Reminder emails a day before for a Calendar Event
Today 11/19/2010 Friday, one of the Users requested that if they can get alerts or notifications for the upcoming calendar events and that they would like to get the notifications the day before the event.
To accomplish the above:
Add a custom field to the calendar called "Alert - 1 day". Make it a calculated field with the calculation [StartTime]-1. Make sure it is a date type. I also specified date and time so the alert goes out exactly one day before, to the minute.
Then also add a custom field to the calendar called "Reminder Recipients". Make it a people picker control and choose to show Email addresses and probably allow multiple selections too.
Next, open your site in SharePoint designer and create a workflow (New > Workflow) for the calendar. Set the workflow to automatically start when the event is created/changed. I also created a workflow variable called "Recipients" of type string. Then my workflow went like this:
If Alert - 1 day is greater than Today
Pause until Calendar:Alert - 1 day
then Set Variable: Recipients to Calendar:Reminder Recipients
then Email Variable: Recipients
Please see the screenshots below
What Drives Social Media in SharePoint?
Ask a crowd of people whether they believe social computing is important within the enterprise, and you usually see -- at best -- an even split of yes and no answers. More often than not, the majority of people answer no. As I present on the topic at various conferences and SharePoint Saturday events, most people attend my session not because they believe social computing is critical to their business, but because they want to understand why they should care.
With so many people ambivalent to social computing, why is it that one of the top technology trends is the expansion of social computing features across enterprise applications? One problem with perception is that people tend to focus on the consumer social media applications without considering the underlying application of the technologies that power them, and how those features and capabilities might improve the enterprise.
So why should you care about social media in SharePoint? Well, let’s take a look at some of the problems you may be experiencing within your environment:
- You’ve spent months migrating content into your shiny, new SharePoint environment. You’ve moved your information silos from your old, proprietary portal or file shares to SharePoint. NOW WHAT???
- You were sold on the idea of search, but you can’t find anything.
- You can’t tell who owns what.
- You can’t tell what’s new, what’s old, or what has changed.
- You realize that all of your data is now disconnected.
How do you solve these problems? The answer is managed metadata, thoughtful taxonomy, and a solid governance model. The answer is to roll out social computing tools within SharePoint to improve search and provide additional methods for surfacing data within your environment. Think of it as a software stack:
Metadata powers both structured (taxonomy) and unstructured (ad hoc) collaboration, which is then filtered by the various social media tools, which is an extension of search, which makes your team site, portal, and content relevant to end users. Across all of these pieces is your governance model, ensuring all of the moving parts are working together.
Metadata is the key to making social media work inside the enterprise. It makes social media work within SharePoint, it makes your content visible to end users, and it powers search. Metadata makes your environment useable, linkable, relevant. Metadata is the building block of social media within SharePoint.
When thinking through your own social media strategy, its important that you recognize this connection between social computing, metadata, and search. It will help you to sell your team and management chain on the powerful impact of social media in the enterprise, and, more importantly, help you realize the full potential of your SharePoint investments.
SharePoint Security Update
Microsoft announced a security advisory that affects many SharePoint deployments.
Recently Microsoft announced Security Advisory 2416728 (Vulnerability in ASP.NET) and SharePoint. The vulnerability affects the following SharePoint versions
- SharePoint 2010
- SharePoint Foundation 2010
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
- Windows SharePoint Services 2.0
Microsoft has posted an out-of-band security update that should be applied ASAP on the SharePoint web front-end servers for affected deployments. The SharePoint team blog is the best source for more information:
SharePoint Team Blog
Unable to start Windows SharePoint Services Timer Service
Windows SharePoint Services Timer Service- Unable to start the Timer Service- Showed error -Pathto the executable not found.
Well while the summer is coming to end and getting ready for the much awaited winter, today I suddenly noticed that the Notifications and alerts in SharePoint were not working.
As usual, first thing I checked was whether the SMTP service is running-(Started and running) and then I checked the outgoing and incoming email settings.Looks OK as per the defined values. Then I created an alert to check the receipt of an email about the alert created. No luck. This is clearly a problem and something is wrong with the environment. Also I ran the SP Config Wizard to check if there is any other problem in the environment.
Event ID-10036-Gatherer-Office Server Search
I have been noticing the below error in my application log. We have installed the Foxit pdf ifilter. May be the issue is related to the pdf filetype added to SharePoint Server.
Event ID-10036 -Gatherer
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office Server Search
Event Category: Gatherer
Event ID: 10036
Date: 7/19/2010
Time: 10:05:13 PM
User: N/A,
Computer: MOSSSERVER
Description: A database error occurred.
Source: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server
Code: 8134 occurred 1 time(s)
Description: Divide by zero error encountered.
How to build a scrolling marquee of blog postings from a sub-site.
How to build a scrolling marquee of blog postings from a sub-site.
- Using SharePoint Designer, open a Web Part page and view the Data Source Library (from the Task Panes menu).
- Select "Connect to another library..." from the bottom of the Task Pane
- Add the full URL for your blog sub site
- Expand the blog site and highlight the Posts list.
- Select "Show Data" from the drop down menu of the Posts list
- You should now be in the Data Source Details pane. Select "Insert Selected Fields as..." - "Multiple Item View..."
- In the Data View that has just been added to the page, select the Common Tasks menu ( > button in the top right of the web part)
- Set the View to the simple list, filter and sort as required.
- Add the following code into the Code View after the <xsl:template name="dvt_1.body"> line
<marquee onmouseover="this.stop();" onmouseout="this.start();" truespeed="" scrollamount="1" scrollDelay="30" direction="left" valign="middle"> - Add the following line between the </xsl:for-each> and the closing dvt_body template tag.
</marquee> - Replace the contents of the <xsl:template name="dvt_1.rowview">
template with
<span><xsl:value-of select="ddwrt:FormatDateTime(string(@Created),1033 ,'dd-MMM-yy ')" /> - <a href="{@FileDirRef}/viewpost.aspx?id={@ID}"><xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></a> | </span> - Save the page and view it in the browser
Thanks to SQL Server 2008 and SharePoint SQL 2008 Tips
With the SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM (Release to Manufacturer) and Launch, I want to give you my top reasons to upgrade with some additional tips to SQL 2008 from a SharePoint Admin/IT Pro perspective. Now that it's RTM SharePoint (both WSS and MOSS) supports SQL 2008!
1. Transparent Encryption - SharePoint doesn't even realize the database has transparent encryption turned on. I wouldn't recommend doing this on the Config database and especially would avoid the SSP and Search Databases. If you do decide to use this, it would be on content databases only, and even then I'd recommend using it only on the ones you need it on. Why? For Performance reasons encryption is overhead even if it is transparent to the application.
2. Backup Compression - Now this is a big no brainer. You can actually turn this on for the database so when backups happen even with the SharePoint Backup either Web UI or STSADM backup will backup the databases faster and more compressed.
3. Resource Governor - As all content is not created equal this gives you a chance to treat the most important data at a greater level of service. I love the fact that I can limit the exposure as far as performance is concerned with apps that might share the same SQL storage. Whether you're sharing with other SharePoint farms or sharing with other applications the resource governor allows you to be much more granular in deciding who gets what resources.
4. Mirroring enhancements - compressed logs means more reliability and quicker sync. Also other enhancements make it more transparent to setup and configure mirroring. Mirroring has taken some stride with SQL 2008. A transparent failover was demo'ed at the SharePoint Conference with SQL 2008. It wasn't clear in the demo how they dealt with the SSP, but I hope we get more prescriptive guidance from he product team on how to use the new features of mirroring to make DR for SharePoint even better.
5. Data compression - Careful here as well. Data compression can give you more disk space, but don't expect your SharePoint databases to really shrink down. The blobs aren't compressible. The lists are though. You might see 30% compression, but please avoid doing this on the Search database because of overhead unless the indexing performance isn't super key. You might get a lot of compression on that database though... just watch for overhead impact.
Stsadm Technical Reference for SharePoint Server 2007
Stsadm Technical Reference for SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes the Stsadm tool for command-line administration of SharePoint Server 2007 servers and sites. Stsadm is located at the following path on the drive where SharePoint Products and Technologies is installed: %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin. You must be an administrator on the local computer to use Stsadm.
Use the interactive application on this page to learn about the commands available. For more information, see Index for Stsadm operations and properties in the technical library.
For information about using the Stsadm tool with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, see the Stsadm Technical Reference for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/cc948709.aspx
Disable “Delete this site” option in SharePoint
There were many a times some of our users always want to test us whether we had a good backup of SharePoint Sites and Data. Traditionally speaking even though you have all the backups required to restore a SharePoint Site, it makes sense to disable the option to delete the site in first place.
So how can we do this?
Sure. There are a couple of options for deployment. The best one is to package this feature into a Solution Package (wsp). There are plenty of articles on the web with instructions on how to do this, and there are a number of different methods and tools you can use.
Also I think this would be one of the Best practices which will save tons of time for the Administrators trying to restore a single site or subsite in SharePoint
However, the quickest and easiest (to explain) way to get this deployed is to create the feature manually, as follows.
Plan SharePoint Server disaster recovery (DR Plan)
When creating a disaster recovery (DR) plan, you need to determine what you are trying to recover from. In other words, think of your disaster recovery plan as "taking out insurance" for your SharePoint environment. There are various levels of protection you might wish to set in place. You may be using a DR plan to create a replica of your portal to recover specific content, or you may wish to develop a plan to create a new environment from scratch (in the event of an actual disaster) that will quickly and effectively replicate the current environment.
For example, on one end of the spectrum, you could make things easy on your operational team and back up your data once every six months or so, but then you run the risk of losing a lot of data if something were to happen (a hard drive crashes, you lose power, and so on). On the other end of the spectrum, you can do a full backup of everything daily to ensure that you always have the latest of everything—but does that make sense for your environment?
To properly capture these types of decisions, we recommend creating a DR operations document.
The following is a framework for a SharePoint disaster recovery document. It is important to note that a DR plan is only effective if it is both complete and accurate.
An effective SharePoint DR plan should contain full documentation on how to recreate an entire SharePoint environment from scratch. This requires a process (and discipline) that is accurate and well-maintained. Every time a SharePoint element (for example, a Web part, xml file, and so on) is altered or added, the "disaster recovery inventory document" must be updated.
Sharepoint Administrative Tasks
I have been asked many a times what is the role of Sharepoint Administrator. In my opinion the Sharepoint Administrator primary job would be to monitor and check the Sharepoint Servers and Sharepoint Access, Build up the Physical Architecture, Logical Architecture and creation of SIte Collections and Sites and Management of Content Databases as per the best practices suggested by Microsoft.
- Some of the Routine SharePoint administrative tasks would be:
- Daily checks to test and monitor the SharePoint Status, health, and the Performance (SharePoint sites Response time, status of host server, SharePoint Server and the IIS Server)
- Daily check of Front-end and Back-end backups for business continuity.(Check the last date of your backups)
- Daily Check of the profile import.
- Daily check of the Search and Indexing features.
- Daily check and installation of Security Updates.
- Daily check the SharePoint Site Access
- Daily Monitoring and Reporting of SharePoint Sites.
- Daily Monitor and analyze SharePoint usage and activity.
- Daily Monitor and analyze SharePoint content and storage.
- Daily Monitor SharePoint Trends and Governance Violations.
- Daily monitor event logs for any errors or warnings. Make sure the number of warnings and errors were minimum and health check of the Sharepoint environment.
Excel 2002 and SharePoint- Unable to open and edit the spreadsheet and save
Today one of the SharePoint Users called me for help with Sharepoint. The User was trying to open the Excel Spreadsheet from Sharepoint and was not able to make any changes or edits to the document and also could not save any changes. when he tries to open the Excel Spreadsheet(.xslx). the spreadsheet opens up in the web browser but will not allow the user to make any changes and the option to save it is not available.
I remoted in to his machine and found that the user had Office 2002 installed on his machine. Once we upgraded the current version of office 2002 to office 2007, everything worked like charm....
Reasons Why Your SharePoint Users Hate You!
SharePoint User Adoption is key for a Successful SharePoint Implementation, you might not realize this, but your users hate you. That’s right. Hate you. They hate you because you are responsible for SharePoint and their experience sucks of late. What started out as a promising way to collaborate has turned into a burden. Your users know they should use SharePoint to better manage the vast amount of information and data they create. They love the power and ease of use of SharePoint, but after a litany of issues with their environment they have given up and gone back to using file shares and email. Here’s why they hate you and what you can do to make them love you again.
No one is in charge.... That's not right?
Your users need help. They have lots of questions, concerns, and issues. They want to know how to design their site, how to recover data, and if they should trust their site after that 2 hour outage yesterday. But there is no one to talk to. There’s no face of SharePoint, no one cares about them and their problems. Sites go down and come back up hours later with no explanation. Worse, users contact helpdesk for help. Three days later they find out that nothing can be done and their ticket is closed.
Maybe you know this is a problem and you are trying to solve it. Perhaps you are too busy managing the company’s Exchange infrastructure to focus on this little SharePoint niche. Maybe you don’t want users to know you are in charge. All those questions, accusations, and anger are too much to handle. Regardless, it’s time to step up and take charge. Here’s how:
- Create a FAQ wiki. Make sure users can ask questions and that you answer them.
- Take charge of helpdesk.
- Send an email to the entire company. Communicate 3 main things. You’re in charge. You care. You are looking into their problems and will communicate solutions soon. Let them know about your helpdesk improvements and your new wiki.
- Follow up.
- After reading the rest of this series and resolving issues 1 through 4, send out another email letting your users know what you have done. It’s a quick way to garner respect and possibly a way to build an empire.
Office HTML viewer to support Users without Office
The Office HTML Viewer server provides support for users who want to view the content of files in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services document libraries, but do not have Word, Excel, or PowerPoint from Office 97, or a newer release of Office, installed on their local computer.
This is a free download from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c62e0232-9bf6-48fc-829e-5c34d5c8b15f&displaylang=en
Hava a dedicate a server for the Html Viewer Server. Once you have it installed, go to Central Administration > Application Management > External Service Connections > Html Viewer and configure MOSS to use the server.
Sharepoint’s Workflow History
We have been using the Workflow capabilities of MOSS 2007 to streamline the routing of documents and work items to colleagues for approval, sign-off, and other common workflow tasks. An added benefit is that the Workflow History provides an electronic "paper trail" to document the flow of information in an organization - such as who approved a particular document.
Clients who rely on the latter feature for paper trail or audit purposes may be surprised to find that workflow items seem to "disappear" after a period of time. When selecting workflows from a drop-down list for a particular document, completed workflows that are less than 2 months old will appear in the list, while those older than 2 months will not appear.
The seemingly-disappearing workflows are due to a scheduled SharePoint job that runs nightly called "Workflow Auto Cleanup". The job's function is to remove some of the associations in the database between documents and workflows. While the underlying data for the workflows is still stored in the database, the associations are removed. This was done by design by Microsoft for performance reasons.