red1'sharepointspace

February 20, 2013 / red1s

A word of gratitude to our overseas team

Working at Avanade, I constantly find myself working with our offshore team on multiple projects (a lot of SharePoint ones as well ) and find their level of gratitude and appreciation quite ‘affecting’ in a positive way.

I really enjoy working with them as find them very helpful and relentless in their quest to help me with my requirements.

I found it quite comparative when looking at some of the local teams I have to work with and their bleak or negative reaction to situations or requests raised.

Obviously this is a personal perspective but I feel as a professional working South African, due to the opportunities in this country our outlook has become more relaxed and arrogant.

This is also based on the growing statistics of IT in both of our countries and the amount of people.

If I h ave a look at the Google Statistics for population in our countries (South Africa and India) the difference is phenomenally different: – link here

It goes to show that due to this difference, the market for school leavers would be a lot more competitive. (And based on a few other statistics provided by the above report which I will not get into too much now)

Which makes me ask the question, the more comfortable we become with our day to day professional jobs, are we then more predisposed to complain about our situation and in turn deliver a lower quality service or product. (Hopefully not 😦 )

Or like the US and Europe, will we eventually begin to develop a healthy work ethic . (Which I think comes from the quality of life, found in those countries) I say this as I was really impressed by the work ethic I encountered when I worked in the US and Europe. Finding their ability to deliver quality services and products in high regard.

I am not discounting that this does exist within certain pockets of our local industries (which I am aware there is much of) especially within the IT service sector. However still feel there is much maturation which we need to go through as a nation for us to be on that level. I do however feel it is quite possible and now and then do see a flicker of light emerge in those areas.

What is interesting though, is the fact that unlike India as a developing country, it does not have the living standard found in these countries although the quality of their service is high in certain areas (specifically IT which is the main topic of reference) . And unlike the US and Europe, I believe this is mainly from a competitive perspective encountered within their country.

I think in closing, I understand though that this is a very general outlook. As I can imagine readers silently commenting on their bad experiences either with US/European companies or Indian companies. But for the purpose of an overall general encounter (and my past experiences) with the countries and their companies; feel it to be quite true.

February 19, 2013 / red1s

Comparison of Hardware and Software requirements between SharePoint 2010 and 2013

Recently I was assisting a client with making the decision around whether they would be able to run SharePoint 2010/2013 within their current environment.

The decision would be solely based on their hardware and software capabilities (licensing and hardware) as opposed to required functions (which is also an integral part and would need to be considered)

The below tables list the requirements as such for SharePoint 2013:

Hardware Requirements:

Deployment type and scale	RAM	Processor	Hard disk space
Application Server/s	12 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive
Database Server/s	8 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive

Software Requirements:

Minimum requirements for a database server in a farm:

· One of the following:

· The 64-bit edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

· The 64-bit edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

· The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter

Minimum requirements for front-end web servers and application servers in a farm:

· The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter.

Clients

• Windows 7

For information about how to use Windows 7 with SharePoint 2013 in a development environment, see Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008.

• Office 2013

• Microsoft Office 2010 with Service Pack 1 (With KB 2553248)

• Microsoft Office 2007 with Service Pack 2 (With KB 2583910)

And for the SharePoint 2010 environment:

Hardware Requirements:

Deployment type and scale	RAM	Processor	Hard disk space
Application Server/s	8 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive
Database Server/s	8 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive

Software Requirements:

Minimum requirements for a database server in a farm:

· One of the following:

· The 64-bit edition of SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

· The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter

Minimum requirements for front-end web servers and application servers in a farm:

· The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Standard, Enterprise, or Datacenter or the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter.

Clients

• Windows 7

For information about how to use Windows 7 with SharePoint 2013 in a development environment, see Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint 2010 on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008.

• Microsoft Office 2010 with Service Pack 1 (With KB 2553248)

• Microsoft Office 2007 with Service Pack 2 (With KB 2583910)

For the purposes of this mail I have filtered out further details, however further information can be found at the following locations:

Hardware and Software Requirements SharePoint 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485(v=office.14).aspx

Hardware and Software Requirements SharePoint 2013: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx

January 17, 2013 / red1s

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 38,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 9 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

December 20, 2012 / red1s

Accessing migrated 2007 workflows in SharePoint 2010

Recently on working on upgrading a SharePoint 2007 environment to SharePoint 2010 we had an issue with the workflows not being visible or accessible from the relevant document libraries they were a part of before the upgrade:

What was interesting was that the workflows were still there, but it wasn’t possible to kick off a new as it seems as though they didn’t exist.

In my search to resolve the issue I attempted a few processes to get the workflows to ‘reappear’

Including completing the following steps located here: (which supposedly worked for some people)

1) Open the root of the site collection in SharePoint Designer 2010

2) In the Navigation section, click on All Files, then click _catlogs

3) Check for a folder named "wfpub" and if it exists right click on it and delete it

4) Run the following PowerShell for the site collection having the issue:

$site = Get-SPSite http://root-site-collection-url

Disable-SPFeature -url $site.URL -Identity Workflows -Confirm:$false

Disable-SPFeature -url $site.URL -Identity OffWFCommon -Confirm:$false

Enable-SPFeature -url $site.URL -Identity OffWFCommon

Enable-SPFeature -url $site.URL -Identity Workflows

The above didn’t seem to work 😦

Another attempt was to disable the "Workflow Auto Cleanup timer job" the link can be checked here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-GB/sharepointadminprevious/thread/5304b7b9-00e4-4ed5-b012-934fdb1aa457

I redid the migration and disabled this before hand, however still no luck 😦

I then attempted the following method located here, which did work. Basically the steps to ‘re-enable ‘ the workflow were as follows: (There is a disclaimer though telling you that it is preferred to use the SharePoint 2010 workflows instead, just so you know)

Enable SharePoint 2007 Workflows:

1.Navigate to ‘site actions’ | ‘site settings’ | ‘site collection administration’ | ‘Site collection features’

2.Choose ‘Activate’ on the SharePoint 2007 Workflows feature

Enable the workflows on existing lists they were associated with before the upgrade:

1.Click on Site Actions | Site Settings

2.Click on ‘Site Content Types’

3.Click on the Document content type

4.Click on Workflow Settings

5.Click on Remove a workflow

6.Find the workflow to enable and set the radio button to ‘Allow’

Upon opening the workflows settings page again you should now have the previously available workflows in the list of workflows being able to be used.

November 8, 2012 / red1s

SharePoint – Silverlight JQuery comparison

Recently a colleague asked me whether I’d use Silverlight over Jquery or vice versa and why.

In response to his query I thought about it and then responded to him by stating that I recommend JQuery for the required task at hand. Which is the creation of a an active sitemap for his intranet site.

Depending on the required turnaround time and deployment time JQuery would be a winner in that regard. As the time taken to build and deploy components onto a page is minimal in comparison to the Silverlight develop build and deploy scenario. Which would take much longer.

JQuery is also a lot more dynamic allowing changes to configuration or code without having to go back to the IDE to work on components.

However from a ‘redeployability’ perspective, Silverlight would come out better as once the package is created, it would merely need to be dropped onto the page and would work (as long as all the parameters are in place, page location etc.)

It is also more of a solution package tool used to create interfaces, BI components and overall software solution packages as opposed to providing a single component which could be seen as a tool used to create more complex functions than a sitemap. (The right tool for the right job comes to mind here)

So in a nutshell here is what I would say are the comparable items:

Technology	Pro	Con
Development Time	JQuery	Silverlight
Deployment Time	JQuery	Silverlight
Code Agility (Ability to update code on the fly)	JQuery	Silverlight
Deployment Method	Silverlight / JQuery (Depending on the solution complexity)	JQuery
Access to Microsoft Reference Library	Silverlight	JQuery
Access to the JavaScript JQuery reference library	JQuery/Silverlight
Large Software Solution components	Silverlight	JQuery
SharePoint 2013 Phasing Out	JQuery (Not phasing out)	Silverlight (Might phase out)

Hope this is what you were looking for.

The below references confirmed my above statements:

Future of Silverlight – http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/do-sharepoint-silverlight-have-a-future-together-014103.php

Choose the correct API for the requirement – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj164060(v=office.15).aspx

JQuery – Silverlight – http://jakkaj.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/just-quickly-jquery-and-silverlight/

Can you compare JQuery and Silverlight – http://izlooite.blogspot.com/2011/05/is-jquery-vs-silverlight-comparison.html

http://www.codeplex.com/site/users/view/sympmarc

November 6, 2012 / red1s

Redirect users from a SharePoint 2007 site to 2010

Recently we had moved our 2007 implementation across to 2010 however there were still users accessing and working with bookmarks and other components which linked directly back to the files.

In order to overcome this we used an add to IIS 7 called URL Rewriter (note there is also an extension for IIS 6 here)

Please note that this only works if your SharePoint 2007 environment is installed on Server 2008 with IIS 7

Install IIS 7 URL Rewriter:

Once installed Open up IIS

Go to your site and Select "URL Rewrite" then "Open Feature" from the menu:

Select ‘Add Rules’ from the right hand actions menu:

For this scenario I’ll be redirecting users from a SharePoint 2007 Site Collection to a SharePoint 2010 Site Collection i.e http://sharepoint2007/sites/thermal and http://sharepoint2010/sites/thermal

Choose Blank Rule:

Give the Rule a name:

Leave Requested URL and Using the same as a default:

For pattern enter: (.*)

You are able to test it which I would recommend before implementing it:

Keep ignore case box checked:

For Conditions keep Logical Grouping set to Match All

Click the Add button to add a condition

– For condition Input enter {URL}

For Check if input string keep it as Matches the pattern

For Pattern enter: thermal(/.*)

Test the pattern to see if it works

Click OK

Under Action Select Redirect for ActionType

For Action properties Redirect URL enter

http://sharepoint2010/sites/thermal to redirect only to root level site collection level

To redirect to sub directories you would enter http://sharepoint2010/sites/thermal {c:1}

If you are using back-references make sure you check off the append query string box

If this will be a permanent-redirect select Permanent (301) for the Redirect Type

Click the apply link on the top right under Actions

Browse to your SharePoint 2007 (http://sharepoint2007/sites/thermal ) site collection and you should be redirected to the 2010 site (http://sharepoint2010/sites/thermal)

Quick Note – If you’re testing this and your first rule is incorrect it will seem not to work. In order to get it to work you’ll need to clear out your browsers cache.

You can also go into your web.config file for that web application to where the Redirect Feature writes to and look for the Rewrite and this is what the tag looks like there …I found it quicker just to update the web.config once I knew what I was doing Winking smile

References

http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/url-rewrite-module-video-walkthrough

http://jshidell.com/2012/03/07/iis7-url-rewrite-redirect-from-sharepoint-2007-to-sharepoint-2010/

September 20, 2012 / red1s

Client problem with opening Office documents in Office 2007 client from SharePoint

I recently had a few users have issues with opening Office documents in their office 2007 client – this seems to be related to a Office 2007 client configuration application setting called – Allow Background open of web pages. Which would need to be enabled on the clients machine

Open the Office 2007 client (Word/Excel)

Click the Office button

Then click Word Options

Then click Advanced in the left pane

Then select the Allow background open of web pages

Then click OK.

The documents will now directly open from SharePoint Smile

References:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010general/thread/23e01a35-564f-4c4e-be77-6bf4b01da0ad

September 18, 2012 / red1s

PowerShell Script for auto updating MOSS 2007 databases to SharePoint 2010

Recently we went through a repetitive upgrade process for multiple site collections.

The problem with having multiple site collections is that there are multiple databases to upgrade.

Within my project there were over 20+ databases.

I therefore decided to build/modify the following PowerShell script to assist me in doing the job:

Based on the switches you can add further functional items to the script, alternatively you can loop the function to iterate through another file (possibly csv) to iterate through all your databases

function main()

{

Clear-Host;

Write-Host

Write-Host ""

Write-Host "1. Press ‘1’ to attach and upgrade a 2007 database";

Write-Host ""

$input = Read-Host "Enter a number for an option"

switch ($input)

{

"1" {UpgradeDatabase}

}

}

function UpgradeDatabase()

{

$webAppUrl = Read-Host "Web application URL"

$contentDbName = Read-Host "Content Database Name"

$webApp = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebApplication]::Lookup($webAppUrl)

Write-Host "Mounting database $contentDbName";

Mount-SPContentDatabase -Name $contentDbName -WebApplication $webApp

Write-Host "Mounting complete";

$contentDb = Get-SPContentDatabase -Identity $contentDbName

Write-Host "Applying Corrective Action";

ApplyCorrectiveChanges $contentDb

}

As with using the Mount-SPContentDatabase PowerShell command the UI will request the following variables, being web application and Content Database Name to get started. But as mentioned if you loop through this you’ll be able to iteratively do your entire set of site collections (obviously if there are no hiccups along the way)