Connect.Collaborate.SharePoint
Jun
29

Last week I gave a presentation to the Wellington Office Users Group on WSSv3. I didn’t advertise this on my blog because I was worried that too many people would turn up for our venue. Just as well I didn’t, every seat was taken. A write-up can be found here

http://www.woug.info/Articles/Previousmeetings.html

Several people have mentioned to me about having a hard core SharePoint users/developers group. Now that we are heading into a new financial year I can add this to my plan so expect see some action on this shortly.

Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
26

I was trying to be too cleaver with my WSSDemo.com server configuration. The combination of Virtual Servers, Farms, virtual IIS sites and lots of changes to the alternate access mappings caused a serious problem with authentication.

Last Friday I could not post PPT slides which was the final straw so I tested backing up my site collection and restoring it to another VPC image running on another machine and it all worked.

This morning I reinstalled SharePoint on the WSSDemo.com and restored the site. This seems to have fixed all but two problems (the top menu bar highlights the Blog tab when you are on the home site and the mobile default page).

The main issue I found during the restore was that the default content database created when I created the new web application was only 10 Mb which wasn’t big enough for the restore. I normally create my  content databases manually so that they will support the anticipated site collection size. If you go with the default SQL settings you will always have a slow server as the db is regularly extended (don’t know if this is less of an overhead in SQL 2005 but it was with 2000).

Now I can focus on that content migration...

Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
19
Just look at all the extra web parts that you get in a  team site on MOSS 2007...
 
Web Parts in common with WSSv3
Content Editor Web Part Use for formatted text, tables, and images.
Form Web Part Use to connect simple form controls to other Web Parts.
Image Web Part Use to display pictures and photos.
Members Use the Members Web Part to see a list of the site members and their online status.
Page Viewer Web Part Use to display linked content, such as files, folders, or Web pages. The linked content is isolated from other content on the Web Part Page.
Relevant Documents Use this webpart to display documents that are relevant to the current user.
User Tasks Use this webpart to display tasks that are assigned to the current user.
XML Web Part Use for XML, and XSL Transformation of the XML.
List View Web Part
Data View Web Part
Web Parts specific to MOSS 2007
Business Data
Business Data Actions Display a list of actions from the Business Data Catalog.
Business Data Item Display one item from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.
Business Data Item Builder Creates a Business Data item from parameters in the query string and provides it to other web parts. This web part is only used on Business Data profile pages.
Business Data List Display a list of items from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.
Business Data Related List Display a list of items related to one or more parent items from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.
Content Rollup
Colleague Tracker Displays your list of colleagues and any recent changes they made have had.
Memberships Displays your site and distribution list memberships.
My Links Use to display your links
My SharePoint Sites Use to display documents authored by you on sites where you are a member and sites of your choice.
My Workspaces Displays sites created under your My Site.
Site Aggregator Use to display sites of your choice.
Dashboard
Key Performance Indicators Shows a list of status indicators. Status indicators display important measures for your organization, and show how your organization is performing with respect to your goals.
KPI Details Displays the details of a single status indicator. Status indicators display an important measure for an organization and may be obtained from other data sources including SharePoint lists, Excel workbooks, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services KPIs.
Other
Excel Web Access Use the Excel Web Access to interact with an Excel 2007 workbook as a Web page.
I need to… Displays tasks and tools from a list
IView Web Part Displays iViews from SAP portal servers.
RSS Viewer Renders RSS Feed
This Week in Pictures Use to display the images library in the News web
WSRP Consumer Web Part Displays portlets from web sites using WSRP 1.1.
Filters
Authored List Filter Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values entered by the page author.
Business Data Catalog Filter Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values from the Business Data Catalog.
Current User Filter Filter the contents of web parts by using properties of the current page.
Date Filter Filter the contents of web parts by allowing users to enter or pick a date.
Filter Actions Filter Actions
Page Field Filter Filter the contents of web parts using information about the current page.
Query String (URL) Filter Filter the contents of web parts using values passed via the query string.
SharePoint List Filter Filter the contents of web parts by using a list of values from a Office SharePoint Server list.
SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Filter Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values from SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services cubes.
Text Filter Filter the contents of web parts by allowing users to enter a text value.
Misc
Contact Details Use to display details about a contact for this page or site
Outlook Web Access
My Calendar Use to display your calendar. This part works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and above.
My Contacts Displays your contacts using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
My Inbox Displays your inbox using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
My Mail Folder Displays your calendar using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later.
My Tasks Displays your tasks using Outlook Web Access  for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.
Search
Advanced Search Box Entry point for advanced search
People Search Box Entry point for people search
People Search Core Results Web part to display the people search results.
Search Box Entry point for search.
Search Core Results Web part to display the search results.
Search High Confidence Results Web part to display the special term and high confidence results.
Search Paging Displays search paging.
Search Statistics Displays search statistics.
Search Summary Displays search summary.
Site Directory
Categories Displays categories from the Site Directory
Sites in Category Displays sites in the Site Directory
Top Sites Display the top sites from Site Directory
Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
17
I normally only blog my own thoughts and leave links to other information on my web site but this one is a critical resource to anyone who develops with the SharePoint object model. Although this is a WSS v3 beta document it relates to the current version also.

Several of the Windows SharePoint Services objects, primarily the SPSite class and SPWeb class objects, are created as managed objects. However, these objects use unmanaged code and memory to perform the majority of their work. The managed part of the object is small; the unmanaged part of the object is much larger. Because the smaller managed part of the object does not put memory pressure on the garbage collector, the garbage collector does not release the object from memory in a timely manner.
 
The object's use of a large amount of unmanaged memory can cause some of the unusual behaviors described earlier. Calling applications that work with IDisposable objects in Windows SharePoint Services must dispose of the objects when the applications finish using them. You should not rely on the garbage collector to release them from memory automatically.

You can use any of several techniques to ensure that the objects are disposed of properly. We discuss them in the following sections.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/ms778813(office.12).aspx.
Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
15
You just have to love (and therefore pay for) the excellent search reporting details from MOSS 2007. Search query and result information is graphed and can be exported. This is already helping me understand what visitors to my site are looking for (and making me feel guilty for not getting the content migrated from the old site).
MOSS 2007 Search Query Reporting
MOSS 2007 Search Results Report
Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
13

13/06/2006 - If you are in Wellington and want to call into my office to pick them up, I have a small number to give away. 4 CD’s contain the clients, MOSS 2007, Groove Server 2007 and Project Server 2007. 5 Sets. Limit of 1 per person. First come, first served.

Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
10

10/06/2006 - Mobile device view of the TechED 2006 USA sessions provided by a SharePoint Services v3 list. This was very simple and only took me about 1/2 an hour using the OOTB mobile view features in WSSv3.

http://www.wssdemo.com/techedusa/m

Only the first day is up at the moment. Let me know if you find this useful.

Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
7

Although WSSv3 supports workflow on libraries and list, SharePoint Designer is required to build the workflow.  A MOSS 2007 Team Site, on the other hand, provides a browser based interface for the list/library manager to build a workflow.  MOSS 2007 provides a number of workflows available to any list/library in the site collection.

Site Collection Workflows

The following screen shots show the workflow activities are configured through the web interface.

WorkflowWebUI1
Workflow Web UI 2
SharePoint Workflow Web UI 2a

You can still use SharePoint Designer to build and configure worflows on a MOSS 2007 server.

I'll get back to purely WSS posts once I get this MOSS coolness out of my system, promise.

Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
5

With SharePoint Portal Server 2003, a Team Site was virtually identical to a WSSv2 Team Site. Many organizations who only wanted the collaboration features didn’t see the value of paying for Portal Server given the amount of value that comes with WSS. WSS is almost too good to be true because you get more than you paid for, but there comes a time in every WSS deployment when searching across all the WSS sites becomes essential. Some people resent having to purchase Portal Server just to get this functionality (go figure), but if the current WSSv3 beta search functionality remains for RTM you will at least be able to search all sub sites of a site collection.

The real reason for this post is to point out that Team Sites in MOSS 2007 have some additional value over WSSv3 team sites so the business value of MOSS 2007 bight be a bit more obvious that with SPS (ignoring the new CMS web publishing features in MOSS 2007).

The search advantage provided by a MOSS 2007 server to a team site is that you can specify a custom search results page for each site from the Site Settings page. You can also specify custom search scopes and key words for each site.

The second area I’m going to look at is Site Usage Reports.

WSSv3 site usage reporting is identical to v2. MOSS 2007 site reporting, on the other hand, is much richer. In addition to nice graphs, there is the option to export the data to Excel or PDF (RTM features may not be the same though).

MOSS 2007 site usage reporting

The third advantage MOSS 2007 provides to a team site is the rich text editor used in the Content Editor Web Part.

WSSv3 Rich Text Editor...

WSSv3 content editor 

The Insert Hyperlink and Image buttons just bring up a simple text box to provide the URL.

MOSS 2007 rich text editor...
MOSS 2007 rich text editor

In a Team Site hosted on a MOSS 2007 server, the insert Image button allows you to browse the image libraries on your server and select an image and its properties.
MOSS Image details

 MOSS 2007 image selection

Unfortunately, this Rich Text Editor functionality is not included in the Blog or Wiki Site/list features on a MOSS 2007 server.

More MOSS 2007 Team Site benefits to come...

Categories:SharePoint

 
Jun
1
WSSv3 and MOSS 2007 provide OOTB mobile access to sites and list views.
Here is the mobile link to my blog http://www.wssdemo.com/blog/m
It is that simple. (except for the problem I’m having with http://www.wssdemo.com/m )
Mobile view of SharePoint list
There is a large section in the WSSv3 SDK on building custom mobile solutions on the SharePoint platform.
Categories:SharePoint