SharePoint Use Cases

This week I delivered a SharePoint session at Microsoft Windays 2012 Conference in Rovinj, Croatia. The session was on SharePoint 2010 – Installation and maintenance – best practices. If you are a novice SharePoint admin this could be good staring material for your SharePoint project.

Two years ago, while SharePoint 2010 was still in beta, I released Search Suggest for SharePoint 2010 lists. A number of people contacted me with various bug reports and feature suggestions. Finally, I found some time and refactored this old code to accommodate your suggestions.

Changes

• Improvement: You can now define list columns (fields) to be queried
• Improvement: You can now customize the display format
• Fixed bug: Values from External Data Columns are not shown
• Fixed bug: Web part is slow when querying a large list
• Fixed bug: Trying to use a SPWeb object that has been closed or disposed and is no longer used.

Installation

Search AutoComplete for SharePoint Lists is a SandBox solution and can be deployed to any farm environment. If Sandbox solutions are disallowed for your site collection, contact your farm administrator.

UPGRADE: If you already have a previous version, uninstall it, and then re-add the solution.

• Download and unpack solution package (it also available as open source project on CodePlex)
• Go to your Site Collection > Site Actions > Site Settings
• Browse Galleries > Solutions
• Go to Solutions ribbon tab and click Upload Solution
• Upload the WSP package you downloaded and Activate it
• Open a SharePoint web page and Insert a web part
  (from Custom > Search AutoComplete for Lists)

Configuration

You can configure this web part via web part tool pane. Use the following settings from the Search section:

• List name – Enter list name that you want to search
• Display Fields Format – Enter fields whose value you want to display. Use static field names.
  Each field must be in square brackets. E.g. [FirstName] [Title] (phone [WorkPhone])
• Query Fields – Fields that will be queried. Separate fields with semicolon. Use static field names. e.g. Title;FirstName;WorkPhone

Additional appearance options can be found in the Miscellaneous category.

Configuration Examples

The following table lists suggested configurations for default SharePoint lists (English template).

In order to use Windows PowerShell for SharePoint 2010 Products, a user must be a member of the SharePoint_Shell_Access, and you can do that via Add-SPShellAdmin cmdlet. However if user needs to work with a lot of content databases then you need to repeat this procedure over and over. Here is a simple script that will add a user to the SharePoint_Shell_Access role for all content databases.

if((Get-PSSnapin | Where {$_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"}) -eq $null) {
    Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell;
}
cls
$username = Read-Host "Enter username";
Get-SPContentDatabase | ForEach-Object {Add-SPShellAdmin -UserName $username -database $_.Id}

Yesterday Microsoft announced Office365 (trial) availability in 22 additional countries (including Croatia ).

This blog post explains what you need to do in order to enable additional languages for the SharePoint site hosted in the Office365 environment:

• Open your team site via browser.
• Click on the Site Actions > Site Settings.
  

• Navigate to the Site Administration > Language Settings.
• Specify the alternate language(s) that this site will support
  Currently Office365 supports: Arabic, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese – Simplified, Chinese – Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese – Brazilian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian – Latin, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian
• Click OK.
• From the User Settings menu, choose the desired language you want to use.
  

That’s it, your SharePoint site is now displayed in your desired language (the figure shows it in Croatian)

Two weeks ago I had a privilege to present at SharePoint Days 2010 at Bled, Slovenia. I delivered two presentations on Building business forms with InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Here are my slides:

Few days ago I spoke at Advanced Technology Day 7 conference organized by Microsoft Croatia here in Zagreb.

You can find my slides below, all the samples are available for download on codeplex or here.

I am reposting my original post with new links and (+ some borrowed from Wictor Wilen class links).

————————-

I recently taught a couple of SharePoint 2010 readiness courses for new SharePoint IT PROs. Here are some links I usually email to them after the course:

(Please comment below if you think I should add something…)

General Links

• SharePoint 2010 Demo VM machine
• Documentation Toolkit for SharePoint – automatically document your SharePoint farms
• SharePoint 2010 features by edition
• Planning sites and site collections
• Getting Started with SharePoint Server 2010 for IT Pros

Configuring User Profile Service

• Rational Guide to implementing SharePoint Server 2010 User Profile Synchronization
• Configure profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010)

Recommended Reading

• Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Unleashed
• Professional SharePoint 2010 Administration
• Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administrator’s Companion

Installing SharePoint

• Recommended Service Accounts
  • Managed and not managed accounts
• PowerShell script to install SharePoint 2010
• Various PowerShell scripts for SharePoint 2010
• Installing single-server farm
• Other installation options
• Removing GUIDs from your database names
• AutoSPInstaller – automatic SharePoint farm installation and configuration

Additional Learning Resources

• Learning Snacks
• webcasts, videos, virtual labs…
• SharePoint 2010 exams and recommended reading
• SharePoint Developer Center MSDN
• Developer HOLs
• SharePoint 2010 Advanced IT Professional Training

Maintaining SharePoint systems

• SharePoint Update Center
• SharePoint 2010 Build numbers

Forums

• SharePoint Overflow Q&A
• SharePoint Products and Technologies Forums

Useful SharePoint IT PRO Blogs

• Todd Klindt (Netcast)
• Spence Harbar

Various sites

• Nothing but SharePoint
• SharePoint Pod Show

PowerShell

• PowerGUI
• PowerGUI for Visual Studio

ULS Log Viewer

• Download ULS Log Viewer for SharePoint

Misc

• Site collection keep alive tool
• CAML builder
• Supported browsers

For third year in a row, I will be speaking at SharePoint Conference Slovenia. This time we are heading to beautiful alpine lake Bled.

Lake Bled, Slovenia

I will have two sessions: Building business forms with InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010 – Part1 and Building business forms with InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010 – Part 2. Full schedule is available here. There will be a number of international speakers at the conference including: Claudio Brotto, Boris Gomiunik, Matjaž Perpar, Dejan Sarka, Robi Vončina, Uroš Žunič, Rok Bermež, Zlatan Dzinic, Joel Oleson, Paul J. Swider, Grega Jerkič, Tone Šivic and Michael Noel. Really looking forward to this conference!

Apply for the conference!

While working with a client yesterday we noticed users could not view Excel files in browser. A quick analysis of ULS logs revealed the following issue:

There was an error in communicating with Excel Calculation Services http://server_name:port/2a7905259ea644f3a2d8ebd2bcf1ee9f/ExcelService*.asmx exception: An error has occurred. ServerSession.GetNextServerHealthBased: There are no healthy servers although the number of available server in the farm is {1}; updated with no candidates available for the health based load balancing. The update duration was {0} millisecs.

Here is what you can do to fix this issue:

• Use PowerShell command Get-SPSessionStateService to check the state of Session State Service Application (it has to be Enabled)
• Using Enable-SPSessionStateService command to enable the service
• Restart IIS

Hope this help!

Last year I wrote a PowerShell chapter for SharePoint 2010 Unleashed. One of the scripts that is available in the book allows you to easily backup SharePoint 2010 site collections. The Backup-SPSite cmdlet is available in SharePoint 2010 OOTB, but we wanted to show our readers you can do more with PowerShell.

Therefore this script allows you to:

• Backup a single site collection or multiple site collections.
• You can limit the number of backup files to keep (e.g. last 5 backups).
• Once backup is completed, the administrator will be sent and e-mail with the information about the backup status, site collection size and backup file size.

Backuping just Site Collections is not enough to restore your entire farm, check SharePoint 2010 backup. You can document your SharePoint farm settings with our tool Documentation Toolkit for SharePoint.

Here are the examples how you can call the backup script:

# Backup all site collections in your farm
Get-SPSite -Limit All | ForEach-Object {Backup-SPSiteCollections -SPSiteID $_.ID -BackupFolder "C:\Backups\" -SiteName $_.Url -BackupFilesLimit 5 -Email "your-email@contoso.com" -SmtpServer "smtp.contoso.com"}
#
#Backup a site collection whose URL equals http://intranet.contoso.com
Get-SPSite | Where {$_.Url -eq "http://intranet.contoso.com"} | ForEach-Object {Backup-SPSiteCollections -SPSiteID $_.ID -BackupFolder "C:\Backups\" -SiteName $_.Url -BackupFilesLimit 5 -Email "your-email@contoso.com" -SmtpServer "smtp.contoso.com"}
#
#Backup all site collections whose URL is not equal to http://no-backup.contoso.com, no emails will be sent
Get-SPSite | where {$_.Url -ne "http://no-backup.contoso.com"} | ForEach-Object {Backup-SPSiteCollections -SPSiteID $_.ID -BackupFolder "C:\Backups\" -SiteName $_.Url -BackupFilesLimit 5}

You can also schedule this script to be run via Scheduled Task. The user running the scheduled task must have proper privileges to perform backup operations.

• Create an action for scheduled task to Start a program.
• Type powershell to Program/Script textbox.
• Paste the full path to your script to Arguments textbox (e.g. C:\Scripts\BackupScript.ps1)

Here is the entire script:

#
# SharePoint 2010 Unleashed - PowerShell SharePoint backup script
# http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-SharePoint-2010-Unleashed-Michael/dp/0672333252
# Copyright: Toni Frankola
# Version: 1.1.0, Jul 2011.
#
# Source: http://www.sharepointusecases.com/?p=1597
# Licensed under the MIT License:
# http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
#
cls
if((Get-PSSnapin | Where {$_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"}) -eq $null) {
	Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell;
}
Function Backup-SPSiteCollections ()
{
	param(
		[Parameter(
			Position=0,
			Mandatory=$true
		)]
		[Guid]$SPSiteID,
		[Parameter(
			Position=0,
			Mandatory=$true
		)]
		[string]$BackupFolder,
		[Parameter(
			Position=0,
			Mandatory=$true
		)]
		[string]$SiteName,
		[Parameter(
			Position=0,
			Mandatory=$true
		)]
		[int]$BackupFilesLimit,
		[Parameter(
			Position=0,
			Mandatory=$false
		)]
		[string]$Email = "",
		[Parameter(
			Position=0,
			Mandatory=$false
		)]
		[string]$SmtpServer = ""
	)
	$siteNameSlug = $SiteName -replace "https://", ""
	$siteNameSlug = $siteNameSlug -replace "http://", ""
	$siteNameSlug = $siteNameSlug -replace ":", "-"
	$siteNameSlug = $siteNameSlug -replace " ", "-"
	$siteNameSlug = $siteNameSlug -replace "/", "-"
	$siteNameSlug = $siteNameSlug -replace "\.", "-"
	# Test if backup folder exists
	if (Test-Path $BackupFolder)
	{
		# Retrive previous backup files , sorted by last write time (last modified)
    	$files = Get-Childitem $BackupFolder | where {$_.Name -like ("*" + $siteNameSlug + "*.dat")} | Sort $_.LastWriteTime
    	$filesCount = @($files).Count
		# If there are more files in directory than backupFilesLimit
    	if($filesCount -ge $BackupFilesLimit)
    	{
			# Delete all older files
        	for ( $i=0; $i -lt $filesCount-$BackupFilesLimit+1; $i++)
        	{
            	Remove-Item ($BackupFolder + $files[$i].Name)
        	}
    	}
	}
	# If backup folder does not exist it will be created
	else
	{
		New-Item $BackupFolder -type directory
	}
    $backupFileName = ("" + $siteNameSlug + "_" + (Get-Date -Format yyyy-MM-ddThh-mm-ss) + ".dat")
    $backupFilePath = $BackupFolder + $backupFileName
	$startTime = Get-Date
    Backup-SPSite -identity $_.ID -path ($backupFilePath) -force
    $endTime = Get-Date
	# Checking if Email and SmtpServer values have been defined
	if($Email -ne "" -and $SmtpServer -ne "")
	{
		$subject = "SharePoint Site Collection Backup Completed!"
		$body = "The following site collection was backuped: " + $SiteName + "`n"
		$body += "Site collection was backuped to: " + $backupFileName + "`n"
		$body += "Backup started on: " + $startTime + ", and ended on: " + $endTime + "`n`n"
		# Retrieving Site Collection size
		$SiteCollectionSize = Get-SPSite "http://intranet.contoso.com" | Select @{Label="Size"; Expression={$_.Usage.Storage/1MB}} | Select Size
		# Retrieving backup file size
		$backupFileSize = Get-ChildItem $backupFilePath
		$backupFileSize = [Math]::Round($backupFileSize.length/1MB, 2)
		$body += "Site collection size on SharePoint system is: " + [Math]::Round($SiteCollectionSize.Size, 2) + " MB`n"
		$body += "Backup file size: " + $backupFileSize + " MB"
		$smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($SmtpServer)
		# Sending email
		$smtp.Send($Email, $Email, $subject, $body)
	}
}
# Backup all site collections in your farm
Get-SPSite -Limit All | ForEach-Object {Backup-SPSiteCollections -SPSiteID $_.ID -BackupFolder "C:\Backups\" -SiteName $_.Url -BackupFilesLimit 5 -Email "your-email@contoso.com" -SmtpServer "smtp.contoso.com"}
#Backup a site collection whose URL equals http://intranet.contoso.com
Get-SPSite | Where {$_.Url -eq "http://intranet.contoso.com"} | ForEach-Object {Backup-SPSiteCollections -SPSiteID $_.ID -BackupFolder "C:\Backups\" -SiteName $_.Url -BackupFilesLimit 5 -Email "your-email@contoso.com" -SmtpServer "smtp.contoso.com"}
#Backup all site collections whose URL is not equal to http://no-backup.contoso.com, no emails will be sent
Get-SPSite | where {$_.Url -ne "http://no-backup.contoso.com"} | ForEach-Object {Backup-SPSiteCollections -SPSiteID $_.ID -BackupFolder "C:\Backups\" -SiteName $_.Url -BackupFilesLimit 5}