Timesheet Blog Series Fix

Part 1 - Design & data storage
Part 2 - Building the UI
Part 3 - Installation Steps
Part 4 - Final Part
Part 5 - This Post - Caveat to watch out for

Problem: Popup pages for the Timesheet application throw an application error (500 error), the uls log refers to the ribbon tab object not being being available.

Initial Hypothesis:  Ensure the popup pages, that use the Dialog framework are of type web part pages.

Resolution:

More Info:
http://ranaictiu-technicalblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/ribbon-tab-with-id-has-not-been-made.html

Timesheet Post Series:
Part 1 - Design & data storage
Part 2 - Building the UI
Part 3 - Installation Steps
Part 4 - Final Part

70-668 Exam

I wrote the 70-668 Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administrator exam this morning and failed with a score of 647.  I thought I had managed to scrape through and saw that I had failed, rather bruised my ego for about 30 minutes. 

So I had a voucher that needed to be used this year, I've been busy at work (excuses excuses ..) and thought I would know enough to pass as I am thinking of doing the MCM and still need to pass this last of the 4 basic exams.  On the plus side I know that I need to spend more time on:

• "Designing a SharePoint 2010 Farm Topology"; and
• "Planning SharePoint 2010 Deployments".

These exams are very useful for ensuring you actually know SharePoint.  I'll have to pay for the exam again and try do it in the new year at some point.  This has highlighted to me that I need more time administering SharePoint and can always use improvement on the technical side of SP2010.

Add Expiry Date to a List

Problem:  I have a list and each time the list item is approved, I need to add 180 days to the expiry date.

Initial Hypothesis: Create a Date and Time site column in the list.  Edit the "Calculated Value" box with a formula that will add 180 days to the current date.

Resolution: The formula to move the expiry date 180 days from the current date is:
=DATE(YEAR(Today),MONTH(Today),DAY(Today)+180)

SharePoint Office Web Apps Cache Storage

Overview: Office Web App is used to work on word, power point and excel document without the need to have the client applications for each of these file types on the client machine. The documents are rendered in the browser for editing.

Problem: My default content database that is hosting my root site collection for the web application grows bigger than the 200GB recommended limit for a content database.

Initial Hypothesis: When a "rendition of the presentation" is available in the cache (stored in a content database) SharePoint will use the rendition to show the document. If there is no “document” in the cache, the appropriate service builds the “rendition”, displays it and adds it to the cache.

The cache is stored in the default content database. From Technet “Content databases also contain the Microsoft Office Web Apps cache, if Office Web Apps have been deployed. Only one cache is created per Web application. If multiple site collections that are stored in different content databases have Office Web Apps activated, they will all use the same cache. You can configure the size of cache, the expiration period, and the location.”

Resolution:
Database location for the OWA cache (a SharePoint content database). You can isolate the Office Web Apps cache from other content:

• Create a separate content database, set it to contain only one site collection.
• Configure the Office Web Apps cache to use that database.

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee837422.aspx

Read More:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431685.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc678868.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee837422.aspx

Other: I have used OWA for thumbnails on a past project for search. So when search results return, I get a thumb nail of the word or PowerPoint document in the results. OWA is pretty heavy and it appears that it will have to convert all documents that don’t have a rendition of the presentation in the cache when a search is performed. This doesn’t seem a good use of resources and a potential bottleneck.  Have I understood how FAST generates preview?  Pls leave your comments.

“The Microsoft Word Web App and Microsoft PowerPoint Web App generate a series of images to create a rendition of a document that is viewable in the browser. If Microsoft Silverlight 3 is installed, XAML is used to create the rendition.” - Technet

Publishing Features for ALL Site Collections

Problem: The "SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" is only available to Site collections on farms that run "SharePoint 2010 Enterprise or Standard" editions. The publishing feature (SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure) adds functionality such as menus for navigation, changing page layout, publishing web pages & swapping master pages.

Initial Hypothesis: If you have SharePoint 2010 Foundation or have not enabled the "SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" you do not have the UI to work with key functionality for your site collection such as swapping the master page or editing the navigation.  Some of this functionality is available through the UI it is just hidden from the site settings page.
For example:
Master pages can be swapped at: http:///_layouts/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx
Navigation: http://www.demo.dev/sites/kb/_Layouts/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx
 
Resolution:  If you want some publishing features you could look at http://mundpublishingfeatur.codeplex.com/
 

Product Evaluation - Knowledge Base from Bamboo Solutions

Problem: I need a Knowledge Base (KB) solution and the OOTB tweeking is OK but needs improvement.  So my options are find a 3rd party product or build my own.

Initial Hypothesis: Using 3rd party solutions is my prefered approach, I don't want to recreate the wheel but the product need to add value and be configurable to meet my requirements.  I have used Bamboo web parts in the past and liek their web parts, so I found Knowledge Base Solution Accelerator.

My Resolution:
I have only tried this on a developer standalone VM but I'm hugely impressed, the UI is good, the functionality is what I'm looking for which makes sense as KB are pretty universal. 

The setup was easy and configuration is good for different requirements so it is a good start.  The cost is $4K per server so very reasonable for the functionality.  The webparts such as the Data View Web Part is usable in other sites.

Definately recommend this solution.

Web Templates and Site Provisioning

The age old debate on how to provision sites in SharePoint was well and truly answered in my mind, use Site Definitions with feature stapling to provision your sites.  In MOSS I even have xml driven config files to create sites using this technique en masse.  It just irritates me when people mention site templates (the old .stp files).  In SP2010 site templates are .wsp files and have improved from my minor experience however, due to the upgrade issues in MOSS and just how flaky I found site templates in MOSS I recommend avoiding them like the plague.  and I see no reason why Site Templates are better than Site Definitions, some guy always pops up with speed of creation and how flexible they are but I don't want the headaches all over the environment.

Note: Saving as a site template and including content has some restrictions, I believe 50MB of content is the max and I have had issues with content type columns being saved and restored.

Anders Rask did a session on Web Templates and I'm sold.  The question should now be Site Definitions or Web Templates?  Webv templates look great, fairly straight forward and reproducible as they are created in Visual Studio (VS).

These are you options for site provisioning as laid out by Anders as I scribbled them down:

• Site Templates
• Site Definition
• Feature Stapling
• Provisioning Providers (I've never used)
• Web Templates (I've never used)

Web Templates Summary:

1. VS created
2. Custom ONET is injected
3. Scoped at sandbox or farm level
4. Does not support site variations
5. No content publishing sites

And the answer is ....   read Vesa "vesku" Juvonen post on web templates well provisioning sites.  It's awesome and I have nothing more to add.

More info:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vesku/archive/2010/10/14/sharepoint-2010-and-web-templates.aspx
http://sharepointchick.com/archive/0001/01/01/site-definitions-vs.-webtemplates.aspx