I decided to share all my interesting reads and resources month by month with my blog readers. You can find these posts by searching on the label Links. I'll try to order the resources in logical categories. If you would like to see some interesting stuff added in the next month, don't hesitate to post a comment.

So this is my second Links post for November 2008.

SharePoint - Setup, Upgrade, Administration and Operation

• Infrastructure Update, August Update, October Update, Service Pack 2: Installation order SharePoint updates and download links


• Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: This article has been updated with information about the different types of software updates that are available and includes detailed information about using file versioning to verify installation success. Guidance is also provided for upgrading the original version of the product to the current hotfix level.

SharePoint - Design and Customization

• Free SharePoint DataView Tips


• Using calculated columns to write HTML


• The Content Editor Web Part: some tricks regarding the CEWP


• Dedicated to the CEWP / XML Web Part: lots of CEWP examples

SharePoint - Business Intelligence

• Interact with live data in SharePoint: If you are not familiar with how Excel Services and SharePoint work together to create a dynamic view of data, this set of online training course material can help you out.

Dynamics AX

• Inside Dynamics AX 4.0: free eBook about Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 (mainly for developers).


• Lookup Form: Make a custom Dynamics AX lookup react to search by wild card

Blogging - Blogging Tips

• Traffikd: Traffikd is an internet marketing and social media blog that aims to provide readers with practical, relevant information that they can use in their own online marketing efforts. The blog is updated several times each week with new, original content.


• Chitika: With Chitika, you can make money from your search engine traffic. Chitika advertisements shown are behaviourally targeted based on the search engine traffic.

Continue reading......

Business requirement: Disable view duplicates search functionality

When performing a search query in SharePoint, the search results group duplicate search results by default.

For me it is unclear which criteria make SharePoint think some search results are duplicates for each other, and hence make SharePoint group them together as one search result. This can be pretty confusing, as end-users not always are finding back everything because some stuff is hidden away in such a grouped search result. For example, ungrouping the above search result reveals following hidden search results:

For me, these files shouldn't be grouped together as duplicates in the search results: these files are financial reports for different quarters. The filename as the title of these files are different, nevertheless SharePoint groups these files as duplicates in the search results. End-users not so familiar with SharePoint may overlook the View duplicates link in the search results: as such they may start complaining that they don't find some files they've uploaded before (f.e. here: they may complain they don't find the financial report for Q3-04).

Solution: Disable view duplicates search functionality

To fix this, just disable the view duplicates search functionality.

1. Execute a search on whatever word, so you are directed to the search results page (by default results.aspx)
2. Choose Site Actions -> Edit Page.
3. Choose Modify Shared Web Part on the Search Core Results Web Part.
4. Uncheck the checkbox Remove Duplicate Results.
   
   
   


5. Choose OK and Publish the page.

Search results viewed as duplicates won't be grouped anymore by SharePoint. If you have different search results pages, you'll have to modify the Web Part on each page.

Continue reading......

Business Requirement: Use the Name user property in an Email sent out by a Workflow

Suppose following scenario: you have created a site based on the Help Desk template, one of the Application Templates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. With Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, you have added a Workflow to the Service Requests list which sends out an email each time a service request is changed to the Service Representative.



Problem is that the user information in the email will be the Account, though you would prefer to have the Name in the email.

Solution: Use the Useful Sharepoint Designer Custom Workflow Activities solution

The Useful Sharepoint Designer Custom Workflow Activities solution adds some Workflow activities to the ones out of the box. One interesting activity is the one to lookup user info. This activity can be used to have the Name in the sent email in stead of the Account.

To achieve this, follow the next steps:

1. Add the Useful Sharepoint Designer Custom Workflow Activities solution to the SharePoint solution store. A nice wizard will guide you through the setup process.


2. Go to SharePoint Central Administration->Application Management->Manage Web Application Features and activate the Useful Sharepoint Designer Activities feature.


3. In Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, open up your previously created Workflow (double-click the .xoml file).


4. Add two variables UserNameServiceRep and UserNameModifiedBy to your Workflow: it will be used to store the Name of both user accounts in the Workflow.
   
   
   


5. Add two Lookup site user property Actions (this is an Action which is added by the solution Useful Sharepoint Designer Custom Workflow Activities) to the workflow before the Action Send an Email. Lookup the user property LinkTitle for the users Service Representative and Modified By. Store the values in the previously created Workflow variables UserNameServiceRep and UserNameModifiedBy.
   
   
   


6. Edit the body of the Email as such that the content of the previously created variables is used in stead of the content of the fields in the Service Request.
   
   
   


7. Click the Finish button in the Workflow wizard: a new version for your Workflow will be created.

If you now edit a Service Request, you'll have the Name nicely in the sent Email in stead of the Account. In the same way you could add other User Information fields to the sent out Email.

Continue reading......

Problem Description: UpdatedConcurrencyException: The object MySiteCleanupJob Name=mysitecleanup Parent=SPWebService was updated by another user

After restoring the configuration database of our SharePoint, we ran into problems: we were unable to change some settings on web application level in the SharePoint Central Administration. Investigating the SharePoint log files in the 12 hive revealed following error: UpdatedConcurrencyException: The object MySiteCleanupJob Name=mysitecleanup Parent=SPWebService was updated by another user. Determine if these changes will conflict, resolve any differences, and reapply the second change. This error may also indicate a programming error caused by obtaining two copies of the same object in a single thread. Previous update information: User: ********** Process:OWSTIMER Machine:********* Time:October 29, 2008 04:31:38.0000 Current update information: User: ********** Process:OWSTIMER Machine:********** Time:November 02, 2008 05:30:20.0593.

Solution: Clear the cache on the file-system

The problem was caused because the cache on the file-system of the front end web server is newer than the contents of the restored configuration database.

To fix this, follow these steps:

1. Clear the contents of the folder %allusersprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\<guid of the config db>.


2. On your SharePoint server go to Administrative Tools->Services.


3. Restart the timer service, being Windows SharePoint Services Timer.

If you remove the folder completely by accident (not only the content), you should recreate a folder with as name the guid of your configuration database. If you don't know anymore the guid of your configuration database, you can find it in the registry of your SharePoint server: search for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Secure\ConfigDB: the value of this registry key is the guid of your SharePoint configuration database.

Continue reading......