Live Framework: Creating a Silverlight Mesh-enabled web application in 8 steps

I stumbled across this pretty awesome how-to article that talks about how to create a Silverlight Application that utilises features from the Mesh!

Enjoy...
Live Framework – creating a Silverlight Mesh-enabled web application in 8 steps

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - SharePoint Lookup Field Relinker Utility

I've had a dig into my code stash, and found that I actually have a tool to help reassociate SharePoint lookup fields to lists. You'd only every really need to reassociate if the list referenced by the lookup field has an altered GUID. The GUID of a list would change if it has been deleted, or if you migrate a list from one environment to another.

I'm quiet flat out atm, so I'll post some more information in the next week or so with instructions on how to use this tool.

Background
This tool was used as part of a migration plan across servers using site backup and restore. The restored site ended up with lists that had lookups that did not associate with the appropriate columns. This is because the ID of the list in the new environment is different after a restore. Therefore the stored lookup field definition will no long be validly pointing to the correct ID of the list column that it was associated with - hence the need for this tool to reassociate such lookup fields with the relevant list columns that it references from.

Hopefully this little tool could help save alot of pain in migrating lookup fields in lists.

Some notes on the utility:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This tool was developed to reassociate or fix SharePoint lookup fields to lists in a site.

This tool is able to:
1. Relink lookup fields
2. Relink multiple lookup fields from an XML definition (Bulk tasks)
3. View Field Schema

This tool is useful in the following scenarios:
1. A list a lookup field is pointing to has been deleted and needs to be linked to a different field in a different list
2. A site backup is made and is restored in a different environment - The lookup fields will no longer link to
the field even thought the appropriate lists may be created. This tool will help relink the fields

Requirements for this tool to run:
1. Must login as Site Administrator - as the code will delete the lookup field and recreate it (Did not use RunWithElevatedPrivileges() for security purposes.)
2. Tool must be run on a WSS v3.0 or MOSS 2007 Server directly
3. Sorry, this tool has only been tested on an English environment - but theoretically should still work
with other localisations of SharePoint instances.

Where to download:
http://www.codeplex.com/SPLookupLinker

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - Calculated fields VS Computed fields

Audience
This article is intended for SharePoint Developers. Non-Developers, can understand what SharePoint can do thru this article. As I couldn't find much about this topic on the net, I thought I'd write about it :)

Introduction
SharePoint, being apart of Office, inherits a feature that is familiar amongst Microsoft Excel users - aka the "Calculated Field", which allows the user to specify a formula to determine the value of a field based on the value of other fields.

Recently I've had a go at trying to combine multiple reference fields into one field in SharePoint. Whilst there are many ways to do it (with an event handler, workflow, or calculated fields), I'd like to present to you a very clean solution based on a "Computed Field" type.

Computed fields are used by standard SharePoint components. For example, in a Blog Site there is a list named "Posts". This list contains a field called "PostedByWithDate" - which is a combination of a "Published" date-time field and a "Created By" person field. The output not only contains a combination of "Publised" and the "Created By" values but also includes custom text:



To show you what I mean, this is the "Posts" list, and their values:


Time to Play with Computed Fields
So what can we do with this? We can set the value of a computed field conditionally thru some field reference definitions!

Lets start by looking at the definition for the computed field (I'll assume you read the SDK to understand this):

<Field Name="OnBehalfOf" ID="{e9d780a5-ac18-4a04-ad63-39c6a7417212}" DisplayName="OnBehalfOf" Type="User" Required="FALSE" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3" List="UserInfo"
Description="Use this field when you are posting on behalf of the blog owner" ShowField="ImnName" UserSelectionMode="PeopleOnly" UserSelectionScope="0" StaticName="OnBehalfOf" ColName="int3" RowOrdinal="0" />

Original
The original field definition for the PostedByWithDate field (Which I extracted from the SharePoint Blog Site Definition contains):

<Field Name="PostedByWithDate" ID="{a1944d80-14e6-a71c-b235-3a28329f14b1}" Type="Computed" ReadOnly="TRUE" DisplayName="$Resources:posts_schema_blgfld_postedbywithdate;" Sortable="FALSE" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3"
StaticName="PostedByWithDate">
<FieldRefs>
<FieldRef Name="Author" />
<FieldRef Name="PublishedDate" />
</FieldRefs>
<DisplayPattern>
<HTML><![CDATA[Posted at ]]></HTML>
<Column Name="PublishedDate" Format="TimeOnly" HTMLEncode="TRUE" />
<HTML><![CDATA[ by ]]></HTML>
<Field Name="Author" />
</DisplayPattern>
</Field>

SharePoint Magic

Now what I did was create a copy of this column (in a new Site Template - remember it is not supported only if you modify existing SharePoint Site Templates), and modified it like the following:

<Field Name="PostedByWithDate" ID="{a1944d80-14e6-a71c-b235-3a28329f14b1}" Type="Computed" ReadOnly="TRUE" DisplayName="$Resources:posts_schema_blgfld_postedbywithdate;" Sortable="FALSE" SourceID="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/v3"
StaticName="PostedByWithDate">
<FieldRefs>
<FieldRef Name="Author" />
<FieldRef Name="OnBehalfOf" />
<FieldRef Name="PublishedDate" />
</FieldRefs>
<DisplayPattern>
<HTML><![CDATA[Posted at ]]></HTML>
<Column Name="PublishedDate" Format="TimeOnly" HTMLEncode="TRUE" />
<HTML><![CDATA[ by ]]></HTML>
<IfEqual>
<Expr1>
<Column Name="OnBehalfOf" HTMLEncode="FALSE" />
</Expr1>
<Expr2></Expr2>
<Then><Field Name="Author" /></Then>
<Else><Field Name="OnBehalfOf" /></Else>
</IfEqual>
</DisplayPattern>
</Field>

The node is used for fields to allow for custom presentation of information. nodes can be added to introduce logical conditions for how data is presented. gives the field if-else logic; in this case, it checks if the value of the "OnBehalfOf" field is equal to nothing, and if it is, return the value from the "Author" field, else return the value from the "OnBehalfOf" field.

Very straight forward indeed :) The result can be seen in the screen shots above - when the OnBehalfOf field is blank, the value in the "Created by" field is shown with the date.


Some References:
Field Element: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms437580.aspx
DisplayPattern Element: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms977561.aspx
IfEqual Element: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms948315.aspx

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - SharePoint Designer Workflows does not automatically start

Today, I created a SharePoint Workflow with SharePoint Design 2007, selected the options for it to be started upon the creation of a new item and upon the modification of a new item. It didn't start!

However, if I enable the option to start the workflow manually, and do so, the workflow starts!

A google search lead me to an answer:

This behavior occurs because a security fix in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 prevents declarative workflows from starting automatically under the system account. After you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1, declarative workflows do not start automatically if the following conditions are true:

• The Windows SharePoint Services Web application runs under a user's domain account.
• The user logs in by using this domain account.
• The site displays the user name as System Account.

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

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - My Sites and "Portal Site Connections" to change breadcrum behaviour

Summary
My Sites have proved to be a true value-add to any organisation as it does improve social personal information sharing (and alot more). It is easy to setup and logical to use.

There are however still several glitches when it is first setup in an environment. For instance, many users have found that once they navigate to their MySite, there is no link in the breadcrum back to the main Intranet Portal (as illustrated below):


Luckily, there's a setting called "Portal site connections", once this setting is set, you would have modified the behaviour of your My Site breadcrums (as illustrated below):


Making the configuration change
Assuming we want to make this change to all My Sites under the current "My Site Host", we will need to perform the following steps:

1. Login to My Sites as the My Site Host owner (in my case this user is administrator)
2. Browse to the "My Profile" tab
3. Click "Site Actions"
4. Select "Site Settings" from the Site Actions menu (or http://mysiteurl/_layouts/settings.aspx)



5. Click "Portal site connection" under Site Collection Administration


6. Select Connect to portal site and fill in a URL and link name (example illustrated below):
7. Click "OK"



Notes: When you now go back to the "My Profile" tab, you will see the change immediately. This change will only be valid for any new "My Sites" that are created (Not the MySite host or My Profile tab. Yes, personal sites aka the "My Home" tab) . For "My Home" tabs in existing "My Sites", you can either recreate the My Site, or make the same configuration via the following instructions:

1. Login to My Sites as the My Site Host owner (in my case this user is administrator)
2. Browse to the "My Home" tab
3. And follow from point 3 in the instructions above

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - New SharePoint SDK

In the most recent MSDN flash are the following updates to take note of - some new SharePoint SDK releases:

Download the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK (Aug 08 1.4 Refresh)
The August 2008 update of the SharePoint Server 2007 SDK contains documentation for new and improved features in the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers and new conceptual, procedural, and reference information. You can also view the August update online.

Download the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK (Aug 08 1.4 Refresh)
See the latest additions to the Windows SharePoint Services SDK. Find conceptual overviews, programming tasks, and references for Windows SharePoint Services. View the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK online.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007

What is the best way to do something in SharePoint?

Recently, the SharePoint Team Blog announced the SharePoint Best Practices Series (http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/08/29/announcing-the-sharepoint-best-practices-series.aspx).

The series includes a "Best Practices Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007" site, which includes all guidelines about implementing Search, Publishing Portals, My Sites, Team Collaboration, SP Development, and more!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb736746.aspx

Tech-Ed Australia 2008

If you are going to Tech-Ed in Sydney this week, you can catch a few very interesting SharePoint/Search sessions:

• OFC315 - Why Findability Should Be an Organising Principle for Your SharePoint Server 2007 Deployment. Presented by Ivan Wilson (SharePoint Gurus) and Ben Curry (MindSharp)
• OFC301 - Form Processes in Minutes, not Months. Presented by Ivan Wilson (SharePoint Gurus) and Ben Walters (SDM).
• MVP307 – SharePoint Monitoring – How to measure the success of your SharePoint implementation. Presented by Ivan Wilson (SharePoint Gurus)
• OFC302 Stop Searching... Find it! With Microsoft Enterprise Search. Presented by Gayan Peiris (Microsoft)
• OFC405 Creating Solutions with the Business Data Catalog. Presented by Ishai Sagi (Unique World)

Also another interesting one with Silverlight and SharePoint:

• OFC303 Enhance the SharePoint User Interface with Silverlight 2.0. Presented by William Cornwill and Craig Harrowfield

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - WSS and MOSS VPCs

I just discovered Microsoft provides VPC's for SharePoint evaluation. If you are a little lazy and don't already have a VPC, these maybe a good starting point:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD (24 July 2007):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&DisplayLang=en

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 Developer Evaluation VPC Image (3 July 2008):
http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1BEEAC6F-2EA1-4769-9948-74A74BD604FA&displaylang=en

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 - Changing service accounts and service account passwords in SharePoint

I was trying to change passwords for my VPC and I stumbled across these very nice articles.

This Microsoft KB talks about changing the service account/service account password for WSSv3 and MOSS2007:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838

Joel Oleson's article talks about some additional tips including updating Search Service credentials:
http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2006/08/22/712945.aspx