Retirement for InfoPath Forms

The InfoPath forms on SharePoint which we have used from long time for creating the interactive forms are getting retired. Microsoft has decided that they are retiring InfoPath and investing in new forms technology across SharePoint, Access, and Word.

 Few important points to understand with this are:

1. InfoPath Forms Services in SharePoint Server 2013 is the last release of the InfoPath Form Service. Also the InfoPath 2013 is the last release for the Desktop version
2. Microsoft will release a detailed migration strategy going forward.
3. The support for InfoPath 2013 desktop client and InfoPath Forms Services for SharePoint Server 2013 will continue through 2023.

Disabling Request Access link from the Access Denied Page in SharePoint

Sometime we gets below error while accessing SharePoint website which we are not authorized to access.

It's painful exercise for SP Administrator to maintain request coming through "Request Access" url, as shown in above diagram.

Remove the Request Access link from the user name dropdown in SharePoint 2010.
Getting tired of users clicking the request access all over your SharePoint sites? By flipping a check box on the Site Admin page you can remove the link from showing on the site and the access denied pages.

• Go to Site Actions and select Site Settings.

• Click on Site Permissions under the Users and Permissions group.

• Click on the Manage Access Requests link

• Uncheck the Allow requests for access checkbox and then OK

Now your users will have to contact your support through the channels that you specify.

SharePoint 2013: Comparision between Apps and Solutions (.wsp)

Apps in Sharepoint:

Apps are stand-alone applications that provide specific information or functionality to a SharePoint site. Apps for SharePoint are easy for users to install, use, manage, upgrade, and remove. Apps can be SharePoint-hosted (reside and execute in SharePoint) or cloud-hosted (Windows Azure or other systems), or both.




Contents

How to get
 
Apps can be downloaded from:

• Internal App Catalog (contains apps approved and uploaded by the organization)
• Public SharePoint Store

 How to Use / Install

Apps can be used:

• In your hosted or on-premises SharePoint site

 App code is installed:

• On a separate web site from your other sites in its own, isolated, domain·
• In the cloud (cloud-based apps)

How to Manage

Apps can be managed and monitored by:

• Site administrators.
• SharePoint Online Service administrators for a tenancy· 
• Farm administrators

  ============================================================

Solutions in Sharepoint:

Are small to large scale packages used to customize or enhance SharePoint sites. Full trust solutions need a farm or SharePoint Online Service administrator to deploy, manage, and remove. Partial trust solutions must be installed to a sandbox. 

Contents

How to get

Solutions can be acquired from:

• Third-party developers· Your own development team 

 How to Use / Install

Solutions can be used:

• In your hosted (sandbox solutions only) or on-premises SharePoint site

Solution code is installed:

• As a full trust solution (in the global assembly cache).
• As a sandboxed solution 

How to Manage

 Solutions can be installed and monitored by:

• SharePoint Online Service administrators for a tenancy (sandbox)· 
• Farm administrators (sandbox or full trust)

"An unhandled exception occured in Silverlight Application" while creating list

While working on one of my SharePoint sites today, I started facing a weird issues all of a sudden. The site did not allow me creating any new item on one of my sub sites and an error message as “An unhandled exception occured in Silverlight Application” as in screenshot below. 

 Solution:

Go to Central Administrator

 






























Go to Application Management > Manage Web Application

Select the SharePoint Site Collection where you are facing the issue and Click General Settings on the ribbon

 Set Web Page Security Validation to “On” and save the changes.

 Refresh the SharePoint site page and try adding one now.

It will work now as expected. you can make security validation : off after completing task.
Hope this helps.

Error while creating webapplicaiton "Internet Explore cannot display the webpage" on central administrator

Yesterday i found some issue with my central administrator while crating a web application. however you can able to create application when you refresh the page. This error occurs because central admin's session shutdowns automatically after the 90 sec time.
Error looks like this :

 

To overcome this error i increased the time of  my central administrator shutdown time. 
Run -> inetmgr-> select "SharePoint Central administrator" application pool -> right click select "Advance settings"

in Advance setting find "Shutdown Time limit (Seconds)" it will have 90 seconds by default. increase it to 300 Sec.

Now try creating web application and boom... you can able to create web application without error message.

System.InvalidOperationException: Namespace prefix 'xsd' is not defined

Its bit strange error for me when i installed IE 10. After bit research i found this error can occur if you try to edit and save a list item entry in SharePoint. On non-development environments you see only this error message dialog (debug mode disabled):

 To solve this problem switch your browser to IE8 mode within the Internet Explorer Developer Tools: 

Now you should be able to edit and save the changes.

"A Microsoft SharePoint Foundation compatible application could not be found" error while accessing webbased excel or word file"

My user attempted two things and now his problem is resolved.  Don't know if it was a combination of both or just the second action.


When opening a Microsoft Office document in the local client from an Office Web Application, such as the Microsoft Office Word Web App the document does not open. You receive an error message that resembles the following:

Microsoft <Office Application> Web App
To open this document (or presentation or spreadsheet), your computer must be running a version of Microsoft <Office Application> and a browser that supports opening files directly from the Office Web Apps.

1.  Performed steps outlined in this KB Article:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833714

2.  Then had user enable Add Ons in Internet Explorer

• Go to Tools in IE
• Click on Internet Options
• Click on Programs at the top
• Click on “Manage add-ons” near the bottom
• Click on Publisher, so you can see all of Microsoft Corporation together
• Scroll to SharePoint names (May be one or several)
• Make sure they are all enabled by clicking on the name; the Enable button is towards the bottom.
• Then click OK and OK and restart IE

 

===================================================================

What if issue is not resolved yet?!!

try this, this will defiantly solve the issue. (Client machine Restart Requires)

Windows Vista/Windows 7 Solution:

• Go to Control Panel, Programs, Uninstall a Program.
• For each Office program that is not an Office 2010 program, select the item and click Change, Choose Add or Remove Features, Click Continue.
• In Installation Options, expand Office Tools, Click Windows SharePoint Service Support, Choose Not Available, Click Continue. You must do this for all Office family programs that are not Office 2010 including earlier versions of Office Project or Visio.
• Once configuration is complete, in Programs, click Office 2010, click Change, Choose Repair, Click Continue. (Note: A reboot will be required after the Repair completes)
• If this is not working.. try removing all the office applications other than office 2010. i.e,. office 2003 word, office 2007 excel etc.

Windows XP Solution: (Very few client machine)

• Go to Control Panel, Add Remove Programs
• For each Office program that is not an Office 2010 program, select the item and click Change, Choose Add or Remove Features, Click Continue.
• In Installation Options, expand Office Tools, Click Windows SharePoint Service Support, Choose Not Available, Click Continue. You must do this for all Office fanuky programs that are not Office 2010 including earlier versions of Office Project or Visio.
• Once configuration is complete, In Add Remove Programs, click Office 2010, click Change, Choose Repair, Click Continue. (Note: A reboot will be required after the Repair completes)

Hope this helps.. thanks.

Diffrent Roles in SharePoint Projects

Typically in a SharePoint project the the main roles are:

• SharePoint Architect
•  SharePoint Administrator
• SharePoint Developer
• SharePoint Designer 

 SharePoint Architect

A SharePoint Architect needs to have a thorough understanding of SharePoint (admin, developing, functions) including when and how new components/web parts should be developed. Also Microsoft Technologies in general, especially .NET 3.5, C#, Exchange, Active Directory, Office 2007/2010, IIS and infrastructure in general. Pivotal specialized role is of SharePoint architect. This is the person who can:

1.       Collect, transform, validate and map functional and non-functional requirements

2.       Plan and architect infrastructure integration

3.       Define solution

4.       Map MOST of solution requirements to existing configurable features of SharePoint

5.       Architect and POC custom code as needed.

The Architect also needs to set up the projects environments. In some cases this can be a full blown Development, Staging and Production environment. If that is the case it's very important to have all the environments match as close as possible if not be exact. The Architect also needs to understand fail over's, clustering and load balancing, for large farms. A SharePoint Architect also needs a solid understanding of alternate access mapping in MOSS, host headers, DNS entries, Kerberos configuration and multiple forms of authentication (forms auth, ntml etc).  

 

SharePoint Administrator

The role of SharePoint administrator includes setting up the SharePoint infrastructure with servers and services; SharePoint 2007/2010, Exchange Server, Active Directory, Windows 2003 and 2008 Servers, SQL Server 2005/2008, IIS 6.0 and 7.0, network infrastructure, ISA server, etc. He is responsible for maintaining and optimizing the SharePoint farm.

A SharePoint administrator requires knowledge of both SQL Server and Windows Server. Since SharePoint stores all of its data in SQL Server databases, DBA knowledge is critical. However, the Windows Server knowledge required to build and maintain a SharePoint farm is considerable. The administrator role is often split between two people who work closely together: a Windows Server administrator and a SQL Server DBA.The DBA skills required are the standard set required for any SQL Server but the features of Windows Server that a SharePoint Administrator needs to have some knowledge of include:

• Good knowledge in IIS and the architecture of it
• Windows Server Manager
• Active Directory (LDAP,ADLDS,ADAM etc)
• DNS and SMTP
• Network Load Balancing (NLB)
• Firewall (Hardware and software NLB)
• Event Viewer and Performance Monitor
• PowerShell scripting will be added advantage if looking in SharePoint 2010

But I suggest some knowledge of SharePoint development experience will add extra benefits to this role.

SharePoint Developer

The main role of a developer is developing custom web parts and component for SharePoint. They should have experience in Asp.net, C#.net, web parts, master pages, Ajax developer, detailed knowledge of the SharePoint 2007 object model / 2010 client object model, JavaScript experience etc. A SharePoint developer should be well versed on .NET frame work and windows workflow foundations (WFF). The Developer should have a solid understanding of C# and or VB.net and a solid understanding of the SharePoint API as a whole. Building workflows from a completely custom Visual studio direction as well as custom coding SQL and SQL server manipulation and maintenance also required so some knowledge in DB side also needed.  XML/XSLT knowledge will also provide some extra value in development. Since most things in SharePoint are xml based or can be converted and fed as xml/xsl, these are just another set of skills are another way that the developer can increase their value. A solid understanding of IIS and editing web config files are needed for a developer.

However, the main thing is to understand the out-of-the-box functionality and SharePoint web services well enough so that you don't program something SharePoint has Out of the box. SharePoint development involves tuning functionality that SharePoint has out of the box. So we should explain how to achieve project requirements with the least amount of programming.

SharePoint Designer

There are some wiles that a SharePoint Designer is really needed for the SharePoint project. But as per my experience it is good to have a Designer in your team so the developers can focus on programming no need to waste their time on customization. Designers are responsible for all the "non-programming" customization of the SharePoint solution. Good understanding of SharePoint and the different out of the box web parts and their functionality are needed for this role. Experience with html, style sheet, caml, xml, xslt, java script, SharePoint Designer 2007/2010 and InfoPath 2007/2010 are the main areas they have to focus.

Video Tutorial :Moving Content Between Databases in SharePoint 2010

For the sake of scalability, for ease of management and to simplify backup and recovery processes, it makes sense to separate different site collections into their own content databases. However, by default SharePoint 2010 saves content from every site collection into the same database. In this Video shows how to move content out of the default database and into custom databases, so our farm configuration is scalable and more manageable from a data perspective.