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February 24
Using the Contact Selector in InfoPath to Auto-Populate User Information

I've been working on developing a pretty hefty form over the past couple weeks and the users want a lot of data pulled in from various data sources. One request they hadwas to be able to use the Contact Selector control to have the same "People Picker" functionality available to them within SharePoint. Well, that's not a problem, but requests didn't stop there. They also wanted to have certain user information fields auto-populate based upon the person they pick in this People Picker. I hadn't implemented this before, but it was fairly easy to find plenty of people who had... Here's a few links that provide instruction there.

 

Now, my form has to pull in quite a bit of demographic data and we're using a connection to the User Profile Service via SharePoint, so in case you're wondering what fields are available to you, here's a list of them. I pulled this information from Ishkay's blog, link provided above. Of course it's only as available as your AD or Profiles in SP make it, so if some of the fields like Birthday pull up blank, check before you blame InfoPath :)

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Alana Helbig:

 

 

Itay Shakury:

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/itaysk/archive/2007/04/05/InfoPath-_2D00_-Get-the-current-user-without-writing-code.aspx

 

 

 

Itay Shakury's complete list of default profile properties that get returned by the userprofileservice:

 

UserProfile_GUID
AccountName
FirstName
LastName
PreferredName
WorkPhone
Office
Department
Title
Manager
AboutMe
PersonalSpace
PictureURL
UserName
QuickLinks
WebSite
PublicSiteRedirect
SPS-Dotted-line
SPS-Peers
SPS-Responsibility
SPS-Skills
SPS-PastProjects
SPS-Interests
SPS-School
SPS-SipAddress
SPS-Birthday
SPS-MySiteUpgrade
SPS-DontSuggestList
SPS-ProxyAddresses
SPS-HireDate
SPS-LastColleagueAdded
SPS-OWAUrl
SPS-ResourceAccountName
SPS-MasterAccountName
Assistant
WorkEmail
CellPhone
Fax
HomePhone



February 22
Removing the elusive mssql$microsoft##SSEE

This is just a quick share. The other day I was working on installing a WSS 3.0 environment for a client who had already done an all-in-one installation on the server. They had uninstalled SharePoint since, but the Windows Internal Database instance that is created when you perform an All-in-one install was left behind. 

 

I knew how to connect to this database, by using a named pipe, but I had no clue how to remove it and I'm no SQL guru. But, I found a technet article and KB that give you a command line which will do the trick. Worked like a charm :)

 

Here's the command and you can read the articles here: KB / TechNet

 

  • On 32-bit platforms: msiexec /x {CEB5780F-1A70-44A9-850F-DE6C4F6AA8FB} callerid=ocsetup.exe
  • On 64-bit platforms: msiexec /x {BDD79957-5801-4A2D-B09E-852E7FA64D01} callerid=ocsetup.exe
  •  

     ​

    December 21
    CSS Image Sprites in SharePoint 2010

     

    fgimg

    Image sprites are nothing new, but their use in web design is trendy right now for good reason. An image sprite is basically one image that contains a bunch of other ones. By using a sprite, like the one on the left, which is used in SharePoint 2010 to display many icons, you can reduce the number of HTTP requests made and thus improve browser load times. Sprites have been around for a long time and have been used in video games as well as other applications. Take a look at the Wikipedia article as well as this article from A List Apart.

     

    By using CSS to map out the position of each individual image in the sprite, you can use this one master image to display several different icons on the page. Just take a look at the CSS below…

     

    element.style {

    display:inline-block;

    height:16px;

    overflow-x:hidden;

    overflow-y:hidden;

    position:relative;

    width:16px;

    }

     

    element.style {

    left:0 !important;

    position:absolute;

    top:-420px !important;

    }

    The image itself is  contained within a SPAN tag that has a specified height and width of 16px X 16px to match the size of the RSS icon. Look at the first block of code above and note that the height and width are specified as well as the overflow-x and overflow-y properties. The overflow value of “hidden” means that the rest of the image that does not fit in the 16px box will be clipped or hidden for the user.

     

    The second block of code is used to display the RSS Feed icon at the bottom of a blog site by using positioning. The background positioning informs the browser where to position the sprite image. The RSS icon is located 420px from the top of the entire image sprite, so the value for left and top in our element style allows us to see just that particular icon in this sprite.

     

    image

    December 12
    Slides from SharePoint Saturday (Branding w/ CSS & Master Pages)

    Please download my slide deck from SharePoint Saturday DC and Kansas City this December... This is also the presentation I gave at SPS Raleigh in early November as well.

     sp brandingScreenshot.PNG

    Thanks for all those who attended my session at both events. I had a great time and hope you enjoyed the session. Feel free to contact me with any questions :)

     

    SharePoint Branding Presentation.pdfSharePoint Branding Presentation.pdf

    December 10
    Welcome to the new SharePoint Grind site!

    New and improved on SharePoint 2010!! I will be moving over my posts from the old site very soon! In the meantime you can still read the old posts here: Old Site

    November 17
    Installing SharePoint 2010 Beta on Windows 7

    Today I set out to install SharePoint Server 2010 on my local machine running Windows 7 Professional. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to about 2010, being able to develop locally is not only great for the developers out there, but also for us SharePoint Branding folks, i.e. web designers. It makes life SOOOOOO much easier when you don’t have to wrangle virtual machines in order to build out some master pages! So, needless to say, I was really looking forward to making this setup happen for myself.

    So, there is an article you can follow on MSDN, which guides you through MOST of what you’ll need to do w/ the current beta that’s out there. However, when it comes to getting the configuration wizard to complete successfully, you’ll need to follow some extra steps, unsupported ones at that. Until the Hot fix comes out this is the only way you’ll get your installation up and running.

    First, you’ll need to download the beta from TechNet or MSDN. Save it in a folder SharePoint2010 (or whatever you want to call it) off the C drive. When your download is complete run the command line to extract the installation files. This step is described in the MSDN article: Setting Up the Development Environment for SharePoint Server

    So, once  you’ve extracted everything you should see a list of folders like the following:

    image

    Inside the Files –> Setup folder you’ll find the config.xml file. Make a backup before you make the modifications outlined in the MSDN article and then add the setting id to allow windows client install inside the <configuration> tag. You can copy and past from the MSDN article, the following line:

    <Setting Id="AllowWindowsClientInstall" Value="True"/>

    Save your config.xml file and then you’re ready to install all the pre-requisites.

    If you’re running Windows 7 you’ll want to install the additional prerequisites listed, like the Geneva Framework, ADO.NET Data Services v 1.5, and SQL Server Analysis Services. Just follow the list of items in Step 7 in the MSDN article to do so and you’ll be golden.

    Once those installs are complete you can copy and paste the script they provide into the command prompt, but just remember to remove any line breaks. The first time around, this script ran fine for me, but it didn’t activate the Non-HTTP Activation and that caused my configuration wizard to fail.

    So…

    Once you get to the point where you’re double checking all of the Windows Features are turned on, make sure that the checkbox for Windows Communication Foundation Non-HTTP Activation is selected. That’s under the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 section.

    image

    Now, you’ll want to do a reboot before you proceed with the installation.

    During the Installation if you get the following error, you may have a typo in config.xml file. Double-check that…

    Setup is unable to proceed

    If everything goes forward you’ll be prompted to enter you product key and the install should start. I configured my dev environment as a Standalone install. If all goes well, you’ll be ready to run the Config Wizard. This is where you will run into problems. Luckily, there are people out there who’ve already figured it out and pre-Hot Fix, you’re going to have to modify an XML file in order to get the Config Wizard to finish Step 8 – Creating Sample Data… There’s already a blog post on this from Mike Hacker: SharePoint 2010 Beta on Windows 7

    Make sure you read carefully, he’s instructing you to open the client.config file and remove two lines of code with the allowInsecureTransport attribute. If you’ve already run the config wizard, that will be in the error log where it says “Failed to create sample data”

    Go to the SharePoint Root under WebClients\Profile… The full path is here: “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebClients\Profile”

    Make a backup of client.config and then open in Notepad. Find those two lines of code, line 56 and 90 and remove both of the attributes for allowInsecureTransport:

    image

    Save your config.xml, (you may have to allow full control to your account in order to have write access), and then re-run the Configuration Wizard.

    At that point, everything should go off without a hitch and you should be the proud owner of a new SharePoint Server 2010 installation on your Win 7 machine! :)

    image

    If you run into any problems or have other tips, please share!!

    October 21
    Creating a Content Type Inheriting from Event

    If you need to create a content type that inherits from the “Event” content type, you will notice that OOTB it’s not listed in the List Content Types group. That’s because it is in the _Hidden group and in order to use it you will have to be sneaky enough to move it out of there!

    image

    So, in order to do this you’ll need to go to a Calendar on your site and go to the Settings page. From there you need to turn on Content Type Management in the Advanced Settings. Once you’ve selected “Allow management of content types?”, you’ll be able to see the Content Types listed for the Calendar list and there you’ll find the “Event” Content Type.

    image

    image

    Now you can actually go into the List Content Type for Event and from there you’ll be able to dive even deeper and go to the Parent Content Type by following the link in the List Content Type Information Section at the top of the page:image

     

     

     

    This link takes you to the Site Content Type for “Event” and from there you can modify the Group that Event is listed under, thus making it visible for you to use when creating new content types that inherit from this one. Once you’re on the Event page, just go to the “Name, description, and group” link in the Settings area and add it to the List Content Types group.

    image image

    Now you’ll be able to create a new content type that inherits from the Event parent type.

    October 19
    New SharePoint 2010 Stuff @ Microsoft.com

    Today, on day 1 of SP Conference a TON of new SharePoint 2010 content is being released all over the web. It will be hard to keep up with it all, but just wanted to share some of the stuff I’ve found this morning. On the Microsoft Download Center there are lots of new diagrams and articles that have been released today. Check out this list below and check back for more as I find them. I particularly enjoyed the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Evaluation Guide, which is a great overview for those of us that are new to the 2010 platform.

    You can download that guide here: SP Server 2010 Evaluation Guide

    Check out this learning plan too: SharePoint 2010: Developer and IT Professional Learning Plan

    Here are some other great new releases:

    Developers:

    Admin & Info Arch:

    BI & Information Architecture:

    Search:

  • Search Environment Planning for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
  • Search Architectures for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
  • Design Search Architectures for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
  • Search Technologies for SharePoint 2010 Products

     

  • October 19
    Neat Find: Visio Stencils for SharePoint

    So, recently I needed to create a process flowchart for a reservation system built on top of SharePoint. Being the perfectionist that I am, I really wanted to find some Visio stencils or shapes that represented the SharePoint objects I was referring to in my flowchart. There was nothing in Visio 2007 that came close and I really didn’t want to create anything myself, so I started digging.

    I came across quite a few downloads on the Microsoft site that had some neat shapes I could use, but for the SharePoint entities like, Calendars, Lists, Workflows, etc. I was still out of luck. Then I came across Maxime Bombardier’s Visio 2007 stencil and voila! So, if you ever need to create something similar, check this out:

    Visio Stencils for SharePoint 2007 sites and servers

    There are a few other great posts out there, like this one from Dave Hunter that lists some other resources, including the one above: Visio Shapes for SharePoint

    Of course, when Visio 2010 becomes available you can look forward to built in templates for building SharePoint 2010 Workflows, which sounds very cool. Check out this blog post to see some of the screenshots of the process. There are lots of really neat stencils to represent workflow actions, terminators, conditions, etc. All the more reason to upgrade I guess…

    image

    September 07
    SharePoint Branding Inspiration

    There is a great site out there, WSSDemo.com, which is run by Ian Morrish and provides a comprehensive list of many public-facing SharePoint sites. If you haven’t checked this out and you are considering branding a SharePoint site, you should do so ASAP. I think it’s really important to find inspiration and explore what’s possible when it comes to web design of any kind. For SharePoint Designers this is even more crucial because too often you will approach a branding project from within the SharePoint box and looking at other designs that have been created will broaden your horizons. clip_image001

    Most of you probably already know that the Ferrari website is built on SharePoint, but there are TONS of other great sites as well and you can see some of the amazing things people have been able to do with SharePoint Branding. 

    So, take a look through the list Ian has compiled at http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/topwebsites.aspx and see just how many public-facing SharePoint sites are out there. He has even created many different views for you to find what’s out there.

    Here are a few of the sites I saw that made me smile. I just think it’s awesome to see how SharePoint can be transformed into stuff like this…

    clip_image002clip_image003
    clip_image004clip_image005

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     About this blog

     
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    Welcome to The SharePoint Grind!

    This blog is about all things SharePoint...

    Branding.

    Administration.

    Etc.

    Enjoy!

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