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Customize Context Sensitive Help on SharePoint 2010

2011-11-30T13:07:00.001-05:00

SharePoint 2010 extended the context help experience to users and allows the developers easily creating and customizing the help topics for their products deployed on SharePoint. This post will focus on how to customize the SharePoint 2010 context help and make the context sensitive help worked on your pages.

Enable Custom Site Collection Help

On the Site Settings of the top level site in the site collection, activate the Site Collection Feature “Custom Site Collection Help”.

It will create a document library “Site Collection Help” for hosting the help content available for whole site collection.

Create Help Collection

Create a new Help Collection folder in “Site Collection Help” document library.

Specify the Name, Title, Locale ID, and Product Name. Locale ID specify the language that the Help collection is in (For example, 1033 means English). Product is the identifier of this help collection.

Enable this Help Collection in Site Settings -> Site Collection Administration -> Help settings.

Create Help Categories and Add Help Topics

Help Category is a named folder you can put the help article (topic), it provides a way to group the help topics by subject and list with a table of contents. Help Topic is the actual HTML article created and uploaded by user, and associated with a context key which will be associated to the custom SharePoint web page to enable the context sensitive help.

In this post, we will use the web page name as the Context Key, so the javascript in the masterpage could automatically find help topic by the page name. For example, if you have created a web part page called page1.aspx, you will have page1 as the Context Key here.

Modify Master Page to Enable the Context Sensitive Help in Help Button and by F1 Key

Add following javascript to your master page, it parses the current URL and gets the page name; set the context key and register the F1 key.

// get current page path and name

var currentUrl = window.location.pathname;

// if it is not a system page

if (currentUrl.indexOf('/_layouts') < 0) {

// get the page name

var d = currentUrl.lastIndexOf('.');
var s = currentUrl.lastIndexOf('/') + 1;
var sPage = currentUrl.substring(s, d);

// remove space

sPage = sPage.replace("%20", "");
sPage = sPage.replace(" ", "");

// set context sensitive key

navBarHelpOverrideKey = "WSSEndUser_" + sPage;

// set the F1 key

WPSC.RegisterForEvent("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:dhtml", "onhelp", ShowHelp);
}

function ShowHelp() {
HelpWindowKey(navBarHelpOverrideKey);
return false;
}

After everything done, load your page, and click on the help button, or press F1 in the keyboard, you will see the help article in a popup window like:

SharePoint Content Orgainzer is not work for programmatically file uploads

2011-05-31T14:17:00.000-04:00

Issue:

When programmatically uploading a file to Drop Off Library creating by Content Organizer feature, all pre-defined rules won't be automatically executed, and the document won't route to its destination right away even you have the proper rules set up. I thinks the only way to triggle the routing is by UI.

Workaround:

Reduce the interval of Content Organizer Processing timer job for the web application. By default the timer job is scheduled to run daily. You could reduce it to run in every minute.

2011-05-19T10:47:00.000-04:00

Artile from Soundamini, explains the basic concept of claimed based identity.

http://www.soudamini.net/claim-based-identity.htm

Learning MVC

2011-03-23T11:25:00.000-04:00

Started learning MVC this week. I found here is a good article to start with for beginner.

http://kirandangar.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/understanding-asp-net-mvc-model-view-controller-architecture/

PPS Dashboard Designer cannot save data connections

2011-02-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

We had problem on SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Service. When creating a new Data Connection from Dashboard Designer, we got error complained the document library location does not exist.

Eventually we found out we need to reset the permission of PerformancePoint service account to the we application if the web application service account is not the same one as the PerformancePoint Service application.

We executed powershell commands:

$a=get-spwebappliation -identity http://mywebapp
$a.grantaccesstoprocessidentity("domain\ppsServiceAccount")

MS Dynamics CRM 2011 On-Premise Installation

2011-01-25T15:50:00.000-05:00

To install MS Dynamics CRM 2011 (RC version so far), you need to install to a clean Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 without existing Dynamics CRM install.

Create service accounts

Create following service accounts on Active Directory and enable the delegation for services.

CRM_App : Application Service account. CRM web application will run on it and connect user to CRM data.

CRM_WebService : It manages the deployment, such as create an organization or remove deployment administrator role from a user

CRM_Sandbox : It is used to create a isolated environment to run the custom code, such as plug-ins.

CRM_Async : It is used to process queued asynchronous events, such as bulk emails or data imports

To set the Service Principle Name on an Active Directory and enable the delegation to services (Kerberos), follow the steps below,

   1. Verify the CRM server name and FQDN, for instance, "CRM" is the server name and "crm.company.com" is the FQDN, and port 80 will be used for CRM web application. Create DNS entries if necessary.

   2. Login to domain controller as domain administrator.

   3. Execute following commands in command prompt:
   Setspn –A http/crm domain\crm_app

Setspn –A http/crm.company.com domain\crm_app

4. Open "Active Directory Users and Computers", select CRM_App and open the properties.

5. On Delegation tab, select "Trust this user for delegation to any service (Kerberos only)"

6. Repeat step 3 to 5 for other service accounts.

7. Login into CRM server and add all service accounts to local administrators group.

Install Dynamics CRM 2011 (RC)

Run CRM2011-Server-ENU-amd64.exe and extract file to a temp folder. Run setup.exe.

1. Select Get updates for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

2. Click Next

3. Enter the product key (RC key)

4. Click "I Accept"

5. Specify installation directory.

6. Select Server roles.

7. Specify database server name. Select "Create a new deployment" if you don't upgrade from an existing CRM instance.

8. Specify the OU from AD, the CRM groups will be automatically created under this OU. This OU has to be created on Active Directory before the installation.

9. Specify service accounts.

10. Select the IIS Web site if it is created already, if not, create a new one. If using port number other than 80, the Service Principle Name has to be explicitly created with this port number.

11. Specify email router server (I am leaving it blank)

12. Specify the Organization Settings

13. Specify the Reporting Service Server

14. Click "Next".

15. Click "Next"

16. Click "Next"

17. Click "Install"

18. Installation begins.

19. Installation finished.

"Unable to create report. Query produced too many results" error on PerformancePoint Service

2011-01-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

"Unable to create report. Query produced too many results" error in PerformancePoint Service 2010 can be fixed by increasing the maxBytesPerRead setting on

c:\program files\microsoft office servers\14.0\WebServices\PpsMonitoringServer\web.config

Most of Windows services are not running on Windows 2008

2011-01-03T00:21:00.002-05:00

Today I spent several hours to fix an issue on a Windows 2008 box. Most of windows services were not running except few. The server also hangs when shutdown. Eventually I found a KB help me solve the problem

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2004121

Here are the steps I've done to solve the problem:

1. Create a Multi-string value: DependOnService on HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP
2. Modify the Multi-string value data to CRYPTSVC and click OK.
3. Reboot the server

It seems this only happens on Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2 is fine.

SharePoint time out issue on a large list

2010-12-15T15:18:00.001-05:00

We are recently have a time out issue from database when browsing a large SharePoint 2007 list (approx. 300K items).

To solve the problem, we have tried following things:

1. increase database time out value by stsadm command:

Stsadm –o setproperty –pn database-connection-timeout –pv 120

2. make sure all filtered, and sorted columns on list views are indexed.

3. make sure RowLimit has been set on all views and custom codes. The RowLimit value should be less than 1000, otherwise, SQL server seems locking whole UserData table on select statement.

4. The anti-virus should be turned off on SQL server, or excluded from scanning SQL data files.

5. make sure SQL server maintenance plans are proper configured, such as maintenance plans for re-index, update statistics on content databases.

Back to blogging here

2010-12-15T14:27:00.005-05:00

My last post in here was years ago. My account on my other blog hosted on SharePointBlog was somehow disabled by no reason.

I am going to post my notes and ideas about SharePoint 2010, CRM 2011 and other Microsoft products here.

The new URL for this blog is http://blog.optimapoint.com

A great article for WCM programming in Sharepoint 2007

2006-07-09T19:55:00.000-04:00

There is a nice article that demostrates the API mapping between CMS 2002 and Sharepoint 2007 with lots samples. This is a the best one I found so far for programming WCM in Sharepoint 2007.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnmscms02/html/CMSVersionAPIDiffs.asp?frame=true

MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 Master Page

2006-07-09T17:05:00.000-04:00

It would be a very bad experience if you have ever tried to change the interface of Sharepoint Portal 2003. But MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 bring a new concept: the master page. The master pages are same as master pages used in ASP.NET 2.0. They define the look and feel and standard behavior in your site and make the customization a lot easier.

Master page combined with the page layouts, the content type, it produces the output of the pages with standard feel and look. The page layout is similar to the content page in
ASP.NET 2.0, which points to a master page and implements the content placeholders.

By default, the master page used in MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 is side wide. It means when you change the master page, it effects the look and feel changes in all pages in the site. These master pages are referenced as two dynamic tokens.

Two Dynamic Tokens

~masterurl/default.master

This token is used for the look and feel of all forms and views within the site, usually these pages are under _layouts directory. It is also called “Default master page” in Sharepoint Designer or “System Master Page” in “Site Settings\Look and Feel\Site Master Page Settings”. This master page token is used in the code of page layout page as

Page language="C#" MasterPageFile="~masterurl/default.master" ...

When Sharepoint loads the page, the token “~masterurl/default.master” is replaced at run time by the value in MasterUrl property of SPWeb.

To specify a master page for this token, by browser you can navigate to Site Settings\ Look and Feel\Site Master Page Settings, and select a master file from “System master page” dropdown as following picture.

~masterurl/custom.master

This token is used for all publishing pages within the site. It’s also called “Custom master page” in Sharepoint Designer or “Site Master page” in “Site Settings\Look and Feel\Site Master Page Settings”. When you open the DefaultLayout.aspx, you will see the code like,

Page language="C#" MasterPageFile="~masterurl/custom.master" …

At run time, this token is replaced by the value in CustomMasterUrl of SPWeb object.

You can change the master page specified for this token in “Site Master Page” drowdown in Site Settings\ Look and Feel\Site Master Page Settings.

Also, these master page tokens are able to be changed in Sharepoint Designer by right click on the master page and select “Set as Default master page” or “Set as custom master page”.

Static Tokens

There are two static tokens for WSS 3.0 sites. If you the master page is in the master page gallery of the site, you can use it in your page by adding MasterPageFile=“~site/xxx.master”

If the master page is defined in the master page gallery in the root site, you can use by adding MasterPageFile=“~sitecollection/xxx.master” in your page.

DefaultPageLayout.aspx and Page Layouts

DefaultLayout looks like a special layout page defines the default layout for all publishing pages cross the site. The interesting thing is when you inspect the MasterPageFile attribute in all page layout aspx files, only DefaultLayout.aspx contains MasterPageFile attribute and its value is “~masterurl/custom.maseter”. The DefaultLayout.aspx is inherited from Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPage but other page layouts including the page layouts created by you are inherited from Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.PublishingLayoutPage.

So I guess the PublishingLayoutPage class is somehow related to DefaultLayout.aspx, at least the master page of Defaultlayout.aspx will be re-used for all page layouts inherited from PublishingLayoutPage. So if you want to create a page layout use another master page instead of the Site Master Page (Custom master page), you need to change the base class from PublishingLayoutPage to WebPartPage and set the MasterPageFile attribute.

New blog

2006-07-07T01:07:00.000-04:00

I have created a new blog on www.sharepointblogs.com/jimyang. I will move most of my Sharepoint posts to there, but I will keep posting new articles on both sides.

Master Page and Page Layout ?

2006-07-05T01:01:00.000-04:00

According to MOSS 2007 document, master page and page layout are working together as a template to control content pages' look, feel and content. In top site, there is a "Master page and Page Layout Gallery" and you could find lots out-of-box master and page layout (aspx) file there.

But I am frustrating in finding the relationship between master page and the page layout. It's able to create/upload many master pages or create many page layout, but I found all new page layout use default.master as master page and couldn't find a way to associate to other master page.

Does anybody know the answer?

Tips on Sharepoint Search Include Exclude path configuration

2006-07-04T23:23:00.000-04:00

Last year when I was working on an enterprise search project with SPS 2003, I was frustrating on getting the rules that include or exclude content from content index work. I called Microsoft and I spent 3 hours with a Microsoft guy on the phone but got nothing useful.

After many hours testing by myself, I found the order or the include/exclude rules in a content index is very important and effects your search result enormously (But MS told us this doesn't matter.). I guest it is because each time when the search engine will index an URL, it first tests this URL against all rules one by one, and when it reaches the first satisfied rule, on matter it is an inclusion or exclusion rule, it returns immediately and ignores all following rules. For instance,

include: http://server/abc/*
exclude: http://server/abc/def/* ---- not working because the inclusion rule on top run first and block this exlcusion rule.

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 Search and Search Ranking Algorithm Enhancement

2006-06-30T11:51:00.000-04:00

The one of the biggest benefits that Sharepoint Server 2007 brings is the enhancements on search engine. Those enhancements include customizable interface of search result, customizable search scope definition, Boolean and Cross Site search, business data Catalog (BDC) search.

And one of the problems a current Sharepoint user must addresses is the ranking algorithm. The user wants not only the search returns as many document as possible but also to sort out the relevant document and display them at the top of the search result list. The ranking algorithm of the search engine shipped with SPS2003 is based on probabilistic relevance scoring, a technique developed in 70s, which called OKAPI algorithm. The ranking measurement is based on collection frequency, term frequency, document length and term position.

In the new version of Sharepoint, the Sharepoint Server 2007, it claims the ranking algorithm will be at least as good as any best-of-bread enterprise search engine in the market today. From the evaluation guild of beta 2, I found the ranking will be measured by:

Click distance
Hyperlink anchor text
URL surf depth
URL text matching
Automated metadata extraction
Automatic language detection
File type relevancy biasing
Enhanced text analysis

But I still need to see the reports coming out with comparison with SPS2003 and other search product like ultraseek, google mini …

2006-06-28T14:51:00.000-04:00

I have found some help tips on promoting the blog more popular. I felt these points are pretty interesting:

1. Post multiple times per day. If you look at Engadget, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Treehugger, Slashdot, or any of the top gadget/tech blogs you’ll see they post relentlessly. There’s always something new popping up in their rss feeds and on their sites. It’s a ‘dynamic’ thing.
2. Post about what’s hot like the other gadget blogs but also find stuff that they’re not posting about. Those things set your blog apart from the crowd and others will link up to those posts.
3. Send tips to the editors of the bigger sites, or any gadget/tech site for that matter. Even if they don’t post or link to you, they will be aware of you and subscribe to your feed and watch it for new and interesting stuff.
4. Link out to and trackback/pingback a lot of the smaller blogs as well. Not only will this get you some long term inbound links, it’ll build awareness of your blog with their readers.
5. Post and comment on other forums or blogs, etc. and follow up. Also, watch who’s linking in to your site and email them or comment on their site thanking them for the link. Relationship buliding, building awareness and visibility is huge when marketing any blog.
Darren over at http://www.problogger.net does some great posting on professional blogging and I’d highly recommend reading his blog daily for traffic tips and strategies.

This is from site http://www.bloglogic.net/2006/05/31/how-to-build-a-popular-blog/

New terms in Sharepoint 2007

2006-06-25T09:37:00.000-04:00

Feature - the list definition in site definition. (it's still define with CAML - a xml format used in Sharepoint from 1.0 to 3.0)

customize/uncustomize - unghosting/ghosting in Sharepoint 2.0

web application - virtual server in WSS 2.0

Column
Content Type
Master file
Page Layout
....

Blogging with Word 2007

2006-06-24T01:11:00.001-04:00

I tried to use Word 2007 publish blog feature. It looks nice!

1. Write your post in Word 2007 as a normal document.

2. Click left-top corner ‘office’ button and select publish and then select blog.

3. In ‘new blog account’ dialog box, select ‘blogger’ for example.

4. Input your account information.

5. You will see an new Word 2007 window like this.

6. Enter the post title.

7. Click publish button.

8. Post then has been pushed to the blog.

Currently there is only beta 2 version available, and I couldn’t work out how to publish/upload the pictures in the document.

Comparison of MOSS 2007 WCM and MCMS 2002

2006-06-24T00:17:00.000-04:00

This is the first post in the serial that I will write for the content management piece in Office Sharepoint Server 2007. I will try to compare the difference between the WCM of Sharepoint 2007 and the current MCMS 2002.

As you may already knew that Microsoft discarded its Content Management product line and make its new Sharepoint product as the content management platform. Almost all MCMS elements and terms that current MCMS developers familiar with are changed. To make me learn the new things easier, I did a comparison in following list:

	MCMS 2002	Sharepoint 2007
Development Tools	Visual Studio 2003, Visual Studio 2005	Visual Studio 2005, Sharepoint Designer
Framework	.NET 1.1, .NET 2.0	.Net 2.0
Master file	Supported in SP2 and developed by VS 2005. The master file stays in the virtual directory of web server.	Master file can be created by Sharepoint Designer and VS 2005. But the master file is a ghost page need to be uploaded via Sharepoint admin page.
Template	CMS Template. It’s stored in template gallery. It contains list of placeholders, list of custom properties and links to a template page (aspx file)	Content Type. Content Type contains a list of columns.
Template page	An aspx page stays on file system.	Page Layout. Created based on the Content Type. Aspx file but stays on Sharepoint server, it’s editable by Sharepoint Designer and VS 2005.
Content place holder	Placeholder. CMS has some build-in placeholders such as html placeholder, xml placeholder, image placeholder and attachment placeholder	Column / Filed. Sharepoint 2007 has more types like single line text, numeric, date, time, currency, html, picture, attachment file… I couldn’t find the xml type which is very useful in current MCMS 2002. But there are a lot other useful column types like lookup, business data …
Place holder control	The build-in placeholder web control used in template aspx page for content editing in authoring mode and content rendering in publishing mode is in Microsoft.ContentManagement. Publishing.Extension.Placholders You are also be able to create your own custom web controls.	Sharepoint 2007 also has many web controls for content editing and rendering. They are in Microsoft. Sharepoint.Publishing. Those controls are automatically added to the page layout aspx when drag the fields in Sharepoint Designer. I believed you are able to create the custom controls and add to your own page as well.
Page	Posting. Posting will be able to be created and managed in web interface. The posting is stored in CMS database.	Page. Page can be created in Sharepoint admin web UI based on the selected page layout. You are able to use Sharpoint designer to unghost (customize) the page.
Folder	Channel. It’s just a simple container contains a set of postings.	Site. It should be an WSS site including a set of lists, doc libraries and other contents.
Resource	Resource gallery. No versioning support	Document library, picture library … support versioning
Publishing workflow	Build-in workflow. No alert, hard to customize	Based on Windows workflow framework, very flexible.
Security	Windows AD account only. Only control to channel level	Can control to page level, support AD account, LDAP, and database.
Versions	Simple	Very good

Sharepoint 2007 also includes other benefits which you couldn’t find in MCMS 2002 out-of-box. For example: the out-of-box navigation bar support, search functions, personalization and user profiles…

Start from today ...

2004-11-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

Today is cold. Snowing outside and we will have a Christmas party tonight. I am sitting in front of my laptop and I have many thoughts I want to write down. This is why this blog comming up.

My first post just want to list a few blog resource I found from internet.

http://blogstyles.com/
http://blogplates.net/