Friday, April 18, 2008
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I'm a bit late with this blog as this new whitepaper was on the Combined Knowledge Web site earlier this month, but I've been at the 2008 MVP Global Summit in Seattle, and may I say it was awe inspiring. It was my first MVP summit and the other SharePoint MVPs and Lawrence Lui made it an event, that I will not forget for sometime. Thank you all! Look at: "SharePoint MVPs know how to have fun .. and give constructive product feedback", for more on what it was all about.
Well back to the subject of this blog. Back in January, Steve Smith, of Combined Knowledge and myself got together and wrote the white paper, "How to move a SharePoint Server 2007 32-bit environment to a 64-bit environment on Windows Server 2008 ". Well we've got back together again to document, How To Configure a Stress Test Project, you can find the whitepaper here -> http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads%202007.htm.
Now of course, stress testing SharePoint is not new. I remember James Edelen demonstrating stress testing SharePoint Portal Server 2003 using Application Centre Test (ACT) at Mindsharp Summits, which he documented here -> http://mindsharpblogs.com/james/archive/2005/03/25/429.aspx. And of course Steve has been demonstrating stress testing for some time in both his courses and user group meetings. What is new about this whitepaper is that it documents the process using Visual Studio Team Suite 2008, which he recently demonstrated at the User Group Community event.
Other resources you will find useful include:
Monday, March 31, 2008
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The annual User Group Community event is to be held on April the 8th and 9th at Microsoft Campus, Reading. There are four sessions each day, three of which are product specific break out sessions. There are nearly thirty of these breakout sessions for you to choose from: http://www.ukusergroups.co.uk/SessionTable.html. Details of each session can be found at: http://www.ukusergroups.co.uk/SessionDeatils.html.This includes six sessions by the UK SharePoint User Group: http://www.suguk.org:
Day 1: Session 1: SharePoint Capacity Planning - Steve Smith
Session 2: SharePoint Protection with Forefront - Steve Smith
Session 3: SharePoint Designer: Data Views and ASP.NET Controls - Penny Coventry (me)
Day 2: Session 1: Scaling Out SharePoint from Small to Medium farm - Live Demo - Steve Smith
Session 2: Building and Deploying solutions with SharePoint - Steve Smith and Nick Swan
Session 3: SharePoint and Power Shell - Colin Byrne
It's FREE!! So go to http://www.ukusergroups.co.uk to sign up and register.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
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My new book, Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Step by Step is now released. ISBN-10: 0735625336 ISBN-13: 978-0735625334
The book is aimed at the experienced Information Worker, someone who has been using the browser to work with Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 or SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). The book will also be useful to developers and administrators who are new to SharePoint Designer. If you are new to SharePoint then I suggest you read Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step, by Olga Londer, Todd Bleeker, Bill English and Penelope Coventry (me).
As you would expect from a Step by Step book, there are many exercises for you to complete. For many of the chapters, I provide on the CD, a site template for you to create a test site, within which you should complete the exercises. Instructions on how to use these site templates are provided in the Using the .stp Site Templates, section p xxi. Section, What's on the CD, p xv lists the .stp file by chapter and you will be instructed at the start of a chapter whether you need to create a site based from one of the site templates. All other chapters you should create a team site to complete the exercises, except for Chapter 11, "Managing Web Content in a SharePoint Server Environment", when you will need a publishing site. Never learn how to use SharePoint Designer on a live site.
Most of the time in the book, I spend in the Design view (the What You See Is What You Get - WYSIWYG - editor). I do not expect you to write code. You will be using the User Interface and mouse for much of the exercises.
If you have only Windows SharePoint Services installed then you will be able to complete all exercises in all but Chapter 11.
A brief overview of the chapters is given below:
- The book's first chapter, "Introducting SharePoint Designer", gives an overview of SharePoint Designer, the common tasks you would complete using SharePoint Designer and the relationship between WSS and SharePoint Server. Basic SharePoint concepts such as, Site Definitions, Site Collections, Lists, Libraries, Web Parts and the Recycle bin are also covered. You open a SharePont site, with SharePoint Designer and using the Folder List task pane explorer the site.
- In Chapter 2, "Working with SharePoint Designer", you start to use SharePoint Designer, you learn to use the toolbars and task panes. You also learn to create sites and subsites, and how to delete sites.
- Then in Chapter 3, "Customizing a Web Page", you learn how to insert static content, such as: text, screentips, hyperlinks, Web components, images, client-side interactivity (behaviors), and tables. You will modify and save the default page for a Web site (customize the page, which in the previous version of SharePoint was known as unghosting a page) and then you reset the page back to the site defintion.
- Chapter 4, " Creating and Modifying Web Pages", includes creating and deleting Web pages and SharePoint related modification. You will insert Web Part zones, Web Parts and modify the Web Part Properties. It is in this chapter you will first be introduced to Master Pages. Master pages provide a consistent layout for pages in your site and are used on all Web pages for a newly created SharePoint site.
- Chapter 5, "Working with Lists and Libraries", builds on Chapter 4 and enables you to add dynamic content to your Web pages, such as, the content from lists and libraries. You will create a list, List View Web Parts (LVWPs), modify a built-in List View page, create a List View page and modify a built-in List Form page.
- Chapter 6, "Working with Data Views", describes how to use, what is commonly referred to the Swiss Army Knife of Web Parts, also know as Data View Web Part (DVWP) or Data Form Web Part (DFWP). This is an awsume Web Part and if you haven't used it before then you will love this chapter.
- Chapter 7, "Working with Data Sources", allows you to connect to data not stored within your SharePont Web sites and then use Data Views to expose that data on Web pages.
- In Chapter 8, "Using Controls in Web Pages", you will add an AdRotator ASP.NET control to a Web page, and you will use the ASP.NET Validation controls to update the advertisement file that the AdRotator uses to decide which imges it should display on a page. Then you will use the SharePoint Data View control to update the advertisement file to allow users to pick image files from a SharePoint library.
- Chapter 9, "Working with Master Pages" explains what a Master page is and how to customize it in SharePoint Designer.
- Chapter 10, "Changing the Look and Feel of Pages by Using Cascading Style Sheets", introduces you to CSS and color-coding options and how you can identify styles that SharePoint uses from it's own cascading style sheets. Much of this chapter you can use as an introduction of manipulating CSS with Visual Studio 2008 as it also uses the same toolbars and task panes as SharePoint Designer.
- Chapter 11, "Managing Web Content in a SharePoint Server Environment", introduces you to Web Content Management (WCM) enhancements in SharePoint Server 2007 and the concept of page layouts. You will learn to create, modify and restore earlier versions of page layouts. This is the only chapter where you need SharePoint Server, exercise in the other chapters can be completed on both WSS and SharePoint Server.
- In Chapter 12, "Understanding Workflows", I introduce you to working with workflows, mentioning those workflow available in Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server, before moving on to using workflows in SharePont Designer.
- Chapter 13, "Building a Windows SharePoint Services Application" introduces you to site templates. You first create a WSS site, customize it by adding a Data View, converting a field into a form text box and adding a SharePoint Action button associated with a workflow, then you create a site template, which you then create further sites from and test your solution.
- In Chapter 14, "Managing SharePoint Sites", you learn the areas of SharePoint Designer that help you manage your sites, such as, using Contributor Settings, creating reports, backuping and restoring sites, exporting and importing sites, as well as coping list, libraries and documents between sites.
- Although Chapter 15, "Undestanding Usability and Accessibility", is the last chapter of the book do not consider its exercises and other information as the tasks you should tackle at the end of your work with SharePoint Designer. You should include the methods I discuss in this chapter thoughout the lifetime of any customizations or modifications you make to you site, whether using the browser, SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio.
Throughout the book, I include sidebars to introduce you to technology that you may be new to you, such as, Content Types and Site Columns, an XML Primer, a CSS Primer, Site Defintions, Features and Solution Files Primer and Introducing the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint. I hope you enjoy this book. I have created a Web site, http://www.sharepointdesignerstepbystep.com where I will post errata and other information. Please visit that Web site and let me know what you think.
I will also be presenting a session, "SharePoint Designer for All", at the SharePoint User Group, UK meeting, at Newcastle Upon Tyne on 23rd January, where I will be giving a couple of books out free. So sign up here if you would like to attend. Steve Smith of Combined Knowledge will also be doing a session on the 23rd, "Forefront Security for SharePoint".
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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Steve Smith of Combined Knowledge and I have produced a new white paper "How to move a SharePoint Server 2007 32-bit environment to a 64-bit environment on Windows Server 2008 (RC1)" that you can find here: http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads%202007.htm. We provide step by step instructions on how to:
- Install SharePoint Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008, using the 64-bit version of both products.
- Join an existing farm and creating the new Web front end and application servers.
- Moving the Search and Excel Calculation Services from the old Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) SharePoint Server application server to the newly installed Windows Server 2008 (64-bit) SharePoint Server application server.
- Extending the Central Administratiion Web site and SSP Web sites on the newly created Windows 2008 server MOSS 2007 application server.
- Removing the old Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) SharePoint Server Web front-end and application servers from the farm
Microsoft will soon be releasing a whitepaper outlining the improvements and benefits of SharePoint on Windows Server 2008 in a lot more detail - make sure you watch Joel's blog http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/ for information of this.
Thanks to:
Friday, December 28, 2007
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Combined Knowledge have released a number of new White Papers:
- How to move the Shared Service Provider Search database
- How to configure a content Source to crawl Exchange 2003 public folders in MOSS 2007
- How to configure Email Enabled Lists in MOSS 2007 RTM using Exchange 2003
- How to configure Email Enabled Lists in MOSS 2007 RTM using Exchange 2007
- Securing Central Administration in SharePoint 2007
- Business Data Catalog WhitePaper Part 1
You can find them at: http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads%202007.htm
Friday, September 28, 2007
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If you have installed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, either the standard or enterprise editions, then you have one or more site collections based on the Collaboration Portal and / or Publishing Portal site definitions. Within each of these site collections you will have a number of subsites based on Web Content Management-enabled SharePoint site definitions, which I refer to as publishing sites and a number of sites based on non-publishing site definitions or templates, such as, the team sites or meeting workspaces.
However, if you are like most organizations, the rest of your site collections are not based on, one of the two Portal site definitions. Most of your site collection will have the root-level site based on a team site or a customized site definition. In these site collections, you will not use any publishing sites. They just have too much red tape for the day to day purpose of these team sites. The main aim of these non-publishing sites is collaboration.
So the question that this blog poses is: On these non-publishing site collections, should you activate at the site collection level the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature?
Before you can answer this question, you need to know what this feature provides and that's the subject for the rest of this blog.
The Publishing Infrastructure provides you, at the site collection level, with a number of document libraries, lists, Web Parts, additional administrative links and SharePoint Groups, as detailed below:
Libraries
- Site Collection Documents: You should use this system library to store documents that will be used throughout the site collection. It is a good idea to have a central location for documents, so why not use this one? As MOSS is already installed in your organization, you will have users who expect this library to be present, so using a library with this name will reduce your help desk calls and make your end-user training easier.
- Site Collection Images: You should store images in this document library that are used throughout the site collection. Same comments as above.
- Style Library: You should use this document library to store custom XSL styles and cascading style sheets. Same comment as above, so yes you would need, if not these libraries in my non-publishing site collections, something very similar.
Lists
- Content and Structure Reports list: This list contains the queries that appear under the Reports second level menu of the extended Site Actions menu in a publishing site, and are also available from the Site Content and Structure page when you use the Default View button, but do not seem to work as they do in a Portal site collection.
- Reusable Content list: This list is used in publishing sites, so if you have no publishing sites you probably won't use it. So this list is not one of the reasons why I would choose to activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure features.
- Workflow tasks list: Configure Workflows to use this tasks list. This list, as are the other lists, are created in the root-site of a site collection. Of the three this is one that you could use, but as it's only created at the root-level of a site collection, you would have to manually create a Workflow tasks list for that site to maintain a consistent approach to using Workflows - so on it's own, not a reason to argue for activating the feature.
Administrative links
Activating the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature adds the Administrative links on the Site Settings page, including the ability to manage Master Pages for both publishing and non-publishing Web sites, Navigation, Searchable columns, Content and Structure, Content and Structure Logs, Variations and Translatable columns. Now some of these are not useful on a non-publishing site collections, but others are very useful, such as using the Site Content and Structure page, which allows you to see the site hierarchy and reorganise your sites, plus the administrative link that allows you to alter the CSS file and master page for the whole of the site collections - is great if you want to have a different look-and-feel for this site collection.
Additional Master Pages and default Page Layouts are stored in the Master Page Gallery but as these are related to publishing sites, they are not useful in a non-publishing site collection.
Content Types and Site Columns
The Page Layout and Publishing content types and columns are added when you activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature. You would not use these in a site collection that contains no publishing sites, therefore they do not support the argument to activate the feature.
Web Parts
Activating the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature adds the following Web Parts to the Web Part Gallery: Content Query Web Part (CQWP), Summary Links, Table of Content. These are very useful Web Parts that I would definitely still like to use in non-publishing sites.
SharePoint Groups
Activating the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature adds the following SharePoint Groups: Approvers, Designers, Hierarchy Managers, Quick Deploy Users, Restricted Readers and Style Resource Readers, and although I do not find some of these groups useful in non-publishing site, there are some that do have to recreate, because they are not there, such as the Approvers SharePoint Group. This is very useful, as long as you haven't configured unique permissions, as members of this group can approve any item or document in any list or library that you have enabled Content Approval.
Conclusion
So, what's my answer. Yes, I would activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure in all MOSS site collections even if I do not plan to use the Web Content Management features. It provides a consistent implementation, which is good for end-users and help desk, reduces the amount of work to create the bits I like and gives me access to cool functionality like the Administration links and Web Parts like the CQWP. But - I'm not you. What do you think?
NOTE: If you activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature you should NOT delete any of these components, as this will break the publishing features of any publishing site you may decide to create, resulting in a great deal of manual work for you and the IT department.
If you have problems activating the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature see: http://blog.thekid.me.uk/archive/2007/02/05/activating-office-sharepoint-server-publishing-infrastructure-access-denied.aspx.
Friday, June 15, 2007
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In Excel 2003 you were able to sync amendments both from a Excel 2003 spreadsheet to a SharePoint List and from a SharePoint List to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet. But in Excel 2007 this is no longer the case... Well it was until Microsoft released an Excel 2007 Add-in. This is a must install if you are upgrading to Office 2007 from Office 2003, otherwise your users will cry.
The Excel 2007 Add-in, can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=25836e52-1892-4e17-ac08-5df13cfc5295&DisplayLang=en
There is also an accompaning MSDN article "Publishing and Synchronizing Excel 2007 Tables to SharePoint Lists": http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb462636(office.11).aspx
Creating a SharePoint list from within Excel 2007 is known as exporting an Excel table. In Excel 2003, this was known as publishing an Excel list. Once the table data is placed on the SharePoint site, users can see the Excel 2007 data without having to opening Excel 2007. You can maintain a link between the SharePoint list and the Excel 2007 data, but without the Excel 2007 Add-in, any changes in the Excel 2007 spreadsheet are not reflected in the SharePoint list. Without the Excel 2007 Add-in, you can only synchronize changes in the SharePoint list to the Excel 2007 spreadsheet - but you cannot save the workbook in the new Office Open XML Formats. Instead, to retain the functionality, you need to save the workbook in the Excel 97-2003 file format.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
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I recently received a query concerning the SharePoint content migration upgrade approach. The customer was attempting to attach the databases to a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 installation. They then tried to run prescan.exe, which complained, stating that they must have Windows SharePoint Services v2 (WSSv2) installed.
Prescan must be executed whist the content databases are in a WSSv2 (SPS03) environment, then the prescan'd databases can be upgraded using any of the three upgrade options (or is it 7 options – see Joel’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/05/22/3-methods-to-upgrade-let-me-give-you-4-more.aspx). What prescan does is amend the content databases so that they now contain references to the site definitions that sites were based on.
Once you do an upgrade and you remove your WSSv2 (SPS03) environment, and if there is a possibility you need data from your WSSv2 (SPS03) content databases, you must have a means of restoring your WSSv2 (SPS03) content databases, attaching them to a WSSv2 (SPS03) environment, service packed to the necessary level that matches your WSSv2 (SPS03) content. Note, you cannot attach them to a WSSv3 (MOSS 2007) database without them being prescanned, which is another reason why you need a WSSv2 (SPS03) environment. Also you can not attach a content database twice to the same WSSv3 (MOSS 2007) farm.
As a side note, Prescan does not build the xml file that maps the old site definitions to the new site definitions. That is a manual job that developers do. Chapter 25 "Upgrading Site Cutomizations and Custom Site Defintions", written by Brett Lonsdale, in the Administrator's Companion, has more details of the xml mapping files. Also refer to the Upgrade Toolkit for Windows SharePoint Services Sites and Templates Guide.
So after you run the prescan on the old boxes you only have to move the content databases, presuming you have taken care of all other upgrade/customization issues you may have.
Remember:
- Prescan can only be run in a WSSv2 (SPS03) environment.
- You MUST run prescan prior to upgrading your WSSv2 (SPS03) environment.
- You can run prescan as many times as you like.
Prescan be down loaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e8a00b1f-6f45-42cd-8e56-e62c20feb2f1&displaylang=en
Other useful blogs include:
If you are going to TechEd 2007, Orlando, Florida – next week, and you are interested in upgrading your WSSv2 (SPS03) sites to WSSv3 (MOSS 2007), then I highly recommend that you attend the following sessions:
- OFC304 - Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Upgrade and Migration, Wednesday, June 6 5:30 PM - 6:45 PM, S210 E, Shane Young
- MST16-TLC - SharePoint Upgrade: Do's and Don'ts, Thursday, June 7 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM, Green Theater 4.
I’ll also be at TechEd next week, in the Office – POD (Hands-on labs North), so do come over and introduce yourself, and at the same time complete:
- OFC06-TLC - Upgrade Toolkit for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Sites and Templates.
- OFC07-HOL - Upgrading to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 from SharePoint Portal Server 2003.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
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In the Chapter 24 of the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 Administrator's Companion, I detailed how to use the STSADM command to upgrade a number of site collections using the Gradual upgrade approach. This was based on knowledge that was available during the beta. With RTM code, the process is as follows:
Note: Ensure that the root site collection is upgraded before any other site collection in the Web Application. If multiple site collections are upgraded at one time, the root site collection must be included in the first set of site collections selected to be upgraded.
- Open a command prompt and navigate to the 12 hive (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN)
- Type the following command:
Stsadm –o enumsites –url http://portal –redirectedsites > c:\sites.xml
where http://portal is the name of you web site.
Note: Only site collections from one content database can be upgraded at one time, therefore the sites.xml file will need to be modified. In the example below, we need to either remove the two site collections in the protal1_Site_pair content database or the site collection http://portal/sites/obe, which resides in the OBE_DB_Pair content database, so that site collections in one content database remain.
- Open sites.xml in notepad. It should contain text similar to the following:
Note: The “Count” and as all site collections should be in the same content database the “TargetDatabase” attributes are not necessary for upgrading the content databases, but can remain in the xml file, because they will be ignored by the upgrade process.
- Amend the xml file so that only those site collections you wish to upgrade are present and then save and close sites.xml.
- In the command prompt type:
stsadm –o upgrade -sidebyside -sitelistpath c:\sites.xml
The SharePoint Setup dialog box is displayed, and may remain displayed for some time.
