Microsoft SharePoint Developer Documentation Team Blog

The Microsoft SharePoint Developer Documentation Team have started blogging, if you are a SharePoint developer, then this resource is going to be essential.

Visit their new blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdeveloperdocs/default.aspx

There first couple of blog posts are fantastic;

• Extending Workflow Actions for SharePoint Designer
• SharePoint Resource Center Pages Now Live
• SharePoint SDKs Machine Translation Pilot
• Creating new .ACTIONS files for code-free workflow editors
• Content Migration in SharePoint
• Content Migration in SharePoint (Post 2)
• Customising Alert Notifications and Alert Templates in Windows SharePoint

Calling all SharePoint developers!

Chris Johnson from the SharePoint product team wants to hear from the SharePoint developers.  This is your chance to give your feedback directly to the product team.

Go to his post and leave your comments.

“Something I take great interest in and spend a bunch of time thinking about are SharePoint Developers.  I was one before I moved up here to Redmond and joined the SharePoint product team.  Of course that means I hold a dear place in my heart for all you pro developers out there who are stuggling with the lack of developer tools targeted at the hard core SharePoint developer.  Dont worry … we hear ya!!!

Something I have been doing recently is quizzing other sharepoint developers out there about their development practices, tools and environments they use in their jobs.  Now i want to take that to anyone (is there anyone?) reading this blog.

So here are my questions for you:

- What does your development environment look like?  Do you develop in a VPC (what products are installed) or on a dedicated machine?  Does your team use a single SQL server? or do you each run your own?  Do you run standalone MOSS/WSS installs? or are they connected to a Farm with other developers machines connected?

- What are the tools you use and how do you use them?  Do you only use Visual Studio?  or do you use a mix of VS and SharePoint Designer?  Do you have a bunch of scripts or batches for things yout cant do in Visual Studio … like package up your Features into Solution files etc… Do you use any third party tools?

- If you use source control what do you store in it?  Do you just store your Feature files & code? or do you store scripts to automate a build and upload content to it etc…?  Is this all integrated with Source Control?

- Do you use any tools to help you build Feature & Solution files etc…? or do you manually write them?

- Have you looked at the Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services?  if so .. 1.1? or just 1.0?  What do you think is missing from that tool that you have to do using manual steps or scripts you built etc… (for more info see: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2007/08/21/announcing-the-ctp-for-vsewss-version-1-1.aspx)

- What sort of applications are you building?  one off sites? or templates etc… for many sites?

- Do you sell the things you build many times?  or are they usually one offs?

So many questions I know   I want to make sure we stay focussed on delivering the tools that make the most sense to you the developers.  That is why I think it is important that you get to have your say about what direction we are should head in.  So go ahead … make my day … and add your comments below. (your comments might take a while to show up as i have comment moderation on to stop all the spam … but i will approve when i can). Also …I am totally happy for people to reply anonomously if they like.”, Chris Johnson (Microsoft).

Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) released

Just caught wind that Microsoft and HiSoftware have announced the official release of the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) Version 1.0.

Download

Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Have you implemented a WSS v3 or MOSS 2007 environment? Are you an administrator of a WSS v3 or MOSS 2207 environment? or are you the Security Consultant for an organisation that has deployed a WSS v3 or MOSS 2007 environment? If so, then this tool will be invaluable for you.

The Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for WSS v3 and MOSS 2007 collects information about the topology in relation to ‘best practices’ and provides administrators with a detailed report of recommendations that can be applied to obtain greater performance, scalability and reliability.

1 Day Customer Technical JumpStarts

1 DAY CUSTOMER TECHNICAL JUMPSTARTS – SHAREPOINT, EXCHANGE, PERFORMANCE POINT

Are there people in your business that need to get up to speed on SharePoint, Performance Point and all of the technologies around Unified Communications?  The Jump-Start is an interactive training session which provides a technical introduction and understanding of Microsoft technologies from an architectural and solution overview perspective.  The sessions are Instructor led “chalk & talk” and does not include any hands-on technical labs. These sessions are ideal if you are a technical person needing to cross train your Microsoft skills and gain an understanding of how these technologies work together in an overall solution. These sessions are led by an experienced ‘in the field’ instructor to give you the fast track introduction and guidance you need as part of your skills enablement roadmap. This is Level 200 Training.

Jump-Start Chalk ‘N Talk” costs $79 and are being held nationwide.  Get all the details on the link below.

1 Day Jump-Start on Collaboration (MOSS), Enterprise Content Management and Search – Technical – November

REGISTER NOW https://www.local.microsoft.com.au/australia/events/register/home.aspx?levent=150045&linvitation

1 Day Jump-Start on Unified Communication (Exchange 2007 and Office Communication Server) – Technical – November

REGISTER NOW https://www.local.microsoft.com.au/australia/events/register/home.aspx?levent=136620&linvitation

1 Day Jump-Start on Business Intelligence and Performance Point Server – November

REGISTER NOW https://www.local.microsoft.com.au/australia/events/register/home.aspx?levent=822610&linvitation

WSS v3 Security Hotfix MS07-059 announced

The SharePoint Product Team have announced an important mandatory security hotfix that will be released on October 9th (PST).

Be sure to note that as Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is included with all editions of Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, and Performance Point Server as well as any others which include WSS 3.0 you need to apply this hotfix on those environments as well. 

We recommend applying this hotfix during your next planned downtime, or change management window and scheduling this with priority.  This hotfix contains previously released hotfixes including the DST (Daylight Savings Time) hotfix.

First, if you have deployed “host named site collections” previously known as “host header” sites you should wait to apply the hotfix if you have more than 50 host named site collections. We will be issuing a performance related fix related to the hotfix. This hotfix will include the same hotfixes as the October 9 public update in addition to the host named site collection update performance related hotfix.  You need not wait if this does not apply.

The most important thing as the title suggests is this hotfix addresses a security vulnerability in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 that could allow cross-site scripting. This update resolves this vulnerability. Please read the entire contents of the KB article before applying the hotfix as there are a number of known issues which should be well understood. (If these links aren’t available as you read this article, they will be shortly as the hotfix becomes available.)

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=937832

To view the complete security bulletin, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms07-059.mspx

Also, Service Pack 1 for WSSv3 and MOSS 2007 has entered internal testing within Microsoft and is expected to be released soon.

SharePoint deployment plan

[via Joel Oleson]

Joel has blogged about a sample project plan that you can use and modify for you own use that provides guidance for creating a Deployment plan for MOSS 2007. It is the Office SharePoint Server Deployment Plan sample (MOSS Deployment.mpp) build using Microsoft Project.

The more you become familiar with SharePoint Server, the more likely you’ll notice that there are a mirad or a plethora of ways to deploy. This really is intended to be a sample that you modify and use as a starter. There are over 300 items in the project with the idea of sparking ideas and in an attempt to be inclusive. I welcome feedback and encourage people to use this and make it their own. Thanks Ascentium for allowing me to bounce this project plan off your deployment teams. Joel Oleson

Microsoft adjusts license model for MOSS Internet Sites (MOSSFIS)

Microsoft have been listening…it was found that lots of Internet implementations of MOSS were employing an alternative architecture that was not of that intended, due to the license model of MOSS CAL and Internet Sites which could not co-exist on the same web farm. MSFT have adjusted its licensing model over MOSS and it is now allowed. This means that you can now deploy a Internet Site onto a single server for authoring (staging) and presentation, without breaching the license agreement. This would also mean that you would not need to implement Content Deployment and also that content changes, once approved, would be immediately viewable by the public.  Tom Rizzo, Director of Product Management, Microsoft has written a post describing this in more detail.

Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS)

Accessibility for Web Content Managed sites under MCMS was always a major challenge and sometimes even a stumbling for some customers.  Now that the WCM feature set has been migrated to MOSS it is great to see Microsoft is ensuring that the Accessibility of the product is improved.

Microsoft has hired HiSoftware as a vendor to develop the Accessibility Kit for MOSS 2007, also known as Accessibility Kit for SharePoint or AKS. The decision was made primarily based on HiSoftware’s in-depth expertise and broad industry experience in providing tools and services for improving software accessibility to the point of compliance with key industry and goverment standards and beyond. The contractual Statement of Work calls for HiSoftware to deliver a kit that can significantly reduce the time, knowledge, and effort required to implement a SharePoint-based web site that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints, which are collectively known as WCAG 1.0 AA. The AKS can also be used to address the exceptions that have been identified in the U.S. government’s Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT documents for MOSS 2007. While most of our customers find the improvements in accessibility (more info at Office Online) over previous versions of SharePoint to be adequate for their needs, a growing number has asked us to provide even more. The AKS is our near term response. Longer term, we plan to make significantly further improvements in accessibility in the next version of SharePoint, but we don’t have any details to disclose at this time.

Microsoft will be conducting a private beta as early as mid September 2007, with a release to community towards the end of October and an update in mid December.

These deliverables were established based on customer and partner feedback that we’ve received thus far and prioritized based on the scenarios that would impact the most end users of a MOSS-based web site down to the least.

• Milestone 1: AKS 1.0 Private Beta – ETA September 17, 2007
  This initial milestone will provide a testable version of the kit that focuses on the web content publishing and authoring scenarios for Internet facing web sites as well as intranet portals.
• Milestone 2: AKS 1.0 Release to Web – ETA October 29, 2007
  This milestone will provide a production ready version of the kit that can be used in the implementation of live MOSS based web sites or portals.
• Milestone 3: AKS 1.5 Update – ETA December 17, 2007
  This milestone will provide accessibility improvements for advanced web content authoring and team collaboration scenarios.

I have been involved in delivering several WCM solutions for government and Accessibility is always involved so I cannot wait to get a hold of AKS and dive under the covers and work out how this will improve the delivery time-frames for accessible web sites!

Microsoft BDC Definition Editor for MOSS 2007

The Business Data Catalog definition editor for MOSS is now available as part of the August MOSS SDK download.

[Via SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog]

The Business Data Catalog Definition Editor provides a visual tool for creating an Application Definition for BDC in MOSS 2007.  Features include:

• Underlying XML is abstracted by the design surface and properties window
• Drag and drop web methods, tables, or views to create line of business (LOB) connections.
• Entities and methods are created automatically from database metadata and WSDLs.
• Additional method instances can be added to further enhance the database or web service connection.
• Method instances can be tested from within the tool, enabling incremental development of LOB connections

Once the SDK has been installed, go to <%Program Files%>\2007 Office System Developer Resources\Tools\BDC Definition Editor\readme.html for instructions on installing and using the tool.

SharePoint Web Service Example – Grabbing Wiki Content

Arpan Shah has just posted an excellent post about a session he presented at the internal Microsoft Tech Ready conference yesterday.  The article show how easy it is to use the SharePoint Web Service to consume content from SharePoint for use elsewhere.

ANZ MOSS sites in the Wild

Steve Iatropoulos has started compiling a list of Australian/New Zealand websites that are being delivered by MOSS 2007.  Please help make this list grow by emailing steve with the Urls of websites that you know are being delivered by MOSS 2007.

Integrating RadControls into SharePoint 2007

Latest information from Telerik regarding its RadContols suite and integration into SharePoint 2007 and WSSv3.

The market leading RadControls for ASP.NET bring unparalleled richness, responsiveness and interactivity to your SharePoint 2007 projects. Now you can easily incorporate all Telerik ASP.NET UI products into Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. The integration is a straight-forward process and we supply several resources to help you along the way. The whitepaper is specially created by Andrew Connell, MVP Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, visit Andrew Connell’s website

Whitepaper
Screencast

Although these resources refer to RadMenu, other controls in the Telerik RadControls suite follow the same deployment model and requirements. While the demonstration site used in the resources is a MOSS 2007 Publishing site, these same steps apply to all WSS v3 based sites, including sites created using the Team Site or Blank Site site template.

More information is available at www.telerik.com/sharepoint

SDM has a new website (in MOSS)

Today SDM launched its new look website. The new site has been developed using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007.

Using Virtual Earth in SharePoint (Part 1 of 2)

Over the past few weeks Daniel Colarossi and I have been working together on developing a series of Web Parts using Virtual Earth.  This article describes two ways in which you can use Virtual Earth from within SharePoint.  I will shortly be adding to these with a couple of additional ways we have used Virtual Earth.

Content Editor Web Part

The simplest way to insert a Virtual Earth map into your SharePoint page is to use the out of the box Content Editor Web Part.  All you need to do is simply add a Content Editor Web Part and past the following code into the Source Editor.  The code below will display a map centered on Melbourne Australia and also places a push pin (with my photo) on top of the Melbourne Town Hall (-37.81585174911994 Latitude and 144.965714083252 Longitude).

<script src="http://dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=5"></script> <script type="text/javascript">
  var map = null;   function GetMap()
  {
    map = new VEMap('myMap');
    map.LoadMap(new VELatLong(-37.81585274911994, 144.9657154083252), 10,'r' ,false);
    AddPin(-37.81585274911994, 144.9657154083252, 'CodeJedi.NET', '<strong>Name:</strong> William Cornwill.<br><strong>Blog:</strong> <a target ="_new" href="http://www.codejedi.net">http://www.codejedi.net/</a><br><br><a target ="_new" href="http://www.codejedi.net"><img src="http://members.optusnet.com.au/cornwill73/siteimages/William.jpg" /></a>');
  }   function AddPin(lat, lon, iconurl, title, desc)
  {
    var shape = new VEShape(VEShapeType.Pushpin,new VELatLong(lat,lon));
    shape.SetTitle(title);
    shape.SetDescription(desc);
    map.AddShape(shape);
  }   function addLoadEvent(func)
  {
    if(typeof window.onload != 'function')
    {
      window.onload = func;
    }
    else
    {
      window.onload = function()
        {
          func();
        }
    }
  }   addLoadEvent(GetMap);
</script>
<div id='myMap' style="position:relative; width:640px; height:480px;"></div>

Basic Virtual Earth Web Part

As you might agree providing a user with some JavaScript and telling them to paste it into a Content Editor Web Part isn’t really that user friendly.  So Daniel and I have wrapped this basic functionality into a WebPart.  The Basic Virtual Earth Web Part allows a user to provide Latitude and Longitude coordinates or enter an address, a zoom level, a pin title and pin description.  The result is a user friendly and easily adjusted Virtual Earth map in a SharePoint page.

You can download the code for the Basic Virtual Earth Web Part from the samples section of this blog.

Next time

In the next article I will be posting another two ways in which we have used Virtual Earth in SharePoint, including obtaining pin points from a SharePoint list of Lat/Longs (with an additional surprise) and also a Web Part that shows a map with pin points for all your contacts in Outlook.

These are just a couple of ways in which you could use mapping within SharePoint, there are countless other ways and I hope that this has gotten you as excited as I am about using Virtual Earth in SharePoint.

Another content deployment issue

A customer of mine is still having issues with content deployment and has provided me with this interesting story;

Ah! Sharepoint 2007 continues to be a living and learning experience.

I’m sure there is a built in timer service that automatically creates one problem in perfect synchronicity with another one just to create maximum confusion. After a recent database server reboot, I started a standard deploy to copy the latest content from the staging environment to Internet environment. It crashed with a ‘can’t write’ package error, which could have been either of the two servers OR SQL servers, and I first suspected some permission changes post the reboot.

But no. It was a simple ‘out of space’ on the destination Sharepoint Web server. For future info: Sharepoint writes the deployment package to the directory windows/temp/content deployment/[guid] and *leaves* it there forever. The directory was full of deployments dating back to the original content creation. I can see no good reason to retain these so I simply deleted most of them – problem fixed..

This appears to be a bug. (shock! Horror!) because the admin gui clearly states:.

Temporary Files.

Specify where you want to store temporary files for content deployment jobs. These files are automatically deleted when the deployment job is finished.
This folder must have enough available disk space to store all the content that is deployed at one time..

Maybe a scheduled job to clean these up monthly would be a good idea?

CodeCampSA

A friend of mine Jey Srikantha from K2.NET has just let me know about CodeCampSA.

This free event sponsored by UniSA, ADNUG and Australian Computer Society is the Adelaide version of the very popular CodeCampOz http://www.codecampoz.com held in Wagga Wagga in April. For those who find the journey to Wagga Wagga difficult, the CodeCamp is coming to SA. There will be continuous presentations (apart from breaks for BBQ lunch and coffee)

There will be heaps of great presenters like Dave Glover, Mitch Denny, Greg Low and of course Jey will be giving two presentations (“Blessings of the blackpearl– K2[blackpearl] and .NET” and “MOSS’ing around with blackpearl – k2[blackpearl] and MOSS”). The complete agenda and speaker list is on the event page of the ADNUG website.

I think I will find it difficult to get over to SA to attend as I am extremely busy, but I will try. Although the event is free you still need to register to attend each day.

WHERE: UniSA, Theatre HH4-08 Hans Heysen Building, North Terrace, ADELAIDE SA

WHEN: 8.30 for an 8.45 start 7th-8th July

To register (both Saturday and Sunday).

http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=event&temID=eventdetails&eveID=2093

http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=event&temID=eventdetails&eveID=2094

**Note – if you are going to attend both Saturday and Sunday, please book for both days.**

MossAdRotator available for download

Quite a few people have asked me for a downable copy of the MossAdRotator control I discussed in March, so I have created a C# class file that you can download.

MOSSIG site updated

Today I finally got around to updating the content on the MOSSIG website. It is now a lot more functional and I think it looks a little better. The MOSSIG team are currently working on a more snazzy MOSS site and I will keep you all posted when that goes live. But in the meantime, enjoy the new site content.

I have to give a special thank you to Daniel Colarossi for giving some tutorial on embedding Virtual Earth in a Content Editor Web Part – pretty funky!

SharePoint Upgrade Pre-scan Tool

This is a must have tool for those that intend on performing SharePoint upgrades. The Upgrade Pre-scan Tool can be obtained from the Microsoft Download Centre.

Before you can upgrade to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, you must run the Prescan.exe utility against your existing Web sites. This pre-upgrade scan tool scans your sites and reports issues, allowing you to fix any errors before you perform an upgrade.

Another useful upgrade resource is a post by Alan Coulter.