Blog of SharePoint 2010 and MOSS

MCTS-70-576 Cool Links

2011-10-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Except Microsoft 5 days class room training we have no specific books or material for MCTS 70-576 exam, I found few links which may help us. http://sharepointstream.com/2011/01/21/study-guide-to-the-exam-70-576-microsoft-sharepoint-2010-designing-and-developing/  http://spg.codeplex.com/Site http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff420396.aspx  http://apress.com/book/view/1430228652  http://www.learndevnow.com/ Thanks to all who share their experience and study materials.

Warm up SharePoint sites after IIS and Application pool resets

2011-08-11T01:13:00.001-07:00

Today I spent sometime on warm up SharePoint sites and found an excellent discussion on MSDN about this topic.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadmin/thread/8547eaed-5420-4cca-af29-206d71898322/

John Ferringer explained why do we need warm up scripts to wake up SharePoint sites after IIS resets, he explained briefly about asp.net 2.0 page rendering process and how SharePoint build on this etc...

Most of the companies are using warm up scripts created by using stsadm or power Shell but I found one wonderful tool from Code plex site which is awesome and ran in development box without any issue.

For scripts please follw the below site
http://www.information-worker.nl/2011/06/12/powershell-warmup-script/

Custom Site Definition Challenges

2011-08-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

After deploying the custom site definition if we change the onet.xml file the change won't applied to existing sites but if we change the master page or any physical folder like aspx pages which were not customized by using SharePoint designer will be effected by new changes.

For more information please find the below link.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/898631

Better suggestion to implement newly changes made on existing site definition through features are good and we can easily activate in existing site as well.

All these challenges are seems simple but it is very important that to remember these when designing a new site definition.

Modify SharePoint web.config using object model

2011-08-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

Modify SharePoint web.config appsettings
//The location of the element that should be modified
const string elementPath= "configuration/appSettings/add[@key='elementPath']";

//The value of the attribute as it should be written
const string AttributeName = "value";

SPWebApplicationCollection webApplicationCollection = null;

try
{
//Since this feature scope is farm level we need to retrieve all the web applications
webApplicationCollection = SPWebService.ContentService.WebApplications;

//Iterate through all the web applications and modify the web.config file of each
//web application in the current farm
foreach (SPWebApplication webApplication in webApplicationCollection)
{
//If the web application is not null then modify the key value
if (webApplication != null)
{
string attributeValue = elementAttributePath;

SPWebConfigModification modification =
new SPWebConfigModification(AttributeName, elementPath);

//Sets the sequence of the modification
modification.Sequence = 0;

//EnsureAttribute means to modify that an attribute value is
//present as specified by the Value property next
modification.Type =
SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureAttribute;

modification.Value = attributeValue;

//Add web.config modification
webApplication.WebConfigModifications.Add(modification);

//Save web.config modification
SPFarm.Local.Services.GetValue().ApplyWebConfigModifications();
}
}
}
catch (Exception exception)
{

}

MCTS- 70-573 Exam Pattern

2011-08-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

Total Questions 50
Duration 105 Minutes
Qualifying marks: 700/1000

All the best.

PRO: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Applications

2011-08-07T23:05:00.000-07:00

I have completed MCTS 70-573 exam and started preparation for MCPD 70-576
I didn't find any good resources to start preparation for this exam except Microsoft Class room training 10232A: Designing and Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010Applications (5 Days), please let me know if anyone find good blogs or videos.

Manage Users, Groups and permissions using object model

2011-07-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

//Create a new Group and assign role to that group

SPGroupCollection groups1 = web.SiteGroups;
SPUser user1=web.SiteUsers[@"Test"];
SPMember member = web.SiteUsers[@"Test"];

groups1.Add("Suman-TestCode",member,user1, "Custom Group created
using object model");
web.AssociatedGroups.Add(groups1["Suman-TestCode"]);
SPGroup newGroup = groups1["Suman-TestCode"];

//This SPRoleAssignment assigns permission level to Group as shown in below snippet

SPRoleAssignment assignment =new SPRoleAssignment(newGroup);

//SPRoleDefinition represents Permission level like Full control, Contribute etc..
SPRoleDefinition definition=web.RoleDefinitions["Contribute"];

assignment.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(definition);
web.RoleAssignments.Add(assignment);
web.Update();

Here an important point to remember

1. We can't add new group directly into SPGroupCollection.Add method we need to add first this new group into Site collection group then associate to sub site.

We can retrieve the SP groups as shown in below

SPGroupCollection groups= web.SiteGroups or web.Groups

SiteGroups returns collection of groups in the site collection, Groups returns the existed groups in the current web.

We can retrieve the permission level as shown in below snippet

string roles = group.Roles.Xml;
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(roles);
if (doc.DocumentElement.HasChildNodes)
{
foreach (XmlNode item in doc.DocumentElement.ChildNodes)
{
string permissionLevel = item.Attributes["Name"].Value;
}
}

Retrieve the users existed in the current web
SPUserCollection users=web.Users
SPUserCollection users=web.SiteUsers will return all the users existed in the Site collection.

We can retriev the users of SP group using below snippet

SPUserCollection users= group.Users;

Unit test frame work in Visual studio 2010 SP1 for both SharePoint and .Net code

2011-06-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

Visual Studio 2010 providing Unit test framework for our C# code, now we no need to use other tools to write unit test cases, right click on your c# code and click Create Unit test Tests which will create a new Unit test project and methods, just we need to give the input parameters and expected output.

Below are the configuration steps required to run unit test cases without any error

1. Change the .Net framework to 3.5(Unit test frame work supports only 3.5 framework)
2. Change the project plot form from 32 bit to 64 bit, by default the setting will
be 32 bit
3. Active Test settings should be Local, by default it will be Trace and Test impact
4. The business class should be public otherwise we will see compilation errors.

Once you complete the above configuration steps you can execute the unit test cases by entering expected value and input parameters.
The results of unit test project will be shown as passed.
A method that does not return a value cannot be verified with unit test methods, it means we need to return some value to compare with expected value using Assert functions like Equals or not equals etc...
We can debug the test cases generated by Visual studio by attaching the w3wp process.

SharePoint 2010 Client object model Issue with VS 2010 console application

2011-04-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

Today I have faced a strange error with Visual studio 2010 console applications.
I have created a console application to write a sample Client object model and added Microsoft.SharePoint.Client and Run time DLLs and included name spaces.
When I build the solution I got an error "The type or name space name 'SharePoint' does not exist in the name space 'Microsoft' (are you missing an assembly reference?)"
After spending some time, I found the below solution
1. Initially I have Created a console project by default it will be selected as .Net framework as 4.0, which causes an error, to confirm this I have created a console application by selecting the .Net frame work 3.5, which solved above error.

Unified Logging Service (ULS)

2010-10-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

In SharePoint 2007 to log the errors or success messages we need to use custom components or Enterprise library tools even though we have an option called ULS, why becuase ULS in SharePoint 2007 is for internal purpose only.

In SharePoint 2010 ULS now supporting logging in custom code.

SPDiagnosticsService.Local.WriteTrace method is used to log the information, this class is available in SharePoint Administration name space.

We can create custom logging service by inheriting the class from the SPDiagnosticsServiceBase

See this blog for more information about Custom Logging Service

Creating and Importing Custom Master pages using Designer 2010

2010-10-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

In SharePoint designer 2010 we can create custom master pages and import these into VS 2010 to deploy as a SharePoint solution (.wsp) is automated

See this site to know how to create a custom master page and deploy into SharePoint using SharePoint designer and VS 2010.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff506214.aspx

And also we can do this in other way that is we can add these custom files using Modules template of VS 2010 SharePoint templates, modules are containers of files.
See this site for more information

Not only master pages we can also create custom workflows and other stuff using designer and we can generate wsp, this future allows us to reuse the solutions from existing sites also such as custom content types and other few stuff, note that we could not import solution which were developed in WSS 3.0 or 2007 versions and few other things we could not import.
For more information http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee231584.aspx

Remote BLOB storage (RBS)

2010-10-12T06:16:00.000-07:00

RBS is another beautiful feature in SharePoint 2010 to store large data into external databases or file stores.

Before going to discuss about RBS, first we need to know the BLOB storage which stores two types of content one is unstructured data i.e. no schema simply we can say encrypted data. Second type of data is audio, images; video like large data is stored in a binary format. BLOB stands binary large objects.

In SQL server BLOB data stores in its database but which will be increase the size of database and usage of resources causes some problems.
To overcome this by using RBS which stands Remote BLOB storage is a library API will be used as an add-on feature pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express.

RBS is designed to move the storage of BLOBs from database servers to commodity storage solutions. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 supports a BLOB storage implementation that accesses the RBS APIs through a FileStream provider.
We need to enable FileStream provider using SQL server Configuration Manager and we need to execute few stored procedures and run shell command in order to configure this RBS.

RBS exposes three views for interacting with it: application view (through the RBS client library), administrator view (through stored procedures), and provider view (through a provider interface).

I would like to explain RBS Provider The main goal of an RBS provider is to enable the use of a particular type of BLOB store (called a target BLOB store) to store RBS BLOB data.

This means we can create our own RBS providers by deriving the BlobStore abstract class.

An Application (here SharePoint) calls this Provider to perform its action like store or retrieve the Blob data, Provider send a request to BLOB store (CAS-Content Addressable stores-large data stores-file servers and others…) which will send response back to Provider and it sends response to Application.

Install/Configure RBS by following bellow site
http://blogs.architectingconnectedsystems.com/blogs/cjg/archive/2009/12/14/SharePoint-Remote-Blog-Storage-_2800_RBS_2900_-_2D00_-Step-by-Step-Install.aspx

To create a custom RBS provider please look at code plex sample
http://sqlrbs.codeplex.com/

To get more idea on garbage collection and deletion process please find the below blog http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlrbs/archive/2010/03/19/running-rbs-maintainer.aspx

FAST Search Capabilities

2010-10-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

Which is an add on for SharePoint 2010 enterprise search and also extends the capabilities of SP futures.
User Context which displays the data relevant to that user
displays the results based On contextual information about a person.

Ex: if the user clicks the key word ERP based on the user logged in it will
displays the data such as sales related to sales group people or engineer
etc...

Deep Refiners with counts based on Meta data.
Refiners are placed in left side i.e. refiner results web part which displays
the count and refiner like author is a refiner suman (12), xyz(20) means the
results are filtered and refined like this way to easy find the search results.
Another ex: Filetype ppt(20), pdf(5) like this way...

More Language Coverage 80+ languages supports

Content Processing Pipeline

Visual Search
Visual document thumbnails and previewer Web Parts will be out- of-the-box with
FAST Search for SharePoint 2010 to help users more quickly judge what is relevant
in a search result list.

Ex: We can see the ppt slides of search results from results page itself.

Visual Best bets
Which means, FAST search renders the best bets in the form of video or image.
Other End User features Advanced sorting using managed properties or a query-
time sort Formula.

Advanced duplicate trimming, with the ability to specify a custom property on
which to base duplicate comparisons. “Similar documents” matching.
FAST Search Admin Object Model for promoting documents or assigning visual
Best bets to query keywords/phrases.

Note After Installing the FAST search server for SharePoint 2010 we
need to do the following things.

1. We need to create a new Search Service Applicationand select the FAST Search
Connector to index the content using Manage Service Application option in
CentralAdministration.

2. Need to choose the content source which we will need to crawl

3. Create Query Search Service Application for querying the Indexed content by
Selecting the FAST Query Search connector.

4. After that we need to do some configurations based on the deployment document.
FAST search OOB Connectors are Enterprise Crawler and JDBC Connector

I have refered below channel9 video to know this information
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/matthijs/FAST-Search-for-SharePoint-2010-Capabilities-Deep-Dive/

Sandbox Solutions in SharePoint 2010

2010-10-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is a new feature in SP2010. We can set this option while creating a new project in VS 2010 SharePoint solutions as Sandboxed solutions or farm solutions.

The main aim of this Sandboxed solution is, deploying custom solutions rapidly without having the administrator permissions and isolates from other site collections which will not affect the entire farm.

Farm Solutions
Farm solutions, which are hosted in the IIS worker process (W3WP.exe), run code that can affect the whole farm. When you debug a SharePoint project whose Sandboxed Solution property is set to "farm solution," the system's IIS application pool recycles before SharePoint retracts or deploys the feature so as to release any files locked by the IIS worker process. Only the IIS application pool serving the SharePoint project's site URL is recycled.

Sandboxed Solutions
Sandboxed solutions, which are hosted in the SharePoint user code solution worker process (SPUCWorkerProcess.exe) or we can call as Untrusted Code, run code that can only affect the site collection of the solution. Because sandboxed solutions do not run in the IIS worker process, neither the IIS application pool nor the IIS server must restart. Visual Studio attaches the debugger to the SPUCWorkerProcess process that the SPUserCodeV4 service in SharePoint automatically triggers and controls. It is not necessary for the SPUCWorkerProcess process to recycle to load the latest version of the solution.

When we create Sandboxed solution it will automatically deployed into Solutions gallery of particular site collection. Here we can activate or deactivate the solutions and we can set the resources limit on this site collation by using quota template options.

Another important point is, Sandboxed solutions do not allow accessing the full object model.In this solutions we can access only sub set of full object model, if we access the full object model that is suppose for example if we try to access the SPFarm object it will give an exception. And it will not deploy the solution or not allow to create a package if we try to deploy anything layout folders.

For Sandboxed solutions, Visual Studio intellisence shows only the allowed SharePoint objects.

Creating a Custom Site Definition using VS 2010

2010-10-12T02:38:00.000-07:00

Creating and deploying definitions are needed lot of manual steps in SharePoint 2007 using VS 2008 but in Vs 2010 and SharePoint 2010 we can create and deploy simple Sitedefinition within 5 minutes.

See below msdn video to know how to create a basic site definition within few minutes
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/ff623012.aspx

For more customizations look at below msdn article, in this walk through we can learn how to create custom fields, content type, list definition based on custom content type and visual webparts also most important how to create custom master page
using designer and imported into VS 2010 etc...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff189392.aspx

Note: This topic will be helpful to those who are preparing for 70-573 exam

Social Computing Capabilities

2010-10-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

Before demonstrating this topic, I would like to discuss about Social web sites available in Internet, most popular social networking sites are
YouTube, Face book, Wikiepedia, Wordpress blog, Flickr, and Delicious bookmarks

These all sites are based on Internet then what about intranet social networking options, to implement this SharePoint server provided so many options in 2007 version and extended 2010 with more options.

I will start with creating My Site in SharePoint 2010

First we need to create a site collection by selecting My Site Host template from Enterprise site template section, next we need to create UserProfiles service application, after completion of these steps we need to configure our My site site collection in user profiles, now we can browse My site.

In SharePoint 2010 site we can see I liked it and Tags on top of the page to mark the pages, documents, lists as labels and we can bookmark as favorites and also we can rate the pages or any stuff in our sites etc....

And there are so many cool futures in new Blog and wiki sites in that I have observed few new futures that are office ribbon included in blog post page and some other futures...

Please refer Channel9 video Social Computing for more information on this topic.

Using LINQ in Client object model

2010-10-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

In this post, I would like to demonstrate a simple LINQ queries to access the SharePoint data using client object model.

ClientContext clientContext = new ClientContext("http://Test:555");
var query = from list in clientContext.Web.Lists
where list.Hidden == false
select list;

IEnumerable lists = clientContext.LoadQuery(query);
clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
MessageBox.Show(clientContext.Web.Lists.Count.ToString());

Another sample which uses Load method and lambda expressions

ClientContext clientContext = new ClientContext("http://Test:555");
clientContext.Load(clientContext.Web.Lists, lists => lists
.IncludeWithDefaultProperties(list => list.RootFolder,
list => list.Fields));

The difference between Load and LoadQuery are

Load: Using method syntax of Linq query it will fills out the objects in the context.

LoadQuery: This method returns custom object and it will not filled into the context.

Pluggable Workflow Services

2010-10-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

Another fantastic feature in SharePoint 2010 workflows is Pluggable workflow services, what is the use of this future? using pluggable workflow services now our custom workflows can now communicate with external systems the best example from msdn is

A company has built an extensive order-handling system by using SharePoint Foundation. Each order is represented by a list item in their order list. They use workflows to automate their business processes from order entry to fulfillment. However, for shipping they use various carriers for delivery to their customers worldwide.

Recently they have had some challenges with getting timely updates from the shipping companies and integrating this information in the details of the order. They need a way to automatically receive updates from the shipping company so that their order information is constantly up to date. The shipping companies offer automated systems to notify customers of the delivery status of their shipments.

By using pluggable workflow services, their developer can pause the workflow while it waits for delivery notification from the shipper. When the workflow receives the delivery status, it updates the SharePoint list and continues to the next step in the workflow, which is invoicing.

Vivek has written good article on this topic, please refer below his blog for more information and samples.
http://vivek-soni.blogspot.com/2010/09/sharepoint-2010-pluggable-workflow_499.html

Important point to remember when you develop workflow service
-->The classes used to store property values should be serializable otherwise you will get exceptions.

Remember this topic is most useful in 70-573 exam, mostly we can expect questions from HandleExternalEvent and CallExternalMethod.

Programatically customize Navigation

2010-09-28T05:16:00.000-07:00

This post will help to people who are planning to write MCTS 70-573
As part of "Working with the SharePoint User Interface" we need to learn how to customize the navigation that are QucikLaunch, Top Navigation, custom actions using SharePoint foundation object model

Read the article posted in below blog to get more information on this
http://codegain.com/articles/sharepoint/developmentprogramming/programmatically-customize-site-navigation-in-sharepoint.aspx

MCTS- SharePoint 2010 Application Development

2010-09-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Get ready to write MCTS 70-573 and Share your experience.

Exam details http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-573#tab2

Follow the below blog to prepare this exam as we have no Microsoft press book for this exam we can follow the links suggested in this blog
70-573 Study Guide

Feature Versioning and Upgrade

2010-09-24T03:24:00.000-07:00

A nice feature in SharePoint 2010 is feature versioning and upgradation.
What is exactly feature upgradation?
In few situations we need to extend the functionality of deployed feature and we need to extend this functionality for few sites that is not for all sub sites or site collections...for example we need to add few site columns to existing site columns group, in this case, we can upgrade existed feature and we can maintain versions of features.

and are new elements in feature.xml file and we can run custom code while feature is upgrading using new feature event receiver.

public override void FeatureUpgrading(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties, string upgradeActionName, System.Collections.Generic.IDictionary parameters){
}

--->Feature Upgrade won't be happen automatically when we upgrade the solution, we need to manullay upgrade the feature in all the sites using Feature.Upgrade power shell command, to get the list of sites where the featuren needs to be upgraded can find using QueryFeatures option.

Have a look at bellow blogs for more explanation and samples.

http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2010/06/feature-upgrade-part-1-fundamentals.html

Wonderful video, which explains Versioning and Upgradation

http://www.screencast.com/users/jthake/folders/SharePointDevWiki.com%20Webcasts/media/0a7270c9-00f0-4ab4-9c7a-17f9584a2f5f

To upgrade features, SharePoint is not providing any UI for administrators we need to use stsadm or poweshell or object model to upgrade but codeplex providing a tool to upgrade features through Central Admin UI.

http://spfeatureupgrade.codeplex.com/

PerformancePoint Services

2010-09-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

Performance Point service is a new service in 2010 which extends the SharePoint 2007 BI services by providing so many cool futures like Chart web parts, score cards etc...and providing Dashboard designer to create various reports and deploy into SharePoint directly without any add-ons....

The following site explains how to generate SSRS reports using Dashboard designer
http://myspexp.com/2010/06/21/using-performance-point-viewer-to-render-ssrs-reporting-server-reports/

Client object model in SharePoint 2010

2010-09-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Client Object Model extends the familiar server-side object model to the client.
Client Object Model comes in three flavors: .NET, JavaScript and Silverlight. The .NET model can be used with console applications and Windows applications, while the Silverlight client object model can be used from within Silverlight applications. The JavaScript model is used in client scripting.

The two important DLLs for client object model are
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client and Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.

To start with Client object model in all flavours with sample examples, please refer excellent blog http://www.microsoftpdc.com/2009/PR07

Another good blog for Client object model
http://mstecharchitect.blogspot.com/2010/01/com-client-object-model-in-sharepoint.html

Another good blog for "Client object model in JavaScript"

http://praveenbattula.blogspot.com/search/label/Client%20Object%20Model
Very interesting point is

"SharePoint client object model bundles up API calls into XML and sends it to the server that runs SharePoint Foundation. The server receives this XML request, and makes appropriate calls into the object model (Lists, Web, Site) on the server, collects the responses, forms them into JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), and sends that JSON back to the Calling Application SharePoint client object model. The client object model parses the JSON and presents the results to the application as .NET Framework objects (or ECMAScript objects for ECMAScript). "

Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010

2010-09-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

Developer Dashboard is a new feature in 2010, which is same as Tracing in ASP.Net, which will allow SharePoint developers to monitor their code performance such as time taken to access the SharePoint content or any unexpected issues.

By default this option is turned off, we can on this option using object model or powershell or stsadm command prompt.

This Dashboard shows bellow reports

Requests with timings for each one.
Database queries and their response times.
Load times for each Web Part on the page and Pre-render time.
Number of Web server SPRequest(s) and their timing.
Any critical events.

Using object model

SPPerformanceMonitor perfmon = SPFarm.Local.PerformanceMonitor;
perfmon.DeveloperDashboardLevel = SPPerformanceMonitoringLevel.On;

perfmon.Update();

or

SPWebService cs = SPWebService.ContentService;
cs.DeveloperDashboardSettings.DisplayLevel = SPDeveloperDashboardLevel.On;

cs.DeveloperDashboardSettings.Update();

Using stsadm
stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv ondemand

using powershell
$snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
if ($snapin -eq $null) {

Write-Host "Loading SharePoint Powershell Snapin"
Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell"

}
$farm = Get-SPFarm
$perfmon = $farm.PerformanceMonitor
$level = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPerformanceMonitoringLevel]::On
$perfmon.DeveloperDashboardLevel = $level
$perfmon.Update();
Write-Host "Success"

See more details in bellow blog
http://vspug.com/marwantarek/2009/11/03/developers-dashboard-in-sharepoint-2010/

BCS-Using WCF as data source type

2010-09-15T05:36:00.000-07:00

We can use WCF to connect external services and we can create external content types using SharePoint 2010 designer, look at bellow blog, which explains this step by step.

http://mstecharchitect.blogspot.com/2010/01/business-connectivity-service-bcs-using.html

BCS-Application Model using Visual Studio 2010

2010-09-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

We can access the external information through BCS application using .net code as connector, to create this BCS application we need to follow bellow steps.

1. Start Visual Studio 2010.
2. Create a new project by selecting File » New » Project from the main menu.
3. In the New Project dialog, select the SharePoint » 2010 » Business Data
Connectivity Model template.
4. Name the project customersModel and click the OK button.
5. In the SharePoint Customization Wizard, enter the site url
6. When the project opens, you will see the definition for a single external content
type named Entity1.

Simply we can create external content type using VS 2010, the concept is same as SharePoint Designer external content type, in this project we can see 3 files

BdcModel.bdcm-> which will provide us to change the properties of entity such as identifier, name and other fields.

Entity.cs-> Where we need to add the properties of entity such as name, id, address etc..which keeps the data for entity.

Service.cs-> Here we can write our custom code to get the data from external system, same as Designer content type we need to implement ReadList and ReadListItem methods.

After completing all these steps we need to deploy the solution from VS2010 directly.

After deploying the solution we can see this external content type in SharePoint designer and SharePoint site, from there we can create our external lists.

We can see the sample feature.xml file content as shown in bellow snippet

In manifest.xml file of solution we need to specify the featuremanifest and assembly information, all these stuff related to deployment will be generated automatically in VS 2010 but we need to know all these.

In this way we can create .net types as external data sources, in next post I will explain WCF as data source.

BCS- Business Connectivity Services

2010-09-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

In SharePoint 2010, BDC- Business Data Catalog is changed as BCS, the major improvment in BCS is, we can do CURD operations on external data sources that are Create, Update, read and delete, using BDC we can read the external data and we can display this data in BDC web parts.

BCS is a Service application, we need to start this service from Central Admin->System settings->servers->Manage services on servers, after starting this service we need to create a BCS service application using Manage Service applications option from Central admin site.

In BCS, the important concept is External Content types which are similar to application definition files in SP 2007 BDC, these external content types represents business objects of external data sources, using these content types we can create external lists and we can do CURD operations.

We can create external content types using SharePoint 2010 designer, for this we can follow bellow blog http://mstecharchitect.blogspot.com/2010/01/business-connectivity-service-bcs-using_20.html

The important operations are ReadList and ReadListItems which are similar to BDC Finder and Specific finder and another important one is we need to set permissions to this externam content types from CentralAdmin->BCS service application->Select our external content type and from ECB menu choose set permissions option there we need to add the users and permissions otherwise we can see "Access denied to connect BCS" on external lists.

In next posts, I will discuss how to create BDC model project to develop .Net code and WCF service as external data source using VS2010.

New Features of "List" in SharePoint 2010

2010-09-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

There are so many new features introduced in 2010 related to List and fields

In that most intresting futures are

Referential Integrity:-

As you know, with SharePoint 2007 we can create relationship between lists using Lookup field. But now, List in SharePoint 2010 also supports Referential Integrity with another list. So if you have two lists Student and Department, you can create a referential integrity constraint (Cascade Delete or Restrict Delete) between them.

Cascade Delete: Means if item in the parent list is deleted all the associated items in the child list will also be deleted (just like in SQL Server)
Restrict Delete: If an item in parent list is associated to items in the child list, then this item in parent list cannot be deleted unless its association with all the items from the child list is removed.

Another one Unique column which allows us for storing unique data which is not possible in SharePoint 2007

Column Validation
In 2010, without developer code an end user can write his own formulas to validate the custom columns, for example If your column is called "Company Name" a valid formula would be [Company Name]="My Company" and we can write our custom validation message by using user message attribute.

Customize List forms using InfoPath 2010
This is another beautiful future, using this option from List tab we can customize List newform, edit form and display forms using infopath, in 2007 we need to use SharePoint designer and customize the List form views, I think using Infopath we can validate input data and make pages more beatiful than SP Designer.

Refer bellow blog for more information
http://malikhan.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/new-features-of-list-in-sharepoint-2010-part-12/

Throttling-SharePoint 2010

2010-09-03T05:25:00.000-07:00

As the items in the SharePoint list continue to grow, the performance of the queries retrieving data from the list decreases. To help SharePoint users, Microsoft has provided different Performance Control checks through “Resource Throttling” on lists in SharePoint 2010.

See bellow blog for more information
http://malikhan.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/throttling-new-features-of-list-in-sharepoint-2010-part-22/

Throttling allows realistic limit on the number of items that can be or should be queried from a SharePoint 2010 List. Although you can store the million of item in a SharePoint list, but the query operation will become slower as the size of the list grows. By allowing throttling, SharePoint 2010 has now help developers & especially Farm Administrators to control the large list & large list queries so that the performance of the whole SharePoint farm doesn’t decrease.

Ex: List View Threshold option from CentralAdmin->ApplicationManagement->GeneralSettings-Resource Throttling option

Specify the maximum number of items that a database operation can involve at one time. Operations that exceed this limit are prohibited, we can see the bellow exception "Expensive Query Exception thrown in a code".

Finally we can conclude using this future we can control the performance of SharePoint while accessing the large content, which is not possible in SharePoint 2007.

Enhancements of Event handlers in SharePoint 2010

2010-08-10T02:11:00.000-07:00

SharePoint 2010 providing new event handlers like List adding, added, deleting events and web adding and provisioned event handlers.

One more important enhancement is we can change the Asynchronous events to Synchronous The default synchronization behavior is synchronous for before events and asynchronous for after events.

Best site to know more information about new event handlers in SharePoint 2010.

http://philwicklund.com/archive/2009/10/20/new-event-handlers-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

In new site event handlers, the most useful event handler is

public override void WebProvisioned(SPWebEventProperties properties)
This event fired after the site provisioned that is created with all the required elements. In this event we can write any custom code or configuration which are required to specific web. This is event handler is part of SPWebEventReceiver

The very important use of this event handler is, we no need to use Feature stapling to execute custom code after site provisioned.

Another useful new event handler is, ListAdded event handler, which will fire when the user created a new list, it is a part of SPListEventReceiver class public override void ListAdded(SPListEventProperties properties)

Service Applications in SharePoint 2010

2010-07-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

In this post I would like to explain briefly about Service Applications which is an enhancement of a Shared service provider (SSP).

Before going to discuss about this, I would like to discuss about SSP in SharePoint 2007 and how did this Service Applications replaced SSP

Challenges with SSP in SharePoint 2007 are

1. All or nothing, example If we want to add only Search service in our Web
application without need of other services which are provided by SSP. Is it
possible in SSP? answer to this question is NO.

This means we can't add required services individually, we need to add all
services or nothing.

Service Applications overcome this challenge by providing services individually
to each web applications.

2. We can't extend the SSP that is we can't create custom SSPs by adding our own
services.

Using Service Applications we can create our own service and deploy it into farm.

3. Difficult to Share SSP with other server farms that is Cross Farms...

It is simplified in Service Applications using Service Application Proxy, which
is an instance of Service Application.

These are basic improvements of SSP introduced by Service Applications in
SharePoint 2010.

Feature Stapling

2010-07-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

Feature Stapling allows you to “staple” a Feature to a site definition without modifying it in any way. This means you can add your feature to all sites created using that site definition.

E.g. You want to add your WidgetFeatureXYZ to the out of the box Team Site definition. Simple ... use a Feature Staple!

So how do you do this?

How-To:

To create a staple you actually create another Feature that does the staple. Below is an excerpt from a staple feature we use in the product to staple a Multilanguage feature to the STS, BDR & SPS site definitions.

For more information click on the bellow

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjohnson/archive/2006/11/01/feature-stapling-in-wss-v3.aspx

REST-In SharePoint 2010

2010-05-31T01:38:00.000-07:00

REST (or Representational State Transfer) is an easy way to easily get or post items to a server-side web service. It is used in situations where you would use a web service but do not want the overhead and tightly-coupled nature of SOAP. With REST, it’s just a simple, client-server-like request using HTTP to retrieve or send information. Technically, REST is not a protocol, but an architectural style.

SharePoint 2010, being based on WCF in the .NET 3.5 Framework, has built-in RESTful web services which allow us to take advantage of this simplicity in custom applications we write. It is one of the many data access mechanisms used in SharePoint 2010 development. REST is intended for remote applications (i.e. not running physically on the SharePoint server) that need basic read/write capabilities to SharePoint’s list and library data.

For more info please follow the bellow blog....

http://www.synergyonline.com/blog/blog-moss/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=117

And for sample rest operation on SharePoint List see bellow blog
http://mstecharchitect.blogspot.com/2010/01/accessing-sharepoint-2010-lists-using.html

SharePoint 2010- Nice blogs

2010-05-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

When I have started working on SharePoint 2010 core features, I found few nice blogs.

I would like to share here...
http://www.houberg.net/archive/2009/10/24/sp2010_scalability_1_of_4_introduction.aspx

I liked mainly RBS and Search presentations in this blog.

Excellent videos from populer bloggers, MVPs and MSDN
http://idealprogrammer.com/programming-concepts/servers/sharepoint-server/sharepoint-2010-video-training-developers-45-free-videos/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/hi-in/sharepoint/ee513148(en-us).aspx

Collection of videos from all sites/blogs at one place

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=SharePoint+2010&form=VBREQY#first=21

Customize SharePoint Default List Forms Part 2

2010-05-14T00:07:00.000-07:00

Very common requirement in SharePoint projects is customizing the OOB List forms that are NewForm/EditForm/DispForm aspx pages.

As I explained in Part 1 we can use SharePoint designer to customize the forms but if we need to customize the form by adding tabs and other complex design it is difficult to use designer.

I had a look at few blogs, where they are using Jquery and customizing the form like anything.

Please have a look at bellow blogs to customize the forms.

http://arunduttgp.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/sharepoint-custom-list-form-with-tab-style-ui/

http://sharepointjavascript.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/tabs-in-sharepoint-form/

If you don't want to write any code to customize the forms, we can use the bellow utilities from experts.

http://www.virtosoftware.com/sharepoint-list-form-extender.aspx
(99$ for developer version) This tool is very Cool.

http://www.kwizcom.com/ProductPage.asp?ProductID=1048&ProductSubNodeID=1049

SharePoint 2010 RTM Installation troubleshoot

2010-05-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

I tried to install SharePoint 2010 RTM on my Windows 2008 server R2 machine which is connected to domain.

Here I would like to explain few problems and solutions which I have faced while configuring the SharePoint.

In standalone installation, we will get an error while creating a configuration wizard as SPException: Additional Information "User can not be found".

To fix this issue we need check whether our machine is connected to DC machine if not connect the machine into domain by adding the dns server which is acting as DC.

The same fix will use in farm level installtion which will gives an exception like argument{0} is not valid.

If it is not solved your problem please refer the following blogs where they explained above solution more clearly.

http://ethan-deng.com/SharePoint2010InstallationIssues.aspx
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepoint2010setup/thread/f1ecb0d9-660c-456b-b4a7-cbe7fe24184e

These blogs were helped me inorder to fix above issues. Now I upgraded my SharePoint 2010 RC1 to RTM succesfully.

Performing joins between SharePoint lists

2010-04-29T05:19:00.000-07:00

Using SharePoint User interface we can not join multilple lists but it is possible using SharePoint Designer.

The bellow blogs are explained clearly about this functionality.

http://blah.winsmarts.com/2007-10-Performing_joins_between_SharePoint_lists.aspx

Screen Cast

http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/07/23/4-minute-screencast-join-view-of-sharepoint-lists/

SharePoint 2010 RTM Installation steps

2010-04-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Please follow the steps in bellow blog.

http://tipparajuphani.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/installing-sharepoint-2010-rtm-on-windows-7

Applying a SharePoint Designer Workflow to multiple Lists

2010-04-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is very common problem in SharePoint 2007 designer workflows which will allow us to apply the workflow to only lists not even content types.

To reuse the workflow in multiple lists we have to follow the steps given in bellow blog.

http://nickgrattan.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/applying-a-sharepoint-designer-workflow-to-multiple-lists/

Tips and Tricks for Developing with Windows SharePoint Services

2010-04-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

Good blog to write reliable code from Microsoft

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd583162(office.11).aspx

A declarative workflow does not start automatically after you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1

2010-04-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

I will give brief idea about this problem.
In WSS 3.0 sp1 there are few security issues are fixed which causes the above problem.

The bellow microsoft site which explains about this issue and resolution.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947284/

Another same kind of issue "A declarative workflow that is configured to start automatically when e-mail enabled items are created does not start automatically after you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1"

Please have a look at this blog

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953289/

Restrict Access to SharePoint list view

2010-04-23T00:16:00.000-07:00

To implement this we have no OOB option.
I have seen one blog where they were suggested alternate way, I hope that will be help to fix this.

http://vspug.com/sam/2007/10/16/how-to-restrict-public-access-to-sharepoint-list-views-using-filters/

Another excellent solution is we need to write a custom code but fortunately codeplex has developed this code. Please find the bellow link and download the .wsp file and add into your sharepoint site using
stsadm -o addsolution -filename [.wspfilename]

http://spviewpermission.codeplex.com/

SharePoint 2010 workflows

2010-04-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

SharePoint 2010 offers many new improvements for workflow developers and builds on the popularity of workflow in SharePoint 2007.

Very interesting feature is Reusable Workflows using SharePoint designer.
We can create workflows as we have created in 2007 version using designer but in 2007we can create workflows for specific list and we can't use this workflow for any other list.

Unlike 2007 in 2010 version we can create workflows for all lists that is workflow will be deployed into worklfows gallery so that we can associate these workflows to any list and we can reuse this workflow by saving as template that is .wsp file and so that we can use this in anywhere means any other site collections or web application as we were doing using VS workflow designer.

And another cool feature in VS2010 is we can import this .wsp file and we can extend these workflows.

Another new feature is site workflow unlike 2007 version we can create workflows and apply the workflow to entire site. In 2007 there were no option to associate workflows to site.

The best links for SharePoint 2010 workflows are bellow.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee231580(VS.100).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335710.aspx

PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint 2010

2010-04-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

In SharePoint 2010 we can use PerformancePoint Services to monitor and analyze our business. By providing flexible, easy-to-use tools for building dashboards, scorecards, reports, and key performance indicators (KPIs).

For more information about this see please follow the bellow site

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee661741(office.14).aspx

The bellow blog is best one to know the detail information about this.

http://blogs.msdn.com/performancepoint/

The good feature of this service is caching mechanism those are
data caching means caching the query results,
caching the rendered views i.e. html page views and
caching application objects like KPIs, data sources etc..

This caching mechanism is like asp.net caching like which provides validation of cache objects by frequently checking the cache validity.

We can configure these settings from SharePoint Central Administration->Application Management->Service Application->PerformancePoint service->Application settings.

SilverLight Web Parts in SharePoint 2007

2010-03-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

Silver Light Web parts

1.We need to create a .xap file which is a silver light application file, we can develop xap file using visual studio or MS blend. When we install Silverlight Tools for VS 2008 sp1 we can get silver light templates from that choose Silver light Application template , which will generate a .xap file.

In Silverlight 2, the UI is generated using an XML-based declarative language called XAML—the same language used to create Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI for client applications. Page.xaml contains the XAML code that defines the UI, while Page.xaml.cs contains the codebehind for the application.

You can have only one Page.xaml.cs file, but you can have multiple XAML files that can be managed through the central Page.xaml file. You might do this if you want to manage separate Silverlight controls in one Page.xaml.
The current Visual Studio design surface is read-only. That is, you can drag and drop controls into the markup (or write the Xaml by hand) and the effects are seen immediately in the design surface, but you cannot yet drag or otherwise manipulate controls directly in design mode.

In Silver light there are 3 main layout control where we can place our controls like grid, group box in .net.
The three Layout controls you'll use most often are:

• Grid - essentially a table used for positioning objects in rows and columns.
Here rows and columns are represented as rowdefinations and columndefination like bellow ex:

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Width="400" Height="300">

Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Text="First Name:" Margin="5"/>
Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Width="150" Background="Bisque" Margin="5" />

Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Text="First Name:"
Margin="5"/>
Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Width="150" Background="Beige"
Margin="5" />

The above ex: is a simple xaml file which contains 2 rows and 2 columns.
In Silverlight each class declares whether it is supported by managed code or not, by including (or not including) the x:Class attribute in its root element.
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:ImageScroll="clr-namespace:ImageSlider" Height="300">
Here ImageSlider is a project name and page is a class name i.e. page.cs
These all are basic steps to design a silver light application.
How can we use SharePoint objects in Silver Light Application?
To work with SP objects we need to user web services I.e. add the following service references to the solution to work with lists and picture library.
ServiceReference1.ListsSoapClient sr = new ServiceReference1.ListsSoapClient();
ServiceReference2.ImagingSoapClient objImagingSoapClient = new ImageSlider.ServiceReference2.ImagingSoapClient();
sr.GetListItemsCompleted += new EventHandler(web_GetListItemsCompleted);
sr.GetListItemsAsync("Cars Description", null, null, null, null, null, string.Empty);
All web service access from Silverlight is done asynchronously so when the service reference is created, you get both a method (ex. GetListItemsAsync () ) and an event (ex. GetListItemsCompleted) made for each exposed method on the service.
You are on the right path with your code but before calling the GetItemsAsynch method you need to bind a method to the GetListItemsComplted event. The completed event will get called when the getlistitems event returns it's data.
The data retrieved from above method are xml data, we need to get this data as shown in bellow snippet.
First we need to create a .cs class to define all the fields as properties.
public class Listprop
{
#region variables of Car description
string _Manufacturer = string.Empty;
string _MadeIn = string.Empty;
#endregion
#region Variables of Speed Cars Picture librray
string _Url = string.Empty;
#endregion
public string Manufacturer
{
get
{
return this._Manufacturer;
}
set
{
this._Manufacturer = value;
}
}
public string Madein
{
get
{
return this._MadeIn;
}
set
{
this._MadeIn = value;
}
}
After creating the property class, we need to use LINQ to retrieve the data.
void web_GetListItemsCompleted(object sender, ServiceReference1.GetListItemsCompletedEventArgs e)
{
XDocument lobjDocument = XDocument.Parse(e.Result.ToString());
XNamespace lobjNamespace = "#RowsetSchema";
int imgindex = this.selectedImageIndex;
var Result = from view1 in lobjDocument.Descendants(lobjNamespace + "row")
select new Listprop
{
Manufacturer = (string)view1.Attribute("ows_LinkTitle"),
Madein = (string)view1.Attribute("ows_MadeIn"),
Model = (string)view1.Attribute("ows_Model"),
Speedlimit = (string)view1.Attribute("ows_Speedlimit"),
PicImage = (string)view1.Attribute("ows_Image_Id"),
CarType = (string)view1.Attribute("ows_CarType")
};
List ListItems = new List();
ListItems = Result.ToList();
if (imgindex <= ListItems.Count - 1)
{
strManufacturer = ListItems[imgindex].Manufacturer;
strMadein = ListItems[imgindex].Madein;
strModel = ListItems[imgindex].Model;
strSpeedlimit = ListItems[imgindex].Speedlimit;
string strPicImage = ListItems[imgindex].PicImage;
string[] split = strPicImage.Split(new Char[] { ';', '#' });
splitedimg = split[2];
strCarType = ListItems[imgindex].CarType;
}
In this way we can retrieve the SP data.
For more info: http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/52228/136247.aspx• StackPanel - used to position objects next to one another, or atop one
another.
• Canvas - used for absolute positioning (and unchanged from Silver light 1.0)
When we execute this application, this will creates a .xap file in
a Client bin folder of the project.

Next step is, modify the SharePoint web.config file to work Silver Light applications using Code plex 3.5 web.config feature or manuall from here
http://www.codeplex.com/features/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=2502

But in SP 2010, we have OOB Silver light web parts are available so that we can
directly use these web parts by set the xap file.

After modifying the web.config file, we need to create a custom web part as shown in
Bellow snippet.

For all steps other than web.config changes this bellow link is very helped me.

http://www.zimmergren.net/archive/2008/12/10/how-to-sharepoint-and-silverlight-2-0-
–-part-1.aspx

public class SlideshowWebpart :
System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart
{
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnLoad(e);
try
{
ScriptManager objScriptManager = ScriptManager.GetCurrent(this.Page);
if (objScriptManager == null)
{
objScriptManager = new ScriptManager();
this.Controls.Add(objScriptManager);
}
}
catch (Exception exe)
{
throw exe;
}

}

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
Silverlight objSilverlight = new Silverlight();
objSilverlight.ID = "Image Slide show WebPart";
objSilverlight.Source = "/ClientBin/XAP/ImageSlider.xap";
objSilverlight.Width = new Unit(300);
objSilverlight.Height = new Unit(200);
this.Controls.Add(objSilverlight);

}
}

This is a very simple code, here on page load event we need to add scriptmanager to current page if it is not existed.

In create Child controls method, we need to load the silver light control by creating the Silver Light class object and ser the source property (.XAP) as shown above.

Deploy Custom Web parts

2010-02-25T00:44:00.000-08:00

Deploying Custom Web parts in different ways...

1. We can deploy web parts in couple of ways, i.e. directly build our project (class library) to server where SharePoint is installed i.e. bin of wss virtual directory where we need to deploy our web part and add this web part as safecontrol in web.config file by specifying the assembly and public key token. Another important point here is we need change the trust level as full in web.config file or we can install the assembly into GAC, here there is no need of change the config trust level because GAC is fully trusted location.

2. The other way is, in VS 2008 for 32-bit systems, we can deploy web parts by right click on the solution and click the deploy, which will automatically deploys the web part to given site url.

After above steps, we need to navigate the site and go to web part gallery and select the new option and choose our deployed web part file and populate this into web part gallery.

3. If we want to deploy the web parts as solution i.e. .wsp file which will be used for staging to production server purpose, we need to follow the bellow 2 steps

Using VS 2008 (or VS extensions for SharePoint for VS 2005) we need to follow the bellow steps.

1. Add assembly to GAC and reset the IIS.
2. Add manifest.xml file by specifying the solution id, assembly name and publickey token and safe control to register as safe control to specify in web.config.

Sample manifest.xml file

SolutionId="{2A69309B-D3E5-478c-993D-B35B2DBAD72D}"
DeploymentServerType="WebFrontEnd"
ResetWebServer="FALSE">

3. Right click on the solution and add new project from set up and deployment and choose
Cab.
4. Right click on Cab project and add Primary output and Content files.
5. Next Rebuild the application which generates the Cab file rename that cab file
into wsp file using cmd prompt ren test.cab test.wsp
6. Now using stsadm command add the solution next deploy the solution using Central
admin or stsadm into particular web application.
For more information about this…

4. The other way is we can deploy web parts as a feature.

In this process feature will be wrapped into solution as shown in bellow steps.
1. Create a feature.xml file which describes the feature name and element file
locations.
2. Next create a elements.xml file and specify the web part definition file as shown
in bellow.

RootWebOnly="FALSE">
Type="GhostableInLibrary">

3. Cretae a manifest file as shown in above (step 3) step by including the
featuremanifest Section for feature file and dwpfiles section for web part
definition files.
4. Next create a ddf file by specifying the web part definition file and dll
locations and feature and manifest file locations.

For more information about this…

Federated Search (SharePoint 2007 SP2)

2010-02-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

Federated search is a Search Connector which passes queries to external search engines. Results can be federated from indexes that support the OpenSearch 1.0/1.1 standards, Which returns the result in an xml format (i.e. RSS Feed).

Suppose, In my project we need to search HPTRIM documents, for that first we need to create a Location which needs few information that are. (Set these in CentralAdmin->SSP->SearchAdmin->Query)

1. Location Type i.e. OpenSearch 1.0/1.1

2. Query Template: Specify the template for passing queries to the OpenSearch location’s URL. For ex: http://development8sp2:200/_layouts/DataStoreSearchProvider.aspx?k={searchTerms}[pagesize={count}]

In the template, the case-sensitive parameter "{searchTerms}" represents the
keywords entered into the Search box by end-users.

3. How to develop our own locations?

We need to write Search manager to get the search results from the data store and
return search results a xml format to web part which displays the results using
XSLT.

4. How to Develop Federated Results Web part?

We can use OOB Federated Results web part to display the returned xml data or we
can build our own custom web part to display the results.

5. The configuration data for a federated search connector can be packaged and
reused as a federated location definition (.FLD) file, where we need to specify
the name and description of location which will be displayed in web part and
location URL using ConnectionUrlTemplate and other default properties.

Here we will get one doubt what is the difference between BDC and Federated
Search?

BDC which is a technology used to integrate the external data stores (LOB) into
SharePoint using Application definition files where as Federated Search is used to
query the external data.

WSS object model

2010-02-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

In this post I would like to explain the basic objects of SharePoint and how to create and retrieve the SharePoint content pragmatically using object model.

Create a SharePoint WebApplciation
Namespace: Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration
The following example uses the SPWebApplicationBuilder to create a new SharePoint Web application on port 999.
SPWebApplicationBuilder webAppBuilder = new SPWebApplicationBuilder(SPFarm.Local);
int myPort = 999;
webAppBuilder.Port = myPort;
SPWebApplication newApplication = webAppBuilder.Create();

newApplication.Provision();

Retrieve WebApplications

SPWebApplication webapp = SPWebService.ContentService.WebApplications[WebAppId];
WebAppId is WebApplication id, we can pass web application name also.

SPSite mySiteCollection = newApplication.Sites.Add("/", "DOMAIN\\UserAlias", "user@microsoft.com");

mySiteCollection.Close();

Provision which place the web application with content database means which gives the necessary things.

Creating a Site using object model:
Namespace: Microsoft.SharePoint
SPSite objSPSite = new SPSite("");
SPWeb mySite = objSPSite.OpenWeb();
mySite.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

SPWebCollection subSites = mySite.Webs;
string currentTemplate = mySite.WebTemplate;

string siteUrl = "Test";
string siteTitle = "Test";
string siteDescription = "Test Site";

subSites.Add(siteUrl, siteTitle, siteDescription, 1033,
currentTemplate, true, false);

Delete a Site:
SPSite objSPSite = new SPSite("");
SPWeb mySite = objSPSite.OpenWeb("Test");
mySite.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

mySite.Delete();
Craeting a SiteCollection:
Namespace: Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration
SPWebApplication objSPWebApplication = SPContext.Current.Site.WebApplication;
SPSiteCollection objSPSiteCollection = objSPWebApplication.Sites;

objSPSiteCollection.Add("http://Site/sites/Test", "Suman Hasnabad", "sumanh@ymail.com");

Create a List
SPSite objSPSite = new SPSite("");
SPWeb objSPWeb = objSPSite.OpenWeb("Project");
objSPWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

SPListTemplate objSPListTemplate = objSPWeb.ListTemplates["Custom List"];
objSPWeb.Lists.Add("My List", "This is a Custom list",
objSPListTemplate);

Delete a List
SPSite objSPSite = new SPSite("");
SPWeb objSPWeb = objSPSite.OpenWeb("Project");
objSPWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

SPList objSPList=objSPWeb.Lists["My List"];
objSPList.Delete();

Adding a List Items
objSPWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
SPList objSPList = objSPWeb.Lists["Sample"];
SPListItem objSPListItem = objSPList.Items.Add();

objSPListItem["Test1"] = ddlTest1.SelectedValue;
objSPListItem["Test2"] = txtTest2.Value;
objSPListItem["Test3"] = txtTest3.Text.Trim();
objSPListItem["Test4"] = ddlTest4.SelectedValue;
objSPListItem.Update();

Retrieving the files from folders and copy to the other folder
SPSite objSPSite = new SPSite("");
SPWeb objSPWeb = objSPSite.OpenWeb("Project");

SPFolder objSPFolder = objSPWeb.GetFolder("Test");
SPFileCollection objSPFileCollection = objSPFolder.Files;

foreach (SPFile objSPFile in objSPFileCollection)
{
Response.Write(objSPFile.Name.ToString());
objSPFile.CopyTo("Demo/" + objSPFile.Name);
}

Using Web Services How to retrieve the List and List Items
Step 1: Add Web Reference to the project in the URL location as bellow.
http://SiteURL/_vti_bin/lists.asmx?wsdl
Step 2:
WebReference.Lists objLists = new ListWebservices.WebReference.Lists();
objLists.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

System.Xml.XmlNode objXmlNode = objLists.GetListCollection();
foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode node in objXmlNode)
{
lbllists.Text = node.Attributes["Title"].Value;
}
By using GetListItems(listName, viewName,query,viewFields,rowLimit,queryOptions,webid)we can retrieve the List Items.
Using UpdateListItems (listname, XMl update)

Create List Items With Attachments

private void CreateListItemsWithAttachments(SPListCollection listCollection)
{
for (int listIndex = 0; listIndex < listCollection.Count; listIndex++)
{
if (listCollection[listIndex].Title.Contains("List with attachments"))
{
for (int itemCount = 1; itemCount <= Convert.ToInt32(txtNoOfItemsPerList.Text); itemCount++)
{
SPListItem listItem = listCollection[listIndex].Items.Add();
listItem["Title"] = "Item" + " " + itemCount;

byte[] byteArrayContents = ReadByteArrayFromFile(Constants.FilName);
SPAttachmentCollection attachments = listItem.Attachments;

// Add attchments to list items based on Number of attachments entered by user
for (int attachmentCount = 1; attachmentCount <= Convert.ToInt32(txtNoOfAttachments.Text); attachmentCount++)
{
attachments.Add("Test", byteArrayContents);
}

listItem.Update();
}
}
}
}

Upload Documents Into DocLibrary
private void UploadDocumentsIntoDocLibrary(SPWeb web, SPListCollection listCollection)
{
FileStream fStream = File.OpenRead(Constants.FilName);
byte[] content = new byte[fStream.Length];
fStream.Read(content, 0, (int)fStream.Length);
fStream.Close();

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtNoOfDocLib.Text))
{
for (int listIndex = 0; listIndex < listCollection.Count; listIndex++)
{
if (listCollection[listIndex].BaseTemplate == SPListTemplateType.DocumentLibrary)
{
for (int itemCount = 1; itemCount <= Convert.ToInt32(txtNoOfItemsPerList.Text); itemCount++)
{
try
{
web.Files.Add(web.Url + @"\" + listCollection[listIndex].Title + @"\" + "Test.Doc" + " " + itemCount, content);
}
catch (SPException e)
{
if (e.ErrorCode == -2130575257)
{
//MessageBox.Show("File already exists in Document Library:" + " " + listCollection[listIndex].Title + "" + "Please click ok to upload documents in other doc library");
}
}
}
}
}
}
}

///

/// This method is used to read data from file in byte format
///

/// File Name
/// Byte array
private byte[] ReadByteArrayFromFile(string fileName)
{
byte[] byteArrayContents = null;
FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open,
FileAccess.Read);
BinaryReader binaryReader = new BinaryReader(fileStream);
long numBytes = new FileInfo(fileName).Length;
byteArrayContents = binaryReader.ReadBytes((int)numBytes);
return byteArrayContents;
}

Architecture of SharePoint

2010-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

A lot of people have asked me about SharePoint page request model.

Here I have described clearly about asp.net and SharePoint page request models by comparing both.

The bellow information is collected from MSDN.

First, we need to discuss about asp.net architecture then will discuss about how WSS extend the existed asp.net architecture.

First, user request the page which will send the request to web server (IIS) over port like http://suman:1244, then IIS web site simply load the requested page from physical file ex: if the incoming request is http://suman:1244/default.aspx then IIS web site (IIS simply maps an incoming request to a physical file within the root directory of an IIS Web site or virtual directory i.e. intepub/wwwroot/Suman) load the requested page. This is a straight forward mechanism.

One more important point here is Virtual Directory, before we are going to discuss about virtual directory, we need discuss URL space, each web site defines an URL space to handle incoming requests, virtual directories which will creates child URL spaces and nested to URL space. EX: If we create a Virtual directory called SubSites then the URL is https://suman:1244/SubSites.

Notice that IIS tracks configuration information about its IIS Web sites and virtual directories in a repository known as the IIS metabase. The IIS metabase lives on the file system of each front-end Web server running IIS.

As we discussed in earlier section about the straight forward routing mechanism however IIS providing a mechanism for sophisticated routing i.e. ISAPI (Internet Server Application Programming Interface) model allows us to configure an IIS Web site or virtual directory so that incoming requests trigger the execution of custom code on the Web server.

The ISAPI programming model consists of two primary component types: ISAPI extensions and ISAPI filters.

An ISAPI extension is a component DLL that plays the role of an endpoint for an incoming request. {Simply we can say a communication channel} The fundamental concept is that IIS can map incoming requests to a set of endpoints that trigger the execution of code within an ISAPI extension DLL. An ISAPI extension DLL must be installed on the Web server and configured at the level of either an IIS Web site or virtual directory. Configuration commonly involves associating specific file extensions with the ISAPI extensions by using an IIS application map.

Ex of End point is
Web content consumer endpoint Represents a client connection point to Web content, such as HTML files or Active Server Pages (ASP).
A Web content consumer endpoint appears on an application when you connect the application to a Web content provider endpoint.

While an ISAPI extension serves as an endpoint, an ISAPI filter plays the role of an interceptor. An ISAPI filter is installed and configured at the level of the IIS Web site. Once installed, an ISAPI filter intercepts all incoming requests targeting that IIS Web site. The fundamental concept is that an ISAPI filter can provide pre-processing and post-processing for each and every incoming request. ISAPI filters are typically created to provide low-level functionality for an IIS Web site, such as custom authentication and request logging.
An application pool is a configurable entity that allows you to control how IIS maps IIS Web sites and virtual directories to instances of the IIS worker process.
Each IIS Web site and virtual directory can be configured to run in its own isolated application pool. Conversely, you can configure many different IIS Web sites and virtual directories to run in the same application pool for greater efficiency. The key observation you should make is that a tradeoff exists between isolation and efficiency. To achieve greater isolation means you must run more instances of w3wp.exe, which compromises efficiency. To achieve greater efficiency means you must map multiple IIS Web sites and virtual directories to fewer instances of the IIS worker process, which compromises isolation.
The ASP.NET Framework represents a significant productivity layer on top of IIS and the ISAPI programming model.

The ASP.NET Framework is implemented as an ISAPI extension named aspnet_isapi.dll. The basic configuration for ASP.NET involves registering application maps for common ASP.NET file extensions including .aspx, .ascx, .ashx, and .asmx at the level of an IIS Web site or virtual directory. When IIS sees an incoming request targeting a file with one of these extensions, it forwards the request to aspnet_isapi.dll, which effectively passes control over to the ASP.NET Framework. The way in which the ASP.NET Framework processes a request largely depends on the extension of the target file.

It is important to note that the ASP.NET Framework runs each ASP.NET application with a certain level of isolation. This is true even in a scenario when you have configured multiple ASP.NET applications to run within the same IIS application pool. The ASP.NET Framework provides isolation between ASP.NET applications running inside the same instance of the IIS worker process by loading each of them into a separate .NET Framework AppDomain.
The ultimate destination of any request is the endpoint, which is modeled in the HTTP Request Pipeline by using an HttpHandler class, which implements the IHttpHandler interface.
On an application-wide basis, incoming requests are always routed through the HttpApplication before they reach the target HttpHandler, thus giving the HttpApplication the ability to pre-process any request no matter which HttpHandler it is being routed to. This preprocessing stage is handled through a series of events that are defined inside the HttpApplication class such as BeginRequest, AuthenticateRequest, and AuthorizeRequest.
In situations when you don't want to use a custom HttpApplication component, the ASP.NET Framework initializes the HTTP Request Pipeline with a standard HttpApplication object that provides default behavior. However, you can replace this standard component by creating a file named global.asax and placing it in the root directory of the hosting ASP.NET application.
The HttpModule is similar to the HttpApplication component in that it is designed to handle events defined by the HttpApplication class and is processed before control is passed to any HttpHandler classes.
While an HttpApplication component and an HttpModule component are similar in what they do, the HttpModule contains a few noteworthy differences. First, you are not limited to one HttpModule per application as you are with the HttpApplication components. The web.config file for an ASP.NET application can add in several different HttpModule components. Second, HttpModule components can be configured at the machine level. In fact, the ASP.NET Framework ships with several different HttpModule components that are automatically configured at the machine level to provide ASP.NET functionality for things such as Windows authentication, Forms authentication, and output caching.
The final component that we want to discuss with respect to the HTTP Request Pipeline is HttpContext. As ASP.NET initializes a request to send to the HTTP Request Pipeline, it creates an object from the HttpContext class and initializes it with important contextual information.

The Final Diagram of ASP.Net Page request is as shown in bellow.

Page request is send to web server over a port or ip address and from web server i.e. IIS the request is send to ISAP extension here aspnet_isap.dll based on the file extension which is mapped in IIS, from this dll component request is send to asp.net framework which will pass the request to http request pipeline.

WSS Integration With ASP.Net

Windows SharePoint Services extends the standard ASP.NET HTTP Request Pipeline with its own custom components

WSS build on the ASP.Net by extending the http request pipeline as shown in above by creating the custom httpApplication i.e. SPHttpApplication and SPHttpHandlers and SPRequestModule.
These entries are added into web.config file as shown in bellow code snippet.

type="Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPHttpHandler, ..." />

type="Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime.SPRequestModule, ..." />

Now we are going to discuss briefly about how WSS extends the asp.net architecture.
One of the strengths of Windows SharePoint Services over ASP.NET is its ability to provision and customize pages within a site without having to make any changes to the local file system of the front-end Web server. This capability of Windows SharePoint Services to provision and customize pages is made possible by storing customized versions of .aspx files and .master files inside the content database and retrieving them on demand when they are needed to process an incoming page request.
How this is possible in WSS?
ASP.NET 2.0 introduced a new pluggable component type known as a virtual path provider. The idea behind a virtual path provider is that it abstracts the details of where page files are stored away from the ASP.NET runtime. By creating a custom virtual path provider, a developer can write a custom component that retrieves ASP.NET file types, such as .aspx and .master files, from a remote location, such as a Microsoft SQL Server database. Once a virtual path provider retrieves the contents of an .aspx page, it can pass it along to the ASP.NET runtime for parsing.
The Windows SharePoint Services team created a virtual path provider named SPVirtualPathProvider that is integrated into every Web application. The SPVirtualPathProvider class is integrated into the ASP.NET request handling infrastructure by the SPRequestModule. More specifically, the SPRequestModule component contains code to register the SPVirtualPathProvider class with the ASP.NET Framework as it does its work to initialize a Web application. Figure 2-6 displays a diagram that depicts the role of the SPVirtualPathProvider.
Windows SharePoint Services employs a custom virtual path provider to employ the .aspx page parser supplied by ASP.NET 2.0

As you can see, the SPVirtualPathProvider is able to retrieve an ASP.NET page file from the content database, such as default.aspx, and then pass it along to the ASP.NET page parser. The SPVirtualPathProvider class works together with another class named the SPPageParserFilter to supply processing instructions to the ASP.NET page parser. For example, the SPPageParserFilter component controls whether the ASP.NET page parser compiles the ASP.NET page into an assembly DLL or whether it processes the page in a no-compile mode that is introduced with ASP.NET 2.0. In the next chapter, you will see how to add an entry into the web.config file that tells the SPPageParserFilter how to process pages.
One of very optimized feature in this SPVirtualPathProvider is, Page Ghosting, I will explaing with one sample, suppose if we created blank site and under this blank site we have created 100 sites which were not required a customized version of default.aspx. In this case is it required to create 100 pages in content database?
The answer is no, Fortunately, pages within a SharePoint site such as default.aspx are based on page templates that live on the file system of the front-end Web server. Page templates are used to provision page instances within the context of a site, such as the page that is accessible through a specific URL like http://litwareinc.com/default.aspx. Therefore, you can say that page ghosting describes the act of processing a request for an uncustomized page instance by using a page template loaded into memory from the file system of the front-end Web server.
Page ghosting also makes it possible to process the home pages for thousands of different sites by using a single page template that is compiled into an assembly DLL and loaded into memory in the IIS worker process just once per Web application.
When you modify a page and save a customized version of it in the content database using SharePoint Designer, you eliminate the possibility of page ghosting. Instead, the provided SPVirtualPathProvider must retrieve the customized version of the page from the content database, as shown in Figure 2-6. For this reason, customized pages are sometimes referred to as unghosted pages.
The SPVirtualPathProvider makes the decision whether to process a page as a ghosted or an unghosted page. Furthermore, all aspects of page ghosting and unghosting are hidden from the ASP.NET runtime and represent a value-added dimension of Windows SharePoint Services.

Context sensitivity to the Custom Ribbon Controls

2010-02-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

We can enable/disable the ribbon control based on list item selection.

This is an excellent blog for Contextual Ribbons

Hiding ribbons pragmatically
public void HideRibbons()
{
SPRibbon current = SPRibbon.GetCurrent(this.Page);

if (current != null && !this.Page.Request.IsAuthenticated)
{
current.CommandUIVisible = false;
}
}

We can see Ribbon control in Master page as shown in bellow snippet

" runat="server"
PlaceholderElementId="RibbonContainer"
CssFile="">
runat="server"
Location="TabRowLeft">

"

SharePoint:SPRibbonPeripheralContent allowing us to place content next to the tabs of the ribbon.

Customize SharePoint 2010 OOB Ribbons and SharePoint Dialogs

2010-02-24T21:29:00.001-08:00

In SP 2010, the UI has been changed and implemented the Ribbon concept looking like MS office 2007, and implemented SharePoint Dialogs for manipulations like changing the list names i.e. edit form, view form, new form aspx pages are now changed as Show Dialog pages using Client object model to avoid the post backs.

Below code snippet is a simple example of custom ribbon buttons and Dialog boxes.

In Custom ribbon development, we need to write a code in elements.xml as we have done in SP 2007 custom actions.

The main element is Location of custom action i.e. where we need to add our custom ribbon controls, this means for example if we want to show our custom ribbon controls when the list view web part is present then we need to give the value as shown in below table.

Value Description
CommandUI.Ribbon Customization appears everywhere for the specified
RegistrationId.

CommandUI.Ribbon.ListView Customization appears when the list view Web Part is
present.

CommandUI.Ribbon.EditForm Customization appears on the edit form.

CommandUI.Ribbon.NewForm Customization appears on the new form.

CommandUI.Ribbon.DisplayForm Customization appears on the display form.

The next important one is, Location of ribbon controls, before discussing about this we need to discuss ribbon tabs, i.e. for lists there are 2 tabs Items and Lists tabs, in that tabs there are few groups which groups the controls based on the behavior suppose in Lists tab View and Settings groups for views (Default view, All Items view) and settings (list settings).

Now, what we need to do is, we can place our ribbon controls in above groups by specifying the location value as shown in below sample.

Suppose for Documents tab->Manage group-> we need to specify the location as

Ribbon.Documents.Manage.Controls._children

For lists->Settings group->Ribbon.List.Settings.Controls._children

Here in above example, Libraries/Documents/List/ListItem represents (ribbon controls on Document or list or Item) TAB, Settings represents Groups controls are buttons, drop downs etc…

These are the basic way to implement the ribbon button controls, we can customize the tabs and we can implement new menus and lot of stuff using these custom action and we can write the Client Object model.

Note: We can see all existed groups and locations of ribbon in the below specified file path (existed in 14 hive)

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL\XML\CMDUI.xml

or we can find out from Microsoft SDK.
Default Ribbon Customization Locations

The best blog for custom ribbon controls

What's new in SharePoint 2010

2009-12-17T02:17:00.000-08:00

New Features

Custom Approval Workflows using ASPX forms

2009-12-17T02:06:00.000-08:00

Excellent blog for Custom Approval workflows

How to implement Progress page in our custom pages?

2009-07-29T02:53:00.000-07:00

To implement progress page in our custom application pages which looks like a SharePoint progress page use the following code snippet.

using (SPLongOperation operation = new SPLongOperation(this.Page))
{
operation.LeadingHTML = "Wait for some time to finish this process";
operation.Begin();

//Here we need to implement our business logic which takes long time

operation.End(Redirect URL)

//catch the following exception no need to handle

catch (ThreadAbortException)
{
}

Customize Application pages

2009-07-29T02:48:00.000-07:00

How to Create a custom application pages which looks like a SharePoint application pages?

Following link is very useful to implement this and which explains how to store the values in property bag of sharepoitn web.

http://www.tonstegeman.com/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=13

Good links for Workflow development

2008-12-02T21:55:00.000-08:00

Very useful Sites
1. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms580283.aspx (Very good site begin with this site for custom workflows)
2. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms460303.aspx (Deploy workflow into MOSS)
3. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386211.aspx (Complete workflow doc)
4. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629921.aspx (Approve/Reject wf using infopath from Patrik tessigem good excelent)
5. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/secmvp/default.mspx (Good site for wf example)

Other Sites
1. http://www.virtual-generations.com/tag/wwf
2. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms446847.aspx (Builtin Activities in vs2005)
3. http://blah.winsmarts.com/2007-8-SharePoint_2007_Workflows_-_Enhancing_the_ultra-basic_WF.aspx (Simple wf examples)
4. http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/11/26/developing-workflows-in-vs-part-4-design-and-bind-your-forms.aspx (Infopath+Workflows using vs 2005)
And
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/12/19/what-about-workflow-and-aspx-forms.aspx (aspx pages+Workflows)
5. http://www.sharepointnick.com/wiki/Wiki%20Pages/Developer%20related%20articles.aspx
6. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550992.aspx (MOSS SDk Online)
(AND)
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms441339.aspx (WSS SDK Online)
7. http://search.msdn.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?query=sample+workflows&brand=msdn&locale=&refinement=00&lang=en-us (Sample workflows)
8. http://www.impactevents.com/biztalkconference/downloads/CONHOL301%20-%20Creating%20Custom%20Activities.doc (Wf document)
9. http://www.codeguru.com/columns/dotnet/article.php/c12895__2/#more (WWF)
10. http://www.code-magazine.com/article.aspx?quickid=0711071&page=5 (WWF)
11. http://sergeluca.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8A06D5F2F585013!891.entry (Step by step Wf)
12. http://weblog.vb-tech.com/nick/archive/2006/09/04/1753.aspx (very Nice one and very clear )
or
http://weblog.vb-tech.com/nick/archive/2006/09/04/1760.aspx (For deployment it is good)
13. https://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/morse_matt/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=16 (State mchine workflows)

Baisc steps to create a Record Center site in MOSS 2007

2008-12-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

Using the Record Center site we can store the active content as records using Record Routing Table.

Record Routing Table which enables us to store the incoming content into appropriate Library based on the Meta data associated with that incoming content.

in 3 ways we can send the files into Record Center site;

1. Manually using the command Send to Record Center Site
2. Using Exchange Server 2007 Managed Folder when we move the mails to managed
folders it will copy the mails automatically to Record center using SMTP.
3. Next Custom code by programmatically using WSS 3.0 object model.

Configure the Record Center site to enable Send to Record Center Command

1. Central Administration->Application Management->External Service Connections ->
Record Center->Configure Connections-to Record Center >Select Connect to Record
Center
2. In the URL box, type the URL to the OfficialFile.asmx Web service that is
contained in the vti_bin directory of the records center.
For example, if a records center is location at http://localhost/RecordsCenter,
the path to the Web service is
http://localhost/RecordsCenter/_vti_bin/OfficialFile.asmx.
3. Enter the display name, such as Records Center, and then click OK.
4. This enables the Send to / Records Center option in the Edit Control Block (ECB)
menu and ensures that records are sent to the records center.

Note: We have to create a record center site in top level site only not in sub
sites if we create in sub sites it will gives an error as bellow An Error
occurred while sending the file to the Records Center

customizing the NewForm, EditForm and Display Form using Share Point User Interface

2008-11-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

OfficeToolbox.SharePoint.Lists - Form Settings allows you to modify default New, Edit, and Display Forms. You can show/hide specific fields across all form types; mark select ones to be in read-only mode while editing an item in a list.

For Downlaod this tool goto
http://www.codeplex.com/OfficeToolbox/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=15713
For more information about this tool
http://weblogs.asp.net/sharadkumar/archive/2008/07/29/how-to-customize-sharepoint-forms-part-2.aspx

Using ASP.NET 2.0 Code Behind Files in SharePoint.

2008-11-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

Excellent explanation for integrating aspx pages into SharePoint Site by andrewConnell.

See Here
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/sharepoint/ASPNET_to_Sharepoint.aspx
http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/UsingCodeBehindFilesInSharePointSites.aspx

Download the SharePoint course materials and Source code

2008-11-03T21:44:00.000-08:00

This is an excellent site which Contains all the links for SharePoint Books and Materials.
http://knrao.awardspace.com/

Three-state workflow

2008-11-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

For clear details of the Three-state workflow see this link
Three-state workflow

InfoPath Articles

2008-11-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

See this Site For InfoPath 2007 With MOSS
InfoPath

Another Good Resource for SharePoint Developers.

2008-10-01T03:05:00.000-07:00

This site is excellent for SharePoint developers all the webcasts and virtual labs, screencasts are linked in this page.

http://www.microsoft.com/click/sharepointdeveloper

Excellent Site for integrating asp.net 2.0 web pages into WSS/MOSS site.

2008-10-01T02:58:00.001-07:00

See AndrewConnel MVP-MOSS blog

http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/UsingCodeBehindFilesInSharePointSites.aspx

Deploying a Sharepoint Site to Another Server

2008-08-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

Good Blog for Deploying a Sharepoint Site to Another Server

Deployment

How to create a Custom Site Defination in MOSS?

2008-08-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

See this Blog its very good for step by step to develop a site defination

Site Defination

Note: We can download complete code from this blog.

How to create custom Workflow Activities and Condition?

2008-08-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Using Workflow Activities Library template in Visual Studio we can create a custom workflow Activities and conditions for SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio WF designer.

1. Custom Workflow Activities for SharePoint Designer

2. Custom Workflow Conditions for SharePoint Designer

3. Custom Workflow Activities for SharePoint server

4. Simple Activity

How to Create Custom Field Types?

2008-08-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

We can create a custom field types using 2 ways
By selecting the custom field template in Visual Studio or we can develop as bellow

There are three main components to building a custom field

Custom Field Class –
Should inherit from an existing SPField class. Ie. SPFieldText or SPFieldMultiColumn. The important property is override FieldRenderingControl in which it Creates an instance of the field control class and initialize its FieldName property with internal name property of the SPfield class.

In this we can override GetValidatedString() method to validate the input string like the field value is mandatory or other anything.

ASCX Control (Optional) –
Defines a SharePoint:RenderingTemplate element whichs tells SharePoint how to render your control.
Here we need to specify the assembly details.

Custom Control Class(Optional) –
The code-behind for your ascx control which defines how your control is rendered.
In this class we need to override two properties DefaultTemplateName where we need to Pass ID of RenderingTemplate control to WSS runtime which enables a connection between the control and code behind.
Value which Reads and writes the field's underlying value to and from the content database.
Override the CretaeChildControl method to initialize the custom field control using TemplateContainer which is a member of BaseFieldControl And contains the reference of the RenderTemplate control.
Like textbox=(Textbox) TemplateContainer.FindControl(“txtbox”);
See the Code snippet from Suman/Codesnippets/Customization/CustomField
SPFieldMultiColumn:
If we want to create a group of columns for ex: the Address which contains address, zip code, street etc… to implement this type of CFT we need to create a class which should be inherited by SPFieldMultiColumnValue class, which stores one property per item (like street, city …) in the structured value . This class is called as custom field value class.

Next steps are same as above simple CFTs, specifically for this type of CFTs we need to create a filed class by deriving the SPFieldMultiColumn class. Here the important one is we need to override GetFiledValue() method to return the serialized value stored in the database as specified type.

In custom control class, we need to do the same way as we have done in simple CFTs, just we need to construct the object of our type and pass the values to that object, and set the values to this object (Get/Set) in Value property.

The best ex:
public override object Value
{
get
{
EnsureChildControls();
FieldAddressValue fieldValue = new FieldAddressValue();
fieldValue.Address = addressBox.Text.Trim();
fieldValue.Zip = zipBox.Text.Trim();

return fieldValue;
}
set
{
EnsureChildControls();
FieldAddressValue fieldValue = (FieldAddressValue)value;
addressBox.Text = fieldValue.Address;
zipBox.Text = fieldValue.Zip;

}

Here in Value property we have created custom Filed value class object and reading the values from and to content database using get/set.
In this way, we can implement the Multi Column CFTs.
The final important one is, Rendering the multiple values in view list items page, this could be done by RenderPattern element of Fields.xml file as shown in bellow by using CAML query.

Suppose in our ex: we have 4 properties to display in list view, for that we can implement like this.

HTML>]]>

HTML>

HTML>]]>

SubColumnNumber specifies the properties which we were defined in a custom Field value Type class, we can render these properties in this way.
In Final step we have to create a Field type.xml (fldTypes.xml ) file in 12\templates \xml as bellow.

PhoneNumber
Text
Phone Number
Phone Number
TRUE
TRUE
TRUE
TRUE
TRUE
TelephoneFieldType.TelephoneField,TelephoneFieldType,Version=1.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=722d1e996cfca5d7

For Multi field look at this blog

Another Good Blog for Custom Fields in MOSS

How to Connect two Custom Web Parts in MOSS 2007?

2008-08-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

We can Connect 2 custom web parts using ASP.Net technology or WSS 3.0.

The following link is very helpful to start the creating connected webparts.

Connected Web Parts

Good Links for MCTS 70-542 which covers few topics

2008-07-22T02:42:00.001-07:00

This links are useful for the exam 70-542

1. Custom field control which displays the video

2. XmlFormView

3. Automate administartion tasks for infopath form services

4. IpolicyFeature

5. Record Routing,File plan,Holds

6. Create a Pluggable SSO Provider

Few of these topics which are not covered in Paulgalvin links for 70-542 exam so kindly refer Paulgavin blog before read this topics.

Thank you

MCTS -70-542 Exam Pattern

2008-07-22T02:15:00.000-07:00

TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development

Number of Questions: 55
Total Marks: 1000
Duration: 3hrs (180 mins)
Qualifying marks: 700

Follow the bellow link for complete information:
Preparation Guide for Exam 70-542

Downloadable books for Office SharePoint Server 2007

2008-07-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

Some of the content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library is available in downloadable and printable form as Microsoft Office Word documents .doc files. The content in these books is a copy of selected content in the Office SharePoint Server technical library http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84739 as of the date listed for each book. For the most current content, see the technical library on the Web.

For more details: Downloadable Books

In this article the following sections are covered:

1. Getting Started
2. Planning
3. Deployment
4. Operations
5. Security
6. Solutions

Video demos and training for Office SharePoint Server 2007

2008-07-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

The following Link contains links to all Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 video demos that are intended for IT professionals.

MOSS Videos

This site provides the videos of the following sections in MOSS 2007

1. Planning
2. Operations
3. Deployment
4. Building and implementing enterprise search solutions (Divided into 14 sub Modules)

Excellent Blog for State Machine workflow development...

2008-06-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

This site is very helps to those who are working on state machine workflows.

State Machine Workflows

Really this site is very great and it has helped me a lot for developing my state machine workflow...

Thanks to Matt Morse...

Gates Shows: 5 New Technologies on TechEd2008

2008-06-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates on his public tradeshow keynote at the company’s TechEd Developers Conference in Orlando, shows five new technologies of Microsoft. So without wasting anytime let’s have a close look to each of these new five technologies Internet Explorer Beta 2, Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2, Microsoft Sync Framework ,Velocity and Parallel Extension to .Net Framework

See this one for more details very nice one...
Readerszone

The Ramp Up Program — Advance your Career!

2008-06-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Do you want to gain new Microsoft .NET development skills, but aren’t sure where to begin? If so, MSDN Ramp Up is the place to be.

Ramp Up provides the step-by-step guidance and in-depth learning content you need to build your portfolio of professional development skills.

Get Here
Advance your Career

TechEd 2008 Developer Speaker Idol Videos

2008-06-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

TechEd Videos Excellent....

Download here
TechdD

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training (Standalone Edition)

2008-06-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training Standalone Edition is designed to help you learn how to use the features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Downlaod here
MOSS 2007 Training

Great Leaders Quotations….recognize facts

2008-06-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

1. As we look ahead into the next century, Leaders will be those who empower others.

2. Best is not the end point, but a starting point for innovation.

3. A day without Laughter is a day wasted.

4. Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent. You are much more than paycheck.

5. Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

6. Always turn negative situation into a positive situation.

Integrate SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services by using the Reporting Services Add-in

2008-06-10T22:40:00.001-07:00

Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 3.0 Integration

Integration SQL server 2008 Reporting Services into SharePoint1. Install SQL server 2008 with reporting service
2. Install MOSS sp1
3. Configure Reporting service in SharePoint mode which will deploys Report Server
Integration Feature.
4. Install Reporting services add on for MOSS
5. Report Creation and Deployment in SharePoint 2007 with Business Intelligence
Development Studio (BIDS) which will give .rdl format file that should be
deployed into reports document library, we can display this report in Report
Viewer web part.

For More details go to Technet

BDC - Business Data Catalog

2008-06-02T23:27:00.000-07:00

What is BDC?

Microsoft definition:
BDC is a new feature in MOSS 2007, it provides you with an easy way to integrate line of business data in MOSS 2007, without any code.

For more samples on BDC see this site...
Business Data Catalog

Customize SharePoint Default List Forms Part 1

2008-05-29T03:13:00.000-07:00

Creating a SharePoint list is hella easy. Point and click - and bingo - you have a form to type in and maintain your data in a structure you specified, and you can then create various views on the data collected.

But what if you wished to customize either the "New" form, or the "Update" form etc?

we can find the answer from this blog Customization of Newform.aspx

Good Quotations...have a break

2008-05-29T02:24:00.000-07:00

1. Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, and fear
is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world
have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
2. Achievement without adversity is boredom.
3. People may not believe what you say but they will believe what you do.
4. Losers say what they can do. Winners show what they can do
5. Always reach higher than what you can touch.
6. I want my life to be like music, full of depth, heart, and soul.
7. People will always tell you what you can't do but they never tell you what
you can do.
8. Believe in yourself and others will believe in you as well.
9. Make today the best day of the rest of your life
10. The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourselves strong.
11. You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
12. Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in
every living being.

Excellent Blog for SharePoint Developers

2008-05-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

This Blog is very useful to SharePoint Application developers which include collection of articles and other SharePoint recourses.

Excellent Blog for SharePoint Developers

MSDN Visual How Tos for SharePoint Application Development

2008-05-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

Visual How Tos

Adding Code-Behind Files to Master Pages and Page Layouts in SharePoint Server 2007

Adding Custom Quick Access Buttons to the Page Editing Toolbar in SharePoint Server 2007

Adding Excel Web Parts to Pages Programmatically in SharePoint Server 2007

For more Information see this link MSDN Visual How Tos

Difference between Sharepoint 2003 and MOSS 2007

2008-05-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

This post lists the changes in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 from Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

Shared Services
Description: In SharePoint Portal Server 2003, each portal that was created had its own set of resource-intensive, high-value services. This condition severely restricted scale, so a feature was introduced that allowed all portals located within a single farm to share the same set of services. A second introduced feature allowed all portals located within a remote SharePoint Portal Server 2003 farm to also consume services from a parent farm. In both cases, the change was a substantial and a one-way switch: if the shared services option was chosen, all portals in the affected farms had to participate in the shared services; and once service sharing was turned on, there was no way to turn it off again. In the 2007 Microsoft Office system, the ability to share services turns on by default. It is flexible so that more than one set of services is available within and between farms, and portals move easily between sets of shared services.

Reason for change: This change improves scale, performance, and farm usability. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 was restricted to 15 portals per farm. Users can now host many more sites on a single set of hardware. Service level administration can now be delegated to power users. Users can configure their systems to reflect the system's current state. For example, they can move Web programs between sets of shared services to reflect organizational and political changes.

Migration path: Auto migrated as part of the server upgrades collection.

Topology Management
Description: The Topology Management user interface is replaced by a new management feature.

Reason for change: The inclusion of four additional products in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 requires a new method to manage the services on servers for ease of use. With the new feature, users can uniformly manage all services and servers for the Office Server products.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Security Model
Description: The previous security model objects (SPRole, SPList.PermissionsMask, and others) are marked obsolete to encourage use of the new, role-based security model. There is a new user interface for list-level permissions. Developers receive warnings if they try to use the obsolete objects in their code.

Reason for change: This change provides scalable security and a more consistent, role-based security model on all scopes: Web, list, folder, and item.

Migration path: Users must rewrite custom code. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 performs migration of existing security settings during upgrade. An attempt to compile outdated code generates an error message.

For more information see this link
Microsoft Technet

How to Create a FormView Webpart?

2008-05-27T02:30:00.001-07:00

Displaying the Infopath form on Browser as a Webpart using XMLFormView Control as bellow.

using System;
using ASP = System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web;
using Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.Server.Controls;

namespace WMDD.WebParts
{
public class FormViewer : ASP.WebParts.WebPart
{
protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
XmlFormView formView;
formView = new XmlFormView();
formView.Width = ASP.Unit.Percentage(100);
formView.Height = ASP.Unit.Pixel(100);
formView.XsnLocation = "Path to form XSN";
formView.ShowHeader = false;
formView.ShowFooter = false;

this.Controls.Add(formView);
base.CreateChildControls();
}
}
}

Free SharePoint Server 2007 eBooks

2008-05-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

Hi All of you Find the following link for good E-books of Sharepoint and other Microsoft Technologies

http://www.free-ebooks-download.org/free-ebook/dotnet/SharePoint/

BDC Meta man

2008-05-20T02:14:00.000-07:00

SAP is well known for being an enterprise level product, and as people within the enterprise know integration at this kind of level is not an easy task. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, the Business Data Catalog and BDC Meta Man have made this a lot easier, however due to the web service interface that SAP provides, integration between MOSS 2007 and SAP is still a challenge.

Not only for SAP we can integrate any line of business data using BDC.
BDC meta man tool is very helpful to developers in creating the Application definition files.

Please find the bellow link to download the free trial software.
http://www.lightningtools.com/downloads/bdcmetaman-download.aspx

For more details find the below link...
http://www.lightningtools.com/sap/business-data-catalog.aspx

Points to remember when designing custom workflows using Infopath 2007 and 2010

2008-05-16T04:36:00.000-07:00

InfoPath and Work flows
Developing sequential or state machine workflow using InfoPath are same as we have discussed in work flows with ASPX pages.

The way of implementation is little different than ASPX pages, we will discuss the steps which will be easy than implementing with ASPX pages.
First step, we need to create a InfoPath form as per our requirement i.e. Association/Initiation/Task from.

Next steps are shown in bellow.
1. We need to set the Submit button Properties as actions->To Dataconneection-
>Submit to host (ASP.Net web appl)
2. To get the XSD file from infopath go to Save as source Files which generates a
folder from that folder we can get the xsd because we need a class that should be
seriallizable to store the serialization data to workflow.

In InfoPath 2010
Click on File, then Publish-> here we can see the Export Source files button is under the Export section.

The very common problem with InfoPath 2010 people selector control while generating a class for retrieving association or initiation data.
Error: Error generating classes for schema 'myschema'. - The element 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2007/PartnerControls:Person' is missing.The solution is very simple. Pass the other XSD also as an argument

XSD /c /l:cs myschema.xsd BuiltInActiveXControls.xsd

In InfoPath 2010, we can set browser compatability and security options using File->Form options, in 2007 we have to use design checker for setting these options.

3. To generate the Class from XSD use the following Command from vs command prompt.
C:/Infopath>xsd myschema.xsd /c
4. After that we have to include this class into C# Project.
At the same time we have to publish the Infopath in to our project folder.
5. In infopath 2007 we will get the xsn urn using File->Properties.

In InfoPath 2010File->Form template properties-> right most of the file options page

6. Before adding the codebase class in workflow.xml we have to place the assembly
into GAC and copy the public key token in the workflow.xml file.
7. In Infopath we have to set the security level into Domain and check the Browser
compatabilty.
8. for Taskedit form we have to use TaskListContentTypeId in workflow.xml

Trouble shooting:
When publishing the infopath to ASP.net host in 3rd step remove the access path from text box which will appear by default otherwise there will be a chance to get an error while uploading the infopath form into server. We can check whether InfoPath form is deployed properly or not using Central Admin site Form services.

After successful deployment of InfoPath form we need to write a code to retrieve the submitted
Association/ Task /Initiation data as shown in bellow snippet.

Before discussing this, we should know the difference of both ASPX pages and InfoPath forms, In InfoPath form we no need to worry about the saving of user entered data and loading of datawhich will take care by workflow run time where as ASPX pages we have to write our own logic to load the default or save the user entered data.

workflowId = workflowProperties.WorkflowId;
XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(InitForm));
XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(new System.IO.StringReader(workflowProperties.InitiationData));
InitForm initform = (InitForm) serializer.Deserialize(reader);
assignee = initform.assignee;
instructions = initform.instructions;
comments = initform.comments;

We can get the association data also using WorkFlowProperties and Task data using task properties as discussed in ASPX pages i.e. using Extended Properties.
Important thing is, we need to specify the InfoPath forms as shown in bellow which is same as ASPX pages except few changes.
In workflow.xml file

AssociationUrl="_layouts/CstWrkflIP.aspx"
InstantiationUrl="_layouts/IniWrkflIP.aspx"
ModificationUrl="_layouts/ModWrkflIP.aspx">
These are the pages where our InfoPath form will be load using FormView web parts and we need to specify our InfoPath form urn as shown in bellow.

urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:DemoInitiation:-myXSD-2007-03-03T23-40-46
urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:DemoInitiation:-myXSD-2007-03-03T23-40-46
urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:TaskEdit:-myXSD-2007-03-03T23-45-45

We have discussed above how can we get the URN of the InfoPath form.

Debugging the Webparts in sharepoint 2007..

2008-05-16T04:33:00.000-07:00

1. Place a break point on the code of interest in Visual Studio.
2. Under the Debug Menu, select Attach to Process
3. Find the w3wp.exe process. If none exists, begin browsing to the site that has the web part you are debugging. (I usually conduct an IIS reset so that all of the w3wp.exe processes go away and the sole one that you are interested in is easier to find)
4. Watch as the page processes and as soon as your web part is hit, Visual Studio will load symbols and begin the debugging process.

Enterprise Search in MOSS..

2008-05-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

Brief Information about Sharepoint Search.

1. All of the classes related to the search administration (the major ones are displayed in Figure 1) are defined in the Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration namespace.
2. Total 5 types of content sources
• Sharepoint Sites
• Web sites
• File Shares
• Exchange public Folders
• BDC.
• Lotus Notes (using object model we can create)
3. Search Scope: A search scope is a subdivision of the index built up by the crawler. The items in the index will be matched again to one or more rules created by the administrator. From a user’s perspective, a search scope is a means to limit the amount of search results returned after a search query to only those that match the rules contained within the search scope. Examples can be: get me only the search results for one specific content source, or get me only the documents authored by Brian Cox.
4. Managed properties map to one or more of the crawled properties. They group together the related crawled properties and expose them to the user. For example, after a crawl, you can end up with three different properties: Product Code, Product Code, and Product Number.
5. By default, search term stemming is not enabled. Stemming is a method of mapping a linguistic stem to all matching words to increase the number of relevant results. For example, the stem "buy" matches "bought", "buying", and "buys". Another option is to enable or disable noise word queries. It is turned on by default, which means that users are able to input a search string containing only noise words, such as "the", "or", and "a".

Some good links I have found for MCTS 70-542

2008-05-15T04:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.itexamsking.biz/free-70-542-exam-dumps-free-70-542-sample-QA-9883.htm

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb608302.aspx (Search Chapter in Inside office sharepoint book)

This link will helps a lot for this exam, 15% of questions covered from Search.

http://www.u2u.info/Blogs/Patrick/Lists/Categories/Category.aspx?Name=MOSS%202007 (Good Blog)

Document Converters in MOSS 2007

2008-03-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

Read this article for Document converters in sharepoint 2007 which is helpful to the people who are preparing for the MCTS 70-542 exam

Document Converters
A document converter is a custom executable file that takes a document of one file type, and generates a copy of that file in another file type. For example, a document converter might take a Microsoft Office Excel file and use it to generate a Microsoft Office PowerPoint file. Using document converters, you can transform your content into different versions to suit your business needs. Perhaps you want to convert draft documentation into a different, final format for long-term archiving; or perhaps you need to convert your internal documentation to a different format for placement on a customer-facing site.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes an extensible framework for you to enable your own custom document converters for the document libraries in a Web application. The basic steps to develop a custom document converter are as follows:
1. Ensure document conversion is enabled for your Web application.
2. Create an executable file that can be called by using a specific command line command.
3. Package the executable file, along with a document converter definition file, as a Feature that can be deployed and activated at the Web-application level.
4. Install and activate the document converter; you can further configure the document converter using the Central Administration user interface.
For more information about the command line command to which document converters must respond, see Document Converter Run Command.
For more information about deploying document converters, see Document Converter Deployment.
Document Conversion Process Overview
Because document conversions can be resource intensive, Office SharePoint Server 2007 relies on two services, DocConversionLoadBalancerService and DocConversionLauncherService, to manage the load balancing, prioritizing, and scheduling of the conversions. When a user initiates a document conversion, either through the user interface or object model, Office SharePoint Server 2007 passes the document conversion request to these two services. It is the DocConversionLauncherService service that actually calls the document converter. When called, the document converter takes the original file and generates a converted copy. Office SharePoint Server 2007 then takes the converted copy and performs certain post-processing actions on it. These actions include:
· Adding the metadata from the original file to the converted copy.
· Adding metadata that identifies the original file and document converter used to generate the converted copy.
· Notifying the specified people that the conversion has been performed.
· Placing the converted copy into the same document library as the original file.
For more information about the DocConversionLoadBalancerService and DocConversionLauncherService services, see Services Necessary for Document Conversion.
For more information about the command line command to which document converters must respond, see Document Converter Run Command.
For more information about the post-processing actions that Office SharePoint Server 2007 performs on converted copies, see Converted Documents.
Document Converter Scope
Document converters are enabled at the Web-application level. After a document converter is activated for a Web application, the converter is available for every document library in every site in that Web application.
You cannot disable a document converter for a specific site or document library.
You can also prevent a document converter from being displayed in the user interface. In such a case, the document converter is accessible only through the Office SharePoint Server 2007 object model. For example, you might have a document converter that is used only by administrators as part of a batch process to archive items. You would not want other users to be able to employ this document converter through the user interface.
Document Conversion File Types
For a Web application, you can have multiple converters that take original documents of the same file type extension, and generate converted copies of the same file type extension. For example, you might have multiple converters that take an Excel file and convert it to a PowerPoint file. Each converter performs different conversion functions on the file, but in each case the final file type extension is the same. Because of this, you can have multiple converted copies of the same file type for the same original document.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 stores the GUID of the converter used to create each specific converted copy. It uses the GUID, rather than the file type extension, to determine whether a specific converter has been used to generate a converter copy.
Converting IRM-Protected Files
If a document is protected by Information Rights Management (IRM), any converted copy you create will also be IRM protected. If you have a document in an IRM-protected file format, and you select a converter that would generate a converted copy in a file format that is not IRM-protected, the conversion results in an error.
For more information about IRM-protected file formats, see Information Rights Management in Windows SharePoint Services Overview in the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK.
Conversion Priority
You can set the priority for each document conversion to one of three levels. The DocConversionLauncherService service considers document conversion priority when scheduling the order in which document conversion requests are fulfilled.
Following are the priority values.
1 (High)
Default priority for all document conversions initiated through the Office SharePoint Server 2007 user interface.
2 (Normal)
Default priority for all document conversions initiated using the Windows SharePoint Services object model.
3 (Low)
Recommended priority level for large batches of document conversions. Document conversions can be resource intensive, especially when performed in batches.
You cannot explicitly set document conversion priority through the user interface.
You can explicitly set the priority of a document conversion request using the object model by setting the priority argument of the Convert method.
Page Publishing Using Document Converters
The Web content management feature in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes the ability to convert documents into Web pages that can be published to a specified location, and updated from the source document as necessary. This enables users to author documents in the client application they choose and take advantage of the features that application offers, store those documents in Office SharePoint Server 2007, and then have Office SharePoint Server 2007 generate a publishing page from the document.
Conversion Process Overview
The document to page conversion process is built on the document converter infrastructure in Office SharePoint Server 2007. You start the conversion through the user interface or by using either the Add or UpdateContentFromSourceDocument methods. The document to convert is passed, along with an optional XML file containing converter settings, to the DocConversionLoadBalancerService service, which in turn calls the DocConversionLauncherService service. The DocConversionLauncherService service launches the specified converter, which converts the document into HTML using the configuration settings that are passed to the converter. The converter produces a fully-formed HTML document.
Finally, the document to page converter infrastructure performs post-processing that accomplishes the following:
· Separation of the HTML generated by the converter from the contents of the tag and any inline tags.
· Creation of a new page, or updates of an existing page, at the specified location and using the selected page layout.
· Placement of the body and styles content data into the specified fields in that page
The following figure shows the document to page conversion process.
The post-processing steps of publishing a page and inserting the HTML content generated by the converter into that page differ from and replace the standard post-processing procedures of standard document converters.
Post-processing for standard document converters includes copying metadata from the original document to the converted document, and placing the converted document directly into the same document library as the original document. For more information about the standard document conversion process, see Document Converters.
Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes four document to page converters:
· Docx file to Web page
· Docm file to Web page
· Microsoft Office InfoPath file to Web page
· Generic XML file to Web page; converts an XML file to a Web page by means of an XSLT transformation specified by the user. The XSLT must be able to convert XML to HTML.
Relationship Between Original Document and Published Page
Unlike standard document conversions, in document to page conversions, both the published page and the original document retain object model properties that represent links to each other. The published page includes a property that represents the original document on which it is based; similarly, the original document includes a property that represents the last published page generated from it.
You can use a single converter to publish multiple pages from the same original document. You can also use multiple converters to publish pages from the same original document. You can even publish multiple pages from the same original document, and into the same document library, if you specify different conversion settings.
Be aware that only the property pointing to the last Web page created is stored with the original document.
Synchronous and Asynchronous Conversion
The user can select whether to run the document to page conversion immediately, or as an asynchronous timer job, either through the user interface or programmatically.
Be aware that the speed of the conversion can be impacted by the following:
· The number of document converter launcher services
· The volume of conversion requests
If you call a converter synchronously, and someone is already using the first launcher to convert a file, the call is routed to the second launcher, and so on until an open launcher is found. However, if you only have a single launcher, or all the launchers are in use, the conversion call fails. Office SharePoint Server 2007 handles this situation by resubmitting the conversion as an asynchronous job. In such a case, your conversion may take longer because the timer job commences, finds the conversion request, and then continues the conversion. This resubmission process occurs regardless of whether the conversion is initiated through the user interface or programmatically.

Good site For Collection of Articles

2008-03-14T01:55:00.001-07:00

Find the following link for Collection of Articles and MOSS Resources links.

http://www.wssdemo.com

Infopath 2007

2008-03-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

The following controls are not supported in browser-compatible form templates :

Combo box
Multiple-selection list boxes
Master/detail controls
Bulleted, numbered, and plain list controls
Picture and ink picture controls
Ink picture controls
Vertical labels
Scrolling regions
Horizontal regions
Horizontal repeating tables
Choice group, repeating choice group, and choice section controls
Repeating recursive sections
ActiveX controls

70-542 MCTS Sharepoint Application Developer.

2008-03-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

For MCTS 70-542 refer this link it is very nice .

http://paulgalvin.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!1CC1EDB3DAA9B8AA!192.entry

For More information check this link.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-542.mspx

Sample example for Excel Services using Excel Webservices

2008-02-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Sample Excel services

1.Add web reference to a Excel web services using Url http:///_vti_bin/ExcelService.asmx?wsdl
2. Write the following ode to access web services methods

namespace ExcelSample
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
ES.ExcelService s = new ES.ExcelService();
string strWorkBookPath = "http://server/Suman_Test/Documents/Suman_Test_Workbook.xlsx";
string strSessionid;
s.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
ES.Status[] status;
strSessionid = s.OpenWorkbook(strWorkBookPath, "en-US", "en-US", out status);
object objGetCell = s.GetCellA1(strSessionid, "Sheet1", "C8", true, out status);
Console.WriteLine(objGetCell);
s.SetCell(strSessionid, "Sheet1", 1, 0, "44");
object objGetCell2 = s.GetCell(strSessionid, "Sheet1", 1, 0, true, out status);
Console.WriteLine(objGetCell2);
s.CloseWorkbook(strSessionid);
}
}
}
The above example is for get or set the particular cell in workbook we can also set or get the range of values from Excel.