My 2p about ERP Solutions, Information Worker Solutions and other software products (mainly Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft SharePoint).

29 April 2008

Display all your alerts

Business requirement: display all your alerts


A missing feature in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is the possibility to display all the alerts you have set up. After a while, an end-user has subscribed himself to multiple lists, document libraries and items. The end-user forgets which alerts he has set up so far, resulting in setting up twice the same alert etc. An end-user likes also to have an overview on which he can easily modify or delete alerts. The out-of-the box functionality requires to go to each list or document library, on which the end-user has activated his alert, to modify or delete existing alerts.

Solution: Install My Alerts web part


René Hezser created a great web part which provides this functionality, called My alerts.
To install René Hezsers My alerts web part, follow these steps:

  1. Create a .bat file with following code:
    echo off
    path = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\"
    echo Deleting old solution
    stsadm.exe -o deletesolution -name "RH.MyAlerts.wsp" -override
    echo Adding solution
    stsadm.exe -o addsolution -filename "RH.MyAlerts.wsp"
    echo Deploying solution
    stsadm.exe -o deploysolution -name "RH.MyAlerts.wsp" -allcontenturls -immediate -allowgacdeployment -force
    echo Running timer jobs to finish deployment
    stsadm.exe -o execadmsvcjobs


    Echo Please enter the url to the site collection to which you want to activate the feature to:
    set /p SitePath=
    stsadm.exe -o activatefeature -name "MyAlerts" -url %SitePath% -force
    echo RH.MyAlerts.wsp Solution installed.

  2. Run the .bat file created in the previous step to install and deploy the feature in your farm.

  3. Install the web part to the global assembly cache (GAC)


    1. Start the Visual Studio Command Prompt (in the program group Visual Studio Tools).

    2. Go to the directory where the dll is installed (typically c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\bin).

    3. Run the command gacutil /i RH.MyAlerts.dll


  4. Run iisreset.



If you receive following error upon adding the My Alerts web part to a page: Unable to add selected web part(s). My Alerts: Cannot import this Web Part, then your trust level is not set correctly for the My Alerts web part. Most likely, your installation of the webpart to the GAC was not succesful. For more information about SharePoint web part security you can read this post from Brett Burley.


Continue reading......
by Patrik Luca 4 comments

08 April 2008

Fill field by default with current user

Business requirement: how to fill a field by default with the current user?


Having set up the Help Desk template (one of the 40 application templates), my end-users asked if the field Customer could be filled up by default with the user creating the service request. The Customer field should only be filled up by default if the creator of the service request didn't fill out a value himself. The option should left open for the end-user to create a service request for somebody else: in such a case the end-users still needed to be able to fill out a value themselves (being the login of the colleague for whom they were submitting a service request).

Solution: use a workflow to set the default user to the current user


Part 1: Set customer column not required



  1. Set the column setting Require that this column contains information to No.



Part 2: Create a workflow to set the default user to the current user



  1. Create a new workflow in Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007: File->New->Workflow.

  2. Give a name for the workflow, attach it to the Service Requests SharePoint list and check the option Automatically start this workflow when a new item is created.

  3. Check for the condition If Customer is empty

  4. As Action choose Set Field in Current Item

    1. Choose the field Customer.

    2. For the value, choose User who created current item (it will be translated by Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to Service Requests:Created By.



  5. Click Finish


Continue reading......
by Patrik Luca 5 comments

04 April 2008

Document Information Panel: not all values available for a lookup field

Problem description: Not all values available for a lookup field in the Document Information Panel


I ran into a problem where not all values were available in the Document Information Panel for a certain field. This field was a lookup field to a SharePoint list. The field was defined as a Multiple-Selection List Box in the Document Information Panel.

Solution: Change the Item Limit in the default view on the SharePoint list.


The cause of this problem was the default view defined on the SharePoint list. The number of items displayed in the Item Limit was limited: only those values were shown in the Document Information Panel. Increasing this Item Limit as such that all items were displayed in the default view of the SharePoint list resulted also in displaying all available values in the Document Information Panel for the Multiple-Selection List Box.


Continue reading......
by Patrik Luca 5 comments

Patrik Luca, Ieper, BELGIUM
Feel free to use or spread all of the content on my blog. In return, linking back to my blog would be greatly appreciated. All my posts and articles are provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

Subscribe feeds via e-mail
Subscribe in your preferred RSS reader

Subscribe feeds rss Most Read Entries

Categories

Recommended Books


Subscribe feeds rss Recent Comments

This Blog is part of the U Comment I Follow movement in blogosphere. Means the comment field of this blog is made DOFOLLOW. Spam wont be tolerated.

Blog Archive

My Blog List

Followers

Links