Why do I care?

Yeah, you may wonder, why should I care? Sure, it depends on
what you are looking for. I rather not explain here but my Fellow colleague,
Kirk Evans, can explain better than me. He has some fantastic blog posts about
this very subject and I highly recommend to read his blog posts about Premier
Field Engineering which you can find here.

Moving from heroes to mentors

Why I love being PFE?

I started working for Microsoft via its Consulting services
division (MCS). During MCS time, I have done consulting for about five years
and delivered many successful custom solutions. I wore number of hats such as
Developer, evangelist, architect etc. and helped many large, medium and small size
customers. After five years of custom development, I decided to look at Premier
Field Engineering and pursued to become Dedicate Premier Field engineer (DSE) –
Thanks to Kirk for his blog posts. This exposed me to some wide and very deep technical areas where I had never dare to dive, such as Network monitoring, Log
parsing, Performance Monitoring etc. This also provided me opportunities to work with
my various team mates who are absolute experts in the subject areas such as
Networking, DNS, AD, ADFS, Security etc. PFEs are exposed to some great
internal knowledge base to explore and find lots of valuable lesson learned and
various customer support cases.  Engaging mPFE is not just engaging individual but engaging army of people and their expertise behind them. I always feel empowered with this role, as I can very quickly get technical questions answered, whether it may be for SQL Cluster,
or SAN related or some .NET 4.5 related code. Love to be part of such a talented and highly motivated team.

Finally…

Well, this was just to share my side of the story and
excitement. Also, to remind myself (as Kirk mentioned) to become “Heroes To
Mentors”.  

Cheers!!!

Follow me at  WazzUrPoint

Many of my customers asked me about some kind of basic guidelines for their end users for using SharePoint designer in a large enterprise farm. Unfortunately, there is not much out there except scattered information, so I decided to put one myself to help SharePoint community.

Purpose

SharePoint designer (SPD) is a very powerful tool for designing and customizing SharePoint sites. However, understanding of proper usage of SharePoint designer is very important especially if the sites are hosted in an Enterprise environment with large number of users. This document provides some of the guidelines and various best practices of using SharePoint designer in a shared environment.

Guidelines

Generally, SharePoint designer is ideally suited for business analysts, designers and power users. End users must be restricted using SPD. For SPD access, site collection administrator is responsible for providing access to these users on various sites. No tool is better if it’s used incorrectly.

Followings are various best practices and guidelines for using SPD, which are as follows:

1. Data Form Web Parts

Data Form web part (DFWP) allows connecting to various data sources and surface data on SharePoint sites.

Best Practices:
It is best practice to avoid using DFWP which returns large number of list items or data items in a shared environment. Simple reason behind this guideline is, when loading large number of data using DFWP, SharePoint runs queries in background to fetch data which most times affect other users. Large custom queries affects performance of the SharePoint farm and sometimes it has potential to bring entire SharePoint farm down; therefore it is very important to use DFWP with simple and lite amount of data. Secondly, if the page (where DFWP is hosted) is constantly being requested at the same time by large number of users, then that can also affect overall performance of the SharePoint sites.

2. Customizing Pages

There are primarily two ways SharePoint pages can be customized 1) using SPD and 2) using Browser.

Best Practices:
Avoid creating pages using SPD as long the page can be customized using Browser. The reason behind this is when pages are customized using SharePoint designer these pages will be now served from the back end database instead of a disk file on a front end web server. Therefore, every time page is requested the page is loaded from database which is in slower than loading from disk file from web front end server. Also, note that these customized pages are difficult to upgrade for next version of SharePoint.

3. Branding

Designers can change various look and feel of SharePoint sites, such as modifying Master pages, page layouts and Cascading style sheets.

Best Practices:
For a large enterprise, it is best practice to have a consistent look and feel throughout entire SharePoint farm especially for intranet based portal sites. In general, one must avoid changing master pages, page layouts or CSS for for collaborative sites such as Team sites. In an Enterprise farm, usually there is a branding or design team who should be responsible for overall design. For consistent branding it is recommended to use developer based solutions instead of using SPD. The use of SPD for branding should be limited to designers only.

4. Workflow

With SPD, one can design custom workflows that add no-code application logic to your SharePoint sites.

Best Practices:
Avoid creating complicated workflows for a simple process. In general, it is best practices to allow only Business Analysts to create custom workflows using SPD as they understand business process well and can simplify business processes. However, in cases where SPD based workflow is too complex to design then it is usually a good idea to involve developers who may be able to create using code.

5. Using jQuery

jQuery is a very powerful JavaScript library which allows easier modification of elements on an HTML page without page refresh. In other words it uses Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) based technology to communicate with server. Usually, this library can be used with Content Editor web part.

Best Practices:
Avoid using jQuery for complex and large list items queries. Basically, this is the same guidelines as mentioned before which relates to DVWP. Avoid running large queries in background in a shared environment which affects performance of the entire farm and hence affecting other users. Another guideline is to avoid uploading jQuery to conventional document libraries, if one is already available in _layouts folder. This will avoid duplicate scripts all over the farm uploaded by various users and also jQuery in _layouts folder can be cached and loaded faster than one in a document library which in turn is loaded from the database.

Cheers.

My top 5 favorite features:

1. Web 2.0 style UI

2. Metadata management across farms

3. Insight aka BI featuers (Performace Point services, Visio services, New Excel services, PowerPivot for Excel 2010 formerly Gemini etc)

4. BCS (Business Connectivity Services)

5. Developer Dashboard and Visual Studio 2010 support for SharePoint Development

For more info check out the link https://www.mssharepointconference.com/pages/default.aspx 

Colleague of mine asked me to research this issue and thought of sharing the solution as this is not clearly discussed anywhere on the Internet.

Problem:

Accessing local SharePoint site (with Windows Integrated Authentication) works fine using IE, however if the same site is accessed via .NET console application using HttpWebRequest object it throws 401 Unauthorized error.

Solution:

I tried bunch of things such as DefaultCredentials, NetWorkCredentials and ImpersonationTokenType etc but none would work. Apparently it was not a code but it was something very simple. Guess what! it has to do with custom host entry. Weird huh?

Here’s the KB article that resolved the issue (followed method 2 and restart the machine)

https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;896861

Details:

Usually SharePoint developers uses single VPC and create web application with URL entry like https://Litware and adds an entry of Litware in Host file to point back to 127.0.0.1. This works great for usual SharePoint development.

The IE works great as it automatically uses integrated authentication. However, for console application it doesn’t work when the Web site uses Integrated Authentication and has a name that is mapped to the local loopback address.

[Remark: This solution is only been tested on Windows 2003 R2, MOSS 2007 SP1 and December Cumulative Update, .Net 3.5 Sp1.]

How to extract Public key token using Visual Studio?

Add a custom tool in Visual Studio as

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\bin\Sn.exe -Tp $(TargetDir)$(TargetName)$(TargetExt)

(select Output window)

How to quickly get new GUID using Visual St

Add a custom tool as

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools

SharePoint Schema Locations

Create CAML.XML file using notepad and add following code

   1:  <SchemaCatalog xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/xsd/catalog"> 

   2:  <Schema href="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML\wss.xsd" 

   3:  targetNamespace="https://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/"/> 

   4:  </SchemaCatalog>

Drop this file to

%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Xml\Schemas\

Recycle app pools in IIS6

IIS6

%systemroot%\System32\iisapp.vbs /a "<app pool name>" /r

IIS7

%systemroot%\System32\inetsrv\APPCMD.exe recycle apppool "<App Pool Name>"

Quick MOSS Exception Logging (MOSS SDK says “Internal Use Only” – so be careful!)

   1:  catch(Exception Ex)

   2:   

   3:  {

   4:   

   5:  Microsoft.Office.Server.Diagnostics.PortalLog.LogString(”Exception Occurred: {0} ”, Ex.ToString());

   6:   

   7:  }

Nope! I am not taking any credit for it - collected it from various seasoned SharePointers!

Happy SharePointing!

Main reason is to facilitate smooth user experience, especially with respect to Microsoft Office Integration with SharePoint. This integration issue is extensively covered by Steve Peschka's MSDN article on FBA (Part 2 of 3).

Issue:
WhenWindows SharePoint Services web application is extended with FBA then the MS Office Integration isn't that smooth and there are some extra steps involved working with Office Documents such as Manually check-out, check-in, download temporarily to desktop then edit and upload etc.

Solution (or rather a workaround):
One of the work around to smoothen this experience is to check "Sign me in automatically" checkbox which sends the persistent cookie and thus Office programs works smoothly by using that cookie.

You might ask isn't that a risk to allow user to keep them signing in without their knowledge? Yes, but that's the trade-off. I am not saying compromise the security but its the happy middle ground for seamless user experience.

Steps to modify login.aspx page:

1. Create a sub-directory (myApp) in 12 hive's layouts directory (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\template\layouts)
2. Copy login.aspx file to this sub-direcroty from parent directory (layouts directory) and rename it to myLogin.aspx.
3. Modified myLogin.aspx page as shown further.
4. Change web.config file of the FBA Web application to redirect login.aspx page to your custom page (/_layouts/myApp/myLogin.aspx) as shown below
   
   <authentication mode="Forms">
   <forms loginUrl="/_layouts/myApp/myLogin.aspx" />
   </authentication>

    

What's happening here?
Yeah, I know its hard to read. All I am doing is trapping onmousedown and onkeypress event on main table tag which surrounds User Name and Password text boxes, so that anytime user either enters user name or password or even copy/paste (using mouse or CTRL+V) this is sure way to fire the script and then it automatically checks the check box.

Hope this may save some hours for some of you. Just sharing the point for SharePoint :-)

• Batch Site Manager, which can be used by an administrator to manage and administrate bulk operations for moving, deleting, and locking site collections within a SharePoint farm.
• A new Stsadm command-line tool operation called updatealert that updates alert e-mails when the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for a Web application is changed

Whitepaper is available here. (Binaries are soon to be available...)

Here's how it can be used.

Usage: StartIncrementalCrawl.exe SiteURL "Content SourceName"
(Example: StartIncrementalCrawl.exe https://MyMOSSSite "Local Office Sharepoint Server Sites" )

As you can see, First I am getting the [SearchContext] Reference and then [ContentSources] collection, then just search for the passed content source name string.  Upon finding the content source, kick the incremental crawl on [ContentSrouce] object with static method StartIncrementalCrawl().
(Note: This utility should be run under the context of Farm Admin only)

Copy paste following code in a console app.

using System;

using System.Collections;

using System.Text;

using Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace PN.Moss.Samples

{

    /// <summary>

    /// Console app to start Incremental Crawl

    ///

    /// Usage: StartIncrementalCrawl.exe SiteUrl "ContentSourceName"

    /// (Example: StartIncrementalCrawl.exe https://MyMossSite "MyContentSource")

    ///

    /// </summary>

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            try

            {

                if (args.Length < 2)

                {

                    Usage();

                    return;

                }

                Console.WriteLine("Getting Search context...");

                string strURL = args[0];

                SearchContext context;

                using (SPSite site = new SPSite(strURL))

                {

                    context = SearchContext.GetContext(site);

                }

                Content sspContent = new Content(context);

                string strContentSource = args[1];

                Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Searching content source [{0}] ...", strContentSource));

                ContentSourceCollection sspContentSources = sspContent.ContentSources;

                if (!sspContentSources.Exists(strContentSource))

                {

                    Console.WriteLine("====================================================================");

                    Console.WriteLine(string.Format("ERROR: Unable to find content source [{0}]. \nPlease provide correct content source name.", strContentSource));

                    Console.WriteLine("====================================================================");

                }

                else

                {

                    ContentSource cs = sspContentSources[strContentSource];

                    if (cs.CrawlStatus == CrawlStatus.Idle)

                    {

                        Console.WriteLine("Starting Incremental Crawl...");

                        cs.StartIncrementalCrawl();

                        Console.WriteLine("====================================================================");

                        Console.WriteLine("Incremental Crawl started Successfully.\nPlease check SSP web site for completion.");

                        Console.WriteLine("====================================================================");

                    }

                    else

                    {

                        Console.WriteLine("====================================================================");

                        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("ERROR: Unable to start incremental crawl, as crawl status is not [idle].\n\n[INFO: Current Crawl Status={0}] \n\nPlease verify and try after crawl status becomes idle.", cs.CrawlStatus.ToString()));

                        Console.WriteLine("====================================================================");

                    }

                }

            }

            catch (Exception e)

            {

                Console.WriteLine("=========================");

                Console.WriteLine("*** Exception Occured ***");

                Console.WriteLine("=========================");

                Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());

            }

        }

        private static void Usage()

        {

            Console.WriteLine("=========================");

            Console.WriteLine("Start Incremental Crawl");

            Console.WriteLine("=========================");

            Console.WriteLine("Usage: StartIncrementalCrawl.exe SiteUrl \"ContentSourceName\"");

            Console.WriteLine("");

            Console.WriteLine("(Ex: StartIncrementalCrawl.exe https://MyMossSite \"MyContentSource\")");

        }

    }

}

Following guidelines shows how to deploy such documents to a MOSS 2007 document library and make sure they work in as long as Users have access to Deployment Manifest.

·         The Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0

·         Microsoft Office 2003 applications that support VSTO 2005 document-based solutions
OR
Microsoft Office 2003 applications that support VSTO 2005 SE add-ins

·         Primary Interop assemblies
A typical installation of Microsoft Office 2003 or a stand-alone product such as Word sets the applications to install the primary interop assemblies on first use of the product. A full installation installs the primary interop assemblies during the installation process.
If you do not know whether a specific computer has the Primary Interop Assemblies installed, you should install the primary interop assemblies as part of your solution.

·         VSTO 2005 SE runtime

·         Visual Studio Tools for Office Language Pack (optional)

Create VSTO project for the Document level add-in for Word 2003/2007 using Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 SE. Add necessary code to successfully run the project.

Once successfully built and tested, publish the project. Using Visual Studio 2005 publishing wizard, publish the project to network file share or SharePoint share.
(Note: End user MUST have access to this location without getting prompted to Network Credentials. This is the location where Deployment Manifest and assemblies will be located.)

Before granting permission, first Add Msosec.dll to the global assembly cache (GAC). Msosec.dll is the assembly that implements Microsoft.Office.Security.Policy.OfficeDocumentMembershipCondition, which is used to identify documents and workbooks. You can find Msosec.dll in the ADDINS folder under your Office installation location, which by default is \Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\ADDINS.

GacUtil.exe is targeted for developers and therefore it’s not shipped as part of the .NET 2.0 framework. For production environment, MSDN documentation suggests to use Windows Installer.

 Follow steps for creating Setup or Installer project in VS 2005.

1.       Create [Setup] project using Visual Studio 2005

2.       Right Click Project and Select View/File System.

3.       Right Click [File System On Target Machine] and Add Special Folder [Global Assembly Cache Folder]

4.        Select [Global Assembly Cache Folder] and then Right-Click and add [Assembly] and select C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\ADDINS\MSOSEC.DLL

5.        Build the solution and this will create SETUP.EXE and XXXX.MSI (XXXXX = [Name of the project]).

There are basically 2 automated ways to do this.

1)       Create simple Batch file as follows:
Example:

Cd %systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727

caspol -m -ag LocalIntranet_Zone -url \\ServerName\FolderName\* Nothing -n "My Data Folder" -d "Intermediate group for my documents"

caspol -m -ag "My Data Folder" -custom "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Addins\Msosec.xml" FullTrust -n "My Data Documents" -d "Grants FullTrust to all documents in my data folder"

caspol -m -ag LocalIntranet_Zone -url \\DeployServer\ShareFolder\* FullTrust -n "Remote Deployment" -d "Deployment Walkthrough"

https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/13wcxx6y(VS.80).aspx

OR

2)       Create Deployment Package as follows:

·         Basically, create a trust manually on the one of the computer using .NET Framework 2.0, start the SDK Command Prompt and type MSCORCFG.MSC 

·          In the left pane, right-click the Runtime Security Policy node.

·         From the menu, choose Create Deployment Package.

https://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/13wcxx6y(VS.80).aspx

Once all of the above steps are completed, upload the Word Template document to MOSS 2007 document library. That's It.

Good luck!