Ben There, Done That

As discovered by Todd Carter there is a memory leak in SharePoint 2007.  He has outlined the details as well as a work around to the fix the memory leak.

I decided to do some testing with it, however, when I compiled the dll, placed it into the GAC, and changed my global.asax file, I started getting this error: “Could not load file or assembly ‘[Assembly Name]’ or one of its dependencies.  The system cannot find the file specified.”

After digging into this error for a while I discovered my problem.  This may be fairly obvious to developers out there , but coming at this from more of a SharePoint administrator type roll, I missed this one step that isn’t outlined in the steps provided by Todd.

After deploying your dll to the GAC, you need to open up your web.config and place

<add assembly="[Assembly Name], Version=[Version Number], Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=[Public Key Token]" />

in the web.config file of the web application you wish to apply your fix to.  This line should be added between <assemblies> and </assemblies> in the web.config file.

All of the information: Assembly Name, Version Number and the Public Key Token can be found by right clicking on your dll in the GAC and viewing the properties of the dll.

Once I added the assembly to my web.config for the web applications I was trying to apply the fix to, everything worked as expected.

Ben Customizations, Development, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007 Development, Errors, Memory Leak, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007

I was working with SharePoint surveys the other day and discovered an old issue working with surveys and Microsoft Office that appears to have resurfaced.

We were trying to see what other reports we could generate from a SharePoint survey.  Naturally with the option to export to Excel, we figured why not just export all the survey data into Excel and play with it there.  To test it out I tried to get a variety of questions in the survey, one of these questions being the rating (matrix) survey question.

I created a few responses to the survey and attempted to export the list data to Excel (I’m running 2010 Beta).  Everything came over well with the exception of the matrix type questions.  I did some searching and this was also an issue with Excel 2003.  However, people said it was resolved with Excel 2007.  I installed Excel 2007 and sure enough the matrix questions imported into Excel 2007 just fine.  I tried Excel 2010 once more and the values still failed to come over.

So, it appears that the problem with importing matrix type of questions from SharePoint 2007 to Excel 2003 has returned in Excel 2010.  Granted, this is the beta, so maybe it will be fixed by the release.

I also want to do some testing with SharePoint 2010 surveys, Excel 2010 and possibly PowerPivot.  I’ve been reading some great things about PowerPivot but haven’t had much of a chance to play with it for myself.  Once I get a chance to do some testing with these tools I’ll write a new post.  Hopefully there will be some good news about doing more in depth analysis of SharePoint Survey results using these new tools.

Ben Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010 Excel 2010, Office 2010, PowerPivot, SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Surveys

SharePoint is designed to security trim your search results based on your user ID, a great feature to have in SharePoint as you don’t want search to return results of pages and content a user doesn’t have access too.  However, this requires one extra “step” at times when moving a site from development to testing or even to production.

I’m sure this topic has been blogged about before as this isn’t the first time I’ve run into it, but I figured I would write a short post about it for anyone that encounters what would appear to be an issue with their Search in SharePoint.

The scenario: You have been building out a SharePoint site and you are ready to release it to the rest of your users. You have tested everything using your own credentials.  You add a new user to the site with credentials equivalent to your end users and start testing with those credentials before going live.  Everything is working as expected…until

The problem: Your perform a search…You go to your search page, search for some well known content that you know should be returned, but you get no results in SharePoint search.  Your navigate to the page and you have access to it and can view the content you are searching for.  To further test, you run a few more searches, but everything comes back with no search results.

The resolution: When SharePoint performs a crawl (incremental or full) it looks at all your content AS WELL AS who has permission to access the content.  If you add users to your site, and immediately try a search before running a search crawl, the search index still has that the newly added user doesn’t have access to the content.  So, if you are going to add new users to the site that need access to search, or you are going to be testing search, immediately after adding those new users, run an incremental crawl so your SharePoint search index can pick up that these new users actually have access to the content you are searching for.

Ben Search, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007 SharePoint Security Search

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the SharePoint conference this year. However, I have been trying to follow it all day via twitter and the #SPC2009 hash tag. There have been a ton of tweets and with the tweets and the amount of people a lot of duplicates. As tweets have been going out all day I’ve tried to capture new blog posts about the 2010 stack and am attempting to put together a good list of blog posts that I’ve have noticed today (and continue to notice throughout the week). Feel free to send me any blog posts I have missed or you would like me to add to my site. So, here they are:

SharePoint

SharePoint Overview from the Microsoft SharePoint Team – http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010.aspx

SharePoint 2010 Home Page - http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/default.aspx

SharePoint Conference 2010 Home Page (Keynote video soon) – http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

SharePoint Conference Video Highlights – http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/videohighlights.aspx

SharePoint 2010 MSDN Site – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256.aspx

SharePoint 2010 TechNet Site – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx

Pre-Register for SharePoint 2010 Beta – http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/try-it/Pages/Trial.aspx

Arpan Shah, Welcome to SharePoint 2010 – http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/archive/2009/10/19/welcome-to-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Andrew Connell’s Blog (Several SharePoint 2010 posts already) – http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/

SharePoint Sharpener, Rundown of New Features – http://sharepointsharpener.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/spc09-sharepoint-2010-unveiled-rundown-of-new-features/

SharePoint 2010 Installation (not in English, but has screen shots of the install) – http://sharepointsisters.de/2009/10/installation-sharepoint-server-2010/

SharePoint 2010 Preview by Knowledge Management Associates – http://blogs.kma-llc.net/microknowledge/2009/10/sharepooint-2010-preview.html

A listing of SharePoint 2010 Documentation and Posters published by Microsoft – http://bink.nu/news/sharepoint-2010-documentation.aspx

Document Management in SharePoint 2010 – http://dotneteers.net/blogs/aghy/archive/2009/10/19/document-management-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx

ZDNet SharePoint 2010 Announcement – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=4278

Corey’s SharePoint 2010 Observations – http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2009/10/19/corey-s-big-post-of-sharepoint-2010-observations.aspx

Ballmer, SharePoint and the Economy – http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/microsofts-ballmer-shows-sharepoint-and-cites-its-link-economic-prosperity-587

Another index of some SharePoint 2010 postings online – http://webpartner.com/PNPT#7fc51a6079d86e3841db

Mike Gotta Notes from SPC09 Day 1 – http://mikeg.typepad.com/perceptions/2009/10/sharepoint-2009-conference-morning-keynotes.html

SharePoint 2010 Public Beta to be released next month – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10377483-56.html

StoragePoint for SharePoint 2010 – http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS164545+19-Oct-2009+PRN20091019

SharePoint 2010 Central Admin – http://planetmoss.blogspot.com/2009/10/central-administration-in-sharepoint.html

Eli Robillard, Sandbox Solutions and Security in WSS 4.0 (SharePoint Foundation) – http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/

SharePoint Conference 2009, Morning Keynote from The Burton Group – http://ccsblog.burtongroup.com/collaboration_and_content/2009/10/sharepoint-2009-conference-morning-keynotes.html

SharePoint 2010 Links from S.S. Ahmed, SharePoint MVP – http://vspug.com/ssa/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010-links/

Lookup Columns in SharePoint 2010 – http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/10/19/sp2010-what-s-new-lookup-columns-spc09.aspx

Overview of SharePoint Conference 2009, Day 1 – http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2009/10/19/the-kimono-is-open-the-veil-is-lifted-the-gags-are-removed-spc09.aspx

BI

BI in SharePoint 2010 – http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=8d9e2a99-f288-47c2-916b-2f32864f7b82&ID=268

Office 2010

PivotPoint for Excel 2010 – http://www.powerpivot.com/

Office 2010 Public Beta to be released next month – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10377483-56.html

Visual Studio 2010

Announcing Visual Studio 2010 – http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/10/19/announcing-visual-studio-2010-and-net-fx-4-beta-2.aspx

Again, this is just a list of what I could capture while keeping an eye on twitter all day.  Feel free to email me addition blog posts or add them as a comment as I will try to continue updating this list throughout the week.

admin Conferences, Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, Twitter BI, Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Foundation, Visual Studio 2010

After four days at Baptist Health, the team launched the new Wolfson Children’s Hospital site today on SharePoint.  Being there for the short time I have, I didn’t have a lot to contribute to the site, nonetheless it is still very exciting for the whole team.  Feel free to head over to the site, check it out and let us know what you think!

Tags: SharePoint, Baptist Health, Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Health Care

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Ben SharePoint

That’s right, it is time for me to move on to a new job.  Today was my last day with EPC Group.  It has been a wonderful year and a half with them, consulting with companies I never imagined I would be working with.  I have learned and grown a lot in my SharePoint knowledge while working with them as well as made some great friends that hopefully I will continue to stay in touch with.

About 7 weeks ago I was contacted by a friend of our Pastor about a job, working locally to Jacksonville, FL performing SharePoint Design and Administration for Baptist Health.  After a couple of interviews, a job offer, and discussing it with my wife, we decided the best option for me and our family going forward was to accept the position with Baptist Health.  So, it is with excitement, that I will be starting in my new position with them on Monday.

I hope to continue this blog and updating it regularly with my experiences, tricks and tips about SharePoint.  We’ll have to see which direction this blog takes.  But with my new position being in the health care field, hopefully I can write some post about SharePoint and how it relates to and can be utilized within the Health Care Industry.

Tags: SharePoint, Health Care, Jobs, EPC Group, Baptist Health

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Ben Misc, SharePoint

The other day I was assisting a client changing the URL to their SharePoint environment.  They are also running PWA under this site.  The name change went very smoothly and I thought everything was running great.  I had removed the old URL from the AAM and set the old site to redirect in IIS so anyone typing in the old URL would be taken to the new one.

My joy at the success was short lived.  Shortly after completing I got an email that user were getting errors when trying to upload files, view/edit file properties, pretty much anything with a file in a document library.  They were getting the error "File not Found".  I tested it out myself on the root site and it worked fine, I asked for examples and they were only have the problems on the PWA Project Workspaces.  I dug into the SharePoint log files and apparently something in PWA was still referencing the old URL.  I thought to myself, great, do I need to leave the old site running to?  Doing some searching, I found this post that solved the problem.

Apparently PWA puts an absolute URL in the content databases.  If this doesn’t exists you get the error.  The good news, you don’t need to modify the content database (something you should never do anyways).  Even better, the site doesn’t even need to be running, just add the URL back into AAM (even if the site doesn’t exists in IIS..or in my case is redirecting) and everything goes back to working as expected.

Tags: SharePoint, PWA

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Ben Project Server 2007, SharePoint

How many times have you had an unsuccessful SharePoint deployment?  Being on consultant you would be surprised how many times I’ve heard a similar story to: "We have SharePoint, we installed it and because of [insert reason for failure here], it didn’t go well.  Will you come in and help us implament it correctly this time."

Well, recently Joel Oleson wrote an article for SharePoint Magazine entitled "Avoid Newbie Mistakes: 10 Steps to Successful SharePoint Deployments"

The 10 Steps Joel gives are:

1. Confront Reality
2. Create a Governance Plan
3. Get an Exec Sponsor
4. Create the Dream Team
5. Build Services not Stuff
6. Define Clear Policies and Standards
7. Invest in a Scalable Information Architecture
8. Don’t forget Change Management
9. Adoptoin is What Counts
10. Keep it Simple

For all the details and Joel’s expanded explanation of all these points and how they assist with your SharePoint deployment.  Head over to SharePoint Magazine and check out his article.

Tags: SharePoint, MOSS, WSS, Deployment

Ben SharePoint

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admin SharePoint

After installing Office 2010 on my computer (both laptop and desktop) running Windows 7 RTM, I had a problem opening any Office files stored in our SharePoint 2007 environment.  I would click on a file to open it or edit it, the Office 2010 application would open, however, the file wouldn’t open.

I could download the document to my desktop, open it, edit it, and re-uploaded it, but this fare far from ideal.  I could link the site to Colligo, but I don’t want to have connect to a site every time I want to open a document.

Finally, today I ran across this helpful string of comments on the TechNet forum – http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/office2010general/thread/230fc30a-8922-4c75-a8fc-540b0282dff8

In short, the solution is to make a fake proxy in IE:

1. Open up Internet Explorer
2. Click Tools –> Internet Options
3. Click the Connections tab
4. Click LAN settings
5. Check “Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections).”
6. Enter 127.0.0.1 for the address
7. Click Advanced
8. In the Exceptions type: *.*
9. Click OK, OK and OK

You should now be able to browse to a SharePoint site, click an Office document and have it successfully open in your Office 2010 client.  This successfully worked for me with MOSS and reports in the TechNet forum are that it works with WSSv3 as well.

admin Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007 Documents, Office 2010, SharePoint, SharePoint 2007, WSSv3