Hari Prasad's Blog

TFS Source Control in InfoPath 2010

hpiridi — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:01:00 GMT

The purpose of this article is to explain how InfoPath 2010 integrates with Team Foundation Server to provide source control for the forms.

Since the XSN file generated by InfoPath is a binary file and since Team Foundation Server cannot do this source control on binary files, the first step would be export the source files from InfoPath.

To achieve this, in the XSN file, click on File –> Publish and then Select the ‘Export Source Files’ Option and export the source files to any folder.

Now all the source files are saved to the specified location.

To start collaborating on the InfoPath form, all the developers need to open the form using the manifest.xsf file instead of the XSN file directly.
After opening the InfoPath form using the manifest.xsf, update the location of the form code project location by clicking on Developer –> Language.

Now, you are all set! Check-in the entire folder into TFS. Since this folder also contains dlls, pdb files ensure that you include these files explicitly, since TFS ignores these by default.
When developers make changes to the InfoPath form, the changes update the corresponding source files i.e., the XSL, XSD and other files accordingly depending on the changes.
When two developers are working on the form, they can merge changes on these source files if there are conflicts.
Once the development is complete, open the XSF file and then you can publish the InfoPath form to the SharePoint Server directly (or) save the XSN to any location if the form is an administrator approved form template.

Some of the Best Practices that need to be followed to ensure that all the developers can effectively work simultaneously on the same InfoPath Form:

Since InfoPath stores the physical location of the Solution containing the code, it is recommended that all the developers map the root folder containing the source files and the form code to the same location in their local machine.
Before making any changes to the InfoPath form, remove the read only property on all the Source Files and Source Code.
For checking in the changes, perform a checkout on the folder in TFS and then check in immediately.

Highly recommend you to watch this video on channel 9 - https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/laurhar/Programming-with-InfoPath-2010-Source-Control&ei=1We0T-D_Ms7trQfUuuWDDA&usg=AFQjCNFzR2cvQ56i4_mFBOWBD04jDPB9Xg

and read this blog post by InfoPath team: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/infopath/archive/2010/06/10/using-tfs-for-source-control-in-infopath-2010.aspx

Office 365 Code Submission - MSOCAF Best Practices

hpiridi — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:48:00 GMT

The objective of this article is to share some of the Office 365 Code Submission Best Practices based on my personal experience.

The MSOCAF (Microsoft SharePoint Online Code Analysis Framework) tool is your friend which can ensure that the package being submitted is as per the guidelines of MSO. Download the same from : https://caf.sharepoint.microsoftonline.com/Default.aspx

CREATE THE PACKAGE

Create a local folder and follow the folder structure as specified by MSOCAF tool. Even if you don’t have any files in a particular folder, keep the empty folder. Also, always ensure that you have the correct type of files placed in the right folder.

DO NOT Change the name of the deployment document ‘MSODeploymentGuide.docx’ as the MSOCAF tool will look for a document with the same name in the deployment folder to load the PreDeployment Checklist/ Instructions, Manual Deployment Steps, PostDeployment Instructions etc., as shown below.

While creating the deployment document, do not copy paste sections from one place to another. This could result in having instructions from one section display in a different section in the MSOCAF tool.

ANALYZE

MSOCAF analyses your customized SharePoint code for any potential issues that can affect security, stability and performance of the SharePoint Online Service and creates a report.

MSOCAF has a defined set of rules that will be run to test for these issues.

So, its extremely important that you first Analyze the code for any issues and fix the issues. To analyze the package that was created in the previous step, click on Browse and select the folder.

If you see any false positives, provide a justification by clicking Override/ Override All (as applicable) option. This will update the CAFReport generated with the Justification Comments.

TEST DEPLOYMENT AND ROLLBACK

You can use the MSOCAF tool to test the deployment process to help ensure a successful deployment to SharePoint Online. So, Always ensure that you test your package using the Test Deployment and Roll back links.

Before using this option, ensure that you have the web application URL set in MSOCAF tool settings as shown below.

During testing, ensure that all the predeployment, manual and postdeployment steps are being displayed correctly from the deployment document.

Also ensure that Rollback is also tested and is working correctly.

SUBMIT

Once all the above steps are complete and the package is fully tested, you can use the below option available in MSOCAF to submit the code to MSO.

New Features in SharePoint 2010

hpiridi — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:08:57 GMT

These are the rough notes of a SharePoint 2010 training, I’ve attended today.

Will elaborate more on these when I get time.

High Level Features in SharePoint 2010:

Sites:

Ribbon User Interface
SharePoint WorkSpace (Sync Framework)
SharePoint Mobile
Standard Support

Communities:

Rating
Inline editing support for Wiki Pages/Blogs
RSS Activity Feeds (Similar to Alerts but feed based)

Composites:

Business Data Connectivity Services
External List
Silverlight and AJAX Support
Workflow (Site Level and Workflow draft)
SharePoint Designer Changes
Visual Studio 2010 Support
Event receivers enhanced (Site deletion/Web App Provision/Deletion etc.,)
User Interfaces
API Enhancement - LINQ to SharePoint/ COM & REST/ATOM

Search:

Social Relevance and Ranking
Phonetic Search (examples B2B etc.,)
Better Search Navigation
FAST Integration
Extensible framework - Search Connector Framework

Insight:

Performance Point Services
Excel Services
Visio Services (Web Browser Support)
2D/3D Chart Web parts
SQL Server BI Technologies Integration
Power Pivot

Content:

Audio/Video content types for streaming
Digital Media Assets for DRM (Digital Rights Management)
Document Set
Tagging/Tag clouds & Taxonomies
Social Bookmarking
Org Browser
Profiles- Other directories integration

Developer Features in SharePoint 2010:

Large List Throttling
Referential Integrity & Join support to List Columns
Event Receivers support to Custom Error Pages
Ranking Support
Validation Support to List and Columns
Event Receiver Post Synchronous Execution Support
VS 2010 Projects, Item Templates for Lists/Schema Definitions
BDC services support for column definitions
Visio Based workflow design support
Reusable workflow support
Site Workflow support - Capture Site Events
VS 2010 Project Item Templates for Workflow Customization of UX
Developer Dashboard for Debugging/ Tracing
Silverlight Web part Support
PowerPoint based Theme Design
Theme Preview Support
API Enhancements

Client Object Model
LINQ to SharePoint
ADO.NET Data Services/ Web Services/ REST
Silverlight Client Object Model
ECMA Script library support

Application services Architecture (SSP - Not extensible for custom services. Everything or none)

Scalable - Shared across farms
Extensible
On demand basis usage
Access Services
Business Data Connection Services
Excel Calculation Services
Metadata Management Services

Claims based Authentication Support
Unified Logging Services & Correlation ID Support
Resource Governance/ Throttling
Record Management Features (at Site Collection Level)
Multi lingual Support in the same site instead of Variations
Audio/Video Content Types – Streaming
Document Set
Remote Blob Storage Support (for large files)
Visio/Excel/Word/Access Webpage
Profile Import - Sources Enhanced (AD, LDAP,BDC, Custom)
Sandboxed solution deployment support
Health Monitoring Support
End to End PowerShell Support. More than 500 cmdlets
SCOM Management Pack Support

SharePoint 2010 Beta 2 Resources!

hpiridi — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:27:46 GMT

Microsoft has recently announced the SharePoint 2010 Beta 2. Now anyone can download, install and try the same.

More info at : SharePoint 2010 Public Beta is now available for download

You can download SharePoint and Office 2010 public beta from https://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/default.aspx

I will keep updating the list with the resources which are valuable to share to the community.

Resources:

Resources for Developers on MSDN: https://www.mssharepointdeveloper.com
Resources for IT Pros on TechNet: https://www.mssharepointitpro.com
Have a SharePoint 2010 question? Ask it in the SharePoint 2010 forums

Designing a SharePoint 2010 Environment:

PerformancePoint Server Online Training Videos

hpiridi — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:01:56 GMT

Here are some links to a great set of online PerformancePoint Server 2007 tutorials, including configuration of the planner modeler, Excel add-in and dashboard designer.

https://blogs.technet.com/riyazj/archive/2007/12/24/performancepoint-server-2007-training.aspx

Building a planning budgeting or forecasting application

Module 1: Business integration
video | workbook
Module 2: Architecting a PerformancePoint Server2007 planning application
video | workbook
Module 3: Fundamentals of a planning application
video | workbook
Module 4: Building business models and data dimensions
video | workbook
Module 5: Data Loading
video | workbook
Module 6: Managing roles and security in a planning application
video | workbook
Module 7: Fundamentals of the Excel add-in for PerformancePoint Server 2007
video | workbook
Module 8: Embedding rules and calculations into a planning application
video | workbook
Module 9: Planning process management and workflows
video | workbook

Building a scorecard, dashboard, or analysis application

Module 10: Fundamentals of monitoring and analyzing data with PerformancePoint Server 2007
video | workbook
Module 11: Fundamentals of dashboarding, scorecarding and analytics
video | workbook
Module 12: PerformancePoint Server 2007 elements for monitoring and analysis
video | workbook
Module 13: Building dashboards with PerformancePoint Server 2007
video | workbook
Module 14: Managing security in dashboards, scorecards and analytic
video | workbook

SharePoint Planning Visio Diagrams

hpiridi — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 01:08:51 GMT

Here is a really cool set of Visio Diagrams related to Microsoft SharePoint. The diagrams illustrate models, scenarios, and flowcharts for planning, designing and deploying SharePoint installations.

Models

Scenarios

Flowcharts

SharePoint WebParts for FAST ESP

hpiridi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:53:10 GMT

As an early step towards making FAST ESP search capabilities interoperable with SharePoint, a set of installable Web parts for integrating FAST ESP and SharePoint have been made available in Codeplex.

With this package, SharePoint administrators can quickly build ESP-based search sites in SharePoint Server 2007 by simply dropping in and configuring the appropriate Web parts.

You can download the same at :

https://espwebparts.codeplex.com/

List of available Webparts:

	Web Part	Description
1	ESP Search Config	ESP Search Config is a hidden Web part for configuring the ESP connection, selecting the appropriate search view, and setting other search access parameters. You will need one ESP Search Config Web part for each search group.
2	ESP Search Box	ESP Search Box provides an input box for submitting a search query.
3	ESP Did You Mean	ESP Did You Mean analyzes the search query and returns the appropriate information. The output depends on the selected spellchecking mode: • Suggest will return a suggestion if the query was misspelled. • Modification will automatically resubmit the query and show the changed query term(s).
4	ESP Result List	ESP Result List displays the set of results found as a list.
5	ESP Search Statistics	ESP Search Statistics displays information such as the response time for the current query, the number of results returned, and the number of pages.
6	ESP Search Action	ESP Search Action displays links for actions that can be performed on the result set. Currently, sorting of fields/rank profiles is the only action supported.
7	ESP Search Pagination	ESP Search Pagination is used to page the search results.
8	ESP Navigator	ESP Navigator displays a single navigator for the search result set. This provides an aggregation of the values for a particular field and can be used to refine the search result set.
9	ESP Navigators	ESP Navigators displays all navigators returned for the current search result.
10	ESP Breadcrumb	ESP Breadcrumb displays the search term(s) and list of navigators used to obtain the current result set

Backup and Restore - SharePoint Farms, Site Collections & Sites

hpiridi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:25:32 GMT

Stsadm can be used to backup/ restore individual aspects of your sharepoint farm.

You can backup the entire sharepoint farm, an individual site collection or even an individual site.

For Backup:

To export sites : Stsadm –o export –url -filename .cmp

To back up a site collection: stsadm –o backup –url -filename

To back up an individual database, Web application, or the entire farm:

stsadm –o backup –directory -backupmethod

Restore:

To import sites: Stsadm –o import –url -filename .cmp

To restore a site collection: stsadm –o restore –url <URL of the site collection> -filename <Name of the backup file>

To restore an entire farm: stsadm –o restore –directory <UNC path or local drive> -restoremethod <overwrite or new>

If you wanted to restore only a particular item like only the content database, you can do that by using the –item property of the restore operation.

You can also view what will exactly be restored or backed up if you use the –showtree option. This doesn’t execute the command but shows the results as to what would happen if the command was executed.

More help on these commands at : stsadm –help <>

SharePoint 2007 Redirect Options

hpiridi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:12:34 GMT

Recently I came across this great article in Todd’s blog on the different redirect options available in SharePoint. These are generally the most common requests from the clients.

https://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=48

Copying sites in SharePoint 2007

hpiridi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:06:51 GMT

If you wanted to copy a site from one place to another within the same site collection, you can use the copy feature of the sharepoint present in Content and Structure.

In case if you have to copy the site from one webapplication to another, or to a different server, you can implement that in 2 different ways.

1) Using the STSADM Export and import commands (Probably, the simplest)

use the stsadm export command to export the existing site to a file.

Syntax: stsadm –o export –url <> –filename <>

To import it back to a different location, use the stsadm export command to export the existing site to a file.

Syntax: stsadm –o import –url <> –filename <>

The other options available for these commands can be viewed using stsadm –help <> e.g., stsadm –help export

2) Use the SharePoint designer’s Export feature.

Connect to the SharePoint site which you wanted to connect.

Go to File –> Export –> Personal Web Package

Now you can select the entire site / the required content and save the file by pressing Ok.

Now, connect to the target site. To import the data, you can go to File –> Import –> Personal Web Package and select the .fwp file and now the process is straightforward.