance Names-> SQL.
  3. The instance names are displayed along with their values.

SAPWD: The new password for the sa user (mandatory), you can reuse the same password you set to the sa user.

Hope this was useful,

Happy sharepointing J

Posted at 10:28 AM by Areej Abukar | Category: Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/24/2008

Welcome to the JSUG Community Blog
This blog will serve as a community blog where guest bloggers will be invited to post certain topics relating to SharePoint.
 
Our guest bloggers will include Microsoft MVPs, Microsoft Employees, and SharePoint Pros.
 
If you'd like to become a guest blogger, please send an email to communityblog@jordansug.com
Posted at 10:39 AM by Muhanad Omar | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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