SharePoint 2013 Sneak Peak

As there is lot of buzz around SharePoint 2013 like any other SharePoint releases, here are some resources to think and research,

Capabilities and features in SharePoint 2013

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/fp142374.aspx

SharePoint 2013 training for IT pros

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/fp123606.aspx

Search alerts have been turned off for this Search Application. For assistance, contact your server administrator

Issue: Whenever users try to setup alerts on the search results you would sometime receive this error “Search alerts have been turned off for this Search Application. For assistance, contact your server administrator” Which means your Search results alerts are not turned on

                                

Resolution:

1) Navigate to Central Administration.

2) Go to Application Management > Manage Service Applications and click on your Search Service.

3) Enable Search Results Alerts

      

This solved my issue.

SharePoint 2010 Governance

There is always a good discussion about would should be part of governance team and who should drive it. We decided to have Governance team as two teams,

-          Strategy Team (Business Owners and IT leads)

-          Tactical Team  (IT Project Team)

 

Strategy TeamThis team consists of appropriate business owners willing to provide strategic insight and direction for the portal, and able to drive strategic initiatives into their respective organizations. Resources represent a good balance between business and IT, and also centralized control vs. decentralized empowerment. This team is a small, living team reconstructed on a quarterly basis with new volunteers to maintain a fresh perspective on the business and exploit the collective wisdom of the company.

They would seek answers to the following:

·    How do we improve business processes and how do we deliver on that?

·    What structures need to be in place to deliver this value?

·    What areas of the business offer the most opportunity for growth?

·    How can we align our activities with the goals of the business?

·    Are there synergies that can be created between divisions and departments?

·    What groups are doing similar initiatives and how can we help?

·    What ways can we reduce inefficiencies and duplication?

Tactical TeamThe Tactical Team, as its name suggests, is focused on operations, portal and site administration, functional ownership of specific sites, and building the framework and features of the portal. The tactical team builds the infrastructure (hardware, operating system, and so on), provide database support and network connectivity, provide security, and support all of SharePoint’s features. This team is also responsible for global SharePoint configuration, site provisioning, site administration, and SharePoint maintenance.

Performances issues with big lists

We were noticing some performances issues with big lists (say around 2500 rows not big enough in my mind) and users began to see slowness and this can be caused due to many reasons. As part of trouble shooting we tried to look at the performance counters on the web, app and SQL server and did not notice any major bumps. We started SQL profiler and we noticed significant duration being taken while rendering the results or displaying the list items. Then we looked at this link published by Microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/cc262813.aspx and found the issue with Row Wrapping. We exceed the number of columns for the Multiline text filed that needs to be in a single Row. We changed couple of fields to the Single Line of text and we found significant improvement in performance. We also indexed the columns that re commonly used in the Views(http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/manage-lists-and-libraries-with-many-items-HA010378155.aspx?redir=0#_Toc268174145)

Hope this helps for someone who runs into similar problem.

How to get SPUser object from String

String UserName= “Srikanth Kancharla”;

SPUser User= SPWeb.EnsureUser(UserName);

SPWeb.EnsureUser():Checks whether the specified logon name belongs to a valid user of the website, and if the logon name does not already exist, adds it to the website.

SharePoint 2010 - Missing Dropdown menu for choosing the views

When two or more web parts are added to the standard view page then the drop down menu for choosing view gets disappeared.

Resolution that worked for me is to edit the view Page in the SharePoint Designer advanced Mode

Look for the line,

<SharePoint:ListTitleViewSelectorMenu AlignToParent="true" id="LTViewSelectorMenu" runat="server" />

and replace with,

<SPAN id=onetidPageTitleSeparator><SPAN><SPAN style="POSITION: relative; WIDTH: 11px; DISPLAY: inline-block; HEIGHT: 11px; OVERFLOW: hidden"><IMG style="POSITION: absolute; BORDER-RIGHT-WIDTH: 0px; BORDER-TOP-WIDTH: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM-WIDTH: 0px; BORDER-LEFT-WIDTH: 0px; TOP: -585px !important; LEFT: 0px !important" alt=: src="/_layouts/images/fgimg.png"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>

<SharePoint:ViewSelectorMenu ID="viewSelectorMenu1" runat="server" />

Hope it helps someone !!

Creating a new permission level in SharePoint 2010 using PowerShell

When the out-of-the-box permission levels do not meet your needs then SharePoint 2010 allows you the capability to create new combinations of permissions that can cater your needs.

There are two ways of creating Permission level

 - SP2010 GUI

 - PowerShell.

Using SP2010 GUI it is very easy to create permission level, if this is only needed for one or two Site Collections. Imagine you have 100 + Site Collections then this solution will not work, Obvious choice is to use PowerShell.

Here is the PowerShell script to create custom permission level

When

$webapp = Get-SPWebApplication http://xyz.com

foreach ($SPSite in $webapp.sites)

{

$OpenWeb = $SpSite.OpenWeb()

$spWeb = Get-SPWeb $OpenWeb.url

$spRoleDefinition = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPRoleDefinition

$spRoleDefinition.Name = "Site Owner"

$spRoleDefinition.Description = "Custom Permission for Site Owner"

$spRoleDefinition.BasePermissions = "

ManageLists,

CancelCheckout,

AddListItems,

EditListItems,

DeleteListItems,

ApproveItems,

ViewListItems,

OpenItems,

ViewVersions,

DeleteVersions,

CreateAlerts,

ViewFormPages,

ManageSubwebs, 

CreateGroups, 

ManagePermissions,

ManageWeb,

ViewUsageData,

AddAndCustomizePages,

BrowseDirectories,

EnumeratePermissions,

ManageAlerts,

Open,

ViewPages,

BrowseUserInfo,

UseClientIntegration,

EditMyUserInfo,

UseRemoteAPIs,

AddDelPrivateWebParts,

UpdatePersonalWebParts,

ManagePersonalViews"

$spweb.RoleDefinitions.Add($spRoleDefinition)

$SPSite.Dispose()

$OpenWeb.Dispose()

}

Happy scripting J

The secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate sent by the server was invalid and this item will not be crawled

On starting the full crawl of the default content source I received the  error. “The secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate sent by the server was invalid and this item will not be crawled”

It was because one of the site was SSL enabled. 

Solved it in the following manner,
1. Navigate to Central Administration.

2. Go to Application Management > Manage Service Applications and click on your Search Service.

3. In the left Navigation, click on “Farm Search Administration”

4. Under the Farm-Level Search Settings, click on Ignore SSL warnings status “NO” (by default is No). Select the Ignore SSL certificate name warnings check box if you want to trust that sites are legitimate even if their certificate names are not exact matches

  

5. Restart Incremental or full crawl as needed.

OneNote Sync Error Code: 0xE4020005

We were noticing OneNote Sync issues with SharePoint 2010 and below workaround worked for us,

1. Right-click section in question, Move or Copy...

2. Select another Notebook beside the one it resides in, Move.

3. Sync the changes.

4. Move the section back to the desired Notebook.

5. Sync the changes.

Step-By-Step Provisioning the Web Analytics Service Application on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 SP1

Web Analytics Service is a service application in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 that you can use to perform site usage statistics and reporting within a browser.

Provisioning the Web Analytics Service Application
Navigate to CA àManage Service Application

Click new and chhose "Web Analytics Service Application"

Specify the name for the Service Application. Choose or create new application pool.

Specify the default database for the SharePoint farm and provide the Staging and Reporting database name. You can also specify the Retention period.

Once Service application is created you can start the Web Analytics Data Processing Service and Web Analytics Service.

Services running on each server in a three tier SharePoint 2010 Farm

Last week I installed and configured SharePoint 2010 SP1 and not sure to enable which service in the farm. There is nothing right or wrong with the service configuration setup, so I decided to blog the list of services that I enabled in my SharePoint farm environment.

Front End Servers,

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Incoming E-Mail

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application

Search Query and Site Settings Service

SharePoint Server Search Service

Application Servers,

Access Database Service

Application Registry Service

Business Data Connectivity Service

Central Administration

Claims to Windows Token Service

Document Conversions Launcher Service

Document Conversions Load Balancer Service

Excel Calculation Services

Lotus Notes Connector

Managed Metadata Web Service

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service

PerformancePoint Service

PowerPoint Service

Search Query and Site Settings Service

Secure Store Service

SharePoint Foundation Search

SharePoint Server Search

User Profile Service

User Profile Synchronization Service

Visio Graphics Service

Web Analytics Data Processing Service

Web Analytics Web Service

Word Automation Services

Word Viewing Service

I am sure that others may have different ideas on the service configuration and I would welcome any inputs/thoughts through comments

There were problems searching audience, please contact the system administrator

In SharePoint 2010, when I tried to add/set Audience to the Navigation links, I kept getting the below error,

There were problems searching audience, please contact the system administrator

After spending some time in trouble shooting I noticed “User Profile Service Application Proxy” is not associated with the web application

Followed below steps to fix the issue,
Navigate to CA àManage Web Application
Select  “Web Application” that you are noticing the issues with the audiences.
In the Ribbon, Under Manage section click on “Service Connections”
Make sure that “User Profile Service Application Proxy” is checked by selecting custom.

After the above configuration step error disappeared and I was able to set the audiences to the Navigation links.

Install PDF iFilter for SharePoint 2010

I installed and configured SharePoint 2010 farm  along with Search Service. One day I tried to search for a content within the PDF file, no results were found and I am pretty sure I have the PDF file in the SharePoint . After reviewing my installation notes I found out that I had not installed PDF iFilter, so I thought to document the steps so that it can be helpful for some one.

Note: PDF iFilter has to be installed on all the machines in the Server

1) Install PDF iFilter 9.0 (64 bit) from http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025 


2) Download PDF icon picture from Adobe web site http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html  and copy to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\ 

3) Add the following entry in docIcon.xml file, which can be found at: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\XML
      <Mapping Key="pdf" Value="pdficon.gif" />  within <ByExtension> tags

4) Navigate to CA àManage Service Application à Search Service Application, Add pdf file type on the File Type page
5) Open regedit

6) Navigate to the following location:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\14.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension

Right-click > Click New > Key to create a new key for .pdf

7)  Add the following GUID in the default value
{E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}
Note: Make sure to remove any space after the value. 

8) Restart the SharePoint Server Search 14

9) Reboot the SharePoint Server

10) Perform FULL crawl to get search results

Now I am able to retrieve the PDF document in my search results.

Saving a default document in SharePoint 2010 document library

When we create a new document (ex: Word Document) in SharePoint 2010 document library, while saving the document you will notice the following dialog box,

Which means that the document is going to be saved on your local hard drive and not on the SharePoint site.

This issue seems to be by design in SharePoint 2010 when you do not have content type associated with the Document Library, but this behavior is not reproducible if we have a custom content type associated to the Document library.

Workaround fix:
Open Microsoft Word, click on File -> Options

Click on Trust Center in the dialog that opens

Next Click on Trust Center Settings

In Trust Center Settings  click Protected View tab and uncheck Enable Protected view for files located in potentially unsafe locations as shown below.

Click on OK to close the open dialogs and close Microsoft Word.

People Search not working

Problem: Created Search service application and configured Content Sources for crawl. Started the Full crawl and it was completed. Created Enterprise search site and able to see the search results, but when I searched for People search they were no results

Resolution:

Here are some of the steps to verify,

Check if User profile Service and User Profile Synchronization Service  is up and running (Navigate to Central Administration, go to System Settings > Manage Services on Server)

Does the default content access account has read permissions to the web application (Navigate to Central Administration, go to Application Management > Manage Web Application and click on your web application to select it. In the Ribbon, click on User Policy)

Check if you have “SPS3://” protocol is in the Content Sources URL list (Navigate to Central Administration, go to Application Management > Manage Service Application and click on Search Service Application. Go to Crawling > Content Sources and click on Content Sources)

Verify if the default Content Source account has “Retrieve People Data for Search Crawlers” . (Navigate to Central Administration, go to Application Management > Manage Service Application and click on User profile Service. In the Ribbon, click on Administrators)

If you need to make changes to any of the above, please run a Full crawl

People Search is working now.

List View Threshold Error

Problem: We have couple of document folders in SharePoint 2007 environment  with couple of Views. We migrated to SharePoint 2010 and when Users try to click the views pertaining to them they were getting “An error has occurred.  The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator”

Resolution:

1. Navigate to Central Administration.

2. Go to Application Management > Manage Web Application and click on your web application to select it.

3. In the Ribbon, click on General Settings drop-down and choose “Resource Throttling”.

4. In the “List View Threshold”, increase the value (by a factor of 2)) and click OK.

5. If the error persists, increase the value again until the error goes away.

Like to share the resolution so it might be useful for someone.

Cannot publish pages in SharePoint 2010

If you have created your SharePoint 2010 farm manually without running the farm Configuration Wizard, you might encounter this error when you try to publish a page

“The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to a misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint Server State Service. For more information, contact your server administrator.”

The problem is stat the State service is not configured since the Farm Configuration Wizard has not been run.

1.Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Windows PowerShell Modules.

2. Create a service application by typing $serviceApp = New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name “My State Service”
3. Create a State Service database and associate it with a service application, by typing New-SPStateServiceDatabase -Name ”MyStateServiceDatabase” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp.
4.Create a State Service Application Proxy and associate it with the service application by typing New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name ”My State Service” -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup.

In the Manage Service Application, verify if you are seeing new State Service application.  Remember to verify that your web Application is associated with the State Service Application.

Once these instructions are completed, you should be able to publish pages