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Tag Archives: Powershell

Changing Web Part Properties When the Page is Unavailable

15 Mar
Applies To: SharePoint

The other day we made some changes that caused some issues with how one of our web parts was configured. Unfortunately, I hadn’t wrapped the problem in a try/catch and my error blew up the whole page. I’m sure I’m the only one that’s ever done that. So obviously I’ve got some code changes to make, but what do I do in the meantime? Fortunately, there’s some straight forward Powershell that lets you change web part settings (even custom properties like mine).

I found the solution to this over on Aarebrot.net where he was using the technique to change a web part that automatically redirected the user. I’ve just reproduced his code here and added some explanation and background.

When I first went to solve this problem I tried the ?contents=1 querystring trick to pull up the Web Part Administration page. If you’re looking for a quick solution you can add that query string to the end of your page’s URL and then delete the web part from the page and start over. But a more elegant solution is to just change the offending property using some easy Powershell.

Using the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, run the following commands:

$web = Get-SPWeb "http://somedomain.com/sites/someweb"
$page = $web.GetFile("default.aspx")
$page.CheckOut()
$wpm = $web.GetLimitedWebPartManager("default.aspx",[System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.PersonalizationScope]::Shared)
$part = $wpm.WebParts[0]
$part.SomeProperty = "The correct setting!"
$wpm.SaveChanges($part)
$page.CheckIn("Fixed that property")
$page.Publish("Fixed that property")
$web.Close()

What Just Happened?

In line 1 we’re just getting a reference to the web site (SPWeb) where your web part lives using Get-SPWeb. Just replace the URL shown with yours.

Lines 2-3 and 8-9 are only required if the page you’re modifying is on a publishing site or check in/out is required. Feel free to skip these (go directly to line 4) if you’re just editing a simple page. If your page does require check out to be edited, line 2 is simply retrieving the file (SPFile) using the GetFile method using the relative location of the page. Then line 3 calls the CheckOut method which, of course, checks out the file.

In line 4, we’re grabbing a reference to the Web Part Manager for the page (SPLimitedWebPartManager) using the GetLimitedWebPartManager method. Just replace the first parameter with the relative location of your page. The second parameter is the PersonalizationScope enumeration and can be User or Shared. You’re going to want to use Shared to affect everybody. The Web Part Manager object is what lets us get access to all the web parts on the page and screw with em.

In line 5, we grab the web part (WebPart) we want by index using the WebParts collection. In the example above I already knew that the web part I wanted was the first one in the collection. You can also pass the uniqueID property of the web part (instead of the index). You can find out both by simply calling the WebParts collection by itself ($web.WebParts) and everything will get listed to the screen.

To see all the available properties of the web part you can just type ($part) and it will list everything out including any custom properties. Then you can just set them like we do in line 6.

Line 7 uses the Web Part Manager’s SaveChanges method to incorporate all your changes. Lines 8-9 are again only required if your pages library requires check in/out and publishing. If it’s a simple page just skip to line 10. Line 8 uses the CheckIn method which takes a string for a check-in comment. Line 9 uses the Publish method which also takes a string for a comment.

Line 11 just calls the Close method and ensures we clean up all our resources.

That’s it! Now you can wrap that up in a script to loop through multiple pages and change properties on all sorts of web parts or just one-off fix those web parts you might have broken.

 
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Posted by on March 15, 2013 in Powershell, SharePoint, Web Parts

 

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DevConnections 2012

05 Nov
Applies To: SharePoint, SQL, .NET, HTML5

I just got back from DevConnections 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. I learned several things that the made the trip worthwhile and I’m glad I got to be a part of it. I choose DevConnections over SPC because I wanted to take workshops from a variety of tracks including SQL, .NET and HTML5. Choosing DevConnections also meant I didn’t have to go alone.

There were several good speakers and I received plenty of swag (8+ T-Shirts, an RC helicopter, a book and more). Not surprisingly, I enjoyed the SharePoint Connections track the most and Dan Holme was my favorite speaker.

For all those that didn’t get to go I thought I’d share my notes from the sessions I attended and any insights I gained as well. My notes are not a total reflection of what was said, but represent things I found interesting or useful.

Where Does SharePoint Designer 2010 fit in to Your SharePoint Application Development Process?

Asif Rehmani – SharePoint-Videos.com

My Notes:

  • Always use browser first when possible
  • Anything Enterprise wide should be VS or buy
  • DVWP also called Data Form WP
  • DVWP multiple sources to XML with XSLT
  • LVWP specific to SP lists
  • Browser limits in views don’t apply in Designer (Grouping, Sorting, etc.)
  • Import Spreadsheet is only through browser – NOT SP Designer
  • Conditional Formatting in views including icons (put all icons in cell and change content conditional formatting on each).Pictures automatically go in SiteAssets
    • Sometimes img uploads retain local path (switch to code and correct src url)
  • Formulas: select parameter and double click the function to have the selection become the 1st parameter
  • DVWP can easily be changed to do updates: switch from text to text box, then add a row and insert a form action button and choose the commit action (save)
  • Parameters for all sorts of stuff (username, query string, etc)can be used all over including in conditional formatting
  • SPD was designed and intended to be used in production – not a lot of support for working in Dev and moving to Production
    • WP can be packaged (DVWP) for import elsewhere
    • Reusable workflows can also be packaged

Key Insights:

  • SharePoint Designer is fine to be used in production (and in fact requires it in certain cases). However, there are things you can do to minimize the amount of work done in production.
  • SP Designer is pretty powerful and can replace a lot of extra VS development

Overall Impression:

Just as in his videos, Asif was a great presenter. He was very personable and knowledgeable. The session ended up being less about when SP Designer should be used in your environment and more a broad demo of what can be done with Designer. This was a little disappointing but I learned enough tips and tricks that I really didn’t mind too much. Interestingly, some people in the audience asked about an intermittent error they’ve been receiving in SP 2010 for some Web Parts they’d applied conditional formatting too. This was almost certainly the XSLT Timeout issue and I was able to provide them a solution.

Data Visualization: WPF, Silverlight & WinRT

Tim Huckaby – Interknowlogy

My Notes:

  • WPF is great at 3D, cool demo of scripps molecule viewer (codeplex)
  • Silverlight is dead
  • Winforms is dead
  • HTML 5 hysteria is in full swing
  • HTML 5 has a canvas and SVG support
  • ComponentOne has neat HTML 5 sales dashboard demo

Key Insights:

  • Silverlight has lost to HTML 5 and we shouldn’t expect another version.

Overall Impression:

This was obviously a recycled workshop from several years ago (he actually said so) that he added a couple of slides to. In his defense, he planned to show a WinRT demo but the Bellagio AV guys were unable to get the display working. Regardless it seemed more like a bragging session. He showed pictures of him with top Microsoft people, showed his company being featured in Gray’s Anatomy, and alluded to all the cool things he’s involved with that he couldn’t mention.

This was pretty disappointing. I am already aware that .NET can do some pretty awesome things including some neat visualizations. I was hoping to get some actual guidance on getting started. Instead I got Microsoft propaganda from 3 years ago about why .NET (specifically WPF) is awesome. Tim Huckaby is obviously a very smart guy and has a lot of insight to share. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend a workshop from him in the future on a topic he cares a little more about.

Building Custom Applications (mashups) on the SharePoint Platform

Todd Baginski - http://toddbaginski.com/blog/

My Notes:

  • Used Silverlight but recommends HTML 5
  • Suggests that all mashups should be Sandbox compatible
  • Bing Maps has great examples requiring little work
  • SL to SL: localmessagesender use SendAsync method. In receiver setup allowedSenderDomains list of strings. Use localmessagereceiver and messagereceived event. Be sure to call the listen() method!!
  • Assets Library great for videos
  • Silverlight video player included in SP 2010/2013. 2013 has an additional fallback HTML 5 player.
  • External Data Column: Works as lookup for BCS
  • OOTB \14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUT\MediaPlayer.js: _spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push(‘mediaPlayer.createOverlayPlayer’); after you’ve made links hook ‘em up: mediaPlayer.attachToMediaLinks((document.getElementById(‘idofdivholdinglinks’)), ['wmv','mp3']);
  • OOTB \14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUT\Ratings.js: ExecuteDelayUntilScriptLoaded(RatingsManagerLoader, ‘ratings.js’); RatingsManagerLoader is huge, see slides. Then loop through everything you want to attach a rating to.
  • SL JS call: HtmlPage.Window.Invoke(“Jsfunctionname”, new string[] { parameter1, parameter2})
  • JQuery twitter plugin
  • SP 2013 has geolocation fields. Requires some setup & code. He has app to add GL column & map view to existing lists.
  • Even in SP 2013 the supported video formats are really limited
  • AppParts are really just iframes.  Connections work different. Not designed to communicate outside of app.

Key Insights:

  • Silverlight to Silverlight communication is pretty simple but will be pretty irrelevant in SharePoint 2013
  • Getting the Video Player to show your videos when using custom XSLT takes some work
  • Adding a working Ratings Control when using custom XSLT is even more complicated and convoluted
  • New GeoLocation columns in SP 2013 will be really cool, but adding them to existing lists is going to be a pain.

Overall Impression:

Todd had a lot of good information and you could tell he knew his stuff. Unfortunately he has a very dry style. Regardless, I enjoy demos that show actual architecture and code and there was plenty of that.

I do wish he’d updated his demos to use HTML 5 as he recommends. It’s very frustrating to hear a presenter recommend something different and then to spend an hour diving into the non-recommended solution. Additionally, although I prefer specific examples (and his were very good) I prefer to have more general best practices/recommendations presented as well. But despite all that he gave a few key tips that I will be using immediately and that is the primary thing I’m looking for in a technical workshop.

Creating Mobile-Enabled SharePoint Web Sites and Mobile Applications that Integrate with SharePoint

Todd Baginski - http://toddbaginski.com/blog/

My Notes:

  • AirServer $14.99 shows iPad on computer
  • Mobile is much better in SP 2013
  • Device channel panel allows content to target specific devices

Key Insights:

  • Mobile is important. You can struggle with SP 2010, but you should probably just upgrade to SP 2013

Overall Impression:

I enjoyed Todd’s other session (see above), but this one was too focused on SP 2013 to have any real practical value for me.

Getting Smarter about .NET

Kathleen Dollard - http://msmvps.com/blogs/kathleen/

My Notes:

  • Lambdas create pointers to a function
  • LINQ creates expressions that can be evaluated everywhere
  • int + int will still be an int even if larger than an int can be. No errors, but addition will be wrong. (default in C#, VB.NET will break for default)
  • There is no performance gain by using int16 over int32, some memory is saved but is only significant when processing multimillion values at the same time
  • VisualStudio 2012 will be going to quarterly updates
  • Static values are shared with all instances – Even among derived classes!
  • LINQ queries Count() does full query
  • Func last parameter is what is returned
  • Closure is the actual variable in a lambda (not copy) so multiple lambdas can be changing the same variable
  • Projects can be opened in both VS 2010 and VS 2012 at the same time

Key Insights:

  • Despite all the new and exciting things that keep getting added to .NET, a firm grip of the basics is what will really make a difference in your code and ability to make great applications
  • Static sharing even among derived classes makes for some potential mistakes, but also for some very powerful architecture
  • LINQ and Lambdas are some crazy cool stuff that I should stop ignoring
  • .NET is very consistent and following it’s logic rather than our own assumptions is key for truly understanding what your code is doing

Overall Impression:

I really enjoyed this session. It was the most challenging workshop I attended despite it’s focus of dealing with things at the most basic level. Kathleen kept it fun (although she could be a little intimidating) and continued to surprise everyone in the room both with the power of .NET and the dangers of our own misconceptions. She pointed out several gotcha areas and provided the reasoning behind them. This was a last minute session, but it was also one of the best.

Wish I’d Have Known That Sooner! SharePoint Insanity Demystified

Dan Holme - Intelliem

My Notes:

  • SQL alias: use a fake name for SQL server to account for server changes/moves. Use CLICONFIG.exe on each SP server in the farm. Do NOT use DNS for this (CNAMEs). Consider using tiers of aliases for future splitting of DBs: content, search, services – all start with the same target and changed as needed
  • ContentDB sizing: change initial size and growth. Defaults are 50mb and 1mb growth. Makes a BIG difference in performance.
  • ContentDBs can be up to 4 TB. Over 200 GB is not recommended.
  • SiteCollections can be same as ContentDBs but 100 GB is as high with OOTB tools
  • Limit of 60 million items per ContentDBs (each version counts)
  • Remote BLOB storage: SP is unaware. Common performance measurements are mostly inaccurate because they are based on single files. Externalizing all BLOBs is significant performance boost. 25-40%! Storage can be cheaper too but complexity increases. Using a SAN allows you to take advantage of SAN features (ie deduplication – which really reduces storage footprint). RBS OOTB is fine, but you can’t set business rules.
  • Office Web Apps no longer run on SP servers in 2013. These are great, test on SkyDrive consumer.
  • Get office365 preview account
  • Nintex highly recommended over InfoPath. InfoPath is supported but unenhanced in 2013, likely indicator of unannounced strategy.
  • AD RMS allows the cloud to be more secure than on-premise. Allows exported documents to have rights management that restricts actions regardless of location. Very difficult to setup infrastructure. Office365 has this which is compelling reason to migrate.
  • User Profile DB is extremely important and becomes much more so in SP 2013
  • Claims Authentication is apparently a dude pees on a server and then gets shot with lasers:
Pee on a server LASERS!
  • Upgrade to 2013 should be done as quickly as possible. Much easier than 7-10. Fully backward compatible. Both 14 & 15 hives.
  • Governance is very important!

Key Insights:

  • Preparing for growth up front with SQL aliases is a great idea
  • Nintex and Office 365 both need more investigation by me
  • Remote Blob Storage is a good idea for nearly everyone – very different perspective than what I’ve previously been told!

Overall Impression:

This session was full of great tips and best practice suggestions tempered with practical applications. This was exactly the kind of information I came to hear. Dan did a great job of presenting a lot of information (despite a massive drive failure just previous to the convention) while keeping it interesting. The only thing that was probably a little much was his in-depth explanation of Claims Authentication. His drawings were pretty rough and his enthusiasm for the topic didn’t really transfer to the audience. Regardless, this was a great session.

SharePoint Data Access Shootout

Scot Hillier - http://www.shillier.com

My Notes:

  • LINQ cannot query across multiple lists (unless there is a lookup connection)
  • SPSiteDataQuery can query all lists of a certain template using CAML within a Site or Site Collection
  • SPMetal.exe generates Object Relational Map needed for LINQ  (in hive bin)
  • LINQ isn’t going to have much support in SP 2013
  • SP 2013 has continuous crawl
  • Keyword Queries are very helpful
  • KQL: ContentClass determines the kind of results you get. (ie STS_Web, STS_Site, STS_ListItem_Events)
  • Search in 2013 provides a rest interface to use KQL in JavaScript
  • CSOM is very similar to Serverside OM
  • CSOM is JS or .NET

Key Insights:

  • Keyword Query Language (KQL) needs more consideration as an effective query language for SharePoint.
  • LINQ isn’t actually a great way to access SP data despite Microsoft’s big push over the past couple of years.

Overall Impression:

This was a strange session. He didn’t go into enough depth about any one data access method to provide any real insight to those of us familiar with them and he moved so quick that anyone new to them would just have been overwhelmed. This session would have been better if he’d given clear and practical advise on when to use these methods rather than just demoing them. My guess is that he was trying to cover way too much information in too little time. However, I did enjoy hearing more about the Keyword Query Language since this is something I haven’t done much of and is rarely mentioned. Those tips alone made the whole session worthwhile.

HTML5 JavaScript APIs: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Christian Wenz - http://www.hauser-wenz.de/s9y/

My Notes:

  • HTML5 is a large umbrella of technologies
  • Suggests Microsoft WebMatrix is a good Editor
  • Semantics for HTML elements is a powerful new feature: input type = email, number, range, date, time, month, week, etc. These customize the type of editor and adds validation
  • Suggests Opera Mobile Emulator is a good testing tool
  • Additional elements: aside, footer
  • Requesting location: navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(result){console.log(result)});
  • to debug local cache use Google Chrome by going to: Chrome://app cache-internals
  • Worker() web worker allows messaging for functions
  • CORS allows cross domain requests
  • Web sockets do not have full support yet but will be very cool

Key Insights:

  • HTML 5 is going to dramatically change how we think of website capabilities – eventually.
  • Although exciting, HTML 5 has a long way to go and several of it’s most compelling features have little to no support in main stream browsers.

Overall Impression:

Christian did a good job of keeping the energy up about HTML 5 and showing off some of the cool features. Unfortunately he seemed to lose site of the big picture in favor of really detailed samples. I enjoyed the presentation but would like to have had more guidance about how to get started and what to focus on with this new style of web development.

Roadmap: From HTML to HTML 5

Paul D. Sheriff - http://weblogs.asp.net/psheriff/

My Notes:

  • Lots of new elements – but they don’t do anything. They make applying CSS easier and allow search engines to parse through a page easier.
  • Browsers that don’t understand new elements will treat them as divs – but styles won’t be applied.
  • Lots of new input types (color, tel, search, URL, email, number, range, date, date-time, time, week, month)
  • New attributes (autofocus, required, placeholder, form validate, min, max, step, pattern, title, disabled)
  • CSS3 has huge style upgrades but there are still a lot of browser incompatibilities
  • JqueryUI, Modernizr = good tools, use VS 2012 with IE10 or Opera
  • Modernizr allows you to use HTML 5 with automatic replacements in incompatible browsers. Uses JQuery and is included automatically with VS 2012.
  • This stuff is not ready for the prime time except for mobile browsers. Modernizr fills in those gaps.
  • Box-sizing can be either border-box or content-box, which helps with the div width interpretation problem
  • Dude appears to hate JavaScript and HTML 5, sure love hearing a presenter complain about what we all came to learn about!

Key Insights:

  • Use Visual Studio 2012 with Modernizr to make HTML 5 websites

Overall Impression:

This session really annoyed me. Paul was very knowledgeable and had a lot of information to share. Unfortunately, he was so busy bashing the technology we all came to see that it was hard to know why we were even there.

Scaling Document Management in the Enterprise: Document Libraries and Beyond

Dan Holme - Intelliem

My Notes:

  • Can store up to 50 million documents in a single document library
  • SP 2013 allows documents to be dragged onto the doc library in the browser to upload – no ActiveX required
  • When a User is a member of the default group for a site they get the links in office and on their mysite. Site Members is the default group by default, but this can be switched in the group settings. Suggests creating an additional group that contains everyone on the site and has no permissions, then this can be the default group.
  • Email enabled document libraries can be very helpful for receiving documents outside of your network
  • Pingar is a recommended product he briefly mentioned
  • Big improvements in navigation using managed metadata service in SP 2013
  • Content type templates can use the columns as quick parts in Word

Key Insights:

  • Separating Site Membership from Site Permissions by creating an additional group just for managing memberships is a great idea.
  • A lot can be done with SP 2010 but SP 2013 will add a few key features to make things easier (drag and drop on the browser will be awesome).

Overall Impression:

The tip about site membership was worth the whole session. Additionally he reviewed a lot of the basics of content types and the content type hub. While this wasn’t particularly helpful to me, I can’t wait to get ahold of his slides for both this and his other sessions. He had way too many slides for the amount of time he was given.

This session reminded me of how powerful SharePoint is at so many things. Document management is not a particularly exciting topic to me but it is one of the key reasons we are using the SharePoint platform. A review of the features available to maintain the integrity of our data and to simply the classification of that data was very helpful.

SharePoint in Action: What We Did at NBC Olympics

Dan Holme - Intelliem

My Notes:

  • Keep SharePoint simple. Use OOTB features as much as possible
  • 300 hours of content broadcasted per day
  • NBCOlympics.com streamed every competition live
  • Most watched event in TV history
  • 3,700 NBC Olympics team members
    • 1 SP admin/support
  • PDF viewing was turned on despite security concerns
  • Set as default IE page – very difficult to do, they used a script to set a registry entry to account for multiple OSs and browser versions
  • All additional web applications were exposed through SP using a PageViewer WP
    • Phone Directory, Calendar application
  • WebDAV was used to allow other apps to publish documents
  • Global Navigation on top site using tabs (drop down menus)
    • Quick launch had contextual items to site
    • Navigation centric homepage, kept navigation as simple as possible. Only homepage had global navigation.
  • No real branding (put picture on right and used a custom icon). They set the site icon to go to the main web page because it’s what users expected.
  • Did not use lists or libraries as terms instead used Content (libraries, other lists) and Apps (Calendar, Tasks, etc.)
  • Suggests hiding “I like it” and notes since they are not helpful and deprecated in SP 2013
  • Site mailboxes for teams using OWA
  • Embedded documentation: Put basic instructions right on the homepage of team sites as needed. Also above some document libraries – basic upload and open instructions.
  • Focus on usability since there was no time for training
  • Took out All Site Content link and all other navigation was on homepage of site. Sub sites had tab links to parent site.
  • Used InfoPath to customize List Forms mostly to add instructions (placed below field title on left)
  • Lots of calendars. Conference room calendars were very popular. Didn’t use exchange for this in order to accommodate outside users.
  • Used InfoPath lists and workflows to replace paper processes. Kept them simple but effective. Although not used in this case, he recommends Nintex for more advanced needs.
  • Self-service help desk: printer/app installs, FAQs. Showed faces of team.
    • PageViewer web part and point it to \\servername to show all printers and put instructions on right to get those installed directly out of SP
    • Kept running FAQ to show common solutions
  • IT Administration site: ticket system used issue tracking list highly customized with InfoPath list forms.
    • Inventory lists in IT admin, also DHCP lease reports using powershell to dump that information.
    • List for user requests. WF for approvals, then Powershell took care of approved memberships directly in AD.
    • Used a list for password resets. Powershell would set password to generic password as requested (scheduled task every 5 min)
    • Powershell script to create team sites through list requests
  • SP will never be used to broadcast the Olympics but very effective to manage those teams
  • You must understand your users and build to what users really want/need
    • Don’t overwork, don’t over brand – It just clutters.
    • Don’t over deliver or over train.

Key Insights:

  • Keeping global navigation centralized in a single location (without including everything) and providing contextual navigation as needed can keep things simple from a management perspective while still allowing things to be intuitive.
    • Ensuring all navigation needed is exposed through the Quick Launch eliminates the need for All Site Content (except for Admin) and ensures your sites are laid out well
    • As long as you allow users to easily return to the global navigation from any sub site (Using the site icon is very intuitive) there is no need to clutter every site with complicated menu trees.
  • Request lists and Scheduled Tasks running Powershell Scripts can be used to create easy to manage but very powerful automation.
  • Removal of “I like it” and notes icons is a good idea
  • Embedding instructions directly on a given site/list using OOTB editing tools can increase usability dramatically
  • InfoPath List forms can go a long way towards improving list usability by making things appear more intuitive and providing in line instructions.
  • There are so many cool things in SP it can be easy to forget all the amazing things you can do using simple OOTB functionality. It is far too tempting to over deliver and over share when end users really only want to get their job done in the simplest way possible.

Overall Impression:

This was the best session I attended and made the entire conference worthwhile. It is unfortunately rare that you can see SP solutions in the context of an entire site. Seeing how SP was used to help manage one of the largest and most daring projects I can imagine was both inspiring and reassuring.

Besides the several tips of things they did (many of which will soon be showing up in our environment), he was able to confirm several things we were already doing that we were a little unsure about. Even better was his focus on simplifying things. I get so excited about SP features that sometimes I overuse them or forget the real power of simple lists. It was a fantastic reminder that we are often over delivering and therefore complicating things that just make SP scary and hard to use for end users.

Convention Summary

DevConnections 2012 was great. I had a great time in Vegas and I brought home several insights that have immediate practical value. Really, there’s not much more you can ask for in a technical convention.

 
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Posted by on November 5, 2012 in .NET, SharePoint

 

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Remove Drop Off Libraries from Every Site

24 Sep
Applies To: SharePoint 2010

The other day I came across a problem with some missing features on a few of our sites. Some quick searching told me I needed to enable all my sites to use the SharePoint Server Enterprise Features. This is a good thing to do, especially if you’ve just upgraded from 2007 to 2010 or you were using Foundation or Standard Server.

So, I went to Central Administration and clicked on Upgrade and Migration and chose Enable Features on Existing Sites. I was presented with this screen:

So, I checked the box and pressed OK. It took a few hours, but then everything was good to go! Almost…

Turns out I had people asking me what this new Drop Off Library link was on their sites. A quick check showed that EVERY SITE in EVERY SITE COLLECTION in EVERY WEB APPLICATION now had the Content Organizer feature enabled and a Drop Off Library added.

So, I go to Manage Site Features I deactivate the Content Organizer and go to delete the Drop Off Library. No delete option in Library settings. Turns out you need to use something like SharePoint Manager or Powershell to allow the library to be deleted before that link will show up. Regardless, we have hundreds of sites and my sites – All of which now have an unremovable library and unnecessary feature activated.

So, time for some Powershell! I wrote a script (below) that will cycle through all the sites in all the site collections for a given Web Application and disable the DocumentRouting feature (Content Organizer) and delete the Drop Off Library. I was inspired by this forum thread and this blog post.

Additionally, I was also faced with the complication that I had actually activated this feature previously for a few sites and wanted to make sure they weren’t stripped along with everybody else. So I added an ExclusionURLs parameter. I’ll explain more about that and how the rest of the script works in a minute.

The Script

Param(
	[parameter(position=0)]
	[String]
		$WebApplicationURL,
    [parameter(position=1)]
    [Boolean]
        $AnalysisOnly = $true,
	[parameter(position=2)]
	[String[]]
		$ExclusionURLs
)

#Display Exclusion URL information
if($ExclusionURLs -and $ExclusionURLs.Count -gt 0) {
    Write-Host "Excluded URLs:" -foregroundcolor green
    $ExclusionURLs | ForEach-Object {
        Write-Host "     $_" -foregroundcolor green
    }
} else {
    Write-Host "No URL Exclusions" -foreground cyan
}

#Display Feature Information
$feature = Get-SPFeature “DocumentRouting”
Write-Host “Feature ID for Content Organizer is called $($feature.DisplayName)" -foregroundcolor cyan

if($AnalysisOnly) {
    Write-Host "ANALYSIS ONLY" -foregroundcolor red
}

#Go Through Every Site
Get-SPWebApplication $WebApplicationURL | Get-SPSite -Limit ALL | Get-SPWeb -Limit ALL | ForEach-Object {

    #Check for Exclusion
    if(!($ExclusionURLs -contains $_.URL)) {
        Write-Host "$_ | $($_.URL)" -foregroundcolor DarkCyan

        #Disable Feature if found
        if ($_.Features[$feature.ID]) {
            Write-Host “  Feature $($feature.DisplayName) Found" -foreground green
            if(!$AnalysisOnly){
                Disable-SPFeature $feature -Url $_.Url -Force -Confirm:$false
                Write-Host “  Feature $($feature.DisplayName) Disabled” -foreground magenta
            }
        } else {
            Write-Host "  Feature $($feature.DisplayName) NOT Found" -foreground yellow
        }

        #Delete Drop Off Library if found
        $list = $_.Lists["DROP OFF LIBRARY"]
        if ($list) {
            Write-Host “  List $list Found” -foregroundcolor green
            if(!$AnalysisOnly){
                $list.AllowDeletion = $true;
                $list.Update()
                $list.Delete()
                Write-Host “  List $list Deleted” -foreground magenta
            }
        } else {
            Write-Host “  Drop Off Library NOT found” -foregroundcolor yellow
        }
    }

}
Write-Host " "
Write-Host "All Done!" -foregroundcolor yellow

You can copy the above script, save it in a text file with a ps1 extension and run it from the console. Assuming you’ve named the file RemoveDropOffLibraries.ps1 you can run it in a couple of different ways:

Analysis Only:

Since I’m the cautious type, I want to know which sites are going to be affected before I actually pull the trigger. So running it with just the Web Application URL will provide you with a list of all sites. Additionally, you’ll be told if a given site has the DocumentRouting feature enabled and if a Drop Off Library was found.

Perform Actions:

If you’re comfortable with the results above, just pass the Web Application URL and $false for the AnalysisOnly parameter. This will do the same list of sites and indicate if the DocumentRouting feature is enabled and if a Drop Off Library was found. Each time the feature is found activated, it gets disabled and you’ll see a message. Additionally, each time a Drop Off Library is found, it gets deleted and you’ll see a message.

Analysis Only with Exclusions:

Exclusions allow you to pass site URLs in a comma separated list. Doing the above command ensures your exclusions are working. Just specify the Web Application URL, $true for AnalysisOnly and then 1 or more exclusion URLs separated only by a comma.

Perform Actions with Exclusions:

This uses the same rules for exclusions as above, but instead of just analyzing, it actually does the work.

Quick Tip:

If you have a lot of sites and want to be able to see the output easily, use the start-transcript and stop-transcript cmdlets like so:

start-transcript -path SomeFile.rtf
...Commands and Output...
stop-transcript

Just replace line 2 with one of the command examples from above.

 

Surely no one else will ever end up in this situation, but just in case – there ya go!

 
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Posted by on September 24, 2012 in Information Management, List/Library Settings, Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Extract Timer Job History Using PowerShell

08 Aug
Applies To: SharePoint 2010, PowerShell

I was tasked with finding all timer jobs that ran in a given time period. Some quick searching turned up a pretty cool solution by Glyn Clough using PowerShell. I took his script and modified it some to account for UTC times and it works great. Although I’m presenting my modified script, the bulk of the work was done by Glyn and I’m really just tweaking it a little.

The Script

Param(
	[parameter(position=0)]
	[DateTime]
		$StartTime,
	[parameter(position=1)]
	[DateTime]
		$EndTime
)

if(!$StartTime) {$StartTime = (Get-Date).Date}
if(!$EndTime) {$EndTime = (Get-Date).AddDays(1).Date}

$StartTime = $StartTime.ToUniversalTime()
$EndTime = $EndTime.ToUniversalTime()

$TZ = [System.TimeZoneInfo]::FindSystemTimeZoneById(((Get-WmiObject win32_timezone).StandardName))

Get-SPWebApplication | foreach {
	$_.JobHistoryEntries |
		where{	($StartTime -le $_.StartTime -and $_.StartTime -le $EndTime) -or
			($StartTime -le $_.EndTime -and $_.EndTime -le $EndTime) } |
		sort StartTime |
		select	JobDefinitionTitle,
			WebApplicationName,
			ServerName,
			Status,
			@{Expression={[System.TimeZoneInfo]::ConvertTimeFromUtc($_.StartTime, $TZ)};Label="Start Time"},
			@{Expression={[System.TimeZoneInfo]::ConvertTimeFromUtc($_.EndTime, $TZ)};Label="End Time"},
			@{Expression={($_.EndTime - $_.StartTime).TotalSeconds};Label="Duration (secs)"}
} | Out-GridView -Title "Timer Job History"

You can copy the above script save it in a text file with a ps1 extension and run it from the console. Assuming you’ve named the file JobHistory.ps1 you can run it in a couple of different ways:

No Parameters:

Running it this way will return the entire history for the current day starting at midnight.

Specify Start Time:

This is especially helpful if you’re just trying to find the most recent history since this will give you the full history starting at the specified date/time to now.

Specify Range:

Doing this will return all history entries for the given range. The date/time parameters can be entered in a variety of ways since powershell is converting the string to a date you can enter the date/time in a format that matches your culture/locale.

The Output

The results are funneled to a GridView which requires the Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) to be installed. On a server this is as simple as opening Server Manager, selecting features, Add Features, then choosing the Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment and installing (This did not require a restart).

There are many benefits to using the GridView. The best is the filtering, but I also like the sorting and copy/paste functionality. I often filter on job status or sort by duration to catch problem jobs. Then I can copy those rows and paste them directly into Excel if needed.

The above script also outputs histories for every web application (And will immediately show the GridView when the first is done and then slowly add the remaining ones). This could be changed by modifying the above script and adding a parameter, but this was unnecessary for me. You can also use the GridView filter to show only the web application you need.

Obviously yours will show the WebApplicationName and ServerName without my sloppy black bars

 
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Posted by on August 8, 2012 in Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Intermittent “Unable to display this Web Part” messages

18 Jun
Applies To: SharePoint 2010

I few months ago I customized a view in SharePoint designer to turn the due date red for any past due items in the list. The end users really liked this but an obnoxious problem started turning up. Seemingly randomly we would get:

Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation-compatible HTML editor such as Microsoft SharePoint Designer. If the problem persists, contact your Web server administrator.

Correlation ID: Some GUID

Taking a look through our logs didn’t reveal anything and often a refresh or two would solve the problem. So it wasn’t really stopping business but it was pretty annoying. Adjusting the logging settings we finally saw some messages corresponding to the provided Correlation ID and found the issue was Value did not fall into expected range often followed by Stack Overflow exceptions.

Unfortunately the above error message is so generic it was pretty difficult to find anyone else even having the same problem, let alone the solution. Finally I came across this thread on MSDN discussing the exact issue. Instructions for fixing the problem and the background of this issue can be found on this article on Englando’s Blog. The solution presented was to get a hotfix from Microsoft. Fortunately, that is no longer necessary and the fix is provided in the February 2012 Cumulative Update from Microsoft.

The problem was introduced in the June 2011 Cumulative Update when Microsoft reduced the timeout for XSLT transformation (used whenever you customize a view in SharePoint Designer) from 5 seconds to 1 second. This is a good idea for public facing farms to help mitigate Denial of Service attacks but pretty unnecessary for internal farms like the one I was working on.

The timeout causes modified XSLTListView Web Parts and XSLTDataView Web Parts to sometimes show the “Unable to display this Web Part” errors. This is especially true if you have several columns (more transformation) or are doing anything of even mild complexity. The issue was “fixed” in the August 2011 Cumulative Update but broken again in the December 2011 Cumulative Update.

To fix this issue we installed the February 2012 Cumulative Update on our farm (More about our experiences with this update to follow). Keep in mind, however, that the update does not change the XsltTransformTimeOut but merely provides you the ability to do so using PowerShell.

To check your current timeout settings, simply use the following PowerShell:

$myfarm = Get-SPFarm
$myfarm.XsltTransformTimeOut

If you’re experiencing the above problem, you probably got a 1 back from the above command indicating that the timeout is currently set to 1 second. To set it to a more reasonable value (we choose the original 5 seconds) just do this (assuming you set the $myfarm object using the above powershell):

$myfarm.XsltTransformTimeOut = 5
$myfarm.Update()

That’s it, things are happy again.

 
10 Comments

Posted by on June 18, 2012 in Client Settings, List/Library Settings, Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Using Powershell to Document SharePoint 2010 Farm Configuration

15 Jun
Applies To: SharePoint 2010

Business continuity (Disaster Recovery) is an important topic for SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft has provided a helpful book available online here: Business Continuity Management for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. The book is full of steps and options for backing up and restoring your farm.

There is an interesting powershell script starting on page 132 that takes advantage of the Export-Clixml powershell cmdlet to cycle through your farm’s configuration and write everything to XML files. The resulting XML isn’t super user friendly, but it is human readable. Even cooler is that you can use the Import-Clixml cmdlet to instantiate those objects back in powershell later.

Obviously an actual Farm backup (configuration-only) is more helpful for restoration of your settings, but these XML files can be very useful. For instance, if you don’t want to restore all your configuration but just want to document it somewhere so you can either reference it in whole or in part, this is a great solution. Even better is using it as a guide to pick and choose the various commands when you’re trying to find some information on the fly.

Unfortunately, the script is all jumbled together and split across multiple pages making the included suggestion of copying and pasting into a text document more complicated than needed. The newlines are all in the wrong places, the comments run together and overwrite commands, page numbers show up, etc. So, I went through the resulting file and formatted it correctly. You can use the copy toolbar to get it directly:

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on June 15, 2012 in Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Renaming a Web Application in SharePoint 2010

17 Apr
Applies To: SharePoint 2010

In getting ready to create a new web application for our SharePoint farm I realized the default web application name of “SharePoint – 80″ wasn’t very descriptive and I’d like to change it. If you’re reading this, then you probably already went through all the possible settings in Central Admin just like I did only to find this isn’t an option.

Fortunately, this can all be done through Powershell very quickly:

$wapp = Get-SPWebApplication "SharePoint - 80"
$wapp.Name = "Magical Web App"
$wapp.Update()

This can be written up in a script, or you can just type the lines just like above changing the names as makes sense. To verify the update was successful just use this command:

Get-SPWebApplication "Magical Web App"

You should see your new name listed with the url of your web application:

You can also check this in Central Administration under Application Management > Manage web applications:

Everything is good to go. However, this will not change the IIS website names or application pools. This takes more work than I was willing to do and I didn’t really care about that, so you’ll have to find that information elsewhere. But if you’re like me, this should be all you need!

 
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Posted by on April 17, 2012 in Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Resetting the SharePoint 2010 Farm PassPhrase

30 Mar
Applies To: SharePoint 2010

I was setting up a Report Server for our SharePoint 2010 Farm this morning and I ran into a show stopper. After installing SharePoint 2010 on the new server and getting it ready, I ran the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard only to get to the PassPhrase step and be told I was entering the incorrect passphrase.

I have it written down from the original setup and I was positive it was correct, but no matter what I tried I couldn’t get it accepted. So I did a quick look-up on how to recover it. Turns out you can’t. Fortunately, you can change it without knowing the old one or requiring any downtime for your farm.

This material is covered elsewhere (http://www.sharepointedutech.com/2010/10/05/sharepoint-2010-farm-passphrase-recovery/ and http://bobmixon.com/?p=297), but I wanted to put it somewhere I would remember it. I also wanted to give first hand testimony to it working without causing any issues with our farm. You can read either of the linked blogs to get the full details, but here’s the quick powershell you’ll need to get this taken care of:

$passphrase = ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText –Force
Set-SPPassPhrase -PassPhrase $passphrase –Confirm

You will be prompted for your new passphrase after the first command and will be asked to confirm it on the second.

That’s it. Go back to your configuration wizard and try again. No service restarts or downtime needed, it’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!!

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2012 in Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Show Term Store Manager on Site

23 Feb
Applies to: SharePoint

If you’ve ever used the Records Center or one of the other templates that has it, you might wonder how you can get the Term store management link to show up under the Site Administration section of your Site Settings page as shown below.

This is a hidden feature and so can’t be activated from the Site Features. From Powershell, use this command:

Enable-SPFeature -ID "73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C" -url http://sharepointsite/sites/targetsite
 
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Posted by on February 23, 2012 in Powershell, SharePoint

 

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Choose Which Content Database to Create Your Site Collection in

23 Feb
Applies to: SharePoint

If you want to choose which Content Database to use when creating a new Site Collection you will have to use Powershell. There are some crazy solutions out there that tell you to do things like detach all other content databases or adjust the site limits to force SharePoint to pick your Content Database, but in a production environment that is usually not possible – not to mention stupid.

You can do all of this with the stsadm tool in SharePoint 2007, but I won’t be covering that here. But a good reference to figure out what commands match the powershell ones can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621081.aspx

If you already have a Content Database you’d like to use, then skip ahead. Otherwise you can create a new Content Database pretty easy in Powershell using this command:

New-SPContentDatabase -Name MyNewSite_Content -WebApplication http://mysharepointsite.com

One of the main irritations with creating a new Site Collection from Powershell rather than the GUI is, although you gain the ability to specify the Content Database, you have to specify the site template by internal name. To get the internal names of all the Site Templates available, use this command:

Get-SPWebTemplate

But for the lazy (me), I’ve put a quick list of most of the templates and their internal names (For English sites – 1033) at the end of this article.

To create the new Site Collection while specifying the Content Database use the following command:

New-SPSite http://mysharepointsite.com/sites/mynewsite -OwnerAlias "MyDomain\MyUser" -ContentDatabase MyNewSite_Content -Name "My New Site!" -Template "STS#0"

That’s it! There’s a bunch of other parameters for the New-SPSite command you can specify (Like Description), but that’s the basic syntax.

Default Installed Templates and their internal Names:

Internal Name Title
GLOBAL#0 Global template
STS#0 Team Site
STS#1 Blank Site
STS#2 Document Workspace
MPS#0 Basic Meeting Workspace
MPS#1 Blank Meeting Workspace
MPS#2 Decision Meeting Workspace
MPS#3 Social Meeting Workspace
MPS#4 Multipage Meeting Workspace
CENTRALADMIN#0 Central Admin Site
WIKI#0 Wiki Site
BLOG#0 Blog
SGS#0 Group Work Site
TENANTADMIN#0 Tenant Admin Site
ACCSRV#0 Access Services Site
ACCSRV#1 Assets Web Database
ACCSRV#3 Charitable Contributions Web Database
ACCSRV#4 Contacts Web Database
ACCSRV#6 Issues Web Database
ACCSRV#5 Projects Web Database
BDR#0 Document Center
BT#0 Bug Database
OFFILE#0 (obsolete) Records Center
OFFILE#1 Records Center
OSRV#0 Shared Services Administration Site
PPSMASite#0 PerformancePoint
BICenterSite#0 Business Intelligence Center
SPS#0 SharePoint Portal Server Site
SPSPERS#0 SharePoint Portal Server Personal Space
SPSMSITE#0 Personalization Site
SPSTOC#0 Contents area Template
SPSTOPIC#0 Topic area template
SPSNEWS#0 News Site
CMSPUBLISHING#0 Publishing Site
BLANKINTERNET#0 Publishing Site
BLANKINTERNET#1 Press Releases Site
BLANKINTERNET#2 Publishing Site with Workflow
SPSNHOME#0 News Site
SPSSITES#0 Site Directory
SPSCOMMU#0 Community area template
SPSREPORTCENTER#0 Report Center
SPSPORTAL#0 Collaboration Portal
SRCHCEN#0 Enterprise Search Center
PROFILES#0 Profiles
BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0 Publishing Portal
SPSMSITEHOST#0 My Site Host
ENTERWIKI#0 Enterprise Wiki
SRCHCENTERLITE#0 Basic Search Center
SRCHCENTERLITE#1 Basic Search Center
SRCHCENTERFAST#0 FAST Search Center
visprus#0 Visio Process Repository
 
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Posted by on February 23, 2012 in Powershell, SharePoint

 

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