I want to work on SharePoint ! but I don’t have a SharePoint connection !!!

I want to work on SharePoint ! but I don’t have a SharePoint connection !!!

Well that sounds crazy, but what if you have an unstable VPN connection and you have to work on an important document which needs to be uploaded into the SharePoint site, or a presentation that your boss want to see and your Connection is bad.

SharePoint 2010 gives you a capability to work with more evolved Office Integration which will make your offline work easier to do and more easier to sync.

Microsoft Word 2010:

We know that we can write a blog in word and publish it to SharePoint.

One of the new features in Microsoft Office is the share option that allows you to publish a document to a SharePoint site without having to manually upload it. After your done writing up your document in word > Click the File tab > select Save & Send  > Send to SharePoint > select a SharePoint location > the document will be automatically uploaded to SharePoint site.

Also located under the file tab is the info tab which displays SharePoint related information of the site like setting permissions, checking document properties, checkin- checkout information.

Microsoft Workspace 2010 (formally Known as Groove)

As mentioned in my earlier post Workspace is an offline client and it can be used to work with the contents in the SharePoint site, a few things about the working with the Workspace.

1.       You have to first sync it to the SharePoint site and wait for the site to get a copy of the download, the time depends upon the size of your website.

2.       Sync site by clicking New option on the Home Tab, Type server name and Sync

3.       The sync will begin and show all status at this moment your online with SharePoint.

4.       List of operations you can do with the “Offline SharePoint Workplace”

Ø  Work with InfoPath forms via Project tasks list.

Ø  Work with list and libraries.

5.       List of things you cannot do with the offline workspace.

Ø  Cannot work with calendars.

Ø  Cannot work workflows.

Hope this post would help you to work better with Office and SharePoint

Sharepoint Workspace 2010

I was curious on knowing what does SharePoint Work Space provides to the SharePoint and it is useful.

I bumped into this video and it seems that in 10 minutes they make us understand what its it, checkout the video for yourselves to rate 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5i_ahTRNyU 

Key points:

1. SharePoint work space is an offline client to work on your sites. 
2. It shows the same content in your SharePoint sites but in an explorer view format. 
3. it does not support lists like Calenders,/ KPI etc

I think it works great for users who are new to SharePoint or who need to work with there files when the site are down  for maintenance, also if your pages have gone corrupt your users can not interrupt there work accessing the files they need and working with them. 

List or Library shows blank pages

This is very common issue when user closes out list web part on any of the list or library pages

Troubleshooting

• Open faulty page in web part maintenance mode to check is there any web part / script added to that page or not
• Once it’s confirmed go back to faulty page
• Click on Site Action > Edit Page
• Click on Add a Web Part option
• Then from the web part category list navigate to bottom most categories – Closed Web Part
• Select it and it will give you “untitled” (in most cases) in the right pane
• Select and click Add
• That’s all; you will be back in business

Now what in case someone deleted the web part

• No worries open the same page in SharePoint Designer
• Click on Insert and from the data view category choose the option related to your page (New, Edit or Display)
• Add it to the respective page and that’s it.

Feel free to reach me in case of any issues, thanks

Send reminder emails via SharePoint Designer Workflow

Last week one of my user asked me to design a reminder email which should be sent out 2 days before due date. He had a large list where there are thousands of items and he needed it to be approved / reviewed by assignee before it crossed the dead line. He already had a Due Date column which is Date and Time type and showing only date. Below is the design logic I used to achieve this requirement

Design Logic:

• Create a new column (I called it Today) with Date and Time category and select to display only date
• Create another column (Diff), type calculated, and simply add this formula

=[Today]-[Due Date]

That’s all from List end, now open up site in SPD

• Create a new workflow based on List
• Select respected list, specify name of that workflow
• Then select condition – If current Item filed equals value
• Put current item > Diff  in field and value to 2
• In action tab select send an email
• Fill all required stages
• Save and publish the list
• Now open the list and check if the workflow fires or not

Update: 3rd March 2015
above solution works with the static reminder workflow and send email once difference reaches to today-due date. To send reminder emails periodically we have to create and store a value dynamically which can change with the date and days. Refer below screen shot where I used 3 conditions to trigger a workflow and then generated a value, which stored in variable and email action taken place when reached that value.

Feel free to reach me in case of any issues, thanks

Customize Newform.aspx using InfoPath

Last week I was assigned to customize a list page. Here are the steps and some issues I faced during this assignment.

Design / Customization phase:

• Open SharePoint site
• Navigate to List
• Select on the List and then click customize form (it by default shows InfoPath icon)

• This will open the NewForm.aspx page in InfoPath
• Make necessary changes and publish / quick publish it to SharePoint
• By default it publishes to the same list. (to change the default quick publish option we have to dig hard and change some codes inside that form xml. I will discuss on it later)
• That’s it now you have customized InfoPath form loaded to your list

Validation phase:

• Now where to check this is the same customized form you published via InfoPath?
• From Ribbon select Item > New Item

• This should open up a customized form.
• To reconfirm it, open this list in SPD or in explorer view
• Now go to Forms folder and confirm Newfs.aspx page resides there

Known issue / troubleshooting phase:

• I noticed this issue most of the times when we customize list newform it only updated in Ribbon part, in other words it only updates content type filed.
• I faced an issue with add new item option which we generally find below all items

When I clicked on it, I found the old / original newform.aspx page opening.

Whats new in SharePoint Designer 2010 (and whats missing)

SharePoint Designer is a single tool that helps you do so much more with the SharePoint, with little or no coding. 

In the Share point designer 2010 there have been some enhancements and as an Administrator its important to understand these enhancements.

Features such as Contributor settings, Database Interface Wizards, Site Publish, Site Backup and Restore are no longer available in the Designer 2010. 


Additionally SharePoint designer offers new capabilities to create web part pages, master pages, lists and workflows, setting permissions for individual users; and saving and deleting site templates. 

Also you can extend share-point 2010 ribbon using standard Development APIs to fulfill application & corporate requirements using SharePoint designer 2010 you can customize both Ribbon and drop down lists to display site lists, available webparts, workflows, or other information as needed.

refer the link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179083.aspx to get more information on this part. 

State service error message

SharePoint makes it easy to modify your list input forms using the new design the form page in InfoPath 2010 option

You can just open your list and click Customize form button in ribbon.

But sometimes while publishing the form you may see the error message as

"The form cannot be rendered. This may be due to Misconfiguration of the Microsoft SharePoint state service. For more information contact your server administrator" 

one possible cause of this error could be that the SharePoint 2010 farm was created manually without running the PS configuration wizard.

To configure the SharePoint 2010 state service using the PowerShell try the following:

1. open your Central Administration in the Browser.
2. On task bar, click Start, select Administrative tools and then windows PowerShell modules, this will launch PowerShell and load all required modules.
3. In windows PowerShell window create an application by typing this command.
 
   $serviceapp =New-SPStateServiceApplication -Name "State Service"

4. Associate a Database with this application

New- SPStateServiceDatabase -Name "StateServiceDatabase" -ServiceApplication $serviceapp

5. Create a State Service Application Proxy and associate it with service application by typing the Following command

New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy -Name "State Service" -ServiceApplication $serviceApp -DefaultProxyGroup.


This will create the State service Application in CA

next you need to check is that you application is associated with this state service application.

just go ahead and publish your InfoPath form, it should work now :)