Mart Muller's Weblog

Jessica Gruber wrote a cool article about how to create a menu in SharePoint using the SharePoint context menu and with data from an external data source. She came up with something cool:

"MSDN told us how to Customize the Shortcut Menu for List Items
 
Jim Duncan showed us how to move navigation elements (like Documents and Lists and Site Settings) to the Modify Shared Page menu
 
Ryan Rogers figured out how to delete context menu items
 
Mark Bower modified the original idea and gave us an example of adding context menu items with a hidden web part (no need for CustomJS or changes to ONET.XML)
 
But I wanted to take it just a bit further.  I wanted a new menu altogether for my own type of data from an external source.  And I wanted it to look just like a SharePoint context menu.  So, standing on the shoulders of these giants, I came up with this.
 
Walk with me, if you will, through my process... "

Read the full article

Via Ryan:

"The link below is to download the SPSReport utility, which was created by Mike McIntyre, an Escalation Engineer in PSS, and is used extensively by PSS in troubleshooting customer issues.  SPSReport, which is very similar to PSS MPSReports for other products/technologies, collects a ton of information from the SharePoint Portal Server machine on which it is run;  that information includes:  event logs, metabase/IIS settings, hotfix lists, MD5 sums of relevant directories, important registry entries, etc., etc., etc.  The download contains a readme file that contains all of the various information that it collects.

SPSReport can be used on SharePoint Portal Server 2001, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Windows SharePoint Services, and will gather a slightly different set of information depending on the version.

The tool can take quite a while to run, depending on the configuration of the machine, so it should not be taken lightly.  That said, if you can afford the time (the readme suggests "anywhere from a couple of minutes to over an hour") and the performance hit to the machine (again, this will depend on the configuration of the machine) this is a great way to get a whole lot of information stored off into a CAB file for review at a later time."

Get SPSReport Utility Now (1.11 MB)

Will do so! :)

Yesterday I read JOPX's topic about his one one year 'blogsphere' anniversary. Congrats Joris!

Then I realised, today was the end of MY first year of blogging! Whahoo! :) Time flies! Some stats:

The last 12 months I had:

• 526 posts
• 384341 visits by 99472 unique visitors
• 741687 pageviews with an average of 1014 pageviews a day
• The total amout of data bandwidth is about 48 GB 

Interesting fact about the last 6 months:

• 662383 pageviews with an average of 3639 pageviews a day!

A few personal highlights:

• SharePoint to the MAX: Live Communications Server Search Bot
• Competencies in SPS
• SharePoint, Office and VSTO 2005

Anyway, off to another year into blogsphere! :)

Man I love SharePoint error messages! ;) Maurice wrote a nice article about how to deal with the “A Web Part or Web Form Control on this Web Part Page cannot be displayed or imported because it is not registered on this site as safe.” error, from a developers point of view. It made me think and realise that SharePoint error messages are the best. So here is a list with my best messages:

• Unexpected Error occurred. When you try to connect to a configuration database (KB827841)
• General error occurred. When you try to create a portal site (KB827391)
• Form Validation Error. When uploading files into SharePoint (KB894629)
• Your search encountered and error. If the problem persists, contact the portal site administrator. When trying to do a search in your portal (KB838223)
• 'Edit Document' requires a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater. When you try to open a document in SharePoint (KB8936989)
• Cannot complete this action. When trying to open a WSS site (KB834546).
• Cannot connect to configuration database. When you access a WSS site (KB833183)

I know there are more and better error messages out there, so feel free contribute on this list! BTW, good thing to see that most of the errors are listed in the MS KB

Via Michiel I ran into an interesting document from IDC (2001) about the costs that can be saved with information worker portals. I know, it's an old document, but interesting to read and maybe convince customers about the benefits of implementing portals in their organisation.

Two examples from this document:

• A 1000-employee organisation spends about $2.5 million a year searching on information they can't find.
• A 1000-employee organisation spends about $5 million each year on reproducing information that already exists.

IDC_The_High_Cost_of_Not_Finding_Information.pdf (372.64 KB)

Another interesting (and old) article from Gartner (2000) about Return on Investment (ROI) of document management systems:

• It costs about € 20,- to save a document;
• It costs about € 120,- to find a document that is saved on a wrong location;
• A document is copied (fysical or digital) about 9 to 11 times, on which each copy costs about € 17,50.

Gartner_Document_Management_Assessing_Costs_and_Benefits.pdf (39.91 KB)

One of those things where I think of...is this the best way to deal with it? :)
Situation: I have a standard discussion board list with a discussion thread in it. I want to add a reply programatically, to that discussion thread (not creating a new discussion).

There are two things to keep in mind when doing that:

• The ThreadID field, which is an ID that should be the same in each thread.
• The Ordering field, which is a timestamp when the item is created.

When you want to add a new item in the same thread, you should create a new list item, duplicate the ThreadID and the set the timestamp, which is a duplicate of the original thread, PLUS the new timestamp. In code something like this:

SPListItem newItem = discussionList.Items.Add();
newItem["Title"] = "Title of item";
newItem["Body"] = "Body Text";
newItem["ThreadID"] = [ThreadID of original thread];
newItem["Ordering"] = [Ordering of original thread] + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmss");
newItem.Update();

I wonder where this is in the SDK...or anywhere else...

Nice story about a virtual business incubator, which will help fledgling and established entrepreneurs collaborate remotely through the incubator's network, bases on SharePoint Portal Server.

"In a small room visible from the campus center, the $1 million supercomputer links 448 computers held on 224 stacked servers, powered by a fridge-sized unit and cooled by full-blast air conditioning. "

...

"The program, an advanced application developed in South Africa based on Microsoft's SharePoint Portal software, will eliminate the space restrictions involved with a physical, conventional business incubator.

"There's endless applications, so that's the beauty of this thing," said Project Manager Jaco Cromhout. "It's not country-bound, it's not state-bound, it's not even time-bound."

Via Andrew and MicrosoftToday -- something which was to be expected and now official.

"Microsoft is melding the infrastructure underlying SharePoint Portal Server and Content Management Server (CMS) for the Office 12 wave starting next year.

Chris Capossela, group vice president of the companys Information Worker Product Group, recently said to expect more common technologies and integration, if not outright convergence, of the two servers. "

I hope to see and hear a lot more of this at PDC in september!

Read the full story

..well, actually not new, he's posting a while in Russian, but he started in English now. Way to go! :)

Anyway, nice first English post about SharePoint OWS Web Controls:

"In order to simplify SharePoint development, it is possible to use standard web controls implemented in Microsoft SharePoint assemblies and used by SharePoint team throughout the whole SharePoint system. These are for example OWS web controls contained in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll and available both in Windows SharePoint Services as in SharePoint Portal Server."

Visit his blog

[Via Mark]:

A free tool from Trinity Expert Systems for uploading email into a SharePoint environment, even when you are offline. I should really try this one.

"It allows emails to be uploaded to SharePoint while offline, storing them in a queue until the user goes online. This feature means remote workers can quickly share information contained within emails across the organisation.

When installed, the tool forms an integral part of Outlook, and allows an easy 'drag and drop' action to copy or move specific emails into document libraries within a SharePoint intranet. The uploader tool provides quick and easy access to the relevant SharePoint document library."

• Download
• Press Release
• MSN Group - Peer support / discussion

Via GotDotNet and Angus:

There is another tool for moving SharePoint data available: the SharePoint Migration Utility. Earlier this week I mentioned SMove which looks like a great tool for data migration as well.

"This is a quick & dirty Windows app that lets you list libraries and lists in a SharePoint site and export them to files. You can then reverse the process on another site (on the same or a different server) that has the same containers and import the content. This version is a slight update to the original with a few bug fixes and some console tweaks."

Download here

Sometimes I see new SharePoint things I have never thought of before, thinking "why haven't I tried this before?". :)

This time, Pedro from CaveDigital (who actually sent me a copy of his XML Form WebPreviewer, which I will post about in a short time) mentions me about how to add webparts in a list page. Very simple, and very effective! Nice tip!

Just go into a SharePoint list, add "?ToolPaneView=2" to the URL, and voila, you can manage the webparts on the page.

UPDATE: Like Renaud mentioned, this is not supported by MS (http://www.bluedoglimited.com/SharePointThoughts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=176)

Via Peter de Haas:

"The latest study by The Radicati Group, “Instant Messaging Market, 2005-2009,” provides an in-depth analysis of the worldwide instant messaging market, including installed base, market share, breakouts by region, and analysis of key vendor products and strategies. The study also contains results of a survey of IM use within 523 organizations worldwide.

Use of instant messaging amongst consumer and business users continues to increase, and is expected to drive the instant messaging market from 867 million accounts in 2005, to approximately 1.2 billion accounts in 2009.

The study shows that the majority of IM traffic in 2005 still exists mainly on the public IM networks (12.5 billion IMs sent per day), where the technology first took hold.The report segments the instant messaging market into: public IM networks, enterprise instant messaging vendors, and IM management vendors.IM management will become an increasingly integral part of the market, as enterprises that rely on the public IM networks for instant messaging look to IM management vendors for security against the rising onslaught of worms and viruses, as well as for archiving and logging tools for regulatory compliance."

Ok, who wants to pay $2500 for the whole paper? :)

Ian mentioned me about a new (minor) version of SMove. Major new feature is drag and drop Copy of Lists and Document Libraries, across sites, including properties and versions.

"SMove is a SharePoint Utility that takes the pain out of common SharePoint administration and development tasks."

Click here for more info, or a trial version.

There is a lot of talk about AJAX lately. It's not new but there are a lot of cool things that you could do with it. Some guys at Tam Tam dove into it and gave a session about it last week. One of the "demo's" they've built is "Seamen - Massive Multiplayer Battleships". A cool AJAX example I do not want to keep away from you!

Read more about AJAX

Charles Maxson has published a new article on MSDN about VSTO: Creating a Capital Expenditure Model with Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office and Excel 2003 Using Visual Basic and C#

Nice long name and like he points out, the shorter name (title of this article) would be just a little more catchy :)

"This article demonstrates how to take a sophisticated Excel spreadsheet model and turn it into an intuitive, easy-to-use, integrated application using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System "

Great article showing a nice example about how to use VSTO to create a richer user experience.

[via Adventure Girl]

"The purpose of the SharePoint Utility Suite is to provide a packaged collection of Tools and Utilities showcasing the rich Object Model that is delivered with the SharePoint Product and Technologies SDK (which includes Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003). This package includes code and tool examples that SharePoint Developers and SharePoint Administrators might find useful."

Nice set of tools, that can be usefull when developing with SharePoint

Download here

To be prepared when having customer interviews with system administrators for Technical Design input, I've created a checklist with subjects that have to be discussed. For SharePoint architects, these points could be very important to get an overview of all the risks and issues when implementing SharePoint. It might not be complete, so don't hesitate to shoot on it :)

PS: I know some items are kind of cryptic... please comment if you like.

Checklist for interviews with System Administrators when implementing SharePoint

Current server topology

¨      Current number of users

¨      Current amount of data

¨      Current performance load

¨      Exchange Server?

¨      Active Directory?

¨      SQL Server(s)?

¨      Current issues?

Future server topology

¨      New SharePoint/SQl/Indexing server?

¨      Third party applications?

¨      Estimated amount of data

¨      Estimated number of users

Client Computers

¨      Windows version

¨      Office version

¨      Future/vision?

Security

¨      HTTPS/SSL/Certificates?

¨      VPN?

¨      External use

¨      Current issues?

Backup/restore. Current situation, changes when implementing SharePoint

¨      Talk about Loosing Cntrol

¨      Item level restore

¨      SQL disk space

¨      Search/indexing

¨      WSS sites

¨      For 3^rd party solutions: software vendor & prices

Antivirus

¨      Current strategy

¨      Current software vendor

¨      Prices and requirements

Strategy

¨      How to deal with backup

¨      How to deal with restore

¨      How to deal with policies

Licensing

¨      Programs

¨      SPS vs. WSS

¨      Calls

System Integration

¨      Siebel/SAP/Peoplesoft/CRM/Lotus Notes, etc.

¨      Single Sign-on

¨      Live Communications Server

Dependencies

¨      With other applications (on the same server(s))

¨      .Net framework versions

¨      SQL used by?

¨      Current issues?

User management

¨      AD structure

¨      SharePoint Administrator User(s)

¨      External users

Development

¨      Developer access to servers

¨      Remote access (vpn)

¨      “Developing – Testing – Production” strategy

¨      Support & communication

I get a lot of questions from system administrators about how deal with documents, control and backup/restore for SharePoint. This is not the standard question about how to use which thrid party backup and restore tools, but more like a total different way of approach and a different way of working. Some of the questions:

• "Now, everyone just drops documents in a SQL database, how do I ever get control over permissions and other security issues?"
• "Right now, I get 10 requests a week for item level restore, how do I get those 10 documents out of a SharePoint backup, and more important, in the same timespan as I did before."
• "Versioning will fill up my SQL diskspace!"
• "Help, I can't tell anyone where which document is anymore.. I'll get lost!"

These questions are serious questions for system admins. It's imagineable that, even if they do know how SharePoint works, these questions are problems that system administrators _could_ face when implementing SharePoint.

Therefore, here are some tips and changes that might help system administrators to be convinced that the step in implementing SharePoint is a positive onw, and not about loosing control:

1. Loosing control?. You have lost control, or you will loose it when continueing using fileshares for document storage in the traditional way. If you look at the number of folders on fileshares, with the permissions attached to it, and then look at the sub folders.. and the sub-subfolders and so on. If you look at the dependencies of the files in those subfolders..depenencies that are referring at sub-subfolders in another folder stucture.. what happens if permissions change? What happens if those files will be moved? Total chaos, lost files and broken links will take over the network share. Yes, SharePoint will drop every document in a bin called SQL Server. But this way, together with metadata and SharePoint search (which also indexes the content of a document), you will simply and quickly be able to locate documents. Because of the decentralized responsibilities for example WSS sites and Area's. It's not your responsibility anymore to cope with permissions for those documents. Let the site admins do that!
2. Item Level Restore. About this, you should determine how many request you will get in a week for item level restore. Imagine there are 10, determine how many of them are request because an older version is overwritten? 8 you say? SharePoint comes with version control, which enables user to restore their own overwritten documents. About those other 2, deletion of files is because of a well thought action (open the dropdown and click delete, click yes). This is less quickly done then accidentally drag and drop folders and files, or hit the delete button. For those 2 request, consider the following: Will we change the user policy of restoring files? Users will change their way of working...and deleting.
3. SQL Diskspace. Versioning will fill up your SQL diskspace. But look at the current situation. Look at how many documents are sent by email right now to coworkers... and all the CC'd people! What if people send links to documents in sharepoint instead of the whole document itself? The benefits for your exchange diskspace will be bigger than the problems for SQL diskspace. Yes it will still grow, but because of SharePoint's scalability, adding SQL diskspace will be easy. It is a matter changing the way of working for users.
4. Lost documents. Answer each request for document that can't be found with an email containing a URL with a search query. Right now, users can search for documtents on a fileshare. Yes they can, but it takes hours to scan all the folders. SharePoint returns results within a second.
5. Teamsite backup. Consider to backup teamsites seperately using the standard tools. This way, it will be much easier to restore a complete WSS site at once when a site admin delete it by accident. It happens.
6. Recycle Bin. For users that keep throwing away the wrong documents in SharePoint: consider to implement a SharePoint recycle bin, which works just like the windows recycle bin.

This list might not be complete, but it gives an overview of the benefits for SharePoint vs. the traditional way of storing documents, and the way system administrators should look at it.

The Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Calendar Views Add-in makes it easy for you to view your Outlook Calendar appointments through a filter that is based on Outlook labels and categories. For example, you can create a view that shows you only the appointments on your calendar that are labeled Must Attend, or are categorized as Important.

You add filters by using the Calendar Views toolbar, which opens in your Outlook Calendar after you install the add-in.

[download]

Funny enough these things always come together the same time. Edward Ferron is talking about when using folders in document libraries and when not to use them. Same thing I discussed with a customer yesterday. I mentioned better to use meta data to group or order documents instead of folders. Edward describes the reasons why:

"When using document libraries in SharePoint try to avoid the temptation of creating nested folders.  There are several reasons you do not want ot create folders more than one level deep if you need to create them at all.

1. You are just recreating the problem you had in file severs when you created nested folders
2. You can not apply security to a folder in SharePoint
3. You can not add a folder by itself to a web page in a web part so personalization is difficult

Instead of creating folders in Document Libraries create a seperate document library, this allows users to consume the content most important to them and you have more control over security and other features such as custom views.

Q: When should you use folders?

A: Archiving documents - maybe you archive all documents for a year in the 2004 folder or if you have a lot of documents being added like meeting minutes maybe you add a folder for the month and archive all the meeting minute documents for a given month.

Note: A single level of folder structure is generally ok when you really do not desire to create a seperate document library for one reason or another however avoid going 2 and 3 levels deep (keep in mind these are just guidelines).

Q: How do I keep related document libraries together on a single page?

A: Create a web part page and add all of the document libraries to that web part page.  An example would be multiple document libraries for a given project, you would create a web part page called 'My Project Documents'.  Then you could take your Design, Models, Requirements, User documentation document libraries and store on the new web part page you just created."

I totally agree with him!

I'm going to PDC '05 this year which is very cool! Box Mixon keeps up a list with other people going to PDC. I'm really looking forward meeting people there and see some faces there :). So please insert your name in the list or send me an email or add me to your MSN contact list (mart@martmuller.nl)

[The PDC RSS feed]

from Xwiki:

"I am not certain I will be attending the PDC this year. However, it is being held in my backyard and I would enjoy meeting others from the community. Maybe we could enjoy a few laughs or war stories over dinner.

If you are going to the PDC, add your name to the list here. You must first be a registered member of this wiki before you can edit pages. So get registered (top of page), edit this page and let us know you will be in Los Angeles this year!"

Via Patrick:

"Interested in the overall story on the forthcoming Microsoft Commerce Server 2006, I attended a session here at TechEd A'Dam where I hoped to have my first glimpse on the product itself. But unfortunately, the presentation was all slides-based with a good overview of the new features of it. Things I will remember are:

• CS has been recreated exclusively on top of the .NET 2.0 framework. No more COM support! (although there is compatibility with your COM components in the CS pipeline)
• And yes, user controls and Web parts now for developers (e.g. shopping basket control, ...)
• There will be a complete set of new business user tools. Yep, they have finally replaced the BizDesk with a number of smart client Windows applications.
• There seems to be good integration (two-way) between Commerce Server 2006 and BizTalk 2006 with some new BizTalk adapters.
• Lots of integration also with SQL Server Reporting Services.
• The Catalog Manager looks very cool with some extra functionalities and we have a new Inventory Manager and Marketing Manager.
• There will be a new Starter Site for VS.NET 2005.
• And of course, we can access the content now with Web services.

CS2006 will be coming Q1 CY2006. There will be more after Longhorn Server."

[download]

The Live Meeting 2005 Web Parts integrate Live Meeting with SharePoint (both Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server) to aggregate information together within a single portal so that teams can interact more effectively.

By integrating with Live Meeting Portal, users can seamlessly view their upcoming Live Meetings or recently made recordings without having to log-in or remember any passwords. Not only do the web parts provide a view into Live Meeting from SharePoint, but they also allow a user to conveniently publish meetings and recording into a shared event calendar, so that team members can interact more effectively by having everything in one place.

Via Mark:

It's about time :) Beta 1 of the MS Office Business Scorecard Server 2005 (a.k.a. "Maestro") is here for download. More details on this blog will follow soon I hope :)

Via Alex:

The new Office Business Scorecard Server 2005 Beta 1 is available with the following features and benefits

• Align actions with strategy
• Gain complete insight in context
• Collaborate on business management and action.
• Empower employees to monitor and deliver against key metrics
• Achieve extensible functionality

Download here

[Download]

The Microsoft SQL Server Report Pack for Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is a set of 8 Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services reports that work with a sample database of information extracted from a SharePoint Portal Server environment. This database can be populated from your own SharePoint Portal Server environment using the downloadable Data Extraction Program (DEP). The DEP will read the SharePoint Portal Server data via the object model. You also can use the sample reports as templates for designing new reports.
This Report Pack includes the following reports:

• Storage Report
  Shows a listing of the virtual servers and the number of collections, sites, areas, lists, files and size. Also shows a size distribution and storage usage chart, and a top 20 sites based on size.
• Storage Trend Report
  Shows four charts illustrating the virtual server storage trend, site collection growth trend, area growth trend and list growth trend.
• Site Trend Report
  Shows hit counts for virtual servers, collections, areas and lists. Also shows the top 20 sites based on hits.
• Comprehensive Site Collections Report
  Shows the list of site collections, who owns the collection, configurable characteristics about the owner and the date the collection was last accessed.
• Detailed Site Collection Report
  Shows top 20 pages accessed (based on hit count) for this site collection.
• Detailed Page Report
  Shows users who have access to the page, when they last accessed it, any referrer URL and number of hits. Also shows two charts illustrating user distribution and referrer distribution.
• Best Bet Keyword
  Shows top 20, top 10, bottom 10, or bottom 20 keywords used for searching. Also shows which keywords have best bets.
• Search Terms
  Shows top 20, top 10, bottom 10, or bottom 20 search terms used for searching. Also shows which search terms match a defined keyword.