vivi's SharePoint Space: SharePoint Tips

Calculated Column

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:42:49 GMT

Illustrated as the Vin Diagram below, need to tag the calculated column as the following:

Tag Red - Any record with at least one Red.

Tag Yellow - Any record with at least one Yellow but no Red.

Tag Green - Any record with no Red nor Yellow.

=IF(OR(([A1]="red"),

([A2]="red"),

([A3]="red"),

...

([A8]="red")),"Red",

IF(OR(([A1]="yellow"),

([A2]="yellow"),

([A3]="yellow"),

...

([A8]="yellow")),"Yellow","Green"))

How To Create a Hyperlink to SharePoint's List Export to Spreadsheet

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:45:09 GMT

Posted Monday, August 22, 2005 1:27 PM by wkriebel

Because you can't copy the hyperlink on the "Export to spreadsheet" link on SharePoint lists, here is how you can create your own hyperlink.

http://[Server]/[Site]/([Subsite]/)_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?CS=109&Using=_layouts/query.iqy&List=[ListGUID]&View=[ViewGUID]&CacheControl=1

Replace the [Placeholders] with your environment's information. A handy way to get the list and view GUIDs is to go into "Modify Columns and Settings" then scoll down to the views section and click on the view that you want to use. You will notice the escaped list and view GUIDs in the resultant URL.

Here is an example:http://MyWSS/sites/samplesite/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?CS=109&Using=_layouts/query.iqy&List=%7BD109453A%2D1A6E%2D4F83%2DAFF9%2DCCA04A75D76D%7D&View=%7B8FB21A2F%2DB62C%2D41D8%2DBA0C%2D7BD9C31FAA51%7D&CacheControl=1

See also, MSDN's article: URL Protocol and my article: How To Add a Hyperlink To a SharePoint Event Outlook Export Westin's Technical Log

SharePoint Version - Chart

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:39:25 GMT

From Penny Conventry:

Goto Control Panel -> Add and Remove Programs
Select the product and then click: Click here for support. The versions will
be displayed as follows:

	Windows SharePoint Services v2	SharePoint Portal Server 2003
Unserviced pack	11.0.5608.0	11.0.5704.0
With Service Pack 1	11.0.6361.0	11.0.6715.0
SP1+KB887981	11.0.6411.0
R2 WSS SP2 beta	11.0.6551.0
SP2	11.0.7969.0	11.0.8126.0

	Windows SharePoint Services v3	Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Beta 2	12.0.4017.1006	12.0.4017.1006
Beta 2 TR	12.0.4407.1005	12.0.4407.1005
RTM	12.0.4518.1016	12.0.4518.1016

Using IIS Manager, on the web sites properties HTTP Headers tab or through the SharePoint HTML admin pages, virtual servers once extended will show the following version numbers:
    Unservice packed:               6.0.2.5530
    WSS SP1:                          6.0.2.6361
    WSS SP1 + KB887981        6.0.2.6411
    WSS SP2 Beta = R2:          6.0.2.6551
    WSS SP2                           6.0.2.6568
    Office 12 (PDC image - pre-beta): 12.0.0.3111 (This version of Office does not have a support link in the Add/Remove programs dialog box).
    MOSS 2007 or WSSv3 Beta 2:     12.0.0.4017
    MOSS 2007 or WSSv3 Beta 2 TR:12.0.0.4407
    MOSS 2007 or WSSv3 RTM         12.0.0.4518

Thanks to Matthew McDermott and Kenneth Searles for the update on the version related to the hotfix KB887981

Note: If you have a version number starting with 10, then it is either SharePoint Team Services (SPTS) or SharePoint Portal 2001 (SPS 2001).

SPTS, 10.0.2627.01 is the version with no service packs. In Administrative Tools menu, you will see a link to Microsoft SharePoint Administrator. This will display a web page, where you can see the version number of the virtual server(s), e.g., 5.0.2.2623. The ISAPI filter is fpexedll.dll.
For SPS 2001, 10.145.4629 is the version number with no service packs. There will be no ISAPI filter, and from the Administrative Tools menu you will see a link to SharePoint Portal Server Administrator which launches a mmc snap-in.

WSS Version Numbers

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:26:22 GMT

6.0.2.5530 is the version number of the virtual server in the original release version of Windows SharePoint Services.
6.0.2.6361 is the version number of the virtual server in Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 1 (SP1).
6.0.2.6411 is the version number of the virtual server in Windows SharePoint Services that has the security update installed that is described in the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
887981 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887981/) MS05-006: Vulnerability in Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Team Services could allow cross-site scripting and spoofing attacks.
6.0.2.6568 is the version number of the virtual server in Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Sources: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875358

Office PivotChart Tip I

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 23:02:12 GMT

I have been implenmenting Office PivotChart Web Part to lots of SharePoint sites to create dynamic charts. Often the time, I'll get some errors that don't tell me what exactly I did wrong. With some testing, I find out some ways to avoid the errors, and starting today, I'll post some tips to do so:

I. Error "The query could not be processed: Data provider or other service returned an E_FAIL status".

The error message doesn't really tell you what went wrong. One of the scenarios that causes this error is

- You add a field to an existing list and make it REQUIRED.

- The filed doesn't have all the data, some of them is empty because it is later added.

- You drop the field to the data area on a PivotChart Web Part.

Then the result is PivotChart not able to create a chart and you got the above error.

The walkaround is make the field not REQUIRED first, in order to make the charts show correctly; after you have all the data filled into that field, then make it REQUIRED.

Hiding Custom List Items - Mauro Cardarelli

Tue, 16 May 2006 22:11:02 GMT

Via MSd2d Mauro Cardarelli:

I recently had a client pose an interesting Windows SharePoint Services question that required quick action and no custom coding. This is my (what I believe to be) clever solution.
We’re using WSS as an extranet. Some users will be accessing a specific site and will have visibility into a custom list of open issues. We want the users to see all the list items but only have update privileges on a subset. This is what we did:

(1) Start with a SharePoint Custom List with a collection of items

(2) After entering a new item, click on the Edit icon for that row. This should bring up the EditForm.aspx page.

(3) Open that page in Microsoft FrontPage 2003 and save a copy, using File-Save As, under a different name (i.e. EditAdminForm.aspx). This version allows full access to list items.

(4) Return to EditForm.aspx and open it again in FrontPage.

(5) Click on you custom list and right click; select ‘Customize SharePoint List Form’.

(6) For each item that you wish to hide, click on the label cell for the appropriate row. On the FrontPage nav bar, you should see a selected HTML tag (it is on the far right). Click on the <TR> closest to it. The entire row should be selected.

(7) Click the dropdown and select ‘Edit Tag…’

(8) In the pop-up, alter the <TR> tag to read <TR style=”display:none”> and save. This makes that row invisible.

(9) Repeat for each row you wish to hide.

(10) Somewhere on the EditForm.aspx page, place a hidden object. I used a borderless, transparent textbox on the lower left. Give it the following URL: "javascript:location.href='EditAdminForm.aspx'%20+%20location.search"

The JavaScript will pass along the proper row ID. Admins will be trained to know where to look for the hidden URL and will have access to a full collection of list items. Unaware users will only see the visible list items. The SharePoint Save link works without alteration.

Calculated Formula II

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:56:22 GMT

1. Add colon in between a 6-digit number to represent time:

Change 002750 to 00:27:50

=LEFT(Col7,2)&":"&MID(Col7,3,2)&":"&RIGHT(Col7,2)

2. Calculate the time difference in hour format:

Time difference between 00:27:50 and 00:36:30

=TEXT(Col80-Col70,"hh:mm:ss")

3. Convert hour format to seconds:

=INT((Col80-Col70)*86400)

Calculated Column - Aging

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:14:04 GMT

Aging 30days

= DATE(YEAR([Modified]),MONTH([Modified]),DAY([Modified])+30)

Calculated Column - Formula I

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:22:53 GMT

To create a calculated column to show "Past Due" when

[Due Date] is less than Today

and

[Submit to integrate] not equal to Yes

=IF(AND([Due Date]<Today,[Submit to integrate]<>"Yes"),"Past Due","")

Tips from working on the SharePoint Force

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:45:22 GMT

Via akieft:

1. How to check the SPS/WSS versions:

2. Interpreting the SPS/WSS versions:

3. Allowing access to the Online Gallery from behind a proxy server or firewall

4. Manually disconnecting an SPS server from the Config DB:

5.Where to find CLSID for word breakers and steamers:

6. Creating a new Config Database:

7. Latest post-SP1 roll-up packages for WSS/SPS

8. How to increase the Timeout settings for WSS/SPS

9. How to check the versions of WSS backups

10. Considerations when installing WSS on a DC

11. SharePoint Portal Search in WSS sites:

12. Migrating SPS/WSS between domains:

13. Manually test the SMTP server:

14. The theory behind Ghosted/un-ghosted pages

15. How to configure your Default SMTP Virtual Server

16. Remove the !New Tag from New Items

17. How to add a custom theme to the list of available WSS themes

18. How to access the Web Parts Maintenance page:

19. Theory between the Web Client and Web Folders

20. SPS Cn Buckets theory

21. Remove the index/job components from topology

22. Paths to be excluded by the Antivirus

23. How to improve the Full-Text Search performance

24. SPS SP2 articles

25. WSS SP2 articles

26. How to manually remove SPS

27. Boost UP the MSI install logging (really useful for debugging patch installation)

28. Where to check for any mismatches regarding the Updates installed

29. Enabling TIFF OCR

30. Enabling RTF indexing

31. Out e-mail template for when sending the SPSReports

Creating a theme for Windows SharePoint Services sites.

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:41:41 GMT

Via Stephen Cummins:

All of the themes available for use on a SharePoint server are stored beneath a single folder (one subfolder per theme):

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\THEMES

To create a theme, you'll not only need to create a new folder with the images and CCS files that make up the theme, but you'll also need to preview them with SharePoint site as you work. Here are the basic steps to create a new theme called "YOUR":

First, make a working copy of the new theme.

Pick one of the folders containing a theme in the directory listed above, and make a copy of it in directory listed above. For example, copy the WATER folder to the YOUR folder. Note: the folder name must be all caps.

You can modify the files you copied as a starting point for your theme.

Second, modify the files that hook your theme to the list of available themes.

In your theme's folder, rename the WATER.INF file to the YOUR.INF. This name should match your folder name exactly.

Edit the INF file to set the title of your theme.

[info]

title=YourTheme

Finally, the list of available themes is defined in this file:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\SPTHEMES.XML

Edit this XML file and insert a new section for your custom theme, in the position in the list you want your entry to appear. Note: the list is not automatically alphabetized.

- <Templates>

<DisplayName>Your Theme</DisplayName>

<Description>Description</Description>

<Thumbnail>../images/yourimage.png</Thumbnail>

<Preview>../images/yourimage.gif</Preview>

</Templates>

· The TemplateID must match your folder name, but should be all lower case.

The gif image is displayed in SharePoint when applying a theme, the png in FrontPage.

· The DisplayName should match the title you set in the YOUR.INF file. At least, that's the convention the canned themes follow.

· The Preview image is a 300h x 180w pixel gif, and is used by the Apply a Theme function in the Admin tool. It's unclear to me whether/when the PNG version is used.

Third, apply the theme to your SharePoint site.

1. On the top link bar, click Site Settings.

2. In the Manage This Web section, click Apply theme to site.

3. Choose the name of your new theme, and click Apply.

Finally, implement and test your changes

Now you can navigate to your SharePoint site to view the effects of your changes to the theme.

Also, here is some tips from the Admin Guide.

Why folders are bad in SharePoint?

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:41:06 GMT

Mart Muller and Dustin Miller talked about why folders are bad in SharePoint, it gives me support to convince my users not to use folders:

Subfolders are bad!

- Mart Muller

After several posts about why not to use subfolders in document libraries, Dustin Miller explains why subfolders are evil:

“My answer is always the same, and has never wavered. Don't use subfolders. Of course, that goes hand-in-hand with another of my lessons, “don't use the Explorer View,” but that's a topic for another blog post. Separate document libraries are useful if you need separate security permission sets for a grouping of documents (since we don't have item-level or folder-level security in document libraries with the current release of SharePoint Products and Technologies), but for categorization within a site, nothing tops custom fields.”

and Bil Simser goes into more detail with it:

There is a path limitation in SharePoint (or maybe IIS) of 260 characters in total. As you start creating the folder structure from hell, you'll find this gets wiped out very quickly and you end up staring at yet another cryptic SharePoint error message (basically "Something bad has happened") with no indication of the what the problem is. Better yet, documents just vanish into the ether and you have no idea that they're really still there, tucked away and taking up precious space in your SQL Server but you're unable to access them.
Ever need something and try to go look for it. If you know where to find it, it kind of defeats the purpose of creating a complex organization system if you already know where it is. If you don't, search might turn it up but the vast majority of carbon-based units out there can't figure out how to search for something so that's a bit of a waste. Folders only allow you to look for things the way someone who put the stuff there. If I had a brain fart and filed the asset records for 1997 under Financials -> 1997 -> Assets would you think to look there or in Assets -> By Year -> 1997. Again, you need to know the organization structure to navigate it. Using folders for organization just compounds this as we end up with deeply nested folders upon folders and nobody can find anything (even the people that put it there).
Folders are one-dimensional. Think of a Yellow Pages. I can open it up and look for a pizza place by looking in Pizza, Restauraunts, or maybe even Dining. I don't need to know the section that I want to look in, I can find it in various ways. Everyone is wired differently and will look for things the way they were brought up. What if I was the owner of a parts company and decided to start organizing my inventory using SharePoint. Would I put my "X89 Widget" under "Aircraft -> DC9 -> Parts" or in "Parts -> By Aircraft -> Large". I can only organize things one way with folders and if I need to slice information up differently, I either end up with links all over the place (which will easily break and become out of date) or multiple copies of the same thing because the Finance department looks for things by Asset Number and the Parts guys look for it by Part Number. Metadata is the way to please everyone.

We’ve had more then one discussions about how to store documents in SharePoint. Somehow, eveyone agrees it doens’t matter where you put documents in SharePoint, as long as the meta data is correct. The problem with this that people are lazy. Meta data is the most important thing with new documents in SharePoint, but the people that store these documents are the bottleneck. This is where most of the “errors” occur.

The main question here is: “How can SharePoint facilitate in assigning meta data to documents?” This is quite a difficult question. Should we use the context in where the documents are placed? Should we use the content of the document itself to provide the meta data? Should we force the users to set meta data (and blocking alternative ways)? I think the perfect meta data solution is not yet created…

Document Libraries and Subfolders: Why it's a bad idea

- Dustin Miller posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 2:49 PM

I'm often asked during a class questions like, “how should I do this,” or, “how do I handle this scenario.” One of the most common is, “should I use subfolders in my document libraries, separate document libraries, or custom fields to categorize documents?”

My answer is always the same, and has never wavered. Don't use subfolders. Of course, that goes hand-in-hand with another of my lessons, “don't use the Explorer View,” but that's a topic for another blog post. Separate document libraries are useful if you need separate security permission sets for a grouping of documents (since we don't have item-level or folder-level security in document libraries with the current release of SharePoint Products and Technologies), but for categorization within a site, nothing tops custom fields.

Why am I so against the use of subfolders? Well, here's the #1 reason: It's not (meta)data. A subfolder is a location, that's all. If I had a document's “DispForm.aspx” open on my screen, and I wondered what category the document falls under, I wouldn't think to look at the URL. I'd look for a field called “Category”. If it's financial information for Q1/2005, I'd look for Year and Quarter as custom fields, not a subfolder called “2005Q1”.

When a document library for, say, financial spreadsheets is created, my first thought is about metadata. What metadata is important? Quarter and Year come to mind first, so I'll add two fields called “Quarter” (make it a choice field) and “Year”. How about contracts written for clients? Instead of creating a subfolder for each client, I'd add a field called “Related Client”, and make it a lookup to another SharePoint list called “Clients”. Then, and here's the kicker: I can use web part connections in a meaningful way. Click on a client, see their documents. I can't use web part connections in any useful fashion if the target document library uses subfolders to categorize content. With custom fields, my document library becomes more than a dumping ground for .DOC files, it becomes a valuable collection of (meta)data, one that can be mined, filtered, grouped and viewed in any way I need.

If users miss the idea of subfolders, why not group the view of documents by one of those custom fields (or even by two of them, like Year and Quarter). It looks and feels like an Explorer-style treeview of your document library, and web part connections can be used to further filter the display. Actually, in my opinion, that “group by” view is much nicer looking than the default views used to show documents in subfolders. Certainly much more useable.

I can hear the anguished cries now: “But my users will need to enter a category, where before they could just drop it in the correct subfolder!” Make the field required; when they save from Word, they're required to select the category. If they upload with their browser, you got it, they're required to select the category. A little user education goes a long way.

I'm really interested in feedback on this one. What do you do when faced with subfolders?

[SharePoint Tip] Using Folders in document libraries

- Mart Muller

Funny enough these things always come together the same time. Edward Ferron is talking about when using folders in document libraries and when not to use them. Same thing I discussed with a customer yesterday. I mentioned better to use meta data to group or order documents instead of folders. Edward describes the reasons why:

"When using document libraries in SharePoint try to avoid the temptation of creating nested folders. There are several reasons you do not want ot create folders more than one level deep if you need to create them at all.

You are just recreating the problem you had in file severs when you created nested folders
You can not apply security to a folder in SharePoint
You can not add a folder by itself to a web page in a web part so personalization is difficult

Instead of creating folders in Document Libraries create a seperate document library, this allows users to consume the content most important to them and you have more control over security and other features such as custom views.

Q: When should you use folders?

A: Archiving documents - maybe you archive all documents for a year in the 2004 folder or if you have a lot of documents being added like meeting minutes maybe you add a folder for the month and archive all the meeting minute documents for a given month.

Note: A single level of folder structure is generally ok when you really do not desire to create a seperate document library for one reason or another however avoid going 2 and 3 levels deep (keep in mind these are just guidelines).

Q: How do I keep related document libraries together on a single page?

A: Create a web part page and add all of the document libraries to that web part page. An example would be multiple document libraries for a given project, you would create a web part page called 'My Project Documents'. Then you could take your Design, Models, Requirements, User documentation document libraries and store on the new web part page you just created."

I totally agree with him!

Web Part Page Maintenance

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:04:21 GMT

To open up the Web Part maintenance page, simply add "?contents=1" to the URL of the page.

http://server.domain.com/sites/mysite/default.aspx?contents=1

Display Contents of a SharePoint List From Another Site

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 17:02:08 GMT

Via Jan Tielens

posted on Wednesday, April 07, 2004 7:07 PM

Some people are wondering if it’s possible to display the contents of a SharePoint list that resides on another SharePoint site. Yes this is possible, even better: I’ll show you how to accomplish this! Suppose you have a SharePoint Task list on your root site that contains some tasks. You also have a sub site on which you want to display the contents of the Task list of the root site. First of all you need to create the Task list on the root site of course.

Next create the sub site, if you haven’t create it yet. We’re going to use FrontPage 2003 to accomplish our task, so fire up FronPage 2003 and open the sub site. We want to display the tasks on the start page of that site, so open default.aspx as well. From the Data menu choose the “Insert Data View…” menu item. In the Data Source Catalog task pane you’ll see a list of available data sources on the current site (Sub Site), of course the tasks are not in that list. On the bottom of the task pane, click “Manage catalog…”, a new window is displayed in which we can enter additional data sources. Click the Add button and enter the url of the root site as location, and choose a description for this data source. Close the window by clicking the OK button. Now you can use the task pane to browse to the data sources located on the root site!

Finishing off is very easy: drag and drop the task list from the Data Source Catalog to the web part zone, that’s it. If you want to you can alter the view (e.g. add or remove some columns), when you’re done don’t forget to save the page. The result is that you have a nice formatted web part that shows the tasks from a list on another site:

As you can see data sources are very powerful in FrontPage 2003 and SharePoint. This time we've used a SharePoint list as a data source, but you can use several other types of datasources for example web services. Don't underestimate the power of FrontPage 2003! :-)

My Comments:

It works great on series Tasks, but not able to show all tasks on non-series tasks. Hopefully I wasn't doing anything wrong.

Security Validation Error - Timed Out

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 23:13:15 GMT

Via Microsoft

Article ID: 888828

"The security validation for this page has timed out. Click Back in your Web browser, refresh the page, and try your operation again"

CAUSE

This behavior occurs if a user submits information to the server after the security validation time-out that is set for the virtual server expires. By default, the security validation time-out value in Windows SharePoint Services is set to 30 minutes. That is, if 30 minutes pass before the user clicks Save and Close to submit data to the server, the user must reenter the data and then resubmit that data to the server.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods:

•

Instruct your users to submit information to the server before the security validation time-out expires.

•

Increase the security validation time-out value. To do this, follow these steps:

1.	Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint Central Administration.
2.	Under Virtual Server Configuration on the Windows SharePoint Services Central Administration page, click Configure virtual server settings.
3.	On the Virtual Server List page, click the name of the virtual server that you want to configure.
4.	Under Virtual Server Management on the Virtual Server Settings page, click Virtual server general settings.
5.	In the Web Page Security Validation area of the Virtual Server General Settings page, specify the number of minutes that you want to set for the security validation time-out, and then click OK.

Go to edit mode directly

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 15:59:01 GMT

Meeting Workspace doesn't have an option to go to the "Documents and Lists" page, but adding the following to the url, it'll bring you to the page.

Documents and Lists: _layouts/1033/viewlsts.aspx

Create: _layouts/1033/create.aspx

Site Settings: _layouts/1033/settings.aspx

Recycle Bin Dicussion - Andrew Connell

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:43:42 GMT

Andrew Connell

posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:28 PM

Thinking a bit more about all these recycle bins...

We heard at PDC that WSS v3 is going to include a trash bin/recycle bin OOTB. However, we’re a good bit away from an RTM release and many want something now. The problem with implementing your own recycle bin in the current versions of SharePoint revolves around the document library event sink and the async nature of the events. You can trap and handle the Deleted event, but the problem is the event is fired async. This means that by the time your code is run, the file is already deleted… thus you can’t do anything with it. So some creative types have come up with what I’ve seen to be a limited few options.

Over the last few days there’s been a flurry of SharePoint Document Recycle Bin library activity that work with the existing WSS v2 & SPS 2003 versions with roughly 4 different options out there (one unsupported, which I’ll still mention with a big disclaimer):

First we have the method of creating a mirrored library using event sinks as method described in this article from the February 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine. I’m not much of a fan of this option as your storage option just doubled in size… not really viable for those in corporate environments or have to pay for their hosting (including those corporate groups who pay “funny money” to other groups within their company for storage space, like, for example a SAN).
Another option is something Todd Bleeker w/ Mindsharp released this week: Mindsharp’s FREE Deleted Items Document Library Custom List Template. What’s awesome about Todd’s solution is that it’s zero-touch server deployment… ok, and that it’s FREE! I had the op to beta his Deleted Items Document Library a few times the last few months. It’s a fantastic solution that meets many user’s requirements. Because it’s all in an STP, there are a few things that it can’t account for, mainly WebDAV. For example, if you delete a document from a mapped drive, or from the Windows Explorer, well it just can’t account for that. I had the pleasure last week to see someone’s (Angus’) reaction to seeing it for the very first time as the three of us blew off the last session of the Publisher Summit. This is probably the best, least impact, solution for organizations who need this capability, meeting 90% of the needs. What I haven’t done is pick through Todd’s code… what a case study!
Dustin Miller has (err… will have) something he’s talking about called PowerRecycle (only vaporware at this point by his own admission). Hard to comment on it since it’s not out there, but one thing he’s said is that “in order to work, will be doing quite a bit of ‘unsupported’ things”

For that reason, I don’t believe PowerRecycle will ever see the light of day within corporate installations of SharePoint [who are familiar with Fitz]. Many companies pay for support contracts, and if you’re doing something unsupported, Microsoft won’t… well… support it. If you’ve spent time in the newsgroups, you’ll see people who’ve had irreversible issues because they’ve tinkered with the database. I won’t ever recommend something that touches the SharePoint database… even adding a trigger or selecting a single record out of the database. Why? Because there are ~usually~ work arounds. And if there aren’t, then… well… there aren’t and you can make a request for a change in the next version of the product (as v3 has). In this case, there are work arounds (see Todd’s and Joel’s solutions). I’ll be interested to see how Dustin implements PowerRecycle, but it won’t make it past my dev box.

In a recent post, Dustin says of his unsupported method: “That's just the only way to REALLY fix the problem of the lack of a recycle bin in WSS v2”. I disagree… and you’ll see why, just keep reading…
Joel Oleson’s Recycle Bin has a very different implementation. What’s unique here is Joel has built a ISAPI filter that intercepts the delete requests before they even make it to the SharePoint ISAPI filters. When it finds a delete command, it dumps the file to the file system, then it hands the request off to other ISAPI filters (such as SharePoint’s filter) for processing. Poof, all deleted documents are archived! But… they are all on the file system… you have to have access to the server (physical, mapped drive, FTP, whatever). For a production system, that’s not very viable… so a sysadmin would need to restore them for you. Also, you need some sort of a cleanup job… I can see a very active system filling up the filesystem rather quickly. This provides me the perfect transition to the real subject of my post…

Of all the above options, IMHO Todd’s is the best option. Todd’s nails about 90% of the situations out there with zero touch to the server… and it’s incredibly easy to deploy. However there are only a few limitations (that I’m willing to live with):

It only works for new libraries: have existing libraries? You’ll have to convert them to this new library to give them recycle bin functionality.
It doesn’t work with WebDAV: It’s all wrapped up in an STP… it can’t account for WebDAV.

Joel’s solution provides the preservation of all deleted file… all the files (including WebDAV). It also works for all existing libraries and can be mass applied at the scope of a virtual server. What’s missing from Joel’s implementation? A UI where an end user can restore a document. Right now, only those with access to the filesystem of the SharePoint WFE server can retrieve the document. How many end users or first level help desk folk do you know that have access to a WFE box? I sure as hell hope that number is infinitely close to zero!

What’s really needed out there? I think something of a cross between Todd’s and Joel’s solution. Todd perfected the UI for, adding in multiple document templates for a library. Joel’s solution works for existing libraries. What else? Something that does the following:

Allows end users to restore their own documents they’ve deleted
Allows anyone who has access to the document library where a document was deleted to see all documents in the “trash” from that library & restore them
Allow sysadmins to easily restore specific documents
Set a retention schedule for purging deleted documents

Sounds good huh? How would I do it? Let’s say you take Joel’s solution that saves a file that’s to be deleted from a library and stick it on the filesystem somewhere. Then, you create an event sink handler that catches the Deleted event from the document libraries, grabs all the necessary information, grabs the file from the file system that Joel’s ISAPI filter persisted, and store all that information into a SQL database (no, not a SharePoint database, a separate database).

Now, you could write a SQL job to run every X days/weeks/months that could automatically purge anything that was X days/weeks/months old (providing a retention schedule). You could also write a web app (wrapped up with appropriate security) to allow sysadmins, help desk jockies, or end users to restore their documents. Or, even better yet, take Todd’s idea and extend the document library list template to include this web interface right in it! What’s left is to just write a separate batch file that purges any files left on the file system as they were (1) saved by the ISAPI filter but (2) not moved into the database by your event sink so that library must not be publishing events and therefore want it’s documents stuffed in a recycle bin upon deletion.

I admit, this is just an idea and exists in vaporland (along with many of my other pet project ideas). Maybe someone else will take this idea and the fame that goes along with it. Go for it… for now, Todd’s and Joel’s solutions meet my needs (until a paying customer thinks otherwise… in that case, use my contact form in the menu above!). If you aren’t happy with any of these work arounds, just stick it out and wait for SharePoint v3.

Recycle Bin Discussions

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:26:09 GMT

Via Mark Kruger

Add Web Part in Edit Mode

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:26:29 GMT

In AllItems.aspx or EditItems.aspx or DispForm.aspx or EditForm.aspx or WebFldr.aspx, type

javascript:MSOTlPn_ShowToolPane('2');

on the address bar to get to the add Web Part Edit Mode.