My college was working on a project that needed to create a custom Meeting Workspace site definition.
The simple answer would be to create a copy of the site definition and work from there
However as quite often SharePoint is not quite so simple.
The problem comes in the form of 3 web parts embedded in the MasterPage. These web parts check to see that the webTemplateId of the current SPWeb object is equal to 2 (which is the ID of the MPS templates In the webtemp.xml). These web parts then fail to render breaking the site.
He had located the problem but was unable to find a acceptable workaround.
1) He could modify the OotB MPS Site Definition (This is NOT acceptable practice)
2) He could use a feature stapler to modify the Site Definition on creation(This would apply to all new Meeting Workspace across the Farm and not really practical given the project)
3) he could remove the Web Parts and replace them with custom ones (the classic developer answer but never a practical one)
None of these option were really viable for his project.
So I asked him if he had thought of using a SPWebProvisioningProvider class.
With a little testing we found that the SPWebProvisioningProvider does not change the WebTemplateID as the Site Definition used during the provisioning of the site is still the OotB MPS Definition and the Provisioner runs code After the site had been created.
He can now create a Customised Meeting Workspace site definition.
the SPWebProvisioningProvider class he is using is quite small as all it does is activate and deactivate a few features, this allows for easy modification of the features rather than having to recompile the provisioner should the client wish to change anything.
Just something that popped up today :)
Friday, 5 September 2008
Creating and attaching Information Management Policies
I haven't posted anything for a while and here is something I meant to post
Sorry for the formatting issues with the code Hope this Overview helps.
Background information about information Policies
Polices are defined in xml markup
A skeleton Policy described in xml.
<p:Policy xmlns:p="office.server.policy" id="" local="true">
<p:Name></p:Name>
<p:Description></p:Description>
<p:Statement></p:Statement>
<p:PolicyItems>
<p:PolicyItem featureId="">
<p:Name></p:Name>
<p:Description></p:Description>
<p:CustomData>
<data>
</data>
</p:CustomData>
</p:PolicyItem>
</p:PolicyItems>
</p:Policy>
Note the Policy id attribute takes a string that uniquely identifies this policy
Example “Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.Policy”
Each policy contains a number of Policy Items
A Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures.Expiration Policy Item defined in xml.
These Policy items are used to configure the Policy Features for this Policy.
See Stegeman Blog for more information on how to create your own custom Policy Features.
Managing Information Management Policies via Code
Creating a Information Management Policy
The Policy needs to be defined in xml markup. This definition can then be passed to the
Policy.ValidateManifest () method that will validate the XML against the Policy Xml schema.
Once the policy has been validated it can be added to the policy collection using the PolicyCollection.Add () method
Example
In this example I am generating the XML Manifest using a method and passing it various parameters once we have the xmlManifest string populated I pass it for validation to the Policy.ValidateManifest (string) method (Note this will through an exception that explains why it is unable to validate the XML) and then I add it to the Site via the PolicyCollection.Add (SPSite, string)
Retrieving a Information management Policy for a Site
To retrieve an Information Management Policy for a site we need to first get the Policy Catalog for that site and then retrieve the Policy from the catalog. We retrieve the Policy Catalog by creating a new PolicyCatalog object passing the SPSite object to the Constructor. We can then access the PolicyList collection of the new PolicyCatalog object to retrieve the Policy.
Example
In this example I am creating the SPSite object from a Guid that is the Id for the site. Once I have the site object I pass it to the PolicyCatalog Constructor to create a new PolicyCatalog object that relates to the site. Once I have the PolicyCatalog for the site I can use its PolicyList Collection to retrieve a Policy using the Policy’s Id. Note that if a Policy does not exist with the supplied Policy ID then the Collection returns null so I check the returned Policy is not null before running code against it.
Attaching a Information Management Policy to a Content Type
To attach a Site Information Management Policy to a Content Type, we first need to fetch the site policy and then attach it to the Content Type using the Policy.CreatePolicy () passing it the Policy and Content Type.
Example
In this example I fetch the SPWeb Object and use it to fetch the Content Type with the supplied Content Type ID. Once I have the Content Type I check that that the returned value is not null and then I pass it to the Policy.CreatePolicy (SPContentType, Policy). Note a content type can only have one policy attached at any time and it may be best to check that the content type does not have a policy attached by testing that the Policy.GetPolicy (SPContentType) method returns null and not a Policy object else the Policy.CreatePolicy () method will through an exception.
Configuring the Expiration PolicyFeature
Creating an Expiration PolicyFeature Formula
The Expiration PolicyFeature has a custom data node that defines the when the item will expire. This is stored in the formula node.
Example
The Formula id Points the out of the box, built in formula
Number refers to the number of units to append to the date
Property refers to the Field in the item to retrieve the date from
Period refers to the unit that the number represents.
There are 3 period options: days, months, years.
Creating an Expiration PolicyFeature Action that calls a Workflow
The Expiration PolicyFeature has a custom data node that defines what action should be taken once the Item has expired. We want to start off a workflow so our XML looks like this
Example
I define the type of action to be workflow and set the id to point the ParentAssociationId of the Content Types Workflow Association.
Setting this ID is one of the resigns that have not been able to get around in CAML.
This Guid is neither the Workflow Associations Id nor the Workflow Template ID but the Parent Association Id of the Workflow association.
Resources
MSDN
Introduction to Information Management Policy
Policy Schema Overview
Private Blogs
MOSS Custom policies part 1 - Creating a custom information management policy
Sorry for the formatting issues with the code Hope this Overview helps.
Background information about information Policies
Polices are defined in xml markup
A skeleton Policy described in xml.
<p:Policy xmlns:p="office.server.policy" id="" local="true">
<p:Name></p:Name>
<p:Description></p:Description>
<p:Statement></p:Statement>
<p:PolicyItems>
<p:PolicyItem featureId="">
<p:Name></p:Name>
<p:Description></p:Description>
<p:CustomData>
<data>
</data>
</p:CustomData>
</p:PolicyItem>
</p:PolicyItems>
</p:Policy>
Note the Policy id attribute takes a string that uniquely identifies this policy
Example “Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.Policy”
Each policy contains a number of Policy Items
A Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures.Expiration Policy Item defined in xml.
<p:PolicyItem featureId="Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures.Expiration">
<p:Name>Expiration</p:Name>
<p:Description>
Automatic scheduling of content for processing, and expiry of content
that has reached its due date.
</p:Description>
<p:CustomData>
<data>
<formula id="Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures.Expiration.Formula.BuiltIn">
<number>0</number>
<property>Created</property>
<period>days</period>
</formula>
<action type="workflow" id="" />
</data>
</p:CustomData>
</p:PolicyItem>
These Policy items are used to configure the Policy Features for this Policy.
See Stegeman Blog for more information on how to create your own custom Policy Features.
Managing Information Management Policies via Code
Creating a Information Management Policy
The Policy needs to be defined in xml markup. This definition can then be passed to the
Policy.ValidateManifest () method that will validate the XML against the Policy Xml schema.
Once the policy has been validated it can be added to the policy collection using the PolicyCollection.Add () method
Example
string xmlManifest = generatePolicyXML(policyId,
Name,
string.Empty,
string.Empty,
FieldName,
WorkflowAssociationId);
Policy.ValidateManifest(xmlManifest);
PolicyCollection.Add(site, xmlManifest);
In this example I am generating the XML Manifest using a method and passing it various parameters once we have the xmlManifest string populated I pass it for validation to the Policy.ValidateManifest (string) method (Note this will through an exception that explains why it is unable to validate the XML) and then I add it to the Site via the PolicyCollection.Add (SPSite, string)
Retrieving a Information management Policy for a Site
To retrieve an Information Management Policy for a site we need to first get the Policy Catalog for that site and then retrieve the Policy from the catalog. We retrieve the Policy Catalog by creating a new PolicyCatalog object passing the SPSite object to the Constructor. We can then access the PolicyList collection of the new PolicyCatalog object to retrieve the Policy.
Example
using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteId))
{
PolicyCatalog policyCatalog = new PolicyCatalog(site);
Policy returnPolicy = policyCatalog.PolicyList[policyId];
if (returnPolicy != null)
{
//Code to run aganst the new Policy Object …
}
}
In this example I am creating the SPSite object from a Guid that is the Id for the site. Once I have the site object I pass it to the PolicyCatalog Constructor to create a new PolicyCatalog object that relates to the site. Once I have the PolicyCatalog for the site I can use its PolicyList Collection to retrieve a Policy using the Policy’s Id. Note that if a Policy does not exist with the supplied Policy ID then the Collection returns null so I check the returned Policy is not null before running code against it.
Attaching a Information Management Policy to a Content Type
To attach a Site Information Management Policy to a Content Type, we first need to fetch the site policy and then attach it to the Content Type using the Policy.CreatePolicy () passing it the Policy and Content Type.
Example
using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
{
SPContentType contentType = web.ContentTypes[contentTypeId];
if (contentType != null)
{
Policy.CreatePolicy(contentType, policy);
}
}
In this example I fetch the SPWeb Object and use it to fetch the Content Type with the supplied Content Type ID. Once I have the Content Type I check that that the returned value is not null and then I pass it to the Policy.CreatePolicy (SPContentType, Policy). Note a content type can only have one policy attached at any time and it may be best to check that the content type does not have a policy attached by testing that the Policy.GetPolicy (SPContentType) method returns null and not a Policy object else the Policy.CreatePolicy () method will through an exception.
Configuring the Expiration PolicyFeature
Creating an Expiration PolicyFeature Formula
The Expiration PolicyFeature has a custom data node that defines the when the item will expire. This is stored in the formula node.
Example
<formula id="Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.PolicyFeatures.
Expiration.Formula.BuiltIn">
<number>0</number>
<property>ERMExpiryDate</property>
<period>days</period>
</formula>
The Formula id Points the out of the box, built in formula
Number refers to the number of units to append to the date
Property refers to the Field in the item to retrieve the date from
Period refers to the unit that the number represents.
There are 3 period options: days, months, years.
Creating an Expiration PolicyFeature Action that calls a Workflow
The Expiration PolicyFeature has a custom data node that defines what action should be taken once the Item has expired. We want to start off a workflow so our XML looks like this
Example
<action type="workflow" id="feebb1e3-68f0-40ce-8dc0-e297814680ab" />
I define the type of action to be workflow and set the id to point the ParentAssociationId of the Content Types Workflow Association.
Setting this ID is one of the resigns that have not been able to get around in CAML.
This Guid is neither the Workflow Associations Id nor the Workflow Template ID but the Parent Association Id of the Workflow association.
Resources
MSDN
Introduction to Information Management Policy
Policy Schema Overview
Private Blogs
MOSS Custom policies part 1 - Creating a custom information management policy
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
SPFieldCollection indexer (Field[string]) Vs SPFieldCollection. GetField(string)
The Question can be asked don’t they do the same thing and reading the SDK doesn’t clear that up (see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.spfieldcollection.aspx )
So a bit of work with Reflector and the difference becomes apparent
The Indexer calls the internal method GetFieldByDisplayName(strDisplayName, true)
Which in turn accesses the Display Name Hashtable using the parameter as the key value DisplayNameDict[strDisplayName];
(Note the second Pramater of GetFieldByDisplayName is a bool which sets if the method will throw any exceptions)
GetField(string) calls GetField(strName, true) which in turn will call GetFieldByInternalName(strName, false) which accesses the Internal Name Hashtable using the parameter as the key value InternalNameDict[strName] if this fails to return a value it accesses the InternalNameWithPrefixDict Hashtable. If GetFieldByInternalName fails to return a value GetField will make a call to GetFieldByDisplayName(strName, false)
In practice how does this help
The Indexer only works with Display Names while the GetField() will look for the internal name first but if it can’t find a field it will then try the parameter as the display name. This matches up nicely with the ContainsField(string) method as this method will return true if the string is found as ether a display name or a internal name. Using this we have a nice way of avoiding unnecessary exception handling when accessing List data
Eg
if (item.Fields.ContainsField(_fieldName))
{
holderstring = item[_fieldName].ToString();
}
Not checking to see if the field exists can cause a System.NullReferenceException - Object reference not set to an instance of an object on the ToString() method
Note there is also a GetFieldByInternalName(string) which will only call GetFieldByInternalName(strName, false)
So a bit of work with Reflector and the difference becomes apparent
The Indexer calls the internal method GetFieldByDisplayName(strDisplayName, true)
Which in turn accesses the Display Name Hashtable using the parameter as the key value DisplayNameDict[strDisplayName];
(Note the second Pramater of GetFieldByDisplayName is a bool which sets if the method will throw any exceptions)
GetField(string) calls GetField(strName, true) which in turn will call GetFieldByInternalName(strName, false) which accesses the Internal Name Hashtable using the parameter as the key value InternalNameDict[strName] if this fails to return a value it accesses the InternalNameWithPrefixDict Hashtable. If GetFieldByInternalName fails to return a value GetField will make a call to GetFieldByDisplayName(strName, false)
In practice how does this help
The Indexer only works with Display Names while the GetField() will look for the internal name first but if it can’t find a field it will then try the parameter as the display name. This matches up nicely with the ContainsField(string) method as this method will return true if the string is found as ether a display name or a internal name. Using this we have a nice way of avoiding unnecessary exception handling when accessing List data
Eg
if (item.Fields.ContainsField(_fieldName))
{
holderstring = item[_fieldName].ToString();
}
Not checking to see if the field exists can cause a System.NullReferenceException - Object reference not set to an instance of an object on the ToString() method
Note there is also a GetFieldByInternalName(string) which will only call GetFieldByInternalName(strName, false)
Been a while
It has been a while (6 months) since my last post and in that time I have acquired ownership of some rather messy projects (Please I am begging people don’t modify out of the box files even if you think you know what you are doing because most likely YOU DONT …. ok maybe Application.master and the like but then again only if absolutely necessary and you and your client understand what Microsoft has to say http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/10/30/kb-944105-how-to-customize-application-pages-in-the-layouts-folder-in-wss-3-0-and-moss-2007.aspx ) and passed my MCTS - WSS 3.0 Application Development gotten engaged and learnt a lot about WSS and MOSS and to be honest ASP.NET
I will try and Blog all of what I have discovered and where I went badly wrong over the next few months and return what I can to the SharePoint community.
Hope to post more as time goes on :)
PS I would like to see more internet facing WSS 3/Moss sites on the web they are easy to develop and even easier to maintain for the non technical minded.
I will try and Blog all of what I have discovered and where I went badly wrong over the next few months and return what I can to the SharePoint community.
Hope to post more as time goes on :)
PS I would like to see more internet facing WSS 3/Moss sites on the web they are easy to develop and even easier to maintain for the non technical minded.
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Creating a New My Sites or adding My Sites to a Moss Portal
The other day I had to add My Sites to a client Moss Site
Firstly create a My Sites Web Application
Central Administration > Application Management > SharePoint Web Application Management:
Create or extend Web application
Then create a My Site Host Site Collection
Central Administration > Application Management > SharePoint Site Management:
Create site collection
Remember to set the site template as Enterprise>My Site Host
Now add a managed path if you don’t plan to use Sites as your location
Central Administration > Application Management > SharePoint Web Application Management:
Define managed paths
Add your Location as a wildcard path.
Next go in to your SSP
User Profiles and My Sites: My Site settings
Change the
Personal Site Services: to your new Web Application
And change
Personal Site Location: to your new location you defined earlier
And there you have it a new My Sites.
The other day I had to add My Sites to a client Moss Site
Firstly create a My Sites Web Application
Central Administration > Application Management > SharePoint Web Application Management:
Create or extend Web application
Then create a My Site Host Site Collection
Central Administration > Application Management > SharePoint Site Management:
Create site collection
Remember to set the site template as Enterprise>My Site Host
Now add a managed path if you don’t plan to use Sites as your location
Central Administration > Application Management > SharePoint Web Application Management:
Define managed paths
Add your Location as a wildcard path.
Next go in to your SSP
User Profiles and My Sites: My Site settings
Change the
Personal Site Services: to your new Web Application
And change
Personal Site Location: to your new location you defined earlier
And there you have it a new My Sites.
Monday, 9 July 2007
Adding Google as a search scope
Well the title is prehaps miss leading but you can trick MOSS in to using Google as a search scope.
Firstly how do we get google working with in a Moss site
As Google is droping thier Web service api (which was limated to 1000 quires a day) and are promoting thier Ajax API i will describe how to use the Ajax API.
We will use a CWEP (Content Editor Web Part) and drop some custom code in to the Source section.
Replace the REPLACE_ME with your google API key which you can get here
http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/signup.html
NOTE espaly for corprate clients they must read and approve of the tearms and conditions in relation to Google's API key
The Google part of the code is in the OnLoad()
and you should be able to easly modfy it to your own needs just explor the API
the rest of the fuctions are there to tokenise the URL string so make the search work from a search scope
the cleanup(str) fuction is used to reformat the URL token in to plain text.
the getQval(name) Gets the url tokens for the search string. Since i am just lazy and not much of a javascript programer this is just a cut and past from this Forum all credit goes to RobB and Michael Winter.
http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread149745.html
now you have a google search webpart
go to the Search colection in your portal
Add two pages one for Google Search and one for Google Search Results.
Add these pages to the relative tabs.
Drop a Cwep whith the above code.
you now have a search page and a results page that contain a Google search web part
now how to get Moss search scopes to point the results here
go to search scopes ehter in the SSP or at the toplvl of the site colection(recomended for this method)
Create a display groop and call it Google Search Group (or your own name)
Creat a search scope called Google Search that is atached to Search Dropdown and Google Search Group that uses a custon search results page. Point to your newly created Google search results Page were you added the Cwep.
add a rule that will not search anywere (point it to the google search page you created for a minimal search)
now you will have a google search in your defauld search dropdown and any search placed in there will open your Google Search Results page which will display the search results in the Cwep.
one last thing to fix
go edit page on your Google search page and go Modfy sheard webpart on the Search box
Hide the search dropdown and under Mics change the results page to your new Google Search Results and change the Scope (txt box just below) to Google Search Group.
repeat these steps on your Google Search Resluts page
sorry i was in a hurry with this post :P
Firstly how do we get google working with in a Moss site
As Google is droping thier Web service api (which was limated to 1000 quires a day) and are promoting thier Ajax API i will describe how to use the Ajax API.
We will use a CWEP (Content Editor Web Part) and drop some custom code in to the Source section.
<link href="http://www.google.com/uds/css/gsearch.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="http://www.google.com/uds/api?file=uds.js&v=1.0&key=REPLACE_ME" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[ function OnLoad() { // Create a search control var searchControl = new GSearchControl(); // Add in a full set of searchers searchControl.addSearcher(new GwebSearch()); searchControl.addSearcher(new GvideoSearch()); searchControl.addSearcher(new GblogSearch()); searchControl.addSearcher(new GnewsSearch()); searchControl.addSearcher(new GbookSearch()); // draw in tabbed layout mode var drawOptions = new GdrawOptions(); drawOptions.setDrawMode(GSearchControl.DRAW_MODE_TABBED); searchControl.draw(document.getElementById("search_control_tabbed"), drawOptions); // Execute an inital search searchControl.execute(cleanup(getQval("k"))); } GSearch.setOnLoadCallback(OnLoad); //]]>
function cleanup(str)
{
str = str.replace(/%22/ig, "\"");
str = str.replace(/\+/ig, " ");
str = str.replace(/%20/ig, " ");
str = str.replace(/%2B/ig, "+");
return str;
}
function getQval(name)
{
var m, Q = window.location.search.substring(1);
if ('' != Q)
{
var re = new RegExp(escape(name) + '=([^&$]+)');
if (m = Q.match(re))
return m[1];
else return '';
}
return '';
}</script>
<div class="search-control" id="search_control_tabbed">Loading</div>
<div id="error"></div>
Replace the REPLACE_ME with your google API key which you can get here
http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxsearch/signup.html
NOTE espaly for corprate clients they must read and approve of the tearms and conditions in relation to Google's API key
The Google part of the code is in the OnLoad()
and you should be able to easly modfy it to your own needs just explor the API
the rest of the fuctions are there to tokenise the URL string so make the search work from a search scope
the cleanup(str) fuction is used to reformat the URL token in to plain text.
the getQval(name) Gets the url tokens for the search string. Since i am just lazy and not much of a javascript programer this is just a cut and past from this Forum all credit goes to RobB and Michael Winter.
http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread149745.html
now you have a google search webpart
go to the Search colection in your portal
Add two pages one for Google Search and one for Google Search Results.
Add these pages to the relative tabs.
Drop a Cwep whith the above code.
you now have a search page and a results page that contain a Google search web part
now how to get Moss search scopes to point the results here
go to search scopes ehter in the SSP or at the toplvl of the site colection(recomended for this method)
Create a display groop and call it Google Search Group (or your own name)
Creat a search scope called Google Search that is atached to Search Dropdown and Google Search Group that uses a custon search results page. Point to your newly created Google search results Page were you added the Cwep.
add a rule that will not search anywere (point it to the google search page you created for a minimal search)
now you will have a google search in your defauld search dropdown and any search placed in there will open your Google Search Results page which will display the search results in the Cwep.
one last thing to fix
go edit page on your Google search page and go Modfy sheard webpart on the Search box
Hide the search dropdown and under Mics change the results page to your new Google Search Results and change the Scope (txt box just below) to Google Search Group.
repeat these steps on your Google Search Resluts page
sorry i was in a hurry with this post :P
Monday, 18 June 2007
Adding a document to a Document library
Here is one that stumped me for a while
One of my fellow developers had a web part that needed to convert a xml file to a pdf and then add the pdf to a document library . Well the conversion worked and everything was fine except he couldn’t workout how to get the pdf in to a document library.
There are no overrides on the .Add() method of the SPListItemCollection Class that take File in to account, the .File propriety is only a get and we didn’t know what Field to use. Evan the SPDocumentLibrary class was of no use.
After a bit of head scratching we found that we needed to use the list.Rootfolder.Files.add
This is in the SDK on one line in one of the related classes but I can’t find it again
Hopefully this post will help anyone else that gets snagged on this simple process
A useful tip
The Add method of the SPFilecolection returned a SPFile object
So you can use this code to add your relevant meta data
Hope that help
One of my fellow developers had a web part that needed to convert a xml file to a pdf and then add the pdf to a document library . Well the conversion worked and everything was fine except he couldn’t workout how to get the pdf in to a document library.
There are no overrides on the .Add() method of the SPListItemCollection Class that take File in to account, the .File propriety is only a get and we didn’t know what Field to use. Evan the SPDocumentLibrary class was of no use.
After a bit of head scratching we found that we needed to use the list.Rootfolder.Files.add
This is in the SDK on one line in one of the related classes but I can’t find it again
Hopefully this post will help anyone else that gets snagged on this simple process
A useful tip
The Add method of the SPFilecolection returned a SPFile object
So you can use this code to add your relevant meta data
SPFile newFile = list.Rootfolder.Files.add( fileURL, fileStream);
SPListItem fileItem = newFile.Item;
Hope that help
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