SharePoint 2010

5/07/2010

SharePoint survey not able to export to spreadsheet

A colleague recently approached me to ask why they couldn't save the survey results from one of their external SharePoint 2010/hosted sites. So, I did some digging...

Scenario:

You attempt to use the 'Export to Spreadsheet' option from your SharePoint survey Actions toolbar:

When prompted to open or save the IQY file, you click either Save or Open - let's assume you choose the 'open' option for now. Excel fires up and then you receive the error dialog which tells you that you don't have adequate permissions to modify this list (you receive the same error if you save the IQY file locally and then attempt to open it):

Your initial thoughts tell you that the error has something to do with either the Office client version currently installed - perhaps it's incompatible with the current version of SharePoint - OR it has something to do with the current mode of authentication - OR client integration features in SharePoint (either in the permission level or in the current list or library) are disabled; OR your user account has insufficient permissions.

To troubleshoot, you verify that (1) client integration features are indeed enabled and that you have full rights to the site/list; (2) you receive the same error in both Office 2007 and Office 2010; (3) you check the authentication method currently being used - BINGO! The server is configured with BASIC!

My colleague needed the results now, so - a quick and dirty fix... I saved the survey as a list template (.STP) with content and then imported it into one of my dev environments configured with NTLM; created a new list from the template and successfully exported the data out to Excel.

Posted at 11:33 AM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

29/04/2010

SBTUG SharePoint 2010 Prep presentation available

Thanks to everyone who attended last night's SBTUG meeting at Microsoft in Sydney, Australia. I'm glad to see keen interest in SharePoint 2010. We also had Matt Moore present a session on how to make technology sexy, which was an ideal precursor to my SharePoint 2010 presentation, which you can download from this site, SharePoint 2010 Preparedness, or view on SlideShare, http://www.slideshare.net/kathyhughes.

A few interesting questions and comments raised during the presentation:

SQL 2008 R2 Express is 10GB, as opposed to the 4GB limit in earlier Express versions - thanks Victor Isakov for pointing that out

You will need to install Office 2010 Professional PLUS to also install InfoPath Designer 2010 - thanks Nick Rayner for pointing that out

During the discussion around Access Services, Visio Services, InfoPath Forms Services, and other, Andrew Coates reminded us about Word Services - also part of SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise version. If you are attending the Australia SharePoint Conference (16 and 17 June, Sydney, Australia) Andrew will be presenting a session on "Creating and manipulating documents with Word Services and Open XML" - see http://www.sharepointconference.com.au for additional details.

Posted at 10:16 AM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Trivia: Interesting SharePoint Tag Cloud Properties

Here's something you don't see when adding the SharePoint 2010 Tag Cloud Web Part via the Web interface - exposed via SharePoint Designer 2010. I'm glad to see the tag 'kangaroo' included!

Posted at 10:09 AM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

25/04/2010

SharePoint Workflows and Visio 2010 which Version

Today, when I installed the Visio 2010 RTM product, I was struck with the decision around which version to use. I had two keys - one for Visio Professional and the other for Visio Premium. I didn't recall seeing those options while working with the Visio Release Candidate.

I received my answer from the MSDN Visio blog - http://blogs.msdn.com/visio/default.aspx - which includes a useful matrix of functionality between Visio 2010 versions Standard, Professional and Premium. If you plan on using Visio 2010 for creating and working with SharePoint workflows, then you'll need to install Visio *PREMIUM* 2010, which includes the option for SharePoint Workflow Template.

Posted at 2:58 PM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

SharePoint Designer 2010 RTM 32Bit Benign Error during Installation

Scenario: You attempt to install the SharePoint Designer 2010 RTM 32-bit (x86) on a Windows 7 x64-bit operating system and the installation fails, with the dialog shown below:

The Windows application event log shows the following error:

Product: Microsoft Office Office 64-bit Components 2010 -- Error 1731. The source installation package for the product Microsoft Office Office 64-bit Components 2010 is out of sync with the client package. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'Office64WW.msi'.

Resolution: Ensure you have removed *ALL* earlier Beta and Release Candidates from your machine, including Office 2010 and Visio 2010. In my case, I still had Visio 2010 32-bit Release Candidate installed on my machine. Once I completely removed it, the SharePoint Designer 2010 RTM 32-bit installed successfully.

Posted at 2:42 PM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

22/04/2010

Making Technology Sexy; SharePoint 2010 Prep

We have an exciting line-up for next week’s SBTUG meeting at Microsoft here in Sydney, Australia. First off, Matt Moore will intrigue us with discussion on how to make technology sexy (including SharePoint!). Immediately following Matt’s session, I’ll discuss some key considerations around planning for SharePoint 2010. This is a great session for those considering upgrading from SharePoint 2007 or starting afresh with SharePoint 2010. We plan on making the session as interactive as possible, including discussion on new key features and features that have and haven’t changed since SharePoint 2007.

I’ll also provide an update on the Australia SharePoint Conference (http://www.sharepointconference.com.au ) and, on that point; we have an exciting giveaway – one free ticket to attend the conference!

For further information, see the SBTUG site at http://sbtug.com or visit the group’s Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111040542264221 - to register and post questions relating to SharePoint 2010 that you’d like to cover/discuss on the nite.

And, for those of you who have been asking, I’ll provide an update on my new book, SharePoint Designer 2010 Unleashed (http://www.amazon.com/SharePoint-Designer-Unleashed-Kathy-Hughes/dp/0672331055/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271914256&sr=1-16 ) and show a sneak preview of my final ToC!

Posted at 4:32 PM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

Update: Australia SharePoint Conference, Sydney, Australia

http://www.sharepointconference.com.au

16^th and 17^th June, 2010, The Hilton Hotel, Sydney, Australia

With the pending public release of SharePoint 2010 (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2010/04/16/sharepoint-2010-reaches-rtm.aspx ), things in the SharePoint world are really heating up.

Conference planning is well underway and I’d like to share some exciting updates, as follows:

Conference keynote delivery by Arpan Shah, Director at Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) who owns Technical Product Management for SharePoint Products and Technologies.

An array of great speakers, including our very own Todd Bleeker from Mindsharp, USA, among top notch international and local speakers - http://www.sharepointconference.com.au/speakers.htm

A great line-up of sessions, ranging from business to technical, and covering SharePoint document management, social and collaborative features, business intelligence, design and workflow - http://www.sharepointconference.com.au/agenda-business.htm

SharePoint deployment case studies - http://www.sharepointconference.com.au/agenda-voice.htm

Vendor sessions provided by conference sponsors - http://www.sharepointconference.com.au/sponsors.htm - covering product demonstrations - http://www.sharepointconference.com.au/agenda-vendor.htm

A community hosted SharePoint user group booth where you can mingle and network with SharePoint community minded folks and SharePoint MVPs and ask your SharePoint questions, and learn about the SharePoint community throughout Australia and how to get involved.

Free hosted SharePoint Server 2010 site for conference attendees – thanks goes to Emantra Hosting Solutions Australia (http://www.emantra.com.au/ ) and to Mark Rhodes (http://www.msexperts.org/blogs/mark/ ) for making this possible

A chance to win a free ticket to the conference by attending the upcoming SharePoint 2010 launch event - http://www.sharepointusers.org.au/MOSSIG/Wiki/SPOLaunch.aspx

Finally, you can read further about the conference in the latest online conference article, featured in IDM - http://idm.net.au/article/007775-sharepoint-australia-conference-preview.

Posted at 4:17 PM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/02/2010

Data and Content Crunching with SharePoint 2010

Presenting at Sydney SharePoint User Group, Tuesday 16th February, 2010, from 5:30pm onwards.

Come along to discover the capabilities of how to work with data sources and discover some tips and tricks on how to make your SharePoint sites come alive!

Further details and registration at http://www.sharepointusers.org.au/Sydney/default.aspx

Posted at 10:38 PM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

21/11/2009

Configuring User Profiles in SharePoint Server 2010

Note: I've added the necessary links relating to SharePoint Server 2010 prerequisites, along with instructions for configuring the user profile synchronization service, at the end of this post.

Now that Beta 2 is out many of you will be installing and setting up new SharePoint 2010 environments and getting to know the product intimately ;-) However, I've seen a number of posts around issues when attempting to setup and configure the User Profile Service or User Profile Synchronization Service. I too had some issues with this service during my installation so I thought I'd share my experience here and also my eventual workaround so that it may help others.

First off, my environments consists of several physical and virtualized servers. I never use a standalone installation since that's not a fair indication of how people will use the product out in the real world and I need to fully test things like authentication scenarios. So in my initial test setup, I had x4 servers. All servers are running Windows 2008 R2 and the domain is Windows 2008 R2 (Windows 2008 R2 functional level). Server one is my DC/Exchange 2010/DNS/DHCP, etc; server 2 is SQL 2008 (patched as per pre-requisite requirements on Ji Lie's blog); server 3 is my main application server, including SharePoint Server 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 B2; server 4 is currently where I have a number of legacy systems.

I initially ran my 2010 install under my domain admin account. However, I'd set up a separate farm account in my AD and given that account the necessary replication permissions (per Dave Pae's instructions) and subsequently added that account as the farm account during install. The installation had an issue toward the end, where it couldn't fully deploy the user profile service. The error message suggested a timeout issue, but I wasn't convinced that it had completely failed.

Next, while still logged in as the domain admin account, I started the User Profile Synchronization Service on the Manage Services on server page in Central Administration. But the service hanged in the status of 'starting'. When I checked my Windows Services console, I could see that both the Forefront Identity Manager Service and Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service were set to 'Started'. So then I checked my Windows Application log and it was full of errors. I won't repeat those errors here, but you can see similar errors experienced by others in various posts on the 2010 forums, like this one started by Jeremy -http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010general/thread/8fffb030-c118-4e36-94ab-8601b25f3a97.

Next, I checked the account under which both the Forefront services were running and of course it was the farm account I'd added during initial installation. So my next attempt was to stop the User Profile Synchronization service which was stuck at a status of 'starting'. To do this, I used the PowerShell cmdlet stop-spserviceinstance [guid]. For those reading this post unfamiliar with PowerShell, you'll need to firstly discover the GUID for the user profile synchronization service before being able to stop it. To do this use the get-spserviceinstance cmdlet first to enumerate and access all the service GUIDS. I used:

get-spserviceinstance >file.txt to save them to a file on my local drive for convenience.

Next, locate the GUID for the user profile synchronization service (it'll probably show a status of 'provisioning' in PowerShell) and use the following command:

stop-spserviceinstance [userprofilesynchronizationservice GUID]

This will eventually stop the service and the status of the service on the SharePoint Manage services on server page will show a status of 'stopped'.

Also, the two Forefront services in the Windows Services console should be set back to a status of disabled.

Next I logged in as the farm account I'd assigned during install and the same account under which the Forefront services was running. I then attempted to start the user profile synchronization service using this account, but once again the service got stuck on a status of 'starting'. And my Windows application event log was full of Forefront errors once again along with some additional SQL access errors.

I think what happened was that by initially using my domain admin account to start the service confused everything along with the encrypted key used by the Forefront services.

So, next I decided to reinstall SharePoint Server 2010 but this time I used the domain admin account and I also installed it on my SQL box. This time, everything mostly worked though I still had a timeout error toward the end of my installation. But, I could then successfully start my user profile synchronization service and import user profiles from my domain.

IMPORTANT: once you've successfully started your user profile synchronization service you may still see a message on the User Profile Service Application page under Configure Syncrhronization Connections that the server is unable to connect to SQL or Search Service, etc. Make sure you have started your Search service back on the Manage services on server page and then do an IISRESET. Dave Pae mentions the IISRESET bit on his blog post. Once you've done this then all should be good to go and you should then be able to Configure Synchronization Connections and Start Profile Synchronization.

Finally, because the user profile service hadn't completely installed using the SharePoint wizard, once I had everything configure including services started and profiles imported, I needed to go back to my Web application and add my user profile service into the available Service Connections.

To do this, go to your Web application and click Service Connections in the ribbon. In the Configure Service Application Associations dialog you'll notice the checkboxes greyed out. To make them editable, from the dropdown at the top of the dialog select [custom] and then go check the User Profile Service Application (or whatever you've named your user profile service app) and click OK.

I realize using the domain admin account isn't best practice, but if you need to get things working in your dev or test environments then it worked for me. I'll be doing some further investigation but for now my user profile synching is working. Another thought is around which authentication protocol you're using. Initially I used NTLM. I've now switched to Kerberos. But I'm not convinced that switching to Kerberos in the beginning would have resolved my initial issue.

My only problem now is that my organizational browser isn't rendering properly with or without Silverlight so that's the next thing to tackle...oneday! ;-)

Here are some relevant postings:

Dave Pae has posted some instructions on the SharePoint team blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/11/18/path-to-user-profile-synchronization-success-in-sharepoint-2010-beta.aspx

Ji Lie posted some great instructions here http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/11/19/user-profile-sync-setup-in-sharepoint-server-2010-beta.aspx

plus

Beta 2 installation instructions

http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/11/16/installation-notice-for-sharepoint-2010-public-beta.aspx (great post and it also includes links to other great resources on his blog including a list of all the pre-requisites (important for isolated environments) - http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/10/25/sharepoint-2010-pre-requisites-download-links.aspx.

Importantly if you're running Windows 2008 standard SP2 then you'll need to install the hotfix at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=KB971831&DownloadId=7285

if you're running Windows 2008 RC2 then you'll need to install the hotfix at http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=23806

Posted at 10:24 AM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

23/10/2009

SharePoint 2010 Extravaganza Sydney Australia

Only a few days away from our SharePoint 2010 Extravaganza event at Microsoft here in Sydney, Australia. Craig has updated the agenda, which now includes SharePoint 2010 over, some deep dive and Visio Services.

Here's the lineup for the evening:

6:00 – News & Intro (Craig Bailey)
6:15 – Introduction to SharePoint 2010 (Kathy Hughes + Aaron Saikovski)
7:15 – Pizza break + networking
7:30 – Overview of Office 2010 SharePoint Integration (Alistair Speirs)
7:45 – SharePoint Workspace (previously known as Groove) (Alistair Speirs)
8:00 – Diving into SharePoint 2010 (Kathy Hughes + Aaron Saikovski)
8:30 – Visio Integration Services + SharePoint 2010 (Jamie Hutchins)
8:45 – Final demos + Panel Session Q+A
9:15 – Finish + networking

Further details and registration via Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=139617636781&ref=nf

http://sbtug.com

Posted at 8:47 AM by Kathy Hughes | Category: SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1 - 10

Blog