Robin's SharePoint and Website musings

How to use a 'Link to a document' in place of a real document in SharePoint. Just what I need to do in our new 2013 site... link to documents that live elsewhere.

As always, SharePoint provides daily learning lessons.  Today I noticed that the "or drag files here"  control didn't show up on computer where I was doing a demo of our new SharePoint 2013 environment.  The machine in question is running Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9 (32-bit) in Compatibility View, and running Office 2010. I opened the same site in Firefox and was able to demo the drag and drop feature without issue.  But this got me to questioning what was causing the problem (was the browser or the office version?) So I came back and looked at 2 machines in the office. Same build and updates on IE running on both machines. Same Compatibility and Internet Options settings. I tried removing Compatibility View and clearing browser history on IE, but this made no difference. Here's what the machine running Office 2010 looks like:  The machine running Office 2013 shows the same site like this: I was logged on with the same credentials/permissions

This link no longer works, because it may have been moved or deleted. You can try to find it and follow it in its new location. (via www.absolute-sharepoint.com ) I had a problem at a client who had SharePoint 2013 MySites and a couple of WebApplications. Users were able to follow sites and they appeared in their mysite as usual, however when they clicked on them, they had this error: This link no longer works…

Creating and applying a Composed Look: 1. Download SharePoint Designer 2013 and SharePoint Color Palette Tool. 2. Create your theme using the SharePoint Color Palette Tool and save it as a .spcolor file. Suggest that you sort the Color Slot Grouping by UI Groups. 3. Open SharePoint Designer 2013. 4. Click Open Site. 5. Enter the URL of your SharePoint page (Master Page). 6. Click on All Files under Navigation. 7. Click on _catalogs. 8. Click on theme. 9. Click on 15. 10. Click Import Files. 11. Select your .spcolor file and click ok. You should now see your template file in the 15 directory. 12. Click All Files. 13. Click images. 14. Click Import Files. 15. Select the image you want for your background image and click ok. You should now see your image file in the image directory. 16. Now open the master page that you want to add the theme to in SharePoint 2013. 17. Click on the settings icon and select Site Settings. 18. Under Web Designer Galle

The Ultimate Guide to SharePoint Server 2013 Certifications V2 by Vlad Catrinescu   

A user with admin permissions changed the URL of our WordPress site. This, of course, caused the site to be unreachable. After major frustration, and frantic searching, I asked friends on the SharePoint-Community.net for help. Was referred to this URL: http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_The_Site_URL What worked for me was a two step process: Since I had just upgraded the WordPress site the day before to the newest version (at the time 3.6.1), I had backup files on an external hard drive. I tried first doing a hack on the Functions.php file in the theme. That gave us a login prompt but nothing else. I tried editing the wp-config.php file, but at first it didn't seem to work. So I went ahead and rolled back the files from the day before. Then I tried one more time with wp-config.php as follows (from the codex.wordpress.org site above): Edit wp-config.php It is possible to set the site URL manually in the wp-config.php file. Add these two lines to your wp-config.

Every time I have to do this, I have to look up the instructions, so I thought why not write down my steps this time. So here goes: For reasons unbeknownst to me our WordPress site never allows us to apply Upgrades, apply updates to plugins or themes automatically. So I end up having to go download the needed files and remote to my server. See WordPRess's full explanations of upgrading here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress 1) Make a backup of the Wordpress and PHP directories. If you don't have an automatic backup in place of the MySQL database, back that up too. 2) Deactivate plugins that are being updated 2) Download all needed files 3) Extract needed files 4) Upload files to server 5) Copy files to appropriate directories. Remember to reactivate your plugins.

In our MOSS2007, environment we've had issues in the past with users getting the "InfoPath could not submit the form" message. Our "fix" was to uncheck the "Display intranet sites in Compatibility View" on the Compatibility View Settings screen (see below). However, since yesterday, I've been trying to resolve an issue where a user could open an InfoPath form from the Form library, but got an error message when she tried to open the same form from the workflow task library. Another user in the same office was not experiencing the issue. So we began to compare settings, looking at Add-ons thinking that was the problem. However, nothing we changed in the Manage Add-ons section worked. In correcting an unrelated issue with PeopleSoft screens in the browser (items were overlapping each other), we noticed that the second user had "Display intranet site in Compatibility View". So we went back to user 1 and checked "Display in

Understanding jQuery More SharePoint goodness from SharePoint Videos and jQuery from Marc Anderson!

Item ‘Modified By’ Value Doesn’t Change: Fixing a Damaged Column Schema (via http://sympmarc.com ) I ran into an odd situation the other day at one of my clients. When people edited existing list or library items in *some* lists (we couldn’t discern a pattern) the Modified By (Editor) column value did not change. The date/time stamp (Modified)…

Five reasons why you should learn SharePoint  - great post from Thuan Soldier

Having worked in a MOSS 2007 environment for my entire SharePoint career, the thought of upgrading to 2013 has been both terrifying and very exciting (simultaneously).  In an effort to educate myself and gain new skills, I have been reading several new books.  I started out reading SP 2010  books thinking we were upgrading there, so you'll see a few of those in the list too. Hope to share reviews of these as time allows.  So here's the list in no particular order: Kindle Books: How to do Everything Microsoft SharePoint 2013 by Stephen Cawood Professional: SharePoint 2013 Development by Reza Alirezaei, Brendon Schwartz, Matt Ranlett, Scott Hillier, Brian Wilson, Jeff Fried, and Paul Swider Microsoft SharePoint 2013 App Development by Scott Hillier and Ted Pattison Exploring Microsoft SharePoint 2013 New Features and Functions by Penelope Coventry I ntroducing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner Beginning SQL Joes 2 Pros: The SQL Hands

More great reading material for SharePoint 2013. Step by Step: Create a SharePoint 2013 Composed Look - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com

SharePoint Resource Center | InformIT 35% off SharePoint 2013 books and a change to win one for free!

A New Concept in SharePoint Collaboration: Self-Publishing Books - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com Looking forward to the release of this book. Have my pre-release copy already purchased.

Since I seem to have trouble remembering how to do this every time I create a new form, I am writing up the steps here to set the UserID and Supervisor values in an InfoPath form from the User Profiles. Here's what we're trying to do :   So how do we accomplish this? First, we need to create the data connection to the User Profiles Service. In the form, create a new Data Connection.  This Data Connection will Receive Data from a Soap Service .   You'll use something similar to this: http://YourWebServiceDomain/_vti_bin/UserProfileService.asmx?WSDL (put in your server's URL for the YourWebServiceDomain). Select the GetUserProfilebyName operation. Click Next twice and Finish  

Tips and Tricks: Opening a Hidden Web Part - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com Steps to finding and deleting a hidden web part in MOSS 2007

Had a user today who was experiencing issues submitting an InfoPath form.  The original set of error messages made me assume that SharePoint was not set as Local Intranet site (which it wasn't).  So I set SharePoint as the local intranet site,  updated the user's desktop icon shortcut (to use the https version of the site).  And thought, okay, problem solved.  Alas and alack, not so! The user entered a form went to submit it and got a different set of error messages. (Unfortunately I didn't think to screenshot the errors and send them to myself so I don't have the exact wording for any of the errors.)  The basic message the second time was InfoPath cannot submit the form.  I've seen variations of this error before, so I started looking at Compatibility View, and Add-ons.  Well, I found the user had IE10 which we recommend our users NOT install as there are known compatibility issues with IE10 and SharePoint 2007 as well as some of our other internal systems.  So,

Manage employee acknowledgement forms with DocRead and SharePoint Find out more about an easy way to manage employee acknowledgement forms with Coallboris' DocRead and your SharePoint environment!  If you have a heard time verifying that employees have read mandatory documents or viewed mandatory training, this is your solution!

Need to know which SharePoint 2013 web template to use?  Thanks, Jasjit Chopra, for the blog post: http://www.funwithsharepoint.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=2

Had an interesting "problem" arise for an end user today.  This user has been able to open and update InfoPath forms in the past without a problem.  All of sudden today she was getting the message "The Form is Closed".  From past experience I know that this message is commonly seen when a user access SharePoint from  a web browser other than Internet Explorer and then tried to open a form that is NOT browser-enabled (one that requires the InfoPath Client). I checked the users browser version, settings (SharePoint is set as Local Intranet site).  Made sure that the browser history was cleared, checked the login name/password, made sure pop-up blockers weren't preventing the page from loading.  All of the steps I normally do.  Couldn't get it to work.  Called IT and they upgraded her from IE 8 to IE 9.  Same issue.   Finally, I thought, let me look and see if there's an add-on that's got a pop-up blocker.  To my surprise, what I found was that Sh

You're working furiously on a document with only a few minutes left until the doors close for the day (or your laptop battery dies, or some other emergency happens). You need to save the document to SharePoint, but you can't remember where the document library is in which you need to save the document.  If you make your frequently used Document Libraries Favorites in Windows Explorer.  That won’t be a problem again! Here's how to make it easier to save your documents to your SharePoint library: Create a Favorite in Windows Explorer.  Not in your browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, etc.). Let me show you what I mean: Figure 1: Windows Explorer Favorites So how did I get this screen? And how did I put the Shared Documents folder in my Favorites? This blog post will answer those questions. How to Get to the Favorites in Windows Explorer: I’m using Windows 7, so if you’re running XP, Vista, or Win8, your screen may look

SharePoint is not a Silver Bullet - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com Good points, Richard makes here.  SharePoint can do a lot of things, but it isn't designed to solve every single problem a business user might have. Some problems do require different solution platforms. Read Richard's article for more information!

Really psyched about SHARE 2013 coming up later this week.  Saw this 2-min video on how SharePoint 2013 allows true integration and collaboration between emails and tasks.  This is sweet stuff.  Check out the video here: http://vimeo.com/58367600

InfoPath 2010 - In Form Approval - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com Thanks @nothingbutsp and Chris Grist for providing just the information I needed!

Came across a great find that should help the SharePoint 2013 learning process greatly - a site where you can get a test environment for developing your proof of concept, just get familiar with SharePoint 2013, or test ideas.  Check it out for yourself:   http://www.sharepointpower.com/Pages/Default.aspx I signed up and had an account and environment a few hours later.  Looking forward to great learning.  

We'll start our SharePoint upgrade officially next month, so it's time to start learning all I can about SharePoint 2013 (long story, thought we were upgrading to 2010 and had been learning all I could there, now know we're going to 2013 instead). My Kindle has a couple of titles already: SharePoint 2013 First Look for Power Users by Asif Rehmani SharePoint 2013 Development Machine by Sahil Malik & Srini Sistla I also purchased: Beginning SharePoint 2013 Building Business Solutions by Amanda Perran, Shane Perran, Jennifer Mason, and Laura Rogers. Off to a good start! Have other recommended reading for me? Let me know!

Always more to learn about InfoPath... Glad I came across this! What can InfoPath do for you - Part 2 - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com

So you want to be able to keep multiple drafts of a document you and your team are working on without other people seeing it and when you've finally polished your policy manual (or whatever your document may be), post it for "everyone" to see? Well, SharePoint can let you do that! See my blog posting on creating a document library . Once your library is created, you'll want to turn on your versioning settings within the library (if you didn't do it when you created the library). To do so, click Settings from the Library's toolbar and select Document Library Settings . From the General Settings options, select Versioning Settings . From this screen, you will set whether or not the document requires approval before being made available to "everyone" to view. (Everyone being whomever has permissions to view the document library). Determine if you want major and minor versions and set the number of versions you need. Who should be ab

Recently had a comment made in a meeting that one of the things users didn't like in our current SharePoint 2007 environment is that there were so many documents that were outdated. This made me realize that I had failed to train our users in two very important "features": editing documents from SharePoint and using Versioning Settings. This blog post is to correct those two issues. A little about our environment: we are using MOSS 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) and Office 2010 Professional software. So to start out, how does one create a document library? Simple, assuming the user has adequate permissions, click the Site Actions tab on the right hand side of the page, and from the drop down, select Create. Under the Libraries grouping, select Document Library. Give your library a short, descriptive name. You can turn versioning on here by clicking Yes in the Create Versions options. In the next blog post , I discuss setting Versionin

Had someone ask me this today, so I thought I post a few quick steps. From the Home Tab in Outlook (I'm using Outlook 2010), click the Categorize icon in the ribbon. From the Color Categories pop up window, select NEW button. Here's the full details from Microsoft's site: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/create-a-new-color-category-HA010356463.aspx?CTT=3

How to Distribute a Training Video with DocRead for SharePoint Another useful find as we move forward with our SharePoint upgrade project.

After adding a Security Certificate to our SharePoint server, we had an issue with the transaction log for the content database exploding exponentially taking up most of the remaining space on our SQL server. The site slowed down to a crawl and it was quick to see that this was a problem that needed immediate assistance. I knew it was possible to shrink an SQL database, but not having an SQL server background, I wasn't sure what implications that would have for our SharePoint system. So I did some research on TechNet and found instructions on how to do it. Then I contacted a DBA friend and started asking questions. I was pretty sure that I could write a job in the SQL Studio Manager to shrink the database and transaction log, but was an honest with my manager that I didn't know what repercussions it would cause. Thus we opted to call in a consultant. Turns out the consultant did exactly what I had found to do. We ran the shrink on the main content database without a

Create your blog posts in Word 2010 and post to your SharePoint blog (or other blogs such as Blogger). It's really quite simple. Open Microsoft Word 2010. From the Start menu, Select NEW>Blog Post The first time you do this, you'll be asked to register your blog platform. Word provides several options. I selected Blogger (of course). Provide your account # and password: Then you'll be asked to provide Picture Options... provide your server location or choose None. (see this page from Microsoft for more details on the Picture Options: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/help-with-blogging-in-word-HA010164021.aspx?ver=14&app=winword.exe#_Toc321212396 ) ) Type your blog post as normal, inserting pictures if desired and publish. This Microsoft Video shows you how: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/video-use-word-2010-to-post-to-a-sharepoint-blog-VA101790488.aspx

How to Embed a PowerPoint Presentation in SharePoint Online 2010 - End User - NothingButSharePoint.com Was looking for a way to do this... not sure if it will work on SharePoint 2007, but I will be testing it and see. If not, this information should come in handy once our upgrade to 2010 is completed.

Why is it every time I need to update WordPress, I have to go look up the instructions? So to save myself some headaches, here's the URL for the manual install instructions for the next time I need them. http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress

I have been thinking for a long time that I needed to start putting down the things that I've learned about SharePoint and website design, sites that I frequent, and information that I have found helpful for some time. Perhaps it will help some other traveler along the way. I am not an expert, let me say this upfront. However, I do like to learn and I do like to share what I've learned. So I will share things as I have the opportunity and welcome feedback and comments.