SharePoint Saturday DC May 2010

Just yesterday was the stupendous SharePoint Saturday DC 2010, held at the Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia. This time there were almost 1000 attendees (929 officially) and over 80 presentations. Kudos to the team of coordinators: Dux Raymond Sy, Dan Usher, Gino Degregori, Jenn Davis, and all of the helpers throughout the day.

This time around I did a presentation titled Bringing Zest to SharePoint Sites Using Out-of-the-Box Technology alongside Ed Wells and Bethany Kaplan. We had a classroom of about 40+ chairs and ended up with about 50+ people packed in for the 9am session. Thank you to everyone who came out for our talk!

View slides on docs.com

View Slides on Slideshare

Presentation description

We're presenting at SharePoint Saturday DC - May 15, 2010

SharePoint Saturday DC is right around the corner. The next one will be held on Saturday, May 15th at the Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia. The venue can hold upwards of 1000 attendees. This will be the biggest SharePoint Saturday ever! And it's all free!

I will be presenting a session along with my esteemed colleagues Edward Wells and Bethany Kaplan. Our session is titled Bringing Zest to SharePoint Sites Using Out of the box Technology. Here's a description of what we'll be covering:

This session will discuss ways to create enhanced solutions for SharePoint 2007 sites without always needing to create complex programming code or deploy solutions to the server. The audience for this session is SharePoint Power Users and Developers in scenarios where they do not have access or control to fully customize the instance of SharePoint they are using. We see this often while working for various government and commercial clients.

All too often, you are thrown into a situation where you have access to a SharePoint site collection or even just a single site and the only way to edit and enhance the site is through the browser interface. SharePoint Designer access is disabled or otherwise unavailable. Access to a programmer or the IT folks is limited or non-existent, so a compiled solution is out of the question or would take a very, very long time. But your users need functionality now. Your client wants the site to be useful now.

So what do you do?

There are quite a few ways to tackle the problem. We will discuss solutions in tiers:

• First and foremost, SharePoint can do quite a bit out-of-the-box. Why not start there and see if you can accomplish what you need?
• If it’s just not possible, the second tier includes solutions using JavaScript, jQuery, and other client site-code that can be deployed in places like the Content Editor Web Part.
• The next tier up may be a mix of client site (jQuery) and/or server side (Solutions/Features) code.
• The top tier, for the really complex scenarios, may include an extensively designed application that runs on top of or next to the SharePoint site.

We will cover a handful of specific scenarios we have encountered that can be tackled from tier 1 to tier 3 or 4, depending on the level of access and expertise that you have at your disposal. The focus of the demonstrations will be the first two tiers, with shout outs to tier 3 and 4 solutions where applicable.

We hope to see you there!

Still here

Yep, I'm still here.

Been in and out of SharePoint for the past five months. Mostly in.

Looking forward to the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas from October 18-22 and the release of more information about SharePoint 2010.

More to come.

Results Show: SharePoint Saturday DC

The most recent iteration of the SharePoint Saturday franchise, SharePoint Saturday DC, was held yesterday at the Microsoft Technology Center in Reston, Virginia. The day went very well, thanks to Dux Raymond Sy and his team of event coordinators, volunteers, and sponsors! Over 200 people were there and most of the sessions were packed and a few were standing room only!

There were a variety of session topics, including Dan Lewis's Social Computing talk, Tom Resing's Business Data Catalog presentation, and Jonathan Distler's overview of Arlington County, Virginia's SharePoint pilot. All-in-all, there were twenty-eight sessions plus an open "Ask the Expert" discussion in the lobby.

Dan Usher and I presented our talk SmartCard Authentication: Considerations, Options, and Pitfalls with SharePoint during the last session of the day, 4:45-5:45. Surprisingly, we still had the energy in us to have a lively discussion about security, SmartCards, and how they fit into a SharePoint implementation.

View the slides on SlideShare or download the PowerPoint file (PPT or PPTX) which includes the slides plus notes and resource links.

View Online (slides only)
SlideShare

View PowerPoint (slides + notes/resources)
PowerPoint 2003 (PPT)
PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX)

A video of our talk may be made available at some point, and I'll post it here if it does.

Speaking at SharePoint Saturday DC

In recent months there has been a series of interesting free weekend events called SharePoint Saturdays centered around the topic of--what else--SharePoint! Well, SharePoint Saturday is coming to the Washington, DC, area!

Dan Usher and I are scheduled to present together on the topic of smart card authentication with SharePoint 2007. The talk is entitled SmartCard authentication: Considerations, options and pitfalls. Oh my!

With the ever present risks of data integrity and non-repudiation, several organizations have begun to utilize smartcards for authentication to systems. With the greater number of SharePoint instances being stood up within organizations, ensuring the smartcards can be used to access data is key. In this session, we'll discuss smartcard authentication, considerations when determining the appropriate architecture, options for integration with different authentication providers and implementation pitfalls.

There are a few different ways you can integrate smart cards (or other two factor authentication) into a SharePoint instance. We'll talk about the various methods, including the option of using a custom membership provider.

There is a special food drive going along with the event. Check out Dux Raymond Sy's explanation on the SharePoint Saturday DC website.

Search Settings in SSP gives error "Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream"

There was an odd error that we have been seeing in one of our SharePoint 2007 server farms. When trying to access the Search settings page in Central Administration's Shared Services Provider, the SSP gives this error:

"Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream."

It ends up that it's an issue with the SSL certificate that is installed on the "Office Server Web Services" IIS instance. Somehow it gets corrupted when .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 is installed.

Microsoft knows about the issue and has a fix right here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=962928

Custom Smart Card Authentication and SharePoint

One of the great new features of SharePoint 2007 was the ability to utilize multiple means of user authentication: Active Directory, LDAP, SQL, and more. This is nothing new, and since the advent of MOSS 2007/WSS 3.0 the use of non-AD authentication via Membership Providers has been well documented.

What if you need to use PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) certificates and/or Smart Cards (like Common Access Cards, aka CAC)? There are a few ways to do this, depending on how the user certificates need to map to your account store. If you use Active Directory, there are built in ways to map certificates to users and have IIS handle the handshake. Or you can use a third-party system or SSO. This assumes you have a defined user directory and pre-defined certificate mappings.

But what if you need to accept PKI/Smart Cards, but do not have a master user directory (AD, LDAP) of everyone who will attempt to access the site?

The Concept:

• Use a custom ASP.NET Membership provider to accept and read PKI certificates (using IIS)
• Create and login to a NEW account (AD, LDAP, SQL)
• Forward the user to the SharePoint site.

Very similar to this idea from Adam Buenz.

Easy? We shall see.

Opening PowerPoint Slideshows

Scenario: Users want to store files in SharePoint and open them from another website. The users are on a network with Internet Explorer (IE) 6 or 7 and Office 2007. This should not be an issue.

However, files of type .pps (PowerPoint slideshows) were opening in a undesirable manner.

Instead of opening in full-screen slideshow mode, the PPS files were opening in Edit mode inside of PowerPoint.

After doing a bit of research and testing, I believe this is the only solution that will allow PPS files to open in slideshow mode when using Internet Explorer and Office 2007. This site talks about it too. In a nutshell, it requires a client side configuration. Nothing on the server side can do the trick if the user is on Internet Explorer and Office 2007. It's not even an issue with SharePoint. It happens on non-SharePoint sites too.

This solution references this Microsoft KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299824/

Basically, each computer needs to have its registry changed:

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2. Locate and click the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PowerPoint.Show.8
3. Edit or add the following registry value:
   Value name: BrowserFlags
   Data type: REG_DWORD
   Radix: click Hexadecimal
   Value data: (see below)

It appears that Office 2007 changes the default value to "a", which means PPS files open in Edit mode. You can change the value to 8 (open in a new window in show mode) or 0 (open in the browser window in show mode), but this is a local computer change that would need to be done on each PC. Not realistic. :-(

Accessing the files in Firefox works fine: PPS files open as slide shows, no problem.

Colors in Excel Services

If you use Excel Services inside of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), you may run into this little issue: Colors appear correctly when files are opened in Excel on your desktop computer, but charts and graphs turn gray and pink and magenta when viewed inside of SharePoint's Excel Services on the same desktop computer.

This is what it's supposed to look like in Excel and SharePoint:




This is what you see in SharePoint:



The reason you may see the drab colors in example 2 is something so simple that you could kick yourself: The Display settings on the server may be set to 8-bit (256 colors). The solution may be as simple as changing the display settings to b 16-bit or ideally 32-bit.

Microsoft throws this in one of it's online help pages, but you may miss it if you blink.

Quote/

You should be aware that color quality settings vary on a client and server computer. (From the Control Panel, click Display to open the Display Properties dialog box, and then click the Settings tab.) There are three settings:

• Highest (32 bit, 4 million colors).
• Medium (16 bit, 32,000 colors).
• Lowest (8 bit, 256 colors).

The color quality can make a difference in the clarity of the chart, especially if the colors that are used are not distinct enough for the user's current display setting. Because the chart image is created on the server computer, the setting on the server computer can limit the colors displayed in the chart, regardless of the color setting on the client computer.

/End Quote

I'd suggest you use 16-bit or 32-bit for the best results.

The trial period for this product has expired

If you ever get this message in SharePoint 2007:

The trial period for this product has expired

You may not actually have an expired license. Especially if you have a RTM Standard or Enterprise license for MOSS.

Instead, it could be one of SharePoint's extra-special error messages that really mean this and this. Or something else. Or it's just feeling saucy that day...

...or maybe it's just an expired license.

Update: It ended up being an antivirus program update that caused the issue. The update was uninstalled and the problem disappeared.

SharePoint Skinner

Via Mark Harrison:

A neat little application that can help create themes/CSS for SharePoint or just about any website:
SharePoint Skinner by eLumenotion

Check it out on CodePlex.

I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like it’s worth a trial. And it’s free!

E-mail a link emails a bad link

It appears that we've stumbled upon our first SharePoint 2007 bug. The Send To > E-mail a link feature in document libraries is acting weird.



This feature creates a link like this one:
https://my%2Esite%2Ecom/Meetings/Meeting%20Agenda%20Template.doc

Notice how the server name is URL encoded too. The %2E's should be periods, e.g.
https://my.site.com/Meetings/Meeting%20Agenda%20Template.doc

This seems to be a known bug, and some options for fixing it are listed here:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1540990&SiteID=1

Cannot delete forms directory

How do you delete a directory called "Forms" in a SharePoint 2007 document library? This is not the reserved, hidden "Forms" directory where the templates go. I know that shouldn't be deleted. This is a user-added directory called "Forms" a few levels below the document library root, e.g. /sitename/documentlibrary/subject1/subject2/forms/

In the web interface, the site throws an error:

In SharePoint designer, it gives this error:

I can't figure out how to delete these custom "Forms" directories. Google has been no help. If you have a solution, please let me know. I will post any solutions I find.

Should we really not ever have any document library folders called "Forms"?

Been

In case you were wondering, and even if you're not, where have I been?

Around.

Personally, I've been busy at home with our new son, Benjamin, who was born in March. He's quite the young gentleman. Very funny too.

Professionally, I've been bouncing around a few projects and have currently found myself between things. It's alright. It has given me a chance to reset.

I have been actively watching the evolution of the new "2007 Microsoft Office System." If you run Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista RC1 and want to try the beta client (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.), check out the Office preview site.

I must say that it's quite different from any previous version of Office. Also keep in mind that it's an unsupported Beta, so you will find minor bugs. Lastly, make sure to download both the Beta 2 files plus the Beta 2 Technical Refresh updates. You need to install both.

The final release, slated for sometime in the next six months or so (maybe?) will be production quality. The current Beta 2 Technical Refresh is supposed to be the most stable yet, and I tend to believe it, though the faster your system the better it will run. This ain't your father's Word for Windows 95.

If you have the guts and time, check out SharePoint Server, aka MOSS 2007, also available on the preview site. Both client and server are a vast improvement over Office 2003 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

MCMS and SharePoint migration to MOSS 2007

Via Andrew Connell:

MSDN now has a “SharePoint Server Migration Center” site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/server/moss/2007/migration/

and also via Andrew:

MCMS 2002: CMS Assessment Tool

Gates explains it all

Bill Gates opened the first ever SharePoint conference this week. He emphasized that Microsoft is moving towards a SharePoint centric view of the world. He also talked about how SQL Server will eventually become "the native underlying platform for SharePoint, Exchange, meta-directory and all Microsoft server applications with data storage needs."

The article also reiterates the fact that Microsoft Content Management Server will be killed off with the advent of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Sad but true.

Microsoft also is killing Content Management Server and folding its capabilities into SharePoint, which will be pitched to corporate users as a multitask, identity-enabled engine to host collaborative sites not just for the intranet but for the extranet and Internet as well.

I've known this day was coming, but it hurts to think about it. *sob*

Read the full article on ARNnet.

Deployment for WCM in MOSS

From Tyler Butler of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server team at Microsoft:

Content Deployment
There’s been a lot of interest in learning more about the WCM feature set that has been built into MOSS and how Internet-facing sites can be built, maintained, and supported on top of MOSS. In this post, I’ll cover how a particular WCM feature called Content Deployment supports multi-farm topologies and can be used to enable authoring -> staging -> production scenarios. I’ll talk a little about previous solutions to the problem, give you an overview of the Content Deployment feature, and discuss the architecture of the feature in-depth.

This is a welcome upgrade from the Site Deployment Object from MCMS 2002. SDOs are pretty nifty in their own right, but are limited in features and impossible for non-administrators to use.

Of course, this doesn't squelch the debate of dynamic front-facing pages (a la MCMS) vs. static front-facing HTML (a la Interwoven). I'm almost certain that Site Stager will not appear in MOSS 2007/WCM, but that doesn't mean a replacement can't be created by the community.

Caching in Office SharePoint Server 2007

Recently, the SharePoint team blog talked about various features of the Office SharePoint Server 2007 platform. Among them was caching.

Many of the neat caching features of MCMS 2002 will be incorporated in SharePoint 2007, plus some new stuff. ASP.NET output caching will also be carried over, which is great news. If all goes well, all of this will be available to SharePoint as well a the new CMS bits.

See the Caching section on the post
Performance, Performance, Performance post.

BTW, I wonder which books they were referring to in this sentence ;-)

CMS 2002 had very elaborate caching support (writers spent a whole chapter on it in CMS books!)