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My Blog Has Moved

March 22nd, 2011 2 comments

Ok…so I’m still in the process of tweaks here and there, but I will no longer be posting any new content here. My new blog is: http://www.sharepointben.com/blog. I’ve finally decided to give it a little bit more official SharePoint name as well as host it on SharePoint 2010 thanks to FPWeb.net.

I’ve also set up feedburner with my new blog to make the RSS feed a little nicer. That URL is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SPBenThereDoneThat.

All my content as well as any comments have also been moved over to the new site compliments of Metalogix so nothing will be lost in the move. I think that’s all for now, I may re-provision this site, sometime int he future, to be focused more on my personal life outside of SharePoint. We’ll see. So, head on over to the new site and check out my latest post on SharePoint 2010 and Document IDs.

Thanks!

Ben Stegink

Categories: SharePoint Tags:

First Jacksonville SharePoint Users Group Meeting!!

February 8th, 2011 No comments

That’s right, there is now a Jacksonville SharePoint Users Group (JaxSPUG).  We are still working out some of the final details of the group, but our first meeting has been scheduled.  We will be meeting on Feb. 17 from 4:30 – 6:00pm at the brand new ALoft Hotel.  Their address is 4812 Deer Lake Drive West.  There will be appetizers and refreshments provided.  To register for the event, you can visit our registration page – http://jaxspug-feb17.eventbrite.com/.

 

Various methods for staying apprised of future meetings as well as other happenings within JaxSPUG are:

Website – http://www.jaxspug.org

LinkedIn Group – http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3754625

Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/pages/JaxSPUG/170254249684166

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/jaxspug

Categories: JaxSPUG, SharePoint Tags: ,

Install and Configure SharePoint 2010 with no Database GUIDS (except PerformancePoint)

January 31st, 2011 2 comments

This is a blog post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time and have been slowly revising the content and steps.  I also can’t take credit for all the steps below, I gathered them from various resources, blogs, etc.  At the end of the post I will list all of the places I gathered these steps from.  This is also not the only way to do this, it’s just the way I have documented and how I go about configuring a SharePoint farm.

Server Installation and Prep Work

1. Decide on your SQL Server you will use

2. Configure SharePoint Accounts in AD.  The minimum you will need is 6:

  • SPAdmin (admin)
  • SPService (services)
  • SPApp (Web Application App Pools)
  • SPSearch (search service)
  • SPCrawl (crawl service)
  • SP_UPS (user profile synchronization service)

3. Make sure the SPAdmin has the following rights:

  • Local Admin on the SharePoint Servers (just for the Installation)
  • SQL Rights: dbcreator, public, securityadmin

4. Log into your SharePoint Servers and Install the SharePoint 2010 Bits

5. If the latest Cumulative Updates haven’t been install, download those and install those right after installing the bits.

6. Disable the Loopback Check (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861)

7. Restart the server

Configure Central Administration

1. Right-click on “SharePoint 2010 Management Shell” and “Run As Administrator” – I just created a shortcut on my desktop

2. In Powershell Run:

New-SPConfigurationDatabase –DatabaseName “SP2010_Config” –DatabaseServer “[ServerName]” –AdministrationContentDatabaseName “SP2010_Admin_Content” –Passphrase (ConvertTo-SecureString “[YourPassPhrase]” –AsPlaintext –Force) –FarmCredentials (Get-Credential)

**Notes**

  • For [ServerName] localhost will NOT work if you are running SQL on your SharePoint box (usually only likely in a dev environment)
  • Since not everyone that install/configures SharePoint is always a DB Expert, when using a SQL Named Instance:
    • A common error you may get if using a named instance will be something like: “Connot connect to database master at SQL server at [SQLServer\Instance].  The database might not exist, or the current user does not have permission to connect to it.”
    • SQL Name Instances use Dynamic Ports, before running the command above, open up SQL Configuration Managers and assign a static port to your Named Instance – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177440.aspx
    • Modify the command above slightly…for the [ServerName] use: [ServerName]\[InstanceName],[PortNumber] as an example: “SQLServer2008\SP2010,1433”
    • Create an Incoming Rule on your SQL Server to allow connections through the port you specify for your instance.Install-SP

3. Enter domain\SPAdmin and the associated password in the resulting Credential Request box.

4. Close the PowerShell Window

5. Re-Open PowerShell again as administrator

6. Run the following PowerShell Commands

  • Install-SPHelpCollection –All
  • Initialize-SPResourceSecurity
  • Install-SPService (If you install a standalone server, something I never recommend, run ‘Install-SPService –Provision’ instead.
  • Install-SPFeature –AllExistingFeatures
  • New-SPCentralAdministration –Port 9999 –WindowsAuthProvider “NTLM” (you can pick any port here you want to)
  • Install-SPApplicationContent

7. Central Administration is now configured.  You can got to the shortcut in your start menu or run “start iexplore http://[servername]:9999” from PowerShell.

Configure the User Profile Service

I’m not even going to try to type out the steps or guide you in the right direction here.  Just follow Spence Harbar’s steps EXACTLY that he posted here – http://www.harbar.net/articles/sp2010ups.aspx

You may have a few minor tweaks to the steps based on user accounts, but the process for getting the profile synchronization service is solid!!

Once your done with this, you may have an error that starts showing up in your event log about the Taxonomy Picker, to eliminate this error do the following:

  1. Navigate to \14\Template\ControlTemplates
  2. Rename TaxonomyPicker.ascx to TaxonomyPicker.ascx.broken
  3. Remember you did this incase it is actually used in an update to SharePoint 2010 in the future.

***I used the same Application Pool for all my services (the same Application Pool Account I set up when configuring the User Profile Synchronization Service).  In my case it is SharePoint Web Services Default.  So I will use this Application Pool for all Service Applications going forward.  Wherever you see this application pool name used in the future, you can replace it with your own application pool name or a new one if you want separate application pools for every service.  Also, wherever you see –Name “[somename]” or –DatabaseName –“[somename]” going forward you can replace [somename] using your own naming conventions. ***

Configure Search Services

  1. Open up SharePoint 2010 Management Shell as an Administrator again.
  2. Enter the following commands in PowerShell:
  3. $searchapp = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication –Name “Search Service Application” –ApplicationPool “SharePoint Web Services Default” –DatabaseName “SP2010_Search_Service”
  4. $proxy = New-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplicationProxy –name “Search Service Application Proxy” –Uri $searchapp.uri.absoluteURI
  5. $proxy.status *It should return “Online”, if not enter $proxy.status = “online”*
  6. $changestatus.update
  7. $si = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance –local
  8. $si.status *If it’s disabled run Start-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance –identity $si*
  9. Set-SPEnterpriseSearchAdministrationComponent –SearchApplication $searchapp –SearchServiceInstance $si
  10. $ct = $searchapp | New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlTopology
  11. $csid = $searchapp.CrawlStores | select id
  12. $CrawlStore = $searchapp.CrawlStores.item($csid.id)
  13. $hname = hostname **hostname is for a single server, this is the servername were you want the crawl component to reside**
  14. New-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlComponent –CrawlTopology $ct –CrawlDatabase $CrawlStore –SearchServiceInstance $hname
  15. $ct | Set-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlTopology –active
  16. $qt = $searchapp | New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryTopology –partitions 1
  17. $p1 = ($qt | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexPartition)
  18. New-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryComponent –IndexPartition $p1 –QueryTopology $qt –SearchServiceInstance $si
  19. $PropDB = $searchapp | Get-SPEnterpriseSearchPropertyDatabase
  20. $p1 | Set-SPEnterpriseSearchIndexPartition –PropertyDatabase $PropDB
  21. $qt | Set-SPEnterpriseSearchQueryTopology –Active

Usage Application and Usage Analysis Service

  1. Your Usage Application may have already been provisioned in one of the previous steps, if it was, go into “Manage Service Applications” and delete it.  Check the box to delete associated data as well.
  2. Once again in your SharePoint 2010 Management Shell enter the following:
  3. New-SPUsageApplication –Name “SharePoint Usage Application Service” –DatabaseName “SP2010_Usage”
  4. $App = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –ApplicationPool “SharePoint Web Services Default” –Name “Subscription Service Application” –DatabaseName “SP2010_Subscription”
  5. $proxy = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy –ServiceApplication $App
  6. Get-SPServiceInstance | where {$_.TypeName –eq “Windows SharePoint Services Subscription Settings Service”} | Start-SPServiceInstance
  7. $StagingDB = “<StagingDatabases><StagingDatabase ServerName=’[SQLServerName]’ DatabaseName=’SP2010_Web_Analytics_Service_Staging’/></StagingDatabases>”
  8. $ReportingDB = “<ReportingDatabases><ReportingDatabase ServerName=’[SQLServerName]’ DatabaseName=’SP2010_Web_Analytics_Service_Reporting’/></ReportingDatabases>”
  9. $webanalytics = New-SPWebAnalyticsServiceApplication –ApplicationPool “SharePoint Web Services Default” –ListOfReportingDatabases $ReportingDB –ListOfStagingDatabases $StagingDB –Name “Web Analytics Service Application”
  10.   New-SPWebAnalyticsServiceApplicationProxy –Name “Web Analytics Service Application Proxy” –ServiceApplication $webanalytics
  11. . $Usage = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | where {$_.TypeName
    -eq "Usage and Health Data Collection Proxy"}
  12.   $Usage.Provision()

At this point in time, navigate to “Services on Server” and start all the service you want running on their respective servers.

State Service Application

  1. While still in the SharePoint Management Console enter the following PowerShell Commands:
  • $serviceapp = New-SPStateServiceApplication –Name “State Service Application”
  • New-SPStateServiceDatabase –Name “SP2010_State_Service” –ServiceApplication $serviceapp
  • New-SPStateServiceApplicationProxy –Name “State Service Application Proxy” –ServiceApplication $serviceapp –DefaultProxyGroup

Secure Store Service

At this point in time, navigate to “Services on Server” and make sure the Secure Store Service on the Server you wish it to run on.

The secure store service is implemented in SharePoint 2010 to replace SSO.  Rather than get into all the details of it here, there are several good resources on TechNet explain the Secure Store and how to configure it.  The Secure Store Service Application can be initially configured through Central Administration allowing you to create the custom named database (without any GUIDs).  However, once this has been created, there are some additional management/configuration tasks that have to take place within the Service Application.  I use these three TechNet articles as reference when performing the rest of the configuration tasks.

PerformancePoint Service Application

Again, make sure you the the PerformancePoint Service has been started before creating the PerformancPoint Service Application.

From everything I can find, right now this can either be done via PowerShell or Central Administration, but unfortunately, no matter which way you provision PerformancePoint, there is no way to set a custom name for that database.  If I discover a way I’ll update this post with the steps.

The Rest of It

That should take care of everything that needs to be done in your SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.  The rest of the services can be configured through Central Administration.  Once you’ve reached this point, open up Central Administration.  Go to "Services on Server” and start the rest of the services you need.  This includes the Foundation Search Service that can be set up through the GUI.Next go to “Manage Service Applications” and add the rest of the Service Applications here that you need.

**As you go through setting everything up the GUI make sure to pay attention to where you can name your databases so you can continue keeping your consistent naming without the GUIDs**

Now you should have something that looks a lot like these screen shots below:

imageimage

image

Once I got to this point, I ran the PowerShell script found here – http://www.sharepointconfig.com/2011/01/instant-sharepoint-health-analysis/ in order to instantly see any issues I still had with my farm configuration.  From this report I went in and took care of a few remaining issues.  Some of the issues I encountered were things that should have been done initially and thus resulted in some updates to this blog post.

If you get an error similar to: “WebPart class [8d6034c4-a416-e535-281a-6b714894e1aa] is referenced [6] times in the database” after running the SharePoint Health Analyzer, there is a simple “fix” to get rid of this error here – http://blogs.architectingconnectedsystems.com/blogs/cjg/archive/2009/12/09/Missing-Server-Side-Dependencies-_2D00_-8d6034c4_2D00_a416_2D00_e535_2D00_281a_2D00_6b714894e1aa.aspx.

If you want to skip the link, it is a simple process of:

  1. Go to “Manage Service Applications”
  2. Select “Search Service Application” and click Manage in the Ribbon
  3. Click on “Farm Search Administration” in the Quick Launch
  4. Rerun the SharePoint Health Analyzer and this error should be gone

 

If anyone runs across any typos or problems with the steps PLEASE let me know so I can correct the issues.  Also, I can’t take credit for all of the content above, as I gathered most of the info from several different locations, they all deserve credit for their work so here are the references used for this post, these links are posted in the order I used them for the steps above:

SharePoint 2010 October CUs reposted

December 2nd, 2010 No comments

Just a quick update.  Yesterday Microsoft reposted the October 2010 Cumulative Updates for SharePoint 2010.  For all the information, head on over to the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog post about the reposting.

Free SharePoint Foundation 2010 Site!

November 18th, 2010 No comments

The other day I saw a tweet about a free SharePoint Foundation 2010 site, so, being the SharePoint guy I am I decided to look into it.

Sure enough, the people over at PortalFront Hosting are giving away free SharePoint Foundation 2010 sites to SharePoint bloggers here.  The process is really simple, I registered and created a site and filled out the form to request the free site.  A couple of days later I received the email with the information about my free SharePoint Foundation 2010 site.

I’m currently considering moving my blog over to that site, but would need to do some customization work first.  If nothing else I’ll keep my blog here and link to that site to show demos and for examples.

So, if you’re looking to play around with SharePoint Foundation 2010 or just looking to host a blog on SharePoint Foundation2010 but don’t have the money to pay for a lot of the hosting options for SharePoint I highly encourage you to check them out.

Of, if you’re looking to host any other SharePoint sites, they have a variety of different SharePoint hosting plans available at different price points.

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SharePoint Server 2010 October CU “recalled”

November 8th, 2010 No comments

I’m a little late in getting this out as I was out of town over the weekend, but just in case you missed it, the October Cumulative Updated for SharePoint Server 2010 has been taken down due to a recently discovered critical issues.  For more details see the posts on the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog.

Initial Announcement – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2010/11/05/critical-information-about-the-sharepoint-server-2010-october-cumulative-update.aspx

Details and Workaround – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint/archive/2010/11/06/details-and-workaround.aspx

Testing Large Lists in SharePoint

October 26th, 2010 1 comment

Today I needed to do some testing around large lists, views, queries, etc as I’m working with a proposed feature.  I realize there is a lot of documentation around this in terms of keeping a view under 2000 items, or not having more than 2000 items in any folder.

These are recommendations that have been backed up with data, however, sometimes nothing beats just testing everything out for yourself.  How is my farm or this feature going to react when a list gets too large?

I found the SharePoint 2007 Test Data Population Tool that enables you to quickly load up your farm with test data.

MOSS – http://sptdatapop.codeplex.com/releases/view/1214

WSS – http://sptdatapop.codeplex.com/releases/view/1141

There are certain features that are available in WSS that aren’t in the MOSS version, so even if you have MOSS, you’ll probably want both.  This tool made in very easy for me to fill up a test list with as many items as I wanted with 3 short lines in an XML file and a simple command point to the XML file and the URL to the site containing the list.

There is a ton of additional functionality in these tools also as far as creating sites, site collections, load testing, etc. that I haven’t even begun to explore.  So, if you want to do some testing around what your SharePoint farm can handle, I would recommend adding this to your tool belt.  Just make sure you don’t run this against a production farm if you are testing the limits Smile.

SharePoint Discussion Board – Safari, Firefox and Chrome

July 23rd, 2010 4 comments

If you’re like us, chances are you have users accessing SharePoint from several different browsers.  SharePoint 2007 can bring about many challenges for users not wanting to Internet Explorer, one of which is replying to threads in a SharePoint Discussion board.

To be perfectly honest I’ve never been a huge fan of the discussion board in SharePoint, so I haven’t often paid much attention to it.  However, since switching jobs, I have found the users here love the discussion board.  The first thing I did to make it even better for users, was to download the Quest Discussion board web part, to give users a much nicer interface for viewing posts.

Recently, more and more of our users have been accessing discussion boards from a browser other than IE.  When replying to a discussion, this brings up and ugly mess of HTML for the end users if they are replying from FireFox, Safari or Chrome.

image

We had three options for solving this:

1. Training – Make sure all users know that when replying to a discussion, they are not to touch the HTML, but simply add their response above it.  Feasible…but definitely not the best idea.

2. Require all users to use IE – hahaha…yeah right! Parts of our environment are accessible to our users from home as well as a subset of our users having the ability to choose if they want a MAC or a PC.  This just won’t happen.

3. Find a way for users to edit rich test (eliminating the HTML) when responding to or posting a new item in a discussion board.

Thanks to Telerik, we were able to take approach #3.  The Telerik RadEditor Lite (bottom of the page) provides two features.  One feature to use the RadEditor for Rich Text fields when using a browser other than IE and the second feature to use the RAdEditor for IE as well.  After adding and deploying the solution to the SharePoint farm and activating the feature on your SharePoint site, when you edit a Rich Text field from a browser other than IE, instead of the ugly html you are given a nice, easy to use Rich Text field from Telerik.

image

Custom SharePoint .ASPX form–“Could Not Load Type”

July 8th, 2010 No comments

This is starting to get dangerous…I’m blogging about SharePoint development twice in a row.  Again, this may be something very basic to most SharePoint developers, but as I learn, I enjoy blogging about issues I’ve discovered and things I’ve learned as I continue to develop more.

My next venture into SharePoint development is to create some custom .ASPX forms for use within our SharePoint environment.  For our situation, InfoPath Forms Services would make much more sense, unfortunately, we only have SharePoint 2007 Standard with no plans to go to Enterprise.

So, I created a very basic .ASPX file with an equally as simple .cs (code behind file), packaged it all up as solution and deployed it.  However, when I went to access the site, I encounter a “Could Not Load Type…” error.  After a quick search on Google, I found – http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/matthew/archive/2007/12/07/could-not-load-type-error.aspx between that post and the post by Andrew Connell that was referenced there I was able to solve my problem.

When I had created my .aspx file I had failed to use the “5 part name” to reference the assembly file.  I had put Inherits=”NewForm.NewForm” rather than Inherits=”NewForm.NewForm, NewForm, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=*********”

As soon as I changed my .aspx file to use the 5 part name and redeployed my solution everything worked perfectly!

SharePoint and Office 2010 RTM!!!

April 17th, 2010 No comments

Read the RTM announcement from the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog – http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2010/04/16/sharepoint-2010-reaches-rtm.aspx

Great job guys!  Can’t wait to get my hands on it :)