Uzma's SharePoint Blog

Hyperlink/Picture Column does not display image

sharepointuzma — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:04:07 +0000

I came across a very interesting issue. I had a simple custom SharePoint List library. One of the columns was a “headshot” formatted as a Picture to allow users to paste in a URL of their pictures.

In a SharePoint list view, the picture came out wonderfully. However, I wanted to be a little creative in SharePoint Designer.

So I created my data view and dragged my columns onto the page.

The Headshot value turned out to be something like this on the page. “http://intranet-porta/headshots/uzma1.jpg,”

When formatting the “@Headshot” value as a picture link was broken. All images in the list turned out to have an extra “,” at the end of the URL.

The work around is to create a XSL attribute, in my example, I created:

And it works like magic!

Email attachments from a Document Library in SharePoint 2010

sharepointuzma — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:56:54 +0000

I have had to look into how we can email attachments from Document Libraries in SharePoint 2010.

Bear in mind, Microsoft will only allow you to email links out but is a little annoying when you have to use Windows Explorer and manage your documents (esp if you have hundreds!) so I have found a lovely Codeplex solution to do the job for me!

Check it out, works beautifully: http://sendemailsp2010.codeplex.com/

Ensure that your outgoing SMTP server is specified correctly in CA to.

SharePoint Designer 2010

sharepointuzma — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:02:37 +0000

I will highly recommend Penny Coventry’s SharePoint Deisgner 2010 step by step book. I have had a particular interest in workflows over the last few months and have made a great solution for a new employee workflow! Fantastic book and update to the SharePoint world!!
Fairly good price on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-SharePoint-Designer-2010-Step/dp/0735627339/ref=pd_cp_b_1

Optimising a Virtual Machine in a SharePoint 2010 Dev Environment

sharepointuzma — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:28:27 +0000

Very, very useful post by Andre.

http://blogit.create.pt/blogs/andrevala/archive/2010/03/06/Optimizing-a-VM-for-SharePoint-2010.aspx

Troubles opening Windows Explorer from a Document Library in SharePoint 2010

sharepointuzma — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:58:48 +0000

Ever come across the issue where a document library refuses to open in Windows Explorer with SharePoint Foundation 2010?

I came across an issue – whenever I opened a document library in Windows Explorer, I was prompted with an Office install set up dialog, requesting for my installation disk.

Yes, I know, strange but it’s true.

To overcome this issue, go to services.msc on your PC/Server and ensure that WebDav client is started. In my case, it was disabled, stopped and well.. enabling it fixed the issue.

Here is a WIKI explaination on what the WebDav client does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV

Hope this helps!

Replicating User Profiles with Exchange 2010 and OCS

sharepointuzma — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:49:56 +0000

Came across a lovely blog post which goes in depth as to how to set up MySites with Exchange and OCS.

Check out: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dcaro/archive/2010/06/05/replicating-user-pictures-from-sharepoint-2010-to-exchange-2010-and-communications-server-14.aspx

Office 365 and SharePoint Online

sharepointuzma — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:59:54 +0000

Office 365 was released as an office hosted Microsoft solution, encompassing Microsoft Exchagne, Professional Plus, Lync and SharePoint 2010. This is the BPOS replacement and is worth upgrading your existing solution or see what is on offer .

I have been using the SharePoint Beta release for a while, it’s an easy, simple collaboration piece of software. Pricing wise, it will save your business stacks of money, no server administrator, no backup team to call on, Microsoft deal with this all.

The snag, you’ll need a Microsoft partner to purchase the product. If you’re interested in the Office 365. Also, the pricing can be confusing.

Check the site: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/plans.aspx for more information or.. contact me (uz_my_naz@hotmail.com) and I’ll assist you with your perfect plan!

SharePoint Foundation 2010 – Security Token Service unavailable

sharepointuzma — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:12:13 +0000

For a while I noticed a Event ID 3 error on my SharePoint deployment.

After much research, the solution to fix this is pretty simple!

Some background info: Under the health analyser, the security token service was marked as a service that could not start.

Event logs showed an error every hour, since the health analyser runs.

Error is:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        System.ServiceModel 3.0.0.0
Date:          7/14/2011 6:00:00 AM
Event ID:      3
Task Category: WebHost
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:      109-104-81-240
Description:
WebHost failed to process a request.
Sender Information: System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment+HostingManager/41149443
Exception: System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException: The service ‘/SecurityTokenServiceApplication/securitytoken.svc’ cannot be activated due to an exception during compilation. The exception message is: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.. —> System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. —> System.InvalidOperationException: The farm is unavailable.
at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPSecurityTokenServiceManager.get_Local()
at Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel.SPSecurityTokenServiceConfiguration..ctor()
— End of inner exception stack trace —
at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandle& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean fillCache)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean fillCache)
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)
at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)
at Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.WSTrust.WSTrustServiceHostFactory.CreateSecurityTokenServiceConfiguration(String constructorString)
at Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.WSTrust.WSTrustServiceHostFactory.CreateServiceHost(String constructorString, Uri[] baseAddresses)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel.SPSecurityTokenServiceHostFactory.CreateServiceHost(String constructorString, Uri[] baseAddresses)
at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.CreateService(String normalizedVirtualPath)
at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.ActivateService(String normalizedVirtualPath)
at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath)
— End of inner exception stack trace —
at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath)
at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.EnsureServiceAvailableFast(String relativeVirtualPath)
Process Name: w3wp
Process ID: 53044

I resolved this issue by going into IIS, going to the security token application pool, advanced and saw that “enable 32-bit applications” was set to true, change this to false, re-run the analyser and bamb! Problem solved.

Hope this helps.

Move subsites in WSS 3.0 like you would in MOSS 2007

sharepointuzma — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:44:35 +0000

Manage content and structure is a MOSS 2007 feature, but if you were like me trying to figure out a dead simple way to move a site to another URL or location, without backing up, dealing with all the permissions, the answer was in this genius blog: Use STSASM to rename a site to another location.

stsadm -o renameweb -url http://locationofyoursite -newname location/location.

Note, this can only be peformed in the same site collection. Ensure illegal characters are not present in the site move as I saw this morning!

Show All Subsites on a Webpage (without using table of contents web part!)

sharepointuzma — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:30:51 +0000

It’s been a while, I know. I’ve been lost under the radar when it comes to SharePoint but I am back!

I’ve had a large collection of subsites and no matter how much I tweaked the master.xml file that controls the number of sites you can have on a drop down menu, my table of contents web part simply would not display all subsites. Annoying.

However, a stroke of luck brought me to Michael Wilcox’s blog and here’s how you display a subsite on a webpage using SPDesigner 2007:

You can use SharePoint Designer to show a list of sub sites in a MOSS site.

An example of a sub site is a document workspace. An overview of all available sub sites provides an easy way for users to navigate to these workspaces.

1) Open your site in SharePoint Designer

2) Open the Data Source Library task pane

3) Connect to the XML Web Service that provides information about the sub sites.

Click on Connect to a web service in the XML Web Services section.
In the Data Source Properties enter the Service description location: http://ServerName/sites/YourSiteName/_vti_bin/Webs.asmx?WSDL
Click on Connect Nowand select:
- Port: WebsSoap
- Operation GetWebCollection

4) Add the information to your home page

You can drag and drop the newly created data source to your home page. A list of sub sites will be shown.

5) Change the way the information is shown.

By default a plain list of the sub sites will be shown. You can change this list, and for instance make the URL’s clickable. As you hover over the title field, right click and select:

Data Field: Title
Format as: Hyperlink

6) Amend the rest of the layout to suit your design.

Thanks Michael!