SharePoint Secrets

By default, WSS3.0 automatically deletes workflow history after 60 days. The purge doesn't technically delete the history - but it deletes the association that ties the document to the workflow history. It also deletes any tasks that were created by the workflow. This is for performance considerations, courtesy of the Workflow Auto Cleanup timer job in the config section. Three options to consider: Disable the Workflow Auto Cleanup timer job completely. (Please note that this might have serious performance implications, and should be planned carefully) Include a specific xml tag in your workflow feature.xml file that controls the number of days retained for the workflow history (max days = 9999) Run a job nightly to force all the workflow history retention settings to a certain number of days (max days = 9999) To set the time schedule for when the scan will occur to delete workflow data for the Web application, http://test, use the following syntax: stsadm -o setproperty -pn job-wo...

Everywhere you look there is SharePoint standards this… best practices that… governance out the wazoo. I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life! Seriously, have any of you? Once upon a time all you needed was a handy dandy API reference and you could do anything you wanted. Then there was SharePoint… with much power comes much responsibility. 1) SharePoint Designer must not be required to update any portion of a SharePoint Site Before you SPD lovers start throwing Zunes at me, let me again state that SPD has it’s place within any organization as a very helpful tool for development. However, you should take what you do in SPD and convert it into a feature. This is crucially important for branding. SPD is a wonderful tool for developing your branding and you are probably tempted to just publish it from SPD. Don’t do it. Say it with me… “FEATURES”. I could go on and on about this (oh, and in fact I did in a previous blog post). I realize there are some organizations ...

Did you know that SharePoint has shortcut keys? Most Windows applications have a standard set of well known shortcut keys. While most web applications do not, SharePoint has a large number of shortcut keys, and a few like the OK and Cancel shortcuts can save you a lot of scrolling up and down the page after each edit.. Here are a few samples: Alt-1 + Enter Goto Home page (same as clicking Home tab) Alt-6 + Enter Help Alt-l + Enter Welcome menu Alt-o OK or Create Alt-c Cancel Alt-s Search - move cursor to Search text box For a complete list see: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733621033.aspx

1. An architect’s job – “to create a technical solution that solves the business problem while complementing the company’s overall technology strategy”. 2. Architecture Principal #1 – “The architect is the conduit between the business problem and the technical solution”. The above two statements give a clear summary of what an architect’s job is. So, how does that relate to the practice of developing against SharePoint? In my opinion, there shouldn’t be any difference between an architect on a custom application development project and a SharePoint development solution. Recently I spoke at a SharePoint conference in the Washington D.C area and in between my sessions there was an open forum on the state of the SharePoint job market. During this open forum they discussed an issue in the SharePoint market today. The issue is recruiters, and general business owners, seem to think they can use someone that “knows” SharePoint to configure and develop their systems. However, this “jack of all...

While SharePoint is a great tool for intranet or extranet collborations, it has some downsides when working with a mix of internal and external users. The External Collboration Toolkit is meant to provide a way for internal, as well as external, users to access a SharePoint site without many custom configurations. The toolkit can be found at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc268155.aspx Internal users will authenticate, as normal, using active directory. However, external users will logon using a form and will authenticate against a directory in Adam. The diagram below shows how it works Correction: One of my collegues noted that I made it seem like there is no ability to have internal and external users log into SharePoint without this toolkit. Of course, that is incorrect. SharePoint has the ability, out of the box, to extend authentication providers to different zones. This is a custom task of setting up membership providers, extending the site, and setting the newly ext...

When trying to upload files into SharePoint document library , the file name can’t contain any of the following characters \ / : * ? " | # { } % ~ & Please remove above mentioned characters in file name then try to upload. Otherwise sharepoint will throw "An error occurred copying some or all of the selected files".

When you run Windows SharePoint Services on a Window Server 2008-based computer that is also running Internet Information Services 7.0, you cannot upload files that are larger than 28 megabytes (MB). You experience this problem even though you have configured the large file upload settings according to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 925083. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 925083 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925083/ ) Error message when you try to upload a large file to a document library on a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site: "Request timed out" To work around this problem, follow these steps: 1. Use Notepad to open the Web application Web.config file. By default, this file is in the following folder: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot\Wss\VirtualDirectories\ VirtualDirectoryFolder Windows Small Business Server 2008 C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\...

When you attempt to copy a file to a Web folder on a server that has FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions installed, you may receive the following error message: An error occurred copying some or all of the selected files. You cannot copy the file, even though you type the correct credentials in the Password dialog box This behavior can occur if you click Cancel in the Password dialog box the first time that it appears. When you then try to copy the file, the Password dialog box is displayed a second time, and even though you type the correct credentials, you cannot copy the file. To work around this issue, follow these steps: 1.Quit Microsoft Internet Explorer, and then close My Network Places. 2.Open My Network Places again, and then double-click the Web folder. The Password dialog box appears. 3.Type the proper credentials in the Password dialog box. 4.Copy the file to the Web folder.