SparePoint by John Mongell: 2014

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Migrations from the Crypt

Despite what each 3^rd party SharePoint Migration software company tells you, you may need to use a combination of tools to successfully migrate and overcome the limitations of each tool. On top of that, there are just some things that won’t migrate.
I am currently presenting these limitations and how to effectively use any and all of the available migration tools as well as Azure-PowerShell, iTunes, Peapod and your wits to get your migration accomplished with success.

Tuesday 6pm Portland ME
SharePoint Maine User Group

and SharePoint Saturday New Hampshire

Monday, September 29, 2014

Auto-Tune and issues downloading large files form SharePoint Online

Some O365 clients may experience errors or disconnects or slowness with uploading/downloading large (>10MB) files from SharePoint Online. There is a workaround on client side. Need to disable Auto-Tune.
This will stay at some small % for a long time :

Then eventually:

To fix this, from a command prompt ->
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Shout out: http://sharepoint-community.net/profiles/blogs/o365-sharepoint-online-not-able-to-download-upload-large-file

Friday, September 26, 2014

Resolve Sync issues with OneDrive for Business

I recently had an issue that I still do not understand the root cause of. My OneDrive for Business folder was not syncing and certain files displayed with a red X icon, instead of the happy green Synced icon. I Uninstalled/Reinstalled 1D4B but still had the issue.

I also found some un-synced files in the Archive folder at:
C:\Users\John Mongell\OneDrive for Business Archives\Thursday, September 25, 2014 - 1\OneDrive

Whats more, each time I tried to access the 1D4B folder in Windows Explorer, a popup for each file would quickly appear and disappear: It said OneDrive for Business is not responding. Try again in a few minutes.

So, At last, I surfed to the file location C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
And typed Groove.exe /clean /all Then I restarted Groove (OneDrive) by simply typing groove.exe

This caused it to start correctly and asked me to resync my local library.
I confirmed the file locations and resynced, all is good now!

Hope This Helps.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

MCSE and MCSD SharePoint Certifications

"Yes, there are 2 paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on."

- Robert Plant

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/sharepoint-certification.aspx

MCSE: SharePoint Solutions Expert

Recertification exam every three years.

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/mcse-sharepoint-certification.aspx>

Step	Title	Optional training	Required exam
1	Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012	410	410
2	Administering Windows Server 2012	411	411
3	Configuring Advanced Windows Server 2012 Services NOTE : After successfully completing steps 1-3, you'll earn a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA): Windows Server 2012 certification.	412	412
4	Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013	331	331
5	Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013	332	332

MCSD: SharePoint Applications Solutions Developer

Recertification exam every two years.

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/mcsd-sharepoint-apps-certification.aspx

Step	Title	Optional training	Required exam
1	Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3	480	480
2	Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications	486	486
3	Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions	488	488
4	Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Advanced Solutions	489	489

Also, there is this MCSD cert for SharePoint Apps.

MCSD: Web Applications - SharePoint Apps

Recertification exam every two years.

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/mcsd-web-apps-certification.aspx

Step	Title	Optional training	Required exam
1	Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3	480	480
2	Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications	486	486
3	Developing Microsoft Azure and Web Services	487	487

GOOD LUCK

Friday, June 20, 2014

SharePoint External Sharing Explained

What are the external sharing features of SharePoint ?

• The ability to share sites and documents with authenticated users.

Authenticated users are those who are invited to sign in by using a Microsoft account or Office 365 user ID.

• The ability to share sites and documents with guest users.

Guest users, also called anonymous users, don’t need a Microsoft account or Office 365 user ID to access your sites and documents. They access via guest links that you or your employees give to them.

• The ability to turn external sharing on or off globally for an entire SharePoint Online environment (or tenant).

Turning external sharing off at the tenant level means no documents, sites, or site collections can be shared externally.

• The ability to turn external sharing on or off for individual site collections.

This provides you with the ability to secure content on specific site collections that you do not want to be shared.

Reference:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/manage-external-sharing-for-your-sharepoint-online-environment-HA102849864.aspx

Share sites or documents with people outside your organization.

There are three ways that you can do this:

• You can share an entire site by inviting external users to sign in to your site using a Microsoft account or Office 365 user ID.

• You can share individual documents by inviting external users to sign in to your site using a Microsoft account or Office 365 user ID.

• You can post or send users a guest link that they can use to view individual documents on your site anonymously.

Reference:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/share-sites-or-documents-with-people-outside-your-organization-HA102894713.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA102849864

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Forcibly Remove an Office 365 SharePoint Site

Lets say you have created a SharePoint online site-collection and then (purposely) deleted the site-collection and quickly need to recreate it using the same name.
...
I know...don't judge me..it was a perfectly logical outcome of the circumstance. ;-p

In order to recreate the URL the same within 48 to 72 hours, you will need to use the SharePoint Azure Powershell command utility to Forcibly delete the site collection out of the Recycle Bin with Extreme Prejudice.

1. Connect to your admin portal site
Type connect-msolservice
…and log in with your admin account
Remember it is important to connect to the admin site:
yoursite-admin.sharepoint.com

2. Delete with Extreme Prejudice
Remove-SPODeletedSite -Identity https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitetoremove

Cheers!

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Edit vs Contribute permission Best Practices

When you create a new SharePoint site and allow the 'Site Wizard' to set up Groups for the site, it will create 3 new groups including a 'Members' group.
The new group creation page clearly states: Members can Contribute content to the Web site.

So you would expect that the group has Contribute right, yes?
Before you add people to this group, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you go into Site Permissions and see that the Wizard has just lied to you!
He has set your Members group to the Edit permission level.

There is a pretty subtle, yet potentially enormous difference between these levels.

Edit means you can have CRUD operations on entire lists and pages.
Contribute means you don't and can only add and delete items.

Lets see what your users will experience...

These users cannot edit a page and potentially delete your web parts!

And these users can!

These are the Ribbon commands differences.

A BEST PRACTICE would be to immediately CHANGE the permission level for the Members Group to Contribute, then add users to that group and then add another Permission Group called Department Site Editors that have this Edit permission level and add your PowerUsers to that group.
If your Power users are Site Owners then you don not need to create a Editors group.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Using OneDrive for Business Step by Step

A Step by Step guide to setting up your 1D4B sync on Win7 and the end user experience with setting this up.

Click the OneDrive link in your SharePoint or Office365 navigation bar.

Now...Go ahead and Press SYNC... and prepare for a wild ride!

You will see a few 'Working on it' type popup messages like this one...

and this one...

Now, this last one.

OK. User interaction time!
You will need to click Sync Now button above to "Release the hounds"

Depending on how much content you have in your Documents library, it can take a few minutes to SYNC it all. If your online library is empty it should only take a minute or 2.

Finally... you see a shiny new Explorer Favorites icon for One Drive for Business with your files.

You are ready to work offline. When you update content in these folders, they will auto sync to the cloud if you are connected to the interweb thingy. Thanks to Ray Ozzie and GROOVE.EXE !

Thursday, April 10, 2014

How to Unsync a OneDrive for Business object

Why would you want to unsync? In my case I was syncing some RFP documents from a SharePoint library. We had finished the RFP and I want to now stop syncing and remove the files from my computer.

Some background: My computer has both a OneDrive for Business (1D4B) icon and a SharePoint icon. This means I have a MySite OneDrive for Business library synced into my 1D4B icon and I have SharePoint site libraries synced to my SharePoint icon.

To stop syncing a library or something from either of these icons:

Right Click the OneDrive for Business icon in the Windows notification area, and then click Stop syncing a folder…

Select the folder you want to stop syncing, and then click Stop syncing. When you stop syncing a folder, this simply disconnects the folder from its library. All files are retained in the previously synced folder up on the server. You can sync the library to your computer again at any time in the future.

So now that you've done that, the files still remain on your computer but the individual file icons will change from the 'Synced' icons to the standard file icons.

You can now delete these (without any sync error) or keep them, up to you.

If you delete the SharePoint icon it will show up the next time you sync something from SharePoint, so dont worry if you 'accidentally' delete it.

1D4B vs Win2012R2 Share Folders

In 2013, MSFT Storage Team announced a new feature in Windows Server 2012 R2.
Work Folders enables user to access their work related files on the devices with configured Work Folders no matter whether the devices are joined to a domain or not and whether the devices are connected directly to the corp net or over the internet.

That is a nice upgrade from the Windows XP breifcase right? So, later comes One Drive for Business as a Cloud Based storage solution.

Last week a client of mine asked "Which solution do I implement?"

I gave him the consulting drinking game answer "It Depends".

While at SharePoint Saturday Philly I attended the single most underrated session, Ask the PFE's. where a panel of MSFT'ies answers all your burning questions. Kudos to that team, led by SharePoint Samurai Mike Gannotti @Gannotti

After a round of discussion, this is what the team said: "It Depends"

Crack open a cold one and let's you and I discuss further.

The following table discusses how various Microsoft sync technologies are positioned and when to use each.

	Work Folders	Offline Files	SkyDrive Pro	SkyDrive
Technology summary	Syncs files that are stored on a file server with PCs and devices	Syncs files that are stored on a file server with PCs that have access to the corporate network (can be replaced by Work Files)	Syncs files that are stored in Office 365 or in SharePoint with PCs and devices inside or outside a corporate network, and provides document collaboration functionality	Syncs personal files that are stored in SkyDrive with PCs, Mac computers, and devices
Intended to provide user access to work files	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Cloud service	None	None	Office 365	Microsoft SkyDrive
Internal network servers	File servers running Windows Server 2012 R2	File servers	SharePoint server (optional)	None
Supported clients	PCs and devices* inside or outside a corporate network	PCs in a corporate network or connected through DirectAccess, VPNs, or other remote access technologies	PCs, iOS, Windows Phone	PCs, Mac computers, Windows Phone, iOS, Android

*Work Folders apps not yet announced.

From <http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn265974.aspx>

Conclusion:
Until the WorkFolders App is released (unknown) the answer is clear that if you need both device independence with multiple device access, OneDrive for Business is the answer.
If you need internal access only, WorkFolders can be the best solution.
But other than that, I see no reason NOT to go with more functionality you get with OneDrive for Business.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Microsoft Social Listening MSL for Dynamics

I want to share a new product that MSFT is planning to roll out to GA Q2 or Q3 2014.
This new product comes about as a result of a few important acquisitions for Microsoft.
First, Parature, a leading cloud based customer self-service portal is exactly something Dynamics CRM has been in need of providing.
Second and third are 2 social engineering start ups NetBreeze and InsideView.

These screens are very new, so expect them to change!
Microsoft Social Listening is a way to provide users with BI Analytics of social activity and tie it to a CRM record. Wow. Twitter Analytics in Excel was just a bit of what MSL can provide from a BI perspective. But the sheer volume was exhausting even for PowerBI for the end user. My PowerBI Twitter Analytics data refreshes were taking 10 minutes. MSFT has invested heavily in the Twitter firehoses, something the start ups could not afford, so these posts are 'near' real time.
Shout out to Girish Raja for his teams efforts and the slides from SPC 284

The last screen is where you map the post to a CRM record.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

SharePoint 3rd party Product Announcements made at the 2014 SharePoint Conference

A flurry of new product announcements were made at SPC14. Here are a few of the big players...

ShareGate

I spoke with owner Benjamin Niaulin while on the bus to the Las Vegas Speedway where he suggested downloading all available tools now and letting them auto update. They are a SCRUM team, so they release patches biweekly.

The biggest request from his no-brainier migration tool was to truly make it no-brainier and make all features available in PowerShell. This gives you the ability to schedule a migration task. The announcement the next morning came via email that they released PowerShell utilities and I was ecstatic that our customer who use Layer2.de with it's horrible support can now use ShareGate, which costs less and who's Help and Buttons are not written in German!

PowerShell Commands
Scheduling made possible through PowerShell
Choice Column values copied even if a choice is no longer available
Export to Excel let’s you Merge documents, rename them or move them

Harmon.ie

launches first enterprise collaboration hub. The product has come a long way, but not long enough in my mind.

Yaccov Cohen created a first ever SharePoint Top Influencers list. Dignitaries include Marc Anderson, Jeremy Thake, Scot Hilier…but they didn't include the Bottom Influencers list, who could include Chris McNulty, Mike Gilronan and myself.

Bamboo Solutions

The latest version of Bamboo Solutions’ process automation solution is now available for SharePoint 2013. Bamboo Workflow Conductor 3.5 allows users to create, manage and reuse custom business processes without having to do custom coding.

announces K2 Appit release, delivering no-code workflow apps for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 and Microsoft SharePoint Online, in the cloud.

KnowledgeLake

expands Office 365 capabilities for SharePoint ECM suite of products

KnowledgeLake has announced it is bringing the power and functionality of KnowledgeLake Imaging to Office.

Metalogix

Metalogix announced a complete solution to move e-mail, files and SharePoint content to Microsoft Office 365. Metalogix has expanded its suite of content and collaboration tools with the announcement of Email Migrator 3.0 and Content Matrix 7.0, which work together, or independently to expedite the migration of email, files and SharePoint into Office 365 and better enable an organization’s.

Qbase

Qbase LLC, a leading provider of information technology and business intelligence solutions, today announced the launch of MetaCarta for SharePoint 2013, a plug-in enrichment service that geo-enables both structured and unstructured content inside the SharePoint 2013 environment

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

SharePoint Conference 2014 Recap

Last week I attended the 2014 SharePoint Conference.
This was my second SPC and I was able to pace myself enough to keep much better notes up until the last day. Last year I had burned out early, as there is only so many sessions one can attend in a week, my mind was numb. I attended a variety of sessions including Executive, ITPro, Developer and Business User. I think this was the reason why my last SPC was so difficult for me by the final day, as I had attended pure ITPro and Developer sessions and took 2 tests, whew! Exhausting.

Keynote
The Keynote was delivered by President Bill Clinton who encouraged us to "do good" while making advancements with our technology. He impressed us with examples of how technology assisted The Clinton Foundation's efforts in (among a few) post earthquake Haiti to align the country's only mobile provider with the Dutch bank so that people can have access to banking and their money.
Basically, make the world a better place with technology.
(See 'Matrix Reloaded' and 'IronMan' and 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' movies for shining examples of how Technology can Do Good)

User Voice
There were many product announcements made, which I will blog separately. The single most impressive take away for me was the incredible openness and reaching out that the MSFT Office and SharePoint teams expressed with the attendees. It was very refreshing. My Tweets were answered and favorited by those teams many times. In fact, When Sonya Koptyev announced the UserVoice site at the InfoPath Roadmap session we were blown away that they had launched an entire site dedicated to our user feedback.

Office Social Graph and Oslo
The next BigThing was the OpenGraph and Oslo. This blew my mind because of the nature of an app fabric that connects content with Users, AD and Yammer activity feeds. The code name Oslo is the display method for the Announcements on steroids style view that is so exciting, blogs are sprouting up about it like mad daily.

Connecting Content through People
Oslo is a search technology mostly, and it inspires us to search for people instead of document names or metadata. Content is trending around people, or me. People present content to me. I search for these trends and OfficeGraph filters and bubbles content that I want to see through Oslo display templates.

Friday, February 7, 2014

SharePoint 2013 inline search and AAM

Ran into an interesting issue with inline search not working for a client and learned a couple things about it...

Inline search for any list or library produced no results. No errors appeared in logs, just no results.

I went to logs and found everything working perfectly:

Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Query.Ims.ImsQueryInternal :
Number of tables in Result: 1, Relevant Results: 0, Refinement Results: 0

No Results?? But there is content there... and the regular search works fine and returns these results! ..now what??

After much head scratching, I looked at the Alternate Access Method.

They had recently added an AAM. The site's AAM had these two entries:

Default Zone mapped to http://sp2013 (which is the machine name)

Intranet Zone mapped to http://atlas
I edited the Default Zone, changing it from sp2013 to atlas and the AAM for Intranet went away and all that was left was Default.

Immediately, the inline search started working again.

Another thing that I learned is that the Inline Search box will only show up if the Web Part Style is Default. So if you change the web part style to Banded or Preview or Newsfeed something other than Default, you wont have the inline search at all.

Friday, January 17, 2014

How to remove animations in Win2012

I sometimes notice, especially during Remote Desktop sessions, that the Windows 2012 animations annoy me due to their slow rendering.

To disable them, this needs to be applied in order to remove the slow animations.

Note that this applies to the current user account only.

Control Panel > System > Advanced > Advanced > Visual Effects

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Shared With and SHARE issues

I recently was requested to hide all instances of the Shared With pop up window from users. The client did not want anyone to see the names of admins and other individuals that had direct permissions.

There are 2 ways to hide, one using straight CSS and another manipulating via jQuery.

Using CSS

We found this here: .li > text."Shared With"

/*Hiding the SharedWith stuff */

.js-callout-sharedWithInfo{

display:none !important;

}

Using jQuery

$('.js-callout-sharedWithInfo').css('display','none');

$(document).ready(function(){

$('.js-callout-sharedWithInfo').css('display','none');

});

</script>

Along the same lines, we wanted to have the Send an Email link that is checked by default to be unchecked.

In order to void your warranty and change the default behavior of the SharePoint SHARE feature to UNCHECK the Send Email box...

Note that a PU or a CU may overwrite this file at anytime...which is what I sort of mean by "void your warranty".

Go to the file...

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\actinv.aspx

And change changed the Checked="true" to Checked="false"

<div class="ms-core-form-subsection">
<asp:CheckBox
runat="server"
id="chkSendEmailv15"
Checked="true"
class = "ms-aclinv-checkbox"
OnClick="UpdateSendEmailMessage()"/>
<label for=<%SPHttpUtility.WriteAddQuote(SPHttpUtility.NoEncode(chkSendEmailv15.ClientID),this.Page);%>>
<SharePoint:EncodedLiteral runat="server" text="<%$Resources:wss,aclinv_SendEmailCheckboxv15%>" EncodeMethod='HtmlEncode'/>
</label>