Microknowledge

Save $200 at SPTechCon Boston 2011 – Managed Metadata and PowerPivot

 
One week to go to the big SharePoint TechCon 2011 here in Boston at the Back Bay Sheraton!   It’s going to be great to see so many local users here, as well as checking in with some of the best known developers, consultants and advocates for SharePoint around the country.  More details at www.sptechcon.com!  And a special thanks to David, Whitney, Katie, Ted and the rest of the BZMedia crew for gathering what should be another impressive conference.

 
 
It’s still not too late to register at http://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=910731 -- and if you enter the code MCNULTY at registration you get $200 off.

I’m going to be covering Managed Metadata Services next week.  I’ll be speaking and then signing copies of SharePoint 2010 MMS book throughout the conference.  (Free copies to the first 50 people!)  Here’s the schedule:

• Presentation: “Playing Tag – Managed Metadata and Taxonomies in SharePoint 2011 – Thursday June 2, 2011 – 11am
• Book Signing: Thursday June 2, 2011 -- 6:45pm (BZMedia Booth)
• Book Signing: Friday June 3, 2011 9:30am (KMA Booth 1202)

If you miss me, I’ll be around the KMA booth (1202) throughout the conference.  Please stop by to register to win our free clambake from Woodman’s!   You can also still find a copy of “SharePoint 2010 Consultant’s Handbook –Managed Metadata Services” online at Amazon.com.

I won’t be speaking about Business Intelligence, or PowerPivot next week – but thanks to Christian Buckley and Axceler’ s One Thing video series, you can get a quick introduction on YouTube.  Plus, I’ll be blogging and tweeting from the conference next week.  See you there!

SPTechCon Boston - Session Mapping to the SharePoint Maturity Model

SPTechCon Boston kicks off a week from tomorrow!  If you're wondering which of the 94 technical classes to attend on Thursday and Friday, you might want to take a look at my mapping of all the sessions to the SharePoint Maturity Model:

via amatterofdegree.typepad.com

Kudos to @sadalit for extending her SharePoint Maturity Model to the SharePoint community itself! Very meta. KMA is making her model a key part of our managed services offerings, and she'll be presenting it at SPTechCon next week. Check it out!

SharePoint 2010 SP1 Coming in June 2011 – Why We Care

Microsoft has officially announced the June 2011 release of Service Pack 1 for SharePoint 2010.  SP1 will incorporate all the interim patches and bug fixes released since the original May 2010 release of SharePoint 2010 and Project Server 2010.

Microsoft Service Packs receive full regression testing, and are generally recommended for wide deployment.  However, we still recommend testing them on non-production environments in advance of any production releases.  Its may be advisable to wait a few weeks to see if any public bug reports surface.  And, please, don’t install them like this:

 

(The wrong way to fix a SharePoint 2010 server…no content types were harmed during the making of this photo!)

There’s more than patches – there are some essential new functions here.  Let’s take a look!

IE9 Native Support Call me silly, but having Microsoft’s primary web client natively support their primary web server seems obvious.

Chrome Support in OWA   I’ve gotten used to telling first year adopters, well, Google Chrome isn’t officially supported, but it seems to work.  Of course it should work – it shares the Firefox/Mozilla rendering engine – but it’s nice to see it become official.

Site Recycle Bin   Just like you can use a Recycle Bin to recover deleted items and files, you will now be able to recover site collections and sites quickly, without resorting to backup files or databases.  This is a big tine saver for administrators.

StorMan.aspx  Prior versions of SharePoint included the capability to drill down into sites, libraries or documents to discover the largest consumers of storage space.  This function is being restored and enhanced in SP1.  Admins and users will have a simple way to drill down and find out why sites are nearing or exceeding quotas, so you can remove inadvertently large files if warranted.

Project Sync Project Professional 2010 will now be able to synchronize schedules tasks with SharePoint task lists, instead of just publishing a copy.

Other new functions to be released include:

• Word Web App offers print support in Edit Mode
• Excel Web App allows charts to be inserted
• Outlook Web App offers attachment previewing in Exchange Online
• Improved browser support for Project Server
• Search Server adds support for PPSX files
• Optimized copy speed for content  in RBS-enabled databases (Shallow Copy)

Look for SP1 in late June – and, as always, I’ll have the announcement and version numbers here for you on Microknowledge…after some testing, of course!

Rebuilding PWA Site Collections in Project Server 2007

Quick note on Project Server 2007.  We were doing some reconstruction on an existing Project Server 2007 build where a new SSP (Shared Service Provider) had been inadvertently created inside the primary web application during a partial restore operation.

Repeated attempts to recreate the “/PWA” site collection inside the primary web application led to the error:

"The Project Web Access site specified can not be created because a site by that name already exists."

Even if the site collection had been deleted.   

Dropping and reattaching the original content database at the root was also unsuccessful.  (A new SSP and admin application had already been built.)  The fix was, ultimately:

• Drop the existing preexisting web application on port 80 (http://server)
• Add a new web application and content database for http://server
• Add a blank site collection at the root of http://server
• Create a new /PWA site collection using the four standard Project Server databases (ProjectServer_Draft, ProjectServer_Archive, ProjectServer_Published, ProjectServer_Reporting)

 

• Create an empty web application on port 81 and attach the old content database.

Although we could not navigate to http://server:81/pwa without error, we could navigate to other custom contents from the old site (e.g. a document library at http://server:81/pwa/reportpages.)  Then using standard SharePoint techniques we could transfer select custom content back to the new PWA application.

Good luck!

April 2011: SharePoint 2010 Cumulative Updates and Internal Version Numbers

They’re finally here!  (A few days late…and I’m a few days late.  Sorry!)   Microsoft has released the April 2011 Cumulative Updates for SharePoint 2010.   Over on my post for the 2007, I posted a springtime picture from the East Coast.  Here’s one from the Pacific Northwest.

 
Puget Sound Sunset… © 2011 Christopher F. McNulty

SharePoint 2010 release numbers can be found similarly to how you find them in 2007 - just go to Central Admin | System Settings | Manage Servers In Farm.  Or, in PowerShell, use:

(get-spfarm).buildversion

And for more information on SharePoint 2010 updates, please visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.aspx

I’ve seen a few random notes about issues with the People Picker control on MSDN/TechNet – so as always, please test prior to putting these in production.  Thanks again for reading!

SharePoint 2010 Version/Release	Microsoft Support KB Reference	Version Number from Central Admin	Release Date
MSS 2010/Foundation April 2011 Cumulative Update	KB 2512800, 2512804	14.0.0.5138	28 April 2011
MSS 2010/Foundation February 2011 Cumulative Update	KB 2475880, 2475878	14.0.0.5136	3 March 2011
MSS 2010/Foundation December 2010 Cumulative Update	KB 2459257, 2459125	14.0.0.5130	31 December 2010
MSS 2010/Foundation October 2010 Cumulative Update	KB 2394320, 2394323	14.0.0.5128	26 October 2010
Foundation July 2010 Hotfix	KB 2032588	14.0.5050.5001	13 July 2010
MSS 2010/Foundation June 2010 Cumulative Update	KB 983319, 983497, 2182938 , 2281364, 2124512, 2204024 - / KB 2028568 / TechNet summary	14.0.0.5114	29 June 2010
SharePoint 2010 RTM	N/A	14.0.0.4762	12 May 2010
SharePoint Server 2010 Release Candidate	N/A	14.0.0.4730	February 2010
SharePoint Server 2010 Public Beta	N/A	14.0.0.4536	November 2009
SharePoint Server 2010 SPC2009 Demos	N/A	14.0.0.4524	October 2009
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Preview “2” [another SPC2009 demo build]	N/A	14.0.0.4514	October 2009
SharePoint Server 2010 Technical Preview	N/A	14.0.0.4006	25 April 2009

 

April 2011: SharePoint 2007 Cumulative Updates and Internal Version Numbers

Welcome to spring, a brief two week period in New England between blizzards and humidity.   Still, it’s a nice time to be outside.  Trust me, every place around here looks exactly like this:

 

A reminder -- SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 2 is now a required prerequisite – SP1 is no longer supported.  If you ever need to confirm which update/revision of SharePoint you are running, without accessing the binary files themselves, you can find this in SharePoint Central Administration.  Go to the Operations tab, and under Topology and Services, select Servers in Farm. 

For more information on current patch levels, check TechNet at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb735839.aspx  And, as always, test before deploying in production.  Just remember, by the time of the next CU, it will be summer!

SharePoint 2007 Version/Release	Microsoft Support KB Reference	Version Number from Central Admin	Release Date
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 April 2011 Cumulative Update	KB2512782/ KB2512783	12.0.0.6557	26 April 2011
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 February 2011 Cumulative Update	KB2475885/ KB2475886	12.0.0.6554	22 February 2011
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 December 2010 Cumulative Update	KB2458605/ KB2458606	12.0.0.6550	14 December 2010/ 30 December 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 October 2010 Cumulative Update	KB2412267/ KB2412268	12.0.0.6548	26 October 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 2010 Cumulative Update	KB2276472/ KB2276474	12.0.0.6545	31 August 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 June 2010 Cumulative Update	KB983310/KB983311	12.0.0.6539	29 June 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 April 2010 Cumulative Update	KB981042/KB981043	12.0.0.6535	27 April 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 February 2010 Cumulative Update	KB978395/KB978396	12.0.0.6529	23 February 2010
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 December 2009 Cumulative Update	KB977026/KB977027	12.0.0.6524	15 December  2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 October 2009 Cumulative Update	KB974988/KB974989	12.0.0.6520	27 October 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 2009 Cumulative Update	KB973409/KB973410	12.0.0.6514	25 August 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 June 2009 Cumulative Update	KB971537/KB971538	12.0.0.6510	20 July 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 April 2009 Cumulative Update	KB968851/KB968850	12.0.0.6504	30 April 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 SP2	KB953334/KB953338	12.0.0.6421	28 April 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Feb 2009 Cumulative Update	KB961755/KB961756	12.0.0.6341	24 February 2009
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Cumulative update	KB956056/KB956057	12.0.0.6327	16 September 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Infrastructure Update	KB951695/KB951297	12.0.0.6318	15 July 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix	KB948945	12.0.0.6303	21 February 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix	KB941274	12.0.0.6301	31 January 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 post-SP1 hotfix	KB941422	12.0.0.6300	26 February 2008
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 SP1	KB936984/KB936988	12.0.0.6219	8 December 2007
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Security Bulletin MS07-059	KB942017	12.0.0.6039	9 October 2007
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 August 24, 2007 hotfix package	KB941422 (updated)	12.0.0.6036	24 August 2007
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 RTM [Released To Manufacturing]	N/A	12.0.0.4518	16 November 2006
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2 TR	N/A	12.0.0.4407	2006
MOSS 2007 or WSS 3.0 Beta 2	N/A	12.0.0.4017	2006

SharePoint 2010 – Show me your (document) ID!

One of the welcomed new features in SharePoint 2010 is the Document ID.  This feature assigns a unique serial number to each document upon being created or first uploaded. 

SharePoint has lots of Enterprise Content Management that can automatically route a document along multiple folders, sites, and libraries throughout its lifetime.   Throughout it all, the Document ID stays constant – providing a guaranteed way to get back to a document without remembering where it lives.  But how do you find out what the number is in the first place?  That’s simple, but let’s first walk through how to create them.

The feature is easily enabled in Site Collection Administration:

 

Once activated, you can also specify the format for the serial number prefix – and, as suggested, you should use different prefixes for different site collections to avoid duplicates.

Document ID’s can be viewed using the View Properties in SharePoint:

 
If you know the document ID, but not the location you can always retrieve the document (with the right permissionns) using a custom URL:

http://SITEURL/_layouts/DocIdRedir.aspx?ID=[DocumentID]

Or you can enter the URL using the search functions on the home page of a Document Center:

 
Again, all of this presumes you know what the document ID is in the first place!  The best way to do this is to insert the ID directly into the document:

The ID can then be inserted into any document:  In Word 2010:

• Insert
• Quick Parts
• Document ID Value.  For example, in the example below, you can see a document ID inserted into document footer.

 

Thanks again – and don’t forget to show your document ID!