• Click on "Start Test"
• Type Sample text in the text area
• To finish test click on "Show Result"
• This will display the test result
• Click on "Start Test" to try again

• Click on "F5" near to help button. 
  It will generate random sample text for typing test

Functionality:

1) Fast chart app provides different types of charts, it uses JQPlot and Google APIs. Charting is done on SharePoint List data. App contains Fully Immersive Page and app part which can be added to pages on Host web.

2) When App part is added to pages of host web and app part properties are set like list name, chart type etc. app part shows up the selected type of chart on the page.

3) When the app is loaded in the app web, Full immersive page will give options to choose the lists from host web and draw different types of charts. This is like ad-hoc reporting allows you choose the type of chart that fits well for your list data.

4) App also provides feature to print the chart.

Please follow below steps to test the app:

1. Install the app , during the installation allow permissions.

2. Add an app part to a page in the host site and set the properties of app part.

    Required App part Properties:-

    i) Source List name - Internal name of list which is present in host web.

    ii)Column Name for X Axis

    iii)Column Name for Y Axis

    iv)Type of Chart

    v) API used to render charts

    Optional App part properties:-

    i) Width

    ii) Height

    iii) Allow printing of chart

Once the properties are set and applied. Chart will start showing up on the page.

3) If allow printing of chart is checked you can start printing the chart.

4) In order to show different chart,  select type of chart from app properties.

To handle this situation SharePoint provides External Content Types . We will see how to configure ECT with SharePoint Designer and show a list from SQL server table  .

Let’s start we have following customer table in our data base with some dummy values . We will make this table shown as a SharePoint list in few clicks with the help of SharePoint designer.

Step 1 . To start with open your site in SP Designer .To do this either click on Site Action –> Edit in SharePoint Designer option from your site or open SP Designer 2010 and browse for your site .

Step 2.  Select External Content Type from  Site Objects and then click on the first icon in the new group of the  ribbon i.e  External Content Type

Step 3. This  will open a ‘New External Content Type’ window , change the Name and Display Name in the External Content Type Information tab of the newly opened window.

Step 4. Click on the link ‘Click here to discover external data sources and define operations.’

Step 5. This will open a new window with the name that you have provided in last screen for external content type , Click on ‘Add Connection’. In the External Data Source Type Selection choose SQL Sever. Fill the details for Database Server ,Database Name and user identity to connect with database .

Step 6 . If you have provided the correct details , now you can see your database in the ’Data Source Explorer’  tab. Expand your database –> navigate till the table which you want to display as SharePoint List . Right click on the table and select ‘Create All Operations’ . With this option you can also edit and delete items from SharePoint list . The changes will be atomically reflect in SQL server after any operation in the SharePoint list .  

Step 7.  It will open up  ‘All Operations’  window . Click Next  and it will display all the fields of the selected table , change any properties if you want otherwise just click Next. The next section is for filter  parameter configuration, just click Finish.Save your external content type in SP Designer.

Step 8. Now our external content type is ready and we just need a list . Select ‘List and Libraries’  from ‘Site Objects’ tab and then click on ‘External List’ command from the ribbon .

Step 9. You will now see a ‘External Content Types  Picker ‘ window . Select your external content type which you have just created and then click Ok. Provide name and description  for the list in ‘Create External List’ window , Click oaky and you are done .Save everything in SP Designer go to your site  and you can can find newly created list under Lists section .

You can also edit , delete and add new items from SharePoint List to the SQL server database .

How To Use This Plugin : Download the plugin from here. Keep jquery.SlideShow.js in your project directly or inside any folder (if you want , you need to refer it on your page not more than that), keep Jquery latest version also in the same folder. If you dont have it download it from here.In my case i have put my plugin and jquery files in Jquery folder . Reference these two JS file in your page with following script tag :

<script src="JQuery/jquery-1.4.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script src="JQuery/jquery.SlideShow.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Now just put a simple div inside a table provide id to it

<table align="center"> <tr> <td ><div id="MyGalary" ></div></td> </tr> </table>

Now in your head add following script :

<script type="text/javascript"> $().ready(function() { $('#MyGalary').SlideShow({ 

FileNames:'http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/sumitg/Pictures/Lake-Tahoe/Inside-Emerald-Bay.JPG

|http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/sumitg/Pictures/Lake-Tahoe/Lake-Tahoe.JPG

|http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/sumitg/Pictures/Lake-Tahoe/Lake-Tahoe-3.JPG

|http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/sumitg/Pictures/Lake-Tahoe/Scenary.JPG

|http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/sumitg/Pictures/Lake-Tahoe/Sand-beach.JPG'

, Width:"600", Height:"600" , ImagesFromWeb:"1", SlideShowInterval:"1000"

 });

 }); 

</script>

Don't panic with long File names its because i am taking images from web and urls are long .The plugin also supports to get images from any folder of your application we will discuss it later . Now you are done and your picture gallery is ready . run your html page and see the image gallery :)

I have created a sample for this plugin,  If you want to see a working example download it .

I was working on client’s requirement and needed to create a dashboard kind of report . The requirement was to create one chart and on click of it should show two other charts  in the same report . I was aware of of subreports in SSRS but the problem with subreports is that once u click on parent report it will take u to the child report . My requirement  was to show the data in the same report based on the parameter passed by the parent report in the same page .

Just to demonstrate I will use AdventureWorksDW database . We are trying to create a report like below :

The first bar chart shows the Total Sales amount yearly , On clicking any of the year bar , data in the two pie charts will be changed accordingly . Left side pie chart show the data for selected year sliced by Sales Territory Country.Right side chart data shows data for selected year sliced by Product Category .With this,  one can have good analysis of which country and product category did well in a particular year.

Lets start making the dashboard .All the charts used in report use different dataset but same data source . We will first create a new report and name it to Dashboard . I have already created a adventureworks  shared data source for this project . To create the new report I used the same data source . Follow below Steps to create the new report with first dataset .

Create a new report with the shared data source and use below query for first dataset .

SELECT  FactInternetSales.ShipDateKey, FactInternetSales.SalesAmount, DimTime.FiscalYear

FROM  FactInternetSales

INNER JOIN DimTime

ON FactInternetSales.ShipDateKey = DimTime.TimeKey

Now add a bar chart on the page and give FiscalYear to the category group and SalesAmount column in sigma values box . You just need to select the field the sum will come automatically as sum is the default operation .Do not forget to delete the existing category group ‘Details ‘. It should look like below :

You need to do some formatting to make this chart more good looking , like show data labels , and data label formatting to show in millions and add a $ sign after the value . To do all these right click on the SalesAmount Series and click on show data labels , and then to format data labels right click on any data label and click Series Label Properties . Explore the opened window ,you will find much more options

Once this is done you can preview the report and  modify the look and feel of the report accordingly  . Now we need to create a sub charts which can show data according to the year selected . Till now we have not done anything to make the bar clickable we will do it once we are done with one of the sub charts .

First we need to create new data set to display the next chart i.e Year wise sales territory sales amount grouping .

Go to the Report Data Window and right click on the ‘Dataset’ folder then add dataset . Use the second option ‘use a dataset embedded in  my report’. Choose the shared data source and type below query in query box :

SELECT  FactInternetSales.SalesAmount, DimSalesTerritory.SalesTerritoryCountry

FROM FactInternetSales

INNER JOIN DimSalesTerritory

ON FactInternetSales.SalesTerritoryKey = DimSalesTerritory.SalesTerritoryKey

INNER JOIN  DimTime ON FactInternetSales.ShipDateKey = DimTime.TimeKey

WHERE (DimTime.FiscalYear = @Year)

Name the dataset to SalesTerritory .This dataset is using a parameter named ‘Year’ whenever we will use this data set we have to provide this parameter .As soon as the data set is added you can also see a parameter name year under Parameters folder in Report Data window. Right click on that and click project properties . Go to Default values tab and add value and give the value as -1 . It is just make sure that before running the report SSRS should not give us the error for not setting parameter value .Now from toolbox take the chart control and select 3D-Exploded Pie chart .Remove the Details from the category group and add SalesTerritoryCountry to the category group .

Then add SalesAmount to the Sigma Values group (Just above the category group ). It should look like this:

Also choose show data labels option by right clicking on the SalesAmount Series. Till now we have created a chart but didn’t pass the parameter .To pass the parameter from the bar chart we already created right click on the SalesAmout Series of bar chart and click on Series Property .

Go To Action tab and click on option ‘Go to report ‘ . Choose the same report i.e. Dashboard in ‘Specify a report ‘ Dropdown . Notice that there is ‘Add’ button below the text ‘Use these parameters to run the report’.

Click on add and choose Year from the name dropdown .We have specified the parameter but not the value for parameter we need to bind it to our year field . Select [FiscalYear] from the Value dropdown . Notice  that if click on the expression button u can see ‘=Fields!FiscalYear.Value’  . Click on okay and you are done . After adding action our series bar is clickable and it can give parameter to the SalesTerritory pie chart .

Look at the preview of the report ,initially the the pie chart will show ‘No Data available’ because till now the year parameter is –1 which does not have any data. Now click of any the bar , you can see the pie chart showing the relevant year data . So one chart drill down is done  

The second one is also same just create one more dataset named ‘ProductCategory’ with below query :

SELECT  FactInternetSales.SalesAmount, DimProductCategory.EnglishProductCategoryName

FROM FactInternetSales

INNER JOIN DimTime ON FactInternetSales.ShipDateKey = DimTime.TimeKey

INNER JOIN DimProduct ON FactInternetSales.ProductKey = DimProduct.ProductKey

INNER JOIN DimProductSubcategory ON DimProduct.ProductSubcategoryKey = DimProductSubcategory.ProductSubcategoryKey

INNER JOIN DimProductCategory ON DimProductSubcategory.ProductCategoryKey = DimProductCategory.ProductCategoryKey

WHERE (DimTime.FiscalYear = @Year)

Notice that we are again using the same parameter year for this report also . we want both the pie chart to shoe data for the year clicked on bar chart .Provide data fields mapping to the newly created pie chart like below :

We have already passed a Year parameter from our bar chart , so we need not to do anything to pass parameter for this report . Preview the report , on click of any year bar both the pie chart should reflect the data change .

For xml path gives you flexibility to generate xml from your database in the desired structure with less code .
Believe me once you learn the xml path you will love this feature .

So lets start with a simple customer  table , the schema of the table is as follows :

If if just write for xml auto query like this :

select * from dbo.Customer for xml auto

, we will get the xml like this :

<dbo.Customer CustomerId="1" FirstName="Priyanka" LastName="Srivastava" Address="lucknow" Email="priyanka@yahoo.com" PhoneNumber="23232232" />

<dbo.Customer CustomerId="2" FirstName="Manish " LastName="Sharma" Address="mumbai" Email="manish@gmail.com" PhoneNumber="232323" />

<dbo.Customer CustomerId="3" FirstName="Kanak" LastName="Srivastava" Address="Delhi" Email="kanak@hotmail.com" PhoneNumber="2165273" />

<dbo.Customer CustomerId="4" FirstName="Rachita" LastName="Pandey" Address="Bhopal" Email="Rachita@abc.com" PhoneNumber="7868768" />

<dbo.Customer CustomerId="5" FirstName="Jitender" LastName="Singh" Address="Patiala" Email="Jitender@abc.com" PhoneNumber="897879" />

Now if you want your xml to be structured in very customized way , we can use for xml path . in this we have option to choose whether we want to show a particular column as an attribute or an element .

To display a column as an attribute add ‘@’ before alias name and to make an element just write the alias name .suppose you want to get every customer record with a Customer tag and first name with FisrtName attribute and last name with LastName Attribute.

SELECT CustomerId AS '@Id',

FirstName AS '@FirstName',

LastName AS '@LastName'

FROM dbo.Customer FOR XML PATH('Customer')

Resultant XML will be :

<Customer Id="1" FirstName="Priyanka" LastName="Srivastava" />

<Customer Id="2" FirstName="Manish " LastName="Sharma" />

<Customer Id="3" FirstName="Kanak" LastName="Srivastava" />

<Customer Id="4" FirstName="Rachita" LastName="Pandey" />

<Customer Id="5" FirstName="Jitender" LastName="Singh" />

We can do any kind of manipulation in the select phrase and give it as an attribute of element of the xml :

SELECT CustomerId AS '@Id',

FirstName + ' ' + LastName AS '@Name'

FROM dbo.Customer FOR XML PATH('Customer')

Resultant XML will be :

<Customer Id="1" Name="Priyanka Srivastava" />

<Customer Id="2" Name="Manish  Sharma" />

<Customer Id="3" Name="Kanak Srivastava" />

<Customer Id="4" Name="Rachita Pandey" />

<Customer Id="5" Name="Jitender Singh" />

To provide a root element of the table rows we need to use ROOT keyword

SELECT CustomerId AS '@Id',

FirstName + ' ' + LastName AS '@Name'

FROM dbo.Customer FOR XML PATH('Customer'), ROOT ('MyCustomers')

Resultant XML will be :

<MyCustomers>

  <Customer Id="1" Name="Priyanka Srivastava" />

  <Customer Id="2" Name="Manish  Sharma" />

  <Customer Id="3" Name="Kanak Srivastava" />

  <Customer Id="4" Name="Rachita Pandey" />

  <Customer Id="5" Name="Jitender Singh" />

</MyCustomers>

Now suppose we need the Contact details as child element in the customer element , and within the Contact details we need three different attributes for address , email and phone number :

SELECT CustomerId AS '@Id',

FirstName + ' ' + LastName AS '@Name',

[Address] AS 'ContactDetails/@PostalAddress',

Email AS 'ContactDetails/@EmailAddress',

PhoneNumber AS 'ContactDetails/@PhoneNumber'

FROM dbo.Customer FOR XML PATH('Customer'), ROOT ('MyCustomers')

Resultant XML will be :

<MyCustomers>

  <Customer Id="1" Name="Priyanka Srivastava">

    <ContactDetails PostalAddress="lucknow" EmailAddress="priyanka@yahoo.com" PhoneNumber="23232232" />

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="2" Name="Manish  Sharma">

    <ContactDetails PostalAddress="mumbai" EmailAddress="manish@gmail.com" PhoneNumber="232323" />

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="3" Name="Kanak Srivastava">

    <ContactDetails PostalAddress="Delhi" EmailAddress="kanak@hotmail.com" PhoneNumber="2165273" />

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="4" Name="Rachita Pandey">

    <ContactDetails PostalAddress="Bhopal" EmailAddress="Rachita@abc.com" PhoneNumber="7868768" />

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="5" Name="Jitender Singh">

    <ContactDetails PostalAddress="Patiala" EmailAddress="Jitender@abc.com" PhoneNumber="897879" />

  </Customer>

</MyCustomers>

Now if we want the address , phone and email should be elements within the customer tag  :

SELECT CustomerId AS '@Id',

FirstName + ' ' + LastName AS '@Name',

[Address] AS 'ContactDetails/PostalAddress',

Email AS 'ContactDetails/EmailAddress',

PhoneNumber AS 'ContactDetails/PhoneNumber'

FROM dbo.Customer FOR XML PATH('Customer'), ROOT ('MyCustomers')

Resultant XML will be :

<MyCustomers>

  <Customer Id="1" Name="Priyanka Srivastava">

    <ContactDetails>

      <PostalAddress>lucknow</PostalAddress>

      <EmailAddress>priyanka@yahoo.com</EmailAddress>

      <PhoneNumber>23232232</PhoneNumber>

    </ContactDetails>

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="2" Name="Manish  Sharma">

    <ContactDetails>

      <PostalAddress>mumbai</PostalAddress>

      <EmailAddress>manish@gmail.com</EmailAddress>

      <PhoneNumber>232323</PhoneNumber>

    </ContactDetails>

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="3" Name="Kanak Srivastava">

    <ContactDetails>

      <PostalAddress>Delhi</PostalAddress>

      <EmailAddress>kanak@hotmail.com</EmailAddress>

      <PhoneNumber>2165273</PhoneNumber>

    </ContactDetails>

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="4" Name="Rachita Pandey">

    <ContactDetails>

      <PostalAddress>Bhopal</PostalAddress>

      <EmailAddress>Rachita@abc.com</EmailAddress>

      <PhoneNumber>7868768</PhoneNumber>

    </ContactDetails>

  </Customer>

  <Customer Id="5" Name="Jitender Singh">

    <ContactDetails>

      <PostalAddress>Patiala</PostalAddress>

      <EmailAddress>Jitender@abc.com</EmailAddress>

      <PhoneNumber>897879</PhoneNumber>

    </ContactDetails>

  </Customer>

</MyCustomers>

Joining multiple tables also work in same way u just need to understand the XML structure and apply elements or tags within the select clause .

Hope this will be helpful to start with the XML path . Actually you can do much more than this using this powerful SQL Feature :)

Let me know if you are facing any issue in implementing this in comment section of this blog .

Cheers

Priyanka

Creating the project is easy task and is implemented by QueueCreateMethod to create project . To Run the project workflow so that it can reach to  a particular stage we can use  RunProjectWorkflow  of  svcWorflow.WorkflowClient  Class. This method submit the workflow for a particular project . This method does the similar job like clicking on a  Submit button from PWA UI. If you need to by pass multiple stages run this method multiple times .

Below code describes how to use this method :

private SvcWorkflow.WorkflowClient workflowClient; 

workflowClient = new backendWorkFlow.WorkflowClient("basicHttp_WorkFlow");

workflowClient.RunProjectWorkflow(new Guid("3876fec7-6126-496b-8537-23e78c9924f6")); // provide the Guid of the project

 To set the enpoints for the workflow service following is the configuration in configuration file :

  <endpoint address="<Your PWA URL>/_vti_bin/PSI/ProjectServer.svc"
               behaviorConfiguration="basicHttpBehavior" binding="basicHttpBinding"
               bindingConfiguration="basicHttpConf" contract="SvcWorkflow.Workflow"
               name="basicHttp_WorkFlow" />