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8/25/2008

SharePoint Screencast Tutorial: Adding a .stp SharePoint site template prior to template selection for the top level site through the web UI

A common end user question surrounds the use of Microsoft or third party templates for SharePoint. For non server side templates (ones that you can upload yourself to the Site template gallery on your SharePoint) you can simply go to the Site Setting area of the site and click on Site Templates > Upload. Pretty easy. But here's the catch: what if you want to use this template to create your top level site? Since the Site Actions menu is not exposed during template selection it is not immediately obvious how you would do this. Here's the trick. You need to add \_layouts\settings.aspx to the URL of your site and then simply navigate to the Site templates gallery of the site and upload your template. After this, just return to the URL of the top level site and refresh the page by clicking F5 on your keyboard. Now you will see your template in the list of options available to you. Pretty neat.

Here's a tutorial on how to perform this task, "Adding a .stp SharePoint site template prior to the selection of the top level site template through the SharePoint web UI" Click the screen grab below to watch. (PS you need SilverLight).

Posted at 11:33 AM by Blog Administrator | Category: Screencast Tutorial | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/21/2008

SharePoint Screencast Tutorial: Dealing with closed and deleted web parts in the browser and with SharePoint Designer

One of the common causes of SharePoint page malfunctions or poor performance is the closed or corrupted web part. This issue comes across my desk two or three times a week. A user forgets that the Close option from the web part menu is not the same as the delete option. After awhile of closing many, many web parts the page load time goes through the roof. Known issue. You need to delete web parts when you don't want to display them on a page any longer. The other common issue is that a developer or SharePoint Designer will be working on a site and while they're figuring out the data view web part which you can add through SharePoint Designer they close it so users don't encounter something on the page which isn't done yet. Then they forget it was there and add three more, or perhaps the data that those web parts are bound to somehow changes and now they become corrupted and the page won't load. Again, known and common issue.

To deal with this you are going to want to do two possible things (1) see if you can still open and the page and if you can just go and delete the closed web parts (2) if you can't open the page in your web browser you are going to want to go open the site up with SharePoint Designer. The closed web parts are grayed out as shown in the video below.

Check it the screencast by clicking the screen grab below or by clicking here, "Working with closed web parts in IE 7.0 and SharePoint Designer"

Posted at 6:47 PM by Blog Administrator | Category: Known Issue; SharePoint Designer; Windows SharePoint Services 3.0; Screencast Tutorial | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

SharePoint Screencast Tutorial: Allow read only SharePoint users to update their profile information

One of the powerful SharePoint features that you can leverage is user profiles. You can find yours by clicking the drop down next to your username in the top right hand corner of the screen in a default SharePoint installation. Typical information you might want to document here is your contact details, title, department and even add attachments such as your resume. This will other SharePoint users to find you more easily and perhaps learn something about you that they did not already know.

There's a catch to updating this profile information – by default only a Contributor or higher may change the information in their profile. This means if you have read-only SharePoint users they will only be able to modify their Alerts and potentially their Password from the My Settings area on the site.

To change this restrictive policy you need to go to Site Settings > Advanced Permissions > and click on the Settings drop of which will allow you to select Permission Levels. Once you arrive at the new screen you will see a list of the available Permission Levels - such as Full Control, Contributor, Read. Click the Read and this will link to a page with a long list of check boxes which you may select to change an individual permission associated with the select Permission level. Down near the bottom of this list you will find the check box next to Edit Personal User Information and then click Submit below. This will now allow your Read only users to update their profile information.

To watch the tutorial below you will need to have the Microsoft SilverLight plug-in activated in your browser. Click the image for this link to start playback, "Allow a read only SharePoint user to update their user information"

Posted at 4:57 PM by Blog Administrator | Category: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0; Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007; Screencast Tutorial | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/6/2008

Community Kit for SharePoint – User Group Edition 1.0

You may have heard about the Community Kit for SharePoint (aka "CKS") – it's a set of templates, Web Parts, tools and source code that allows you to create community driven web sites and content on top of SharePoint Products and Technologies. One of the most popular components of the CKS is the CKS:EBE or Enhanced Blog Edition. You have seen many different SharePoint blogs using this template.

Another great add-on is the CKS User Group Edition. This is a SharePoint site template (.stp) that allows you to create a site already tuned to help with common tasks and themes related to technology User Groups. User Groups are a really positive force in the community and SharePoint is here to help. You can download the .stp file here: http://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=CKS&ReleaseId=1926.

Once you have downloaded the .stp file you need to upload it to your Site Templates Gallery. Follow the simple set of instructions below to get it running for yourself on a sub-site of your existing SharePoint site collection.

1. After downloading the SharePoint site template to your computer you need to add the .stp file to your Site Templates Gallery in the Site Settings area of your SharePoint Site under the Galleries heading. Navigate to Site Actions > Site Settings > Site templates.

2. Next you need to select the Upload Document link of your Site Template Gallery.

3. A new screen will appear which will allow you to browse and upload a template. Click the Browse button then locate the file you downloaded in step Next click Open and then OK. This will upload your file. Click through and save all the description and additional meta data about the file.

4. Now navigate to Site Actions > Create > Sites and Workspaces > type a title, description and path to your site and then click on the Custom tab for the template selection. Select your security options and then click Create. This will take several moments and then your new CKSUGE site will be displayed!

5. Success! Click the image below to see the template live and in action.

Posted at 4:01 PM by Blog Administrator | Category: SharePoint Add-in | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

7/25/2008

SharePoint Explorer View

Here's a few resources on trouble shooting the explorer and using it with Windows Server 2003 instead of the usual XP or Vista. A few of you out there asked for this.

Whitepaper on SharePoint Explorer view: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C523AC7A-5724-48BE-B973-641E805588F4&displaylang=en

Software Update for Web Folders: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=17C36612-632E-4C04-9382-987622ED1D64&displaylang=en

PS: the update may require a reboot.

Posted at 6:13 PM by Blog Administrator | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

7/7/2008

Two trouble shooting tips for SharePoint pages that just won’t load

General Background: You have been working on your SharePoint site adding web parts through the browser interface and now suddenly your default.aspx page on your main site or sub site won't load. You've been customizing the site with SharePoint Designer and adding data views. You'll often get a non-descript SharePoint error page that suggests that you Trouble Shoot this issue by clicking through to a help file. Page Not Found. You're not alone.

Tool you need: SharePoint Designer 2007 with SP1

Tip 1: Closed or minimized web parts. Open your site with SharePoint Designer and the select the aspx page that will not load and take a look at in Design Mode. If you see any "grayed out" web parts these are in a minimized state. You may want to try to remove these entirely by deleting them.

Tip 2: Web parts that display too much data, corrupted data. Check to see if any web parts are not able to display the data that they are bound to.

Please backup any pages before making modifications. In most cases these two tips will get your page loading again.

Posted at 2:31 PM by Blog Administrator | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/29/2008

The List cannot be displayed in Datasheet view (WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007).

We've seen this one before – and there's a Microsoft KB article on it here but in the KB they don't mention any ways to resolve this issue.

Error Message: The list cannot be displayed in Datasheet View for one or more of the following reasons:

-A datasheet component compatible with Windows SharePoint Services is not installed.

-Your web browser does not support ActiveX controls.

-Support for ActiveX controls is disabled.

Background: You will see this message displayed if you use FireFox, Opera, Safari or any browser other than Internet Explorer 6.0 – 7.0. Using Data Sheet View in WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 allows you to easily edit your SharePoint lists in a familiar spread-sheet-esque manner. This is not to say that it is a fully functioning web spreadsheet as in Excel Web Access (Excel Services). If you're having issues using the Data Sheet View there are several prerequisites you need to meet before you can use this SharePoint feature.

You must be using a PC
You must be using IE 6 or higher
You must enable certain ActiveX security settings.

Some anecdotal evidence also suggests is a good idea, though not necessary, to have the Windows SharePoint Service Support options for Microsoft Office installed. Skip to step 5 if you don't want to do this. Here are the instructions for Office 2007. To verify that these components are installed and available go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs > click on Microsoft Office and then Change. You may need your Office 2007 install media beyond this step.

Follow the steps for changing your Microsoft Office installation.

Expand the Office Tools category.

Next verify that you have both the Microsoft Office Access Web Datasheet Component and the Windows SharePoint Services Support component installed.

If these components are not installed choose to run them from your computer and then click the Continue button and go through the installation process. You may need your Office 2007 install media.

Next you want to verify that you can run ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer. To do this open IE and go to the Tools menu > Internet options.

Next click on the Security tab and for your Trusted sites click (choose Internet if you do not add your SharePoint sites to your Trusted Sites) on the Custom level button (both examples shown below as 6 and 6A).

Verify that you can use previously unused ActiveX controls.

Verify that you can download signed ActiveX controls and that you can run ActiveX controls and plug-ins.

The next setting is very critical – select "Enable" for Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting.

Adjust these settings accordingly and then click OK twice to return to Internet Explorer.

You may need to close Internet Explorer and re-open the program before your new settings take hold and become active. This will resolve the issue in about 95% of the cases out there.

Posted at 1:13 PM by Blog Administrator | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/23/2008

Bulk File Uploads to SharePoint shown as Checked Out in WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007

Issue: You are uploading multiple documents to your SharePoint libraries via the built in multiple document upload capability or through an explorer view. After uploading these files you notice that all these recently uploaded files are marked as checked out and you must manually click "Check in" on each document. This is time consuming and you want to avoid the issue with future uploads.

Background: This situation is related to a versioning setting in your document library.

Suggested Resolution: For the library in question where you are having this issue, do the following:

Navigate to the library then go to > Settings > Document Library Settings

Next click on Versioning Settings

Next Change your settings to require No Versioning, do not require documents to be checked out and then finally click OK to finish.

This will resolve the issue. If you want to re-enable versioning repeat the same steps above and change the final steps 4 and 5 to their original settings.

Posted at 4:24 PM by Blog Administrator | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/26/2008

The Do’s and Don’ts of Site Collection Features and Site Features for SharePoint End Users

A frequent point of confusion and subsequent pain point for SharePoint end users is what those pesky Site features and Site collection features links actually do (highlighted below with green arrows). When we click on Site Features, we're taken to a new and fascinating page which lots of "Activate" or "Deactivate" buttons. Note of warning here: In about 99% of the cases an average end user will face, these Activate/Deactivate buttons are better thought of as the SharePoint site button of death. So don't click any of them ever unless you know you need too.

Below you can see that in our Site Collection features we have two entries – the components of the half of the "Fab 40" application templates and the built in three-state workflow. So at this point you'd be thinking to yourself that you'd probably need to activate the Fields and Content Types of the Windows SharePoint Services Application Templates by clicking the "Activate" button. No – you Do Not want to click that "Activate" button. Leave it be and move on.

If you've made it this far good job. Here's a circumstance when it is OK to click the "Activate" or "Deactivate" button. For example you may have the Community Kit for SharePoint: Enhanced Blog Edition (CKS:EBE) installed on your server. You may want to activate or deactivate the feature on your blog, and you can do so without negatively impacting your existing content – however it will significantly change your look/feel and features.

Here's an example of what not to do and a frequent way we have seen end users run into some confusion with their SharePoint site. Say for example you've created your site you're using with the Team Site template or similar. You navigate to Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Features and you find the Team Collaboration Lists feature and you click "Deactivate" -

First you will see a warning that, "You are about to deactivate the Team Collaboration Lists feature. If you deactivate this feature, any user data or customizations associated with this feature might be lost. In addition, any active features that depend on this feature might fail to function." In many cases you will lose some or all functionality by performing this action. We recommend not using the "Activate" or "Deactivate" buttons in the majority of circumstances.

If you proceeded beyond the warning screen above and returned to your site you would experience a loss of functionality. For example after doing this when you navigated to Site Actions > Create you would see a deprecated list of options. Essentially all the SharePoint features that relied on the particular features you Deactivated would no longer be available as options when you're creating additional SharePoint libraries/lists/etc.

If we return and Activate the features we disabled, we would see all our options return. We have seen cases where even though users were able to reactivate features, they did lose content/features/functionality that they had already built. Again, we recommend not using the "Activate" or "Deactivate" buttons in the majority of circumstances.

When you create additional sub site using one of the Microsoft application Templates aka the "Fab 40" you'll notice that the associated features are automatically Activated on in the site collection. There is no additional user interaction required to leverage those special features other than to create the site using the template.

Posted at 9:08 PM by Blog Administrator | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

If only this was a SilverLight app….AnyChart for SharePoint beta

We had some time to review a beta charting tool for SharePoint this week. It is called AnyChart for SharePoint (www.anychart.com) and is currently in a functional beta format which you can download and deploy to your own SharePoint site collection as an end user (no administrator / IT interaction required). People ask us all the time for a charting feature for their SharePoint list data, and unless they're using MOSS or have a dedicated environment there are very limited options available. This product may be a good option for companies looking to add simple data visualization to their SharePoint site in a low-overhead and 99% browser compatible manner.

Installing the AnyChart for SharePoint beta was easy and only takes about 2 or 3 minutes from the time you download the file from their site to having it up and running in your SharePoint site collection. This is pretty much the fastest web part installation we've done.

To watch a short screencast on configuring a simple chart click below, or watch now "AnyChart for SharePoint beta"

Our only hesitation about this product is that it was not developed in SilverLight which would be a huge improvement over Flash. That said, it is a pretty good start for what is sure to be a successful product filling a need for end user accessible solutions in the SharePoint data visualization vertical

Posted at 5:02 PM by Blog Administrator | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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