Author: Doug Page 6 of 8

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion in the IT world regarding SharePoint Development.  Essentially, the term SharePoint Developer is too vague.

I have conversations with recruiters on a frequent basis who want to discuss the three typical roles of SharePoint Architect, SharePoint Administrator, and SharePoint Developer.  We need to discuss this third role here, that of the SharePoint Developer, because it’s really not so well-defined.

To state it succinctly, there are at least two types of SharePoint Developers.  I use the terms light and heavy.

It would be helpful if the IT / Staffing / Consulting industries would adopt these distinctions. This would allow for a better understanding of project / business needs as well as the right fit for the resources required to fit those needs.  We need clarity on what we mean when a project calls for a SharePoint developer.

At the very least, this approach allows for defining more precisely what type of resource is needed (very helpful to recruiters) as well as the different hourly rates (very helpful to project managers).

If you have a document library with required fields, then uploading multiple files at once is going to cause them all to be “checked out” to the person who uploaded them.

As you know, if you upload a single file to a document library with required fields you will be prompted to fill out those fields in a form.  However, if you upload multiple files at once SharePoint will take them all quietly but with a serious catch: it puts them in a “checked out” state.  With no warnings or messages, I have found this to be quite confusing to users.    

My simple solution is to edit the default list view to display the field “Checked Out To”.  Then users will easily see the files checked out to them and hopefully act to correct it.

First, modify the View.

Then add the column for “Checked Out To” as below.

Click OK and you’re all set.

There are several other options:

• Train users to upload files one at a time and provide required information when prompted
• Set a default value for each required field in the Libary Settings, Columns
• Turn off required fields
• Use a batch check-in software product

Actually, the title here is misleading.  Let me explain: when a user clicks the X in the upper right corner of a web part (while editing the page) it does not actually delete the web part.  Rather it is “closed”.  There’s actually a big difference between a deleted and a closed web part.

However, if a user selects the web part edit menu and then Delete (as below), then the web part is actually deleted.  You will need to start from scratch or restore the site from backup.

If the web part was simply closed rather than deleted, you can restore it, as long as you know where to look.   Simply put, it’s in the Closed Web Parts category.

Here’s how to get your closed web part back:

1.  Navigate to the page where the web part was closed.  Edit the page.

2.  Add a Web Part, preferably where it was previously.

3.  Scroll down the list of Categories to Closed Web Parts.  In my list below it’s the very last selection.

4.  Select the Closed Web Parts category and a list of web parts that have been deleted will appear in the right pane.

5.  Select the one you want and then click the Add button in the lower right of the web part window.

Your web part should now be restored.

I ran into the problem last week where the Navigation link was missing from Site Actions, Site Settings, Look and Feel.  To resolve this problem: turn on Publishing.

1.  In Site collection features, you’ll want to activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure.

2.  You will also want to turn on Publishing at the site level.  In Manage site features you will want to activate SharePoint Server Publishing.

Now your Navigation link will be available.

Addendum: This is a fine approach if you have only a small number of sites where you want to enable publishing.  However, if you have many sites you should use PowerShell.  See this article on TechNet for the script.

In the previous post, I pointed out that in order to change the view in SharePoint 2010 permissions, you have to go into the List Settings.  You can create or edit the Views there.  However, sometimes the List Settings option is missing.  In this case, the page is there… there’s just not a link for it.  You can get to it but there’s one catch: you need to know the list GUID.  Here is the process to get to the hidden List Settings page.

1. Determine the list GUID.  To do this, hover over any user’s name in the list of permissions.  You’ll see one of the parameters being passed is the ListID.  This is the GUID for the list.  Right-click the user’s name and select Copy Shortcut.  Open Notepad and paste in the url.  Now simply copy (or cut) everything after &ListId=.  For example, &ListId={3B3CB469-29F0-456D-BF3F-E0D0F1E645F8}&ID=1740
2. Navigate to the List Edit page with the GUID parameter.  In permissions, you are already in <path>\_layouts\people.aspx?<GroupID>.  Keeping the same path including the _layouts folder, now key in after _layouts\ (replacing people.aspx and everything after) with ListEdit.aspx?&List=<GUID>.  For example, http://sharepoint/_Layouts/listedit.aspx?&List={3B3CB469-29F0-456D-BF3F-E0D0F1E645F8}&ID=174l

Key Points to Consider (Troubleshooting)

1. You should paste in the GUID from step one rather than type it.
2. Note that in the original url the parameter was ListId but the ListEdit.aspx page requires the List parameter.  This is an important distinction.
3. Also notice that you should include the squiggly brackets and the ID parameter at the end as well.

I’ve had a few users reach out to me that they wanted to see additional columns in either of the two views (Detail and List) available to them in Permissions, People and Groups, <PermissionGroup>.

We are used to seeing Modify this View in the View dropdown in document libraries.  (Our client has SharePoint 2010 but retains the 2007 Look and Feel.)

However, in Permissions there isn’t an option to Modify the view.  The two views are simply listed for selection.

The answer is to go to the List Settings for this list, and scroll to the bottom of the page.   (The below image shows the 2007 Look and Feel prior to a Visual upgrade.  If you have the 2010 ribbon, List Settings should be on the ribbon.  If not, read on.)

There you will find the two Views which you can now select and edit.  Notice that you can Create a view as well.

Problem solved, hopefully.  But what if List Settings is missing or disabled?  In that case, see this other post.

In SharePoint 2010, when you create an input form for a list, once the form is submitted, the user is redirected to the list.  Often, you will want to redirect the user to a landing page instead thanking them for their input or perhaps sharing with them something useful that is only to be shared after they submit a form (e.g. insider information, a welcome message, etc.).  To accomplish this is easier than you think: you simply need to append the url.

It would make sense if the parameter you pass through the url were labeled “redirect” but it’s not; the parameter is “source”.  Thus, to redirect a user to a landing page after they submit a form, simply follow this example:  <Path to List>/NewForm.aspx?Source=<Path to Landing page>

Example: http://contoso.com/Lists/<listname>/NewForm.aspx?Source=http://contoso.com/LandingPage.aspx

One caveat, this technique does not allow for using the modal window (aka “lightbox”) feature.  If /when I figure out how to do so, I’ll post it here.

Addendum: A day after posting the above, I discover an issue with the Cancel button.  The Source parameter works the same, regrettably, for both the Submit and the Cancel buttons; meaning, whether a user clicks Submit or Cancel, they are equally redirected to the Thanks page.  I need Cancel to take them elsewhere, preferably back to the previous  page.  I went looking for info on how to resolve this and discovered a great article at SharePointBriefing.com that covers my little, meager find on the Source parameter as well as the JQuery needed to resolve the Cancel issue.  Perfect.

Addendum 2: Salaudeen Rajack also provides an excellent article offering several clever ideas about this issue.

I was performing a SharePoint 2010 assessment recently.   Among a great many other things, I went over their Windows Event logs, diagnostic logging, health and usage data collection, and web analytics.

I went to Google looking for best practices in these areas but was not very successful in finding succinct, solid information.  So I’m going to write an article on the matter in the very near future.  In the meantime, I would like to share an article I stumbled across from Microsoft that I found quite helpful in several other areas.

Read it here: SharePoint 2010 Best Practices

Details about SharePoint 2013 (a.k.a. SharePoint 15) are starting to emerge.  Somewhat redundanct articles from ZDnet and RedmondMag discuss some of the highlights that are currently being leaked.  Both reference an enterprising fellow named Bjorn Furuknap who has started a subscription service for publishing SharePoint 2013 rumors.   It looks like both of the articles rely heavily on his findings which, coupled with the caveat that anything can change at any time, means I’m going to take all of this with a grain of salt.  That being said, here is the current state of the rumor mill.

SharePoint 2013 New Features Summary*

• Expanded social networking capabilities
• Improved user interface – This is vague and subjective.  With the new Metro user-interface coming for Windows 8, “improved” could mean anything: similar to SharePoint 2010, similar to Metro, somewhere in between, or altogether different?  Improved?
• Changes in the Client-Side Object Model – Should make branding and site design easier and more robust
• An App Marketplace – Read More – Similar to Android and iPhone app stores
• Stronger Information Rights Management (IRM) functionality – Thus, increased document security and governance control out of the box.
• Education Module / App / Add-on – Read More – Thus, a specific flavor of SharePoint for Educators
• Expanded functionality for multi-tenancy – Good for hosting providers, so you’ll be able to get SharePoint 2013 “in the cloud” (apart from Office 365) and share server-wide apps and enhancements
• Increased functionality for mobile devices – SharePoint 2010 offers limited functionality for mobile devices.  Now with more and more mobile devices on the market with demand ever increasing, this is a smart move.
• Allow for looping workflows in SharePoint Designer – Currently not available except in Visual Studio
• Authentication via OAuth – Will allow for SharePoint 2013 to easily integrate with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites

*All, some, or none of these may ever actually materialize

A client has some of their users in limited permission groups, such as Read Only.  Thus, some of their ribbon commands for this limited group are disabled (“grayed out”).  The client wants for these users to not even see these grayed out ribbon commands both to cut down on the training issues and the complaining.

Tobias Lekman has written an excellent post on his blog about how to hide disabled ribbon commands as well as empty ribbon groups in SharePoint 2010.   To explain this second part, if an entire group of commands is disabled, and therefore not displayed, then you don’t want to display the empty ribbon group section either.  So his solution not only hides disabled commands but also any empty command group sections.

The solution uses some pretty simple CSS and some clever jQuery.  Good stuff.

For the type of person who just wants “the answer to the question” the above will suffice.  However, for the type of person that wants to know the How, Why, What For, and What Else (such as myself) there is a thorough article from Microsoft: Customizing and Extending the SharePoint 2010 Server Ribbon.